Tianjin Port News

Schottel supplied main and auxiliary propulsion units for China’s first ice-breaking beacon vessel. Haixun 156, which will perform a wide range of tasks, has recently been launched by the contracted shipyard Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group, Hubei Province, China. It was ordered by the Tianjin Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) and is scheduled to enter operation in September 2021.The main propulsion of the beacon vessel includes of a pair of diesel-driven Schottel EcoPellers type SRE 460 (1,800 kW each) featuring a four-bladed 2.4 m-diameter propeller.

A Chinese tug has been fitted with a space to quarantine crew members as the global maritime industry continues to implement precautionary health and safety measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.The vessel, Jin Gang Lun 32, owned and operated by Tianjin Port has been equipped with a 20-foot container fitted to the aft deck as an isolation/temporary quarantine space.The air-conditioned container features large watertight windows and contains basic living facilities including a sofa settee, potable water, WC, safety appliances, medical kit, and receptacles for medical emergency equipment.

Sanlin Shipyard of Shanghai Harbour Fuxing Shipping Service Company delivered ASD 35/50 Tug Jin Gang Lun 34 to Tianjin Port.She joins the Port’s tugboat fleet and serves the main roles of harbour towing, berthing and unberthing visiting vessels, with additional function of fire-fighting and minor ice breaking.Following her sister vessel of Jin Gang Lun 33 which was delivered in November, Jin Gang Lun 34 is also custom designed in Canada by the Vancouver based naval architects Robert Allan Ltd. The vessel obtains CCS Notation of I (intelligent)-ship with sub-notation of “N” – intelligent navigation; “M” – intelligent machinery space; “E” – intelligent energy management…

Northern China  Port of Tianjin has taken delivery of Azimuth Stern Drive (ASD) Tug Jin Gang Lun 33 from the Shanghai Harbour Fuxing Shipping Service Company shipyard.The ASD 35/50 Tug is joining the Port’s tugboat fleet and serves the main roles of harbour towing, berthing and unberthing visiting vessels.Following Jin Gang Lun 31 and Jin Gang Lun 32 which were delivered to Tianjin Port early this year, Jin Gang Lun 33 is also custom designed in Canada by the Vancouver based naval architects Robert Allan Ltd. The vessel will obtain CCS Notation of I (intelligent)-ship with sub-notation of “M” – intelligent machinery space; “N” – intelligent navigation…

A pair of steel-cutting ceremonies held a week apart at separate Chinese shipyards initiated the construction of new workboats for Tianjin Port.Following the successful completion in 2015 of concurrent construction programs involving five vessels of three different designs, Canadian naval architecture firm Robert Allan Ltd. said it began developing two more designs, working closely with the towing branch of Tianjin Port.On August 23, the steel-cutting ceremony for the first of two ASD 40/35 pilot/tugboats was held at Jiangsu Zhenjiang Shipyard in China.

Newly built vessel to load from Tianjin refinery a cargo of10ppm sulphur diesel meeting summer specs. In a rare shipment, a diesel cargo will be loaded into a very large crude carrier (VLCC) from a refinery at China's Tianjin port next month before heading to Europe or West Africa. The newly-built 'Maran Aphrodite', which can carry about 285,000 tonnes of diesel, has been chartered by oil major Total to load from Chinese state-run giant Sinopec's refinery in the northern port to head "west", two people familiar with the matter said. This is the second time a VLCC will load with diesel from the Chinese refinery, one of the people said. The first cargo was shipped late last year as part of a plan by Unipec - the trading arm of Sinopec - to expand in Europe.

Shares of Tangshan Port Group Co Ltd soared 7 percent on Tuesday, to post their biggest daily percentage gain in nine months, as investors bet the small port would benefit from a major clampdown on coal transportation at its larger rival. Shares in the Hebei-based company trading on Shanghai stock exchange jumped to 4.6 yuan ($0.67), their highest since Nov. 15, on Tuesday before ending the session at 4.52 yuan. Trading volume was also higher than usual with 121 million shares, the highest in a year. The stock posted its biggest daily percentage gain since May 13 last year. The buying spree came after Reuters reported on Monday that China's Ministry of Environment is considering stopping Tangshan's neighbouring rival Tianjin Port Co Ltd…

Reinsurance rates in the marine sector continued to fall at the start of the year, in spite of the huge cost of explosions at China's Tianjin port last August, reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter said on Thursday. Rising competition to offer reinsurance and slower activity in China, were two factors depressing rates, it said. The blasts at Tianjin caused insured losses of up to $3.3 billion, Guy Carpenter has estimated, while reinsurer Swiss Re has called it the largest man-made insurance loss in Asia. The explosions killed more than 170 people. "Tianjin has had little or no impact on marine pricing," Chris Klein, head of EMEA strategy management at Guy Carpenter, told a news conference.

