Best Buy News

Incoming cargo to the Port of Los Angeles is surging as businesses restock depleted inventories and retailers prepare for an early holiday season, the executive director for the nation's busiest seaport said on Wednesday.Workers unloaded 471,795 20-foot equivalent units (TEU) of imports in September, 17% more than the year earlier, marking the second month of robust import gains at the No. 1 gateway for U.S. trade with China.That trend has carried into October, said Gene Seroka…

Inatech launches its Optimizer to add smart decision making for fuel purchasing to its cloud-based management solution for the entire fuel procurement process. The company explains that Optimizer helps ship operators take the guesswork out of their fuel purchasing decisions by providing real-time guidance on the three key factors of quantity, location and price strategy-how much fuel to buy for each ship in their fleet, the best port to bunker at and the right price strategy (spot versus contract). In ongoing proof of concept evaluations for large shipping companies, Inatech's Optimizer has been shown to deliver real-world fuel cost savings of up to five percent.

Three Yamaha four-stroke outboards, the Yamaha V MAX SHO® VF200, the Yamaha V MAX SHO® VF225 and the Yamaha V MAX SHO® VF250 have been awarded a Consumers Digest Best Buy rating. “The V MAX SHO® family incorporates plasma-fusion technology that allows them to be particularly efficient, powerful and light.”In determining the ratings, the editors of Consumers Digest considered performance, efficiency and design. “The VF200 SHO is the least expensive model in the SHO series, which delivers the best horsepower-to-weight ratio of any outboard-engine series that we evaluated,” said the editors of Consumers Digest. Yamaha Marine products are marketed throughout the United States and around the world. Yamaha Marine Group, based in Kennesaw, Ga., supports its 2,000 U.S.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in conjunction with the Coalition for Responsible Transportation and the Environmental Defense Fund, is launching a new initiative to protect public health and the environment and promote sustainable economic growth by reducing pollution from thousands of short-haul trucks that service the nation’s ports. The new EPA SmartWay initiative will green the nation’s supply chain by reducing harmful diesel emissions from dray trucks – large diesel trucks that are widely used in port facilities to haul freight from cargo ships to nearby local distribution points. “U.S. ports generate jobs and are critical to our nation’s economy,” said Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation.

Global Marine’s worldwide SCORE, or Summary of Current Offshore Rig Economics, for September 2000 increased 1.8 percent over the previous month. Global Marine Chairman, President and CEO Bob Rose said, “September marks the 13th consecutive month of improvement in the worldwide SCORE and the 15th consecutive month of improvement in the Gulf of Mexico SCORE. Global Marine’s SCORE compares the profitability of current mobile offshore drilling rig rates to the profitability of rates at the 1980-81 peak of the offshore drilling cycle, when speculative new rig construction was common. In the 1980-81 period, when Global Marine’s SCORE averaged 100 percent, new-contract dayrates equaled the sum of daily cash operating costs plus approximately $700 per day per million dollars invested.

The Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) and the Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG) signed an historic agreement recently that will allow both port systems to jointly promote all-water shipping routes between Asia and the Port of Savannah. "China's economy continues to fuel world trade among all nations and in doing so is growing a new domestic market of its own for the world economies to service via exports to China," said Doug J. Marchand, GPA's Executive Director. The agreement provides for both parties to promote a strong working relationship and exchange information and expertise in the areas of marketing, communications, management, training and safety.

NASSTRAC announced new leadership for 2005-2007 at the association's recent fall conference at the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel in Baltimore, Md. This newly elected group of executives will give strategic direction and input that supports NASSTRAC in providing professional development, networking, advocacy and provider relationships to its membership. President: Gail Rutkowski, Director-Transportation Services, AIMS Logistics 1st Vice President: Shawn O'Sullivan, Manager- Transportation Services, Pfizer, Inc. 2nd Vice President: Eric Morley, Director of Logistics, Best Buy Company, Inc. Secretary: Susan Konopack, Transportation Analyst, Johnson & Johnson Sales & Logistics Co.