British Port News

Efforts to speed up the movement of goods around the world have yet to solve the supply chain bottlenecks caused by surging demand for retail goods and pandemic-related lockdowns, the latest shipping data shows.Delays at U.S. major ports have been particularly severe, but knock-on effects have also been felt around the world.This week's Lunar New Year holiday in China and across Asia is also expected to aggravate delays.The journey time from China's northern Dalian port to the…

Carnival Corp's Cunard cruise line said on Wednesday its Queen Mary 2 ship would skip a scheduled stop at New York and instead extend its stay in Barbados until Jan. 2 to bring in more staffers.Cunard said its decision to add more crew members was a precautionary measure, but it did not detail why it needed more workers.The ship, Cunard's flagship liner named by Queen Elizabeth, is among the more than 85 vessels the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is investigating…

Work began on Thursday to extend a small British port that could serve as a back-up if the UK leaves the European Union with no trade deal, providing the government some respite after days of criticism.Less than three months before Britain leaves the EU on March 29, the transport minister has been forced to defend awarding a 14 million pound ($18 million) contract for shipping goods to a new ferry company that has no ships.On Thursday the company, Seaborne Freight, came in for further criticism when its business terms and conditions showed references to placing "any meal/order"…

Smaller ports in northern France are ready to absorb more shipping traffic from Britain if congestion builds up due to any fallout from Brexit, a top French official said on Wednesday.The Ports of Normandy Authority (PNA) currently owns and operates Cherbourg and Caen-Ouistreham terminals and will take on operating Dieppe nearby in 2019."We can accept more (traffic) and we would like to accept more if there is congestion on the east side of the UK," Philippe Deiss, managing director of the PNA told Reuters during a trade visit to London.Over 1 million passengers and over 100…

British importers and exporters prefer direct mainline container services calling at their national ports and tend to dislike feeder services, says a Drewry report. Is there a risk that a politically isolated UK will no longer benefit from direct vessel calls, particularly as there is no longer any large British container carrier based in the UK to champion their cause? Drewry believes that the container lines will continue to call directly at UK ports. Even if the UK enters a small recession, UK volumes are more than large enough to justify direct calls with mainline vessels, mainly in the South of England ports and it is in the lines’ own interest to call there direct.

British ports could gain a competitive edge in tough shipping markets through post-Brexit exclusion from planned European Union regulation of the sector, leading British port officials told Reuters. Last month's vote to leave the EU means that British terminals are set to escape the proposed Ports Services Regulation that critics have said would hit UK ports unfairly because most are privately funded, while many of their European counterparts receive financing from local authorities. The mooted EU-wide rules cover port services such as piloting but also include port charges and exemptions for state aid, which would add to cost pressure on UK operators while eroding their ability to control prices. "I am reassured that if there is one benefit (from Brexit) ...

Terex Port Solutions (TPS) has received an order from Associated British Ports (ABP) for two electric Terex Gottwald Model 8 portal harbour cranes in the G HSK 8424 B four-rope grab variant. The leading British port operator has ordered the two machines for its terminal in Immingham, located on the North Sea estuary of the Humber. The cranes have been adapted to the individual conditions of the terminal and are particularly efficient as they are driven with power from the terminal’s own electricity supply. From the middle of next year, they will significantly increase handling capacities for professional loading and unloading of bulk products.

Lloyd’s Register (LR) is working with British port to develop operational procedures and technical standards required for safe LNG bunkering operations. LR has commenced a project to identify the technical specifications and develop operating procedures for safe LNG bunkering in Portsmouth International Port. The project will position Portsmouth to develop its ambitions to become an LNG bunkering facility and hub – the first in the United Kingdom. Leonidas Karistios, Global Gas Technology Manager…

Damen Shipyards Group announced the sale of a 27m workboat, a Damen Shoalbuster 2709 displayed on the pontoons at Southampton U.K.’s Seawork exhibition (June25-27), to GPS Marine of Chatham, U.K. Casper Vermeulen, Sales Manager Europe, commented, “The Managing Director of GPS Marine came on to the stand and made us an offer for the Shoalbuster displayed on the pontoons. After half an hour of negotiation, we shook hands. The vessel design, which is held on stock by Damen in Gorinchem(the Netherlands) and can be quickly modified to clients’ specifications…

Transas Marine (UK) Ltd. has recently gained a contract to supply a Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) system for Associated British Port’s (ABP) South Wales Ports - Cardiff, Barry, Newport, Swansea and Port Talbot. The contract was awarded by ABP South Wales after extensive market assessment and a comprehensive tendering procedure. The Transas VTS system meets ABP’s primary requirements and responsibilities as the Statutory Harbour Authority for its ports, which are the management of shipping, the safety of navigation for all harbour users and the protection of the marine environment. The new system will support ABP by providing the duty Marine Officer with navigational information such as vessel position, vessel movements, timings and speed.