Shanghai International Port Group Co Ltd, the operator of the world's busiest container port, reported its first fall in quarterly net profit in over a year, providing evidence of China's economic slowdown. China, the world's second largest economy, grew 6.9 percent in the third quarter, dipping below 7 percent for the first time since the global financial crisis due to cooling trade and investments. Shanghai Port recorded a third quarter net profit of 1.4 billion yuan ($220.29 million), down 18.3 percent from the same period a year earlier, it said in a filing on the Shanghai stock exchange. That marked the first decline since the second quarter of 2014, Eikon data based on company data showed. In the first nine months, Shanghai Port's net profit dropped 3.3 percent to 4.5 billion yuan.

China's Tianjin Port has opened a new regular shipping route to the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, reports Xinhua.   The route, run by nine container ships, will call at countries including Malaysia, India, Israel, Egypt and Turkey.   Yu Guoqing, assistant to the general manager of the Tianjin Port shipping company said that new route will reduce cargo transit time through other ports, thus, guaranteeing efficiency.    The port has opened 10 routes along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road since the beginning of this year, which traverses a vast expanse of Asian, African and European waters, Yu said.   Each ship can carry up to 4,250 containers. Over 300 liners sail every month along the maritime route.

Speaking at this year’s IUMI annual conference in Berlin, Nick Derrick, Chairman of IUMI’s Cargo Committee warned that large cargo losses were having a significant impact on the marine insurance sector. “Tianjin port covers an area of around 125 sq km”, says Derrick, “but only a small part of the port was affected by the explosion. Even so, we are expecting to see cargo losses of at least USD1.5 billion with some reports stating that the final figure could be as high as USD6 billion. Cargo insurers need to understand what the dollar loss might have been if the entire port had been affected, perhaps by a natural catastrophe such as an earthquake or tsunami”.

China COSCO Holdings Company Limited says its operations at Tianjin port have been unaffected by the blasts that killed 114 people here also put a deep dent in the compact between China’s government and its middle class. "Our assets have not been materially affected. Our vessels at the anchorages close to Tianjin Port were not affected by the incident and the ships and crews are safe," says a stock market announcement from the company. There has however been some damage to land-based assets and some disruption of operations, although Cosco does not expect that to have any significant impact. "The shapes of some containers (which are non-dangerous containers) were spoiled and a few employees were slightly injured.

China's port authorities will strengthen supervision of dangerous goods shipments following devastating explosions at Tianjin port last week, the Ministry of Transport said on Wednesday. Port authorities from provinces including Zhejiang, Liaoning and Guangdong have asked shipping firms involved in relevant activities to conduct self-inspections to check safety standards, and pledged to crack down on any illegal activities, according to a report posted on the ministry's website. Over a hundred people have been killed by the blasts at a warehouse which stored hazardous chemicals at Tianjin Port. The Chinese owner of the warehouse did not a license to handle hazardous goods until two months before the disaster, according to its government-registered company records.

Inchcape Shipping Services is advising that Tianjin Municipal Transport Commission has issued notice to Tianjin Port to cease handling tankers and container ships carrying hazardous substances. As a result most tanker operations in the port have stopped. Container ships with hazardous goods on board are currently unable to berth and discharge. Tianjin Municipal Transport Commission has not indicated when port operations for vessels carrying hazardous substances may resume. The measure has been taken following a warehouse explosion approximately 3km from the nearest container terminal last week. Tianjin, the port gateway to Beijing, is a major base for petrochemicals, refining and other industries.

China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company said its ships anchored at Tianjin port were not affected by the blasts at a warehouse in the country's northeastern city last week, though some of its facilities in the area suffered varying levels of damage. China's largest shipping conglomerate, whose listed firms include China COSCO Holdings , said in an emailed statement on Monday that a few of its employees and their family members suffered minor injuries. The official Xinhua news agency said on Sunday that the death toll from Wednesday's disaster rose to 112, while 95 people are missing.   Reporting by Brenda Goh

Oil, gas and iron ore imports resume after disruptions; Strategic oil reserves in the region not affected. Many operations have resumed at China's Tianjin port, trade sources said, after explosions last week that killed more than 100 people and disrupted business at what is an important oil, gas and bulk import harbour for Asia's biggest economy. The explosions on Aug. 12 led to the disruption of all chemical and oil tanker discharges at the port, and imports of iron ore were also affected. But shipping data from Reuters on Monday showed that tankers were discharging again, with traders and shippers confirming that operations had restarted over the weekend. Port officials were not immediately available for comment.

