Oxea, a global chemical manufacturer, has handed day-to-day management of its entire logistics network — spanning truckload, rail and ocean freight across the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Europe — to Uber Freight, according to a Sept. 15 press release from Oxea.

The deal goes beyond outsourced transportation management by region. Oxea wanted one operator running the network as a single system, with the ability to see and adjust flows across plants, carriers and customers in real time.

What does the deal cover?

Uber Freight will run Oxea's transportation operations across three modes and four countries. Chemical logistics complicates that task: moving product requires specialized equipment and handling, documentation, and tight coordination among plants, carriers and customers, per the release. Consolidating those components under one manager gives Uber Freight a clearer view of what is happening across Oxea's network, and lets it adjust as needed.

Neither company disclosed contract value, freight spend or volume figures. Oxea's Chief Supply Chain Officer Scott Farmer framed the goal as speed: the company aims to anticipate issues sooner and respond faster than it could under regional management.

"What matters is the impact: a clearer, earlier view of our global network, faster identification of potential disruptions, and more reliable, proactive information for customers," Bret Bement, VP of supply chain management at Oxea, told Supply Chain Dive in an email.

Why consolidate under one provider?

The commercial logic rests on service reliability rather than disclosed cost savings. By identifying disruptions early and coordinating regional and modal transportation, Uber Freight can improve on-time performance and proactive communication, the release states. Efficient routing could also help Oxea cut carbon emissions — a claim the companies did not quantify.

"We bring technology, data and logistics expertise together to run the operation, identify issues earlier and keep improving how the network performs," Uber Freight Chief Commercial Officer D'Andrae Larry said. "That lets OXEA stay focused on its business and its customers."

Farmer described the selection rationale as placing work where expertise sits: "We chose Uber Freight because they bring technology and logistics expertise together with a strong commitment to continuous improvement, helping us build an operation that gets better over time."

What technology backs the service?

Oxea and Uber Freight did not share further details on the data and technology involved. Publicly, Uber Freight offers its own transportation management solution that can integrate into a customer's enterprise resource planning system; together the systems provide real-time shipment visibility, access to Uber Freight's public tracking portal, and carrier performance dashboards.

Uber Freight also markets an AI logistics platform drawing on data from more than 20 million delivered shipments, which customers can query with industry-specific questions and receive real-time answers tailored to their supply chain needs. Whether Oxea will deploy that platform, and on what timeline, remains undisclosed.

Why it matters for distributors

The agreement signals where third-party logistics providers are pushing: not just rate execution, but control-tower ownership of a shipper's multimodal, multi-region network on a promise of earlier disruption detection. For chemical distributors weighing similar arrangements, the measurable benchmarks to watch are on-time performance and responsiveness — the outcomes Oxea itself named — since neither party has yet published baseline or target figures for the partnership.