Shipping Port News

With a fleet of nine U.S.-flag RoRo ships, American Roll-On Roll-Off Carrier Group (ARC), is the U.S.’ premier commercial RoRo carrier of U.S. government and military cargo. As the world becomes an increasingly contentious place, Eric P. Ebeling, President & CEO, ARC, discusses the vast capabilities of the ARC fleet and logistics network, as well as the challenges and opportunities ahead for U.S.-flag ships in the international trade.By the numbers’ is a simplistic means to gauge the size and shape of any shipping company…

A climate change protest off Australia's east coast disrupted operations at the country's biggest coal export port on Saturday, the port operator said.Climate activist group Rising Tide, which claimed responsibility for the action, said around 1,500 people were at the protest, 300 of them in the shipping channel near the Port of Newcastle, as part of a 30-hour blockade set to run until 4 p.m. (0900 GMT) on Sunday.Climate change is a divisive issue in Australia, the world's biggest exporter of thermal coal behind Indonesia…

New York City is looking at ways to help shift freight transportation off of its busy roads and onto the waterways.The city's Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) and Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) on Wednesday jointly released a Request for Information and Expressions of Interest (RFEI) seeking private sector feedback to help it gauge industry challenges and opportunities, and explore ways to implement and support businesses to engage in waterfront freight operations.The initiative is part of NYC's "Blue Highways" program, launched under the city's previous mayor, Bill de Blasio.

U.S. crop exports at Louisiana Gulf Coast terminals were at their lowest level in nine years for the first week of October, a period when export shipments typically accelerate, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data issued on Tuesday.Low water on southern sections of the Mississippi River closed the major shipping waterway for days last week, halting the flow of grain barges from Midwest farms to the nation’s largest grain shipping port.The ill-timed shipping disruption comes as farmers are busy harvesting corn and soybeans…

Israel has opened a new shipping port along its Mediterranean coast that will bring much needed competition to a sector plagued by delays and boost the country's standing as a regional trade hub.The 5.5 billion shekel ($1.7 billion) Bay Port at Haifa, which will be operated by Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG), will enable larger classes of cargo ships, carrying 18,000 containers or more, to dock in Israel.The country is selling its state-owned ports and building new private docks in an effort bring down costs and cut above-average wait times for vessels to unload.

China-based Qingdao Port International Development has agreed to purchase a 33% stake in COSCO Shipping Ports (Abu Dhabi), a deepwater terminal located in Khalifa Port, for US$59m.Abu Dhabi Terminal is a joint venture company established in the United Arab Emirates.The investment, which will be made through Qingdao Port's Hong Kong subsidiary QDP International Development, will give the port operator a 30 percent holding in the CSP Abu Dhabi Terminal at Khalifa Port in which the Hong Kong-based firm holds a 90 percent stake, Qingdao Port said in a press release.As of the date of announcement, its remaining equity of 10% owned by an independent third party.

The terminal operating systems (TOS) provider Navis announced  that CSP Zeebrugge Terminal, part of COSCO Shipping Ports, has successfully gone live with Navis N4.The unit of Cargotec Corporation and provider of operational technologies and services that unlock greater performance and efficiency for the world’s leading organizations across the shipping supply chain, the terminal connecting European market will use N4 to focus on real-time data sharing and efficiency for better service.The terminal, which is a major hub in the European market, has selected N4 to help optimize operations and data visibility with stakeholders and enable its employees to focus on core tasks and with a more modern TOS.In 2017…

U.S. soybean exporters are facing what may be their busiest and most logistically challenging summer due to an unprecedented backlog of soybeans purchased by China that still needs to be shipped and widespread floods in the U.S. Midwest.While there is little hope for a prompt U.S.-China trade deal, some 7 million tonnes of U.S. soybeans bought before talks broke down last month will need to be delivered to Beijing in coming months, U.S. exporters and industry analysts said.China would face steep penalties if it tried to cancel the orders and…

Port of Hamburg's Hamburg Vessel Coordination Center (HVCC) is developing a digital platform for inland waterway vessels, to allow ship calls to be coordinated centrally in the future."This marks another step towards more efficient digitised processes in the Port of Hamburg. The concept will first be presented to a wider audience today, 8 May, in connection with the celebrations for the 10th anniversary of the HVCC," said a release from the port.The Port of Hamburg is not only the largest seaport in Germany – it is also the second-largest inland port. Around 10,000 inland waterway vessels call each year the handling facilities of the Elbe metropolis.For ten years…

