The outbreak of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the shipping of perishable products, and this at the time of the peak harvesting and export season for deciduous fruit in the southern hemisphere.
Wärtsilä is to upgrade Cyprus Ministry of Shipping’s 11-year old VTMIS serving the country’s ports. The contract includes a five-year equipment maintenance clause.
P&O Maritime Logistics (POML), part of DP World, recently ordered two 90mlong combined bulk/container ships from the Fujian Mawei Shipbuilding yard in China.
This month, HMM held a naming ceremony for the HMM ALGECIRAS, the world’s largest container ship, at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering’s Okpo shipyard in Geoje, Korea. The vessel was then loaded at the Port of Qingdao in China for its first commercial sailing.
The Japanese Government is spending an estimated JPY223.5B (US$2.1B) on a range of measures that are designed to help its manufacturers relocate their production out of China. While 90% (JPY200B) of the funds will be assigned to groups setting up in Japan, JPY23. 5B will be available to those manufacturers selecting other third-party nations.
Maersk Line has issued an advisory stating that from 8 June 2020, “Maersk will implement a ‘no verified gross mass (VGM), no loading’ policy across all Philippines ports”
Finnlines has entrusted SeaQuest Marine Project Management Ltd with construction supervision for three ro-ro newbuildings at China Merchants Group’s Nanjing Jinling Shipyard. The order for the vessels, with Finnish/Swedish ice class 1A Super, was placed in 2018.
This month, APL added a trucking service to extend the reach of its Eagle Express X service (APL EEX) to shippers in Haiphong, Guangzhou, Yantian, Xiamen and Xingang.
Maersk Line has expanded its presence in the Russian market by starting a regular intermodal rail service between the country’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk and the inland port of Vorsino. Vorsino is located just 55 km southwest of Moscow, the largest area of consumption in the country.
The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority has put out a request for comment on two different operating models for rail infrastructure for its planned new terminal at Roberts Bank Terminal Two (RBT2 - see page 6).
The sharp downturn in global container shipping has impacted the container leasing sector, but there is no reason to panic at this point, according to leading container leasing company Triton.
ALBATROSS Tank-Leasing, the tank leasing arm of Shanghai-based Gentco Logistics, has appointed LFTS Oberhausen (Lindenau Full Tank Services) as its central European operations hub, supporting local customers with a full service and maintenance package for ALBATROSS’s T75 fleet.
Maersk Container Industry (MCI) has announced a major breakthrough with Evergreen Marine Corp that will see its Star Cool reefer added to the Taiwanese line’s fleet.
The Port Equipment Manufacturers Association (PEMA) has published its latest information paper, Automating Yard Operation in Brownfield Container Terminals: Infrastructure
Cooper Specialised Handling has announced a distribution agreement with RAM Spreaders to market and distribute the complete range of RAM spreaders throughout the UK and Ireland.
PSA Halifax, the former Halterm Terminal, has handled a call from the 14,414 TEU vessel Cma Cgm T. JeFFerSOn, which arrived in Halifax on the weekly AWE3 service operated by the Ocean Alliance
Optimisation software from INFORM will play a key role in the ambitious project to implement a central system for internal container logistics at Rotterdam
Ports all around the globe are struggling as cities, states and whole countries implement lockdowns, stay-in-place orders and other movement restrictions to try and stem the spread of COVID-19
With the Argentine government yet to settle on a definitive concession model for container handling in the Puerto Nuevo area of the port of Buenos Aires, incumbent operators are jockeying for position
Genoa-based Circle SpA has reported the commissioning of its Milos TOS suite at CILP Multipurpose Terminal, the port of Livorno operator that is owned 50% by NGI Group (Neri/GIP 2.0) and 50% by the local dockworkers’ company, CPL
New investment by operators APM Terminals, Bolloré Ports and Socotrans at Pointe Noire in the Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) has paid off, with a big increase in turnover at Congo Terminal.