The European Commission approved, pursuant to the Merger Regulation, a proposed transaction by which the British port operator P&O and the Dutch liner shipping company Royal Nedlloyd reorganize their common activities in the container liner shipping business. In 1996 Royal Nedlloyd NV and Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) transferred all their respective activities in containerized liner shipping services to a newly created joint venture called P&O Nedlloyd (PONL). The businesses transferred included all their container ships, their respective ocean freight-forwarding business, the container packing operation as well as the road haulage business and rail shuttle business.

A French ferry was badly holed in France's Channel harbor of Calais after being hurled onto the jetty by high winds, owners Sea-France said. No-one was injured on the ferry Monet which had sailed from the British port of Dover. Passengers and vehicles landed safely. Divers carried out emergency repairs and put in pumps to keep the ferry afloat. The company said it was not in danger of sinking but would remain in Calais for several weeks for repairs.

P&O Stena Line has resumed full passenger and freight services from the British port of Dover after French fishermen began to lift their blockade of French ports. P&O spokeswoman Gail Isted said that the company's vessel 'Dover' had left Calais in France for Dover in mid-afternoon. "P&O Stena Line ferries will now leave Dover and Calais every 45 minutes and will revert to their usual sailing patterns overnight," the company said in a statement. Isted added that delays to passenger cars of about nine hours and to trucks of six hours were being reduced and would be cleared some time on Friday (Sept. 1). P&O Stena Line ran six tourist ferries from Dover to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge both on Wednesday and Thursday to avoid the blockade, she said.

Environmental disaster has been averted for now but France is taking no risks after a tanker carrying thousands of tons of toxic chemicals sank off the Normandy coast, Reuters reported President Jacques Chirac as saying. Visiting an emergency operations center in Cherbourg, northwestern France, Chirac said information was still being gathered on how best to recover the chemicals that officials said were already leaking from the Italian tanker Ievoli Sun, which sank in the English Channel on Tuesday. "It's escaping in bursts," Cherbourg maritime captain Jean-Francois Choquart said. "It has to be styrene that has escaped from a forward storage tank…

Investigators said a bizarre combination of factors, including possible human error, had sunk an Italian chemicals tanker off France on October 31. The 7,300-ton Ievoli Sun, carrying 6,000 tons of toxic chemicals, went down in rough seas in the Channel 30 km (17 miles) from France's northerly Cotentin peninsula and close to the small British island of Alderney. It was the second large tanker to sink off France in a year and sparked accusations that owners were compromising safety. However, a preliminary report by the maritime arm of the French Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA) gave the Italian owners Marnavi an initial clean bill of health.

British port operator Mersey Docks said more than 300 jobs will be created by two developments at the port of Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey off the north coast of Kent. It said up to 160 jobs would be created by the construction of a pre-delivery inspection center for imported Peugeot Citroen cars before they are dispatched to showrooms, and a further 150 from the development of a fruit packing plant.

The United States will work with six nations in Asia, Europe and the Americas to improve port security and prevent nuclear-related smuggling by using advanced detection tools to scan containers for nuclear and radiological materials. The Secure Freight Initiative - unveiled December 7 and supported by the departments of Homeland Security, Energy, State and others - will spend $60 million to put sophisticated detection equipment in key ports to protect international commerce from the threat of nuclear weapons or the spread of radioactive contamination from an exploding dirty bomb, according to Homeland Security. Specialized X-ray equipment and optical scanners will be sent to Pakistan's Port Qasim and Honduras' Puerto Cortes in February 2007.

Dubai Ports World raised its offer for the British port operation Peninsular and oriental steam Navigation Co. to almost $7 billion, beating an offer from Singapore's PSA International Ltd. The offer sent P&O's shares up almost 5 percent on January 27. P&O and DP World, which is owned by Dubai's government, had agreed to the $6.9 billion cash bid. The offer, which amounts to $9.26 per share, topped a $6.3 billion offer from PSA, a unit of Singapore's government-owned investment company Temasek Holdings Pte. P&O had recommended shareholders accept the Singapore bid before Dubai raised the stakes. Shares in P&0 were trading just below that level at $9.71 on January 27, up 4.6 percent, in London. (Source: AP)

Mersey Docks and Harbour Co. has reported an increase in profits of nearly eight percent in the first half, its shares following suit with a similar rise. Representatives of Mersey, which owns the Port of Liverpool and the ports of Sheerness and Chatham in southeast England, said the company’s investment program was reaping rewards as it managed to push up profits despite flat volumes of cargo. The program was buoyed by achieving record volumes in two key market sectors — containers and Irish Sea roll-on roll-off freight — which gave it a better overall mix of cargo, officials added. This helped compensate for the loss of nearly a million tons of business due to the ban made effective Jan. 1 on the dumping of river sludge out at sea.

Malta, which registered the tanker that broke up off France in December, is among five flags responsible for nearly half of all ships detained in the U.K. last year, Britain's Coastguard said. Ships registered with the flags of Malta, Cyprus, Panama, St Vincent and Grenadines and Russia accounted for 62 of the 129 detentions made by British port inspectors in 1999, the agency said. Vessels are detained when they are found to have deficiencies ranging from structural problems to faulty equipment or a lack of safety certificates. Malta says its shipping register did everything within its power to ensure the Erika was properly regulated.