Rescue crews have found 114 bodies, with 95 people still missing, 85 of whom are firefighters, after two huge explosions  China’s Port of Tianjin where dangerous chemicals and goods are stored late Wednesday night, Xinhua news agency reports. Chinese authorities are still trying to ascertain what exactly caused a potent mix of chemicals to ignite. Authorities had earlier said that the warehouse contained calcium carbide, potassium nitrate and ammonium nitrate. The local media say that hundreds of tonnes of highly poisonous cyanide were being stored at the warehouse. The comments by Shi Luze, chief of the general staff of the Beijing military region, were the first official confirmation of the presence of the chemical at the hazardous goods storage facility at the centre of the blast.

Container maker and logistics player Singamas Container Holdings says that some of its container depots operated by its Singamas Logistics (Tianjin) (SLTC) unit, were damaged in the explosions at Tianjin Port, reports Reuters. One of Singamas employees has been uncontactable and a few other workers suffered minor injuries. The Hong Kong-listed company, which has facilities throughout China,  said it was not yet able to estimate the exact losses due to restricted access to its depots in the affected area. Its factory in Tianjin was unaffected, it added. Singamas noted that the explosions occurred approximately 800 meters from one of its depots at 197…

In the wake of the explosions near Tianjin port on Wednesday 12th August, MSC confirms that Tianjin Pacific International Container Terminal (TPCT) which is used by MSC, is located 6 kilometers from the blast site at the East Port Area. All MSC employees onshore are safe and there has been no impact on MSC crewmembers onboard our vessels. We do not foresee any further disruption to the sailing schedules. All MSC onshore operations resumed on 14th August. However, customs house will only accept official export and import declarations from Monday, 17th August. Interim services are available upon special request. As the Tianjin Maritime Safety Administration office has prohibited all loading and discharging of hazardous shipments from the port…

Two huge explosions tore through an industrial area where toxic chemicals and gas were stored in the northeast Chinese port city of Tianjin, killing at least 50 people, including at least a dozen fire fighters, officials and state media said on Thursday. At least 700 people were injured, more than 71 seriously, the Tianjin government said on its Weibo microblog, and the official Xinhua news agency said two fires were still burning. Wednesday night's blasts, so large that they were seen by satellites in space, sent shockwaves through apartment blocks kilometres away in the port city of 15 million people. Internet videos showed fireballs shooting into the sky and the U.S. Geological Survey registered the blasts as seismic events.

Chiness president Xi Jinping promised a “thorough investigation” after huge explosions in the world’s 10th largest port- Tianjin - killing at least 50 people and disrupting operations. The Chinese government faces pressure to reveal the mystery chemical or explosives. The cause for the blasts is being investigated by China while top foreign and local companies are assessing the damages caused to them. A team of 217 nuclear and biochemical materials specialists from the Chinese military began work at the site on Thursday, the official Xinhua news agency said. Investigators searched for clues on Friday to identify what caused two huge explosions ripped through chemicals warehouses.

Two huge explosions tore through an industrial area where toxic chemicals and gas were stored in the northeast Chinese port city of Tianjin, killing at least 50 people, including at least a dozen fire fighters, officials and state media said on Thursday. At least 700 people were injured, more than 71 seriously, the Tianjin government said on its Weibo microblog, and the official Xinhua news agency said two fires were still burning. Wednesday night's blasts, so large that they were seen by satellites in space, sent shockwaves through apartment blocks kilometres away in the port city of 15 million people. Internet videos showed fireballs shooting into the sky and the U.S. Geological Survey registered the blasts as seismic events.

All chemical, oil and LPG terminals in Tianjin port are closed following immense warehouse explosions that left dozens dead and hundreds more injured yesterday in Tianjin, China, advises maritime and cargo services provider Inchcape Shipping Services (ISS). The region was blasted as shipments of explosives caught fire and triggered explosions that rocked the Tianjin industrial port, which serves as a gateway to Beijing and major base for petrochemicals, refining and other industries. The port authority has arranged some un-berthing of bulk ships from midday local time, ISS said, but noted there is no schedule for vessels berthing. It is unknown when the terminals will reopen.