Niedersachsen Ports (NPorts) has obtained approval from the Lower Saxony agency for water management, coastal protection and nature conservation, for its plan to add three more berths along 1,250m of new quay, and 28-ha of new back-up area
The contract awarded to Set Port Logística to handle dry bulk and general cargo, as part of a transitional agreement in the Saboó area of the Port of Santos, has been suspended following legal action by a local resident, Pereira Fernandes
Following an international tender issued by DEME Offshore, the Buss Terminal in the Dutch port of Eemshaven has been selected as a base port for the world’s largest wind farm project, Hornsea 2, which will be established off the coast of Yorkshire (England) in the North Sea
South African transport utility Transnet has ordered a wide range of new cargo handling equipment for five ports, in the wake of criticism about congestion over the past year
Following a directive from New Zealand’s Ministry of Transport all movement and distribution of freight deemed ‘nonessential’ must cease as part of a four-week lockdown to slow the spread of COVID-19, the country’s ports have been scrambling to decide on how to handle import containers
In Argentina, PTP Group is to invest US$40M in a new general cargo port alongside the Paraná-Paraguay inland waterway at Villa Constitución in the state of Santa Fe, where PTP already operates a free zone.
Rotterdam stevedoring company RHB Stevedoring & Warehousing has bought a second mobile harbour crane, a Liebherr LHM 550, to handle heavy lift, offshore and project cargo
The process for setting a new Clean Truck Fee (CTF) at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has highlighted frustration from some port commissioners that the cost of clean air measures is putting the San Pedro Bay ports at a competitive disadvantage.
In an unusual step, it has been revealed that the Export-Import Bank of China (Exim Bank) has rejected a loan application to extend Kenya’s new standard gauge railway (SGR) into Uganda.
After eight years of planning, the Netherlands-based multimodal logistics company Cabooter Group has begun work on a new intermodal rail terminal in Venlo, close to the German border.
US railcar and related freight car management service provider TTX Company has reported that the relative rate of transloading from international ISO containers to US domestic 53ft boxes rose on the US West Coast in 2019.
In France, cement producer EQIOM, part of the CRH Group, has been piloting trial shipments of tank containers by barge and ‘last mile’ transport by truck on the Seine corridor between Rouen (Grand Couronne) and Paris (Port de Gennevilliers).
Following a Master Supplier Agreement signed between UPS and equipment manufacturer Gaussin in June 2019, UPS is to begin testing Gaussin’s ‘Autonomous-Enabled FULL ELEC Trailer and Swap Body Mover’ in the UK.
Following TransContainer’s decision to cease activities at the Slovakian inland container terminal in Dobrá with five years left on the lease, a new operator, Bulk Transhipment Slovakia, a joint venture of Budamar Logistics and ZSSK Cargo Slovakia, has taken over the lease. ZSSK is itself the lessor.
The Government of Tanzania has secured loans totalling US$1.46B to fund the construction of a new standard gauge railway (SGR) line between Dar es Salaam and Makutupora.
Sigrid Nakutta, a Board member of Berlin-based DB AG, has stated that €200M is being invested to install ‘whisper brakes’ in all of DB Cargo AG’s 63,000-strong wagon fleet. Already, the programme is 90% complete and should be finished by the end of 2020.
IDENTEC SOLUTIONS is testing a Narrowband Internet of Things (NBIoT) version of its Reefer Runner solution for remote reefer monitoring for inland marine transport on the Rhine between Basel and Rotterdam.
CIMC is still the world’s largest container producer, but revenue from its vehicles division overtook revenue from container production for the first time in 2019.
ORBCOMM has reported that it shipped nearly 29,000 reefer monitoring devices in support of a major order it has received with Carrier Transicold to equip the reefer fleet of a shipping line with remote monitoring devices.
The International Tank Container Organisation (ITCO) has published its 8th Annu l Tank Container Fleet Survey. “This year’s survey estimated that, at 1 January 2020, the global tank container fleet had reached 652,350 units worldwide, compared to a figure of 604,700 on 1 January 2019, year-on-year growth of 7.88%,” stated ITCO.
Unifeeder, the feeder and shortsea operator that is now part of DP World, has reorganised a weekly Northeast Britain/North Continent service to take in DP World London Gateway.
AP Møller Maersk (APM) has filed an antitrust lawsuit in the US against BNSF Railway Company, CSX Transportation Inc, Norfolk Southern Railway Company, and Union Pacific Railroad Company (UP), alleging price fixing in violation of the Sherman Act.
