Every once in a while, shippers get a detailed view into an area that’s typically opaque: carrier operating costs. One such occasion popped up in late June when Juergen Pump, senior vice president at Hamburg Süd North America, described for attendees of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition’s annual meeting the costs of a single sailing on a North America/Oceania service. Ag exporters in the crowd learned, for example, that a chartered 2,700-TEU ship plying that tra...