The commercial shipping port in New Zealand, Eastland Port achieved an annual tonnage throughput of just under 2.9 million tonnes of cargo in the year to March 2019, slightly down on last year’s record-breaking result.“The 12-month period was another very strong year for throughput at Eastland Port with vessels taking this district’s export product to South Korea, Japan, China, and Singapore,” says general manager Andrew Gaddum.In the year to 31 March 2019, 140 ships handled 2,956,071 tonnes of cargo at Eastland Port. Of that, 126 ships took away 2,941,324 tonnes of logs.The other 14,747 tonnes of cargo was made up of fertiliser (1,600 tonnes on 2 ships)…

As the St. Lawrence Seaway officially opened for business yesterday (March 26), U.S. Great Lakes ports are predicting the shipping season will mirror last year’s stellar performance.In 2018, many U.S. Great Lakes ports recorded their highest cargo totals in recent years, with strong volumes of iron ore, petroleum products, construction products and international grain exports. This coming season, road salt shipments should also be strong as cities replenish their reserves after a long, difficult winter. “We are optimistic these trends will continue into the new season and off-season investments made by the St. Lawrence Seaway and local ports will make 2019 another great season for our members,” says Bruce Burrows, President of the Chamber of Marine Commerce.

Abu Dhabi Marine Services “Safeen”, the marine services subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Ports, announces the purchase of two new state-of-the-art tugboats from Damen Shipyards Group aimed at supporting the AED 10 billion] expansion of Khalifa Port, Abu Dhabi Ports’ flagship deep-water port.The purchase of the DAMEN ASD 2411 tugboats was announced at the Abu Dhabi International Boat Show 2018. The contract was signed by Captain Adil Ahmed Banihammad, Acting Chief Marine Services Officer at Safeen, and Pascal Slingerland, Regional Sales Director for Damen Shipyards Group. Delivery of both vessels is due within three months.Captain Adil Ahmed Banihammad…

Damen Shipyards Group has signed a contract with Abu Dhabi Ports and its subsidiary Abu Dhabi Marine Services (Safeen) for the supply of two new Damen ASD Tugs 2411.The contract was signed by Captain Adil Ahmed Banihammad, the Acting Chief Marine Services Officer at Safeen, and Pascal Slingerland, Regional Sales Director for Damen Shipyards Group. Delivery of both vessels is due within three months.Abu Dhabi Ports owns and operates 11 ports and managing over 55,000 vessel calls each year. The ASD Tugs 2411 will bring additional vessel handling capabilities to the group. Examples of the class can be found operating all over the world and they are highly regarded for their excellent pulling power (70 tonnes)…

Abu Dhabi Ports announced on Sunday the delivery of the first shipments of Automated Rail Mounted Gantry Crane (ARMG) and ship-to-shore quay cranes (STS) to Khalifa Port.Shipped from Shanghai, the ten state-of-the-art ARMG Cranes and four STS Cranes are the initial batches of equipment to be installed at COSCO Shipping Abu Dhabi Terminal, the second container terminal being built at Khalifa Port due for completion at the end of this year.As innovation and automation continues to be part of Abu Dhabi Ports’ long-term strategy, the state-of-the-art ARMG’s and STS cranes will add unprecedented advantages to Khalifa Port by ensuring the timely and efficient stacking of containers in the terminal’s yards.Furthermore…

Vietnam’s government is targeting to raise VND4.89 trillion ($210 million) from an initial public offering (IPO) of Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines) scheduled on September 5, 2018.According to an official release on Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX), Vinalines will auction 488.82 million shares, or a 34.8 per cent stake at the price of VND10,000 ($0.4) apiece at the HNX. Its charter capital is estimated at approximately VND14 trillion ($616.7 million).The IPO is part of Vietnam’s broader privatisation programme to increase the efficiency and performance of state-owned firms, and to fill government coffers as public debt nears the mandated ceiling of 65 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP)…

Shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk, which handles one out of seven containers shipped globally, said the Petya cyber attack had caused outages at its computer systems across the world on Tuesday. The attack came as computer servers across Europe and in India were hit by a major ransomware attack. "Global cyber-attack Petya is affecting multiple businesses," Maersk said on Twitter. The breakdown affected all business units at Maersk, including container shipping, port and tug boat operations, oil and gas production, drilling services, and oil tankers, the company said.

