Steel Boxes News

Unable to get a slot on a container vessel, Lee Sang-hoon is considering using fishing trawlers docked for repair in the South Korean port of Busan to meet surging export orders for the car engine oil he sells to Russia."China is the black hole in this shipping crisis, all the carriers are headed there," said Lee, owner of Dongkwang International Co. in Busan which makes about 20 billion won ($17.60 million) in annual revenue."Those fishing boats out there could be an answer for us because we're already one month behind schedule.

Handling of steel boxes throughout the shipping, ports and logistics supply chain has historically grown exponentially, putting strains on a range of operational procedures and the physical hardware employed to handle the steel boxes, particularly onboard ships. A recent webinar organized by the Thomas Miller managed insurance mutuals, container freight specialist TT Club and protection & indemnity insurer, UK P&I Club, revealed the diverse range of factors important to safe container ship operations and the security of the container stacks they carry.

50 years after the beginning of modern container shipping in Germany, international trade is handled by 6,397 containerships, with a capacity of 21.1 million TEU. Hapag-Lloyd’s container fleet numbers among the largest in the industry. The revolution reached Germany 50 years ago. And even if no gunshots were heard, there was still a loud bang. On May 5, 1966, the Fairland, owned by the American shipping company Sea-Land, called at Bremen’s Überseehafen (overseas port). On the next day…

Venezuelan state agencies have run up close to $1 billion in debts with shipping firms due to delays in returning containers, potentially boosting the cost of importing staple goods as the country struggles with product shortages and an economic crisis. The agencies have held containers for months or simply never returned them, at times leaving the truck-sized steel boxes for years in oil industry facilities or on provincial farms even though this costs $100 per day per container, according to industry sources. The debts have piled up over the last six years, coinciding with a steady rise in the role of state agencies in importing goods to Venezuela, particularly food. The country is served by industry giants such as Maersk of Denmark and Hamburg Sud of Germany.

ABB to deliver advanced integrated automation and electrical solution for largest Italian public work project of the last century. ABB will supply the complete integrated electrical and automation system for Mo.S.E. (the Italian acronym for experimental electro mechanic module), a flood barrier system designed to block the high tides and storm surges that enter the Venetian Lagoon year after year through three inlets and regularly flood the historic center of Venice. ABB received the automation order in 2015 and the electrical order in early 2016. Together the orders total more than $38 million. The innovative solution will utilize ABB’s Internet of Things…

In addition to standard containers, Hapag-Lloyd also transports special cargo that cannot be containerized. Among others, ships and yachts "piggyback" on board container ships. Each year, Hapag-Lloyd’s fleet transports several million containers over the world’s seas. But, on top of that, the vessels also take on board special cargo that doesn’t fit inside standardized steel boxes. Among the most spectacular of these objects are other ships and yachts that “piggyback,” so to speak, on board the massive container vessels as they make their journey.

Globalization is the driving force of container shipping, as ever more goods are transported across the world’s oceans in steel boxes on ever-larger container ships. But container shipping is also what made globalization possible in the first place. The principle of division of labor is nothing new to us today. In 1776, the economist Adam Smith, a formative thinker of the free market economy, elucidated this concept in his book, The Wealth of Nations. The operative principle is that the employees of a company divide up different tasks and thereby increase their productivity.

Over three hundred ISORIA pneumatically actuated butterfly valves have been supplied by the KSB Group for use in the salvaging of the cruise ship Costa Concordia, which capsized off Giglio Island on January 13, 2012. The role of the 328 valves is to fill and vent tanks located in the sponsons (giant steel boxes), the first 15 of which were welded to the port-side hull to act as ballasting bodies when righting the wreck. At a later stage, these sponsons, together with another 15 to be installed on the star-board side of the cruise ship, will be flooded and used to stabilize the wreck.

"We hire a new crew to build each dredge," said Khun Songpon, "My father, Yongyut Junsiri, trains them as they build the dredge then the same crew operates it in Indonesia. It is a brilliant innovation, but not surprising from a firm that can draw on the 35-year experience of its president Yongyut Junsiri in both the design and operation of dredges. In recent years the opportunities for tin dredges have centered on Indonesia. However it is experience gained in dredging Thai waters…