The business portfolio internationalization and the development of river operations are two of ETE Group’s strategic focus, as referred last Friday on the 80th birthday ceremonies at Naval Rocha shipyard (in Lisbon) with the presence of the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the Minister for the Sea Affairs, Ana Paula Vitorino and the Minister for Environment, Matos Fernandes. According to Luis Nagy, the CEO, “at ETE Group we are  starting the ninth decade with a strong focus on the internationalization of our operations, which have been growing and, we hope, will represent, in 5 years’ time, 30 to 40% of our turnover, against the present 10%.

JLT Mobile Computers has delivered 47 of its JLT VERSO+ 10 rugged mobile vehicle computers with the most compact form factor in its class to the new T2 deep-water terminal at DCT Gdansk in Poland. Located in the heart of the Baltic, DCT Gdansk is Poland’s largest container facility, and the only deep-water terminal in the Baltic Sea region. The rugged mobile vehicle computers, supplied by IT systems engineering company and JLT partner Autepra, have been installed on Kalmar T2 terminal tractors. Running industry leading Navis N4 Terminal Operating System (TOS) software, they form part of a larger development program undertaken by DCT to open a second 650 m long, deep-water berth at the T2 terminal, which will double the handling capacity of DCT Gdansk to 3M TEU per year.

This year’s IAPH World Ports Conference will be held in Hamburg from June 1-5. International representatives from business, politics and science will gather in Hamburg to debate changing demands and alternative actions required in our times of globalization and climate change. The conference will focus on the smartPORT concept developed by the host of the conference, the Hamburg Port Authority (HPA). During the five-day conference delegates will get to hear about what Hamburg, Europe and the world mean by intelligent port management.

UAE based Gulftainer, a terminal operating and logistics company, set a new record for the handling of the largest unloading and loading of a single vessel call at its Khorfakkan Container Terminal (KCT), at 19,561 TEUs (Twenty-foot equivalent unit). It handled 19,561 20-foot-equivalent units of containers in 54.4 hours on a single call at its Khorfakkan Container Terminal in at Sharjah. The terminal staff completed the record breaking call of the CMA CGM Jules Verne container ship with the help of 11 cranes. The 396m CMA CGM Jules Verne, with a 54m beam, is the largest container ship in the world sailing under the French flag. “With…

The new Port House in Antwerp repurposes, renovates and extends a derelict fire station into a new headquarters for the port – bringing together the port’s 500 staff that previously worked in separate buildings around the city. With 12 km of docks, Antwerp is Europe’s second largest shipping port, serving 15,000 sea trade ships and 60,000 inland barges each year. As the threshold between the city and its vast port, Mexico Island in Antwerp’s Kattendijk dock on Quay 63 was selected as the site for the new head office. The waterside site also offered significant sustainable construction benefits, allowing materials and building components to be transported by water, an important requirement to meet the port’s ecological targets.

Hurricane Patricia was gaining strength off Mexico's Pacific coast on Thursday and was expected to land as "an extremely dangerous major" storm near a major shipping port and the tourist resort of Puerto Vallarta, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The storm, which became a hurricane overnight, had maximum sustained winds of about 100 miles per hour (160 km per hour) as it moved toward the west-northwest at 17 mph (28 kph). Patricia was currently located about 285 miles (460 km) south of the port of Manzanillo, where a hurricane warning had been issued.

China State Council has given the go-ahead for country's two largest shipping conglomerates to merge, continuing a trend in the industry to trim down state-owned enterprises, reports Caixin Media. The China Ocean Shipping Co. (COSCO Group) and China Shipping Group Co. have been working on a deal since August. The listed subsidiaries of the two firms are expected to make separate statements on their next step on December 11, the executive said. Meanwhile, WSJ reported that the shipping companies plan to issue details of their long-expected  multibillion-dollar merger plans as early as Friday, quoting people with knowledge of the matter.