Grand Canal News

Canada-based oil company CGX Energy OYL.V will begin dredging and building the docks of a key deepwater port at Berbice, in eastern Guyana, planned to serve the South American nation's oil and agriculture sectors, the firm's chairman said on Wednesday.CGX Energy unit Grand Canal Industrial Estates in 2010 acquired a 50-year lease for a 55-acre parcel strategically located near the Berbice River for the project. When complete, it would become Guyana's third oil port and its only deepwater facility."The construction of docks and dredging will begin very shortly…

Italy’s government has ruled that large cruise ships and container vessels must not pass close to Venice’s historic center and should instead dock in a different location to preserve the famed lagoon.A decree approved late on Wednesday called for public consultations on building a terminal outside the lagoon where passenger vessels over 40,000 tons and container ships can berth without passing in front of Saint Mark’s square.In the meantime, large boats must dock at the industrial Marghera Port…

The Panama Canal has linked the Pacific with the Atlantic for more than 100 years. It will soon be possible for significantly larger ships to pass through its locks. What will the expansion mean for Hapag-Lloyd? They’re still working in Panama, on one of the biggest construction sites in the world. Everything seems gigantic here. The lock gates alone, veritable monsters of grey steel: 16 in total, each of them 57 meters long, averaging 30 meters high, ten meters thick and weighing 3,300 metric tons. They were brought by special ships from Italy to the jungle of Central America.

China's Hong Kong Nicaragua Development (HKND) Co. said it is delaying the start of construction on a controversial $50 billion inter-ocean canal across Nicaragua until late 2016. HKND has obtained approval for environmental studies of the canal earlier this month. But on Wednesday, a company statement said that the construction will start toward the end of 2016. While the Hong Kong-based developer did not give a reason for the delay, it said in a statement that “the current design was being fine tuned,” and construction locks and excavations would start toward the end of 2016. The 172-mile canal project, dubbed the largest ever human engineering endeavor, was being funded by Wang Jing, the CEO of HKND Group.

HKND Group, concessionaire of the Nicaragua Interoceanic Grand Canal project, signed an agreement with international geological and resource consultancy CSA Global of Australia in the headquarters of HKND Group in Hong Kong, entrusting CSA Global to conduct an aerial geological survey of the canal route and Lake Nicaragua shore line. The survey comprises of Aerial mapping of topography, photography and geophysical and geological data. HKND Group concluded an open tender works package award with CSA Global for the services. “The survey is a major step in the construction development process and supports pre-works planning, design and engineering for the canal and infrastructure”, stated senior advisor of HKND Group, John Murray.

The $50 billion Nicaragua Canal scheme promises to bring huge economic benefits to Central America's poorest country. But environmentalists and peasant farmers strongly oppose the project. And many are wary of the Chinese company that is to construct the canal. The massive canal will connect the Pacific and Caribbean and could reduce the cost of shipping commodities from Europe to Asia. The canal would be both longer and wider than the Panama Canal. Canal critics fear there will be confiscations of land, environmental mayhem and a job boom that will bypass the locals. In an interview with BBC today (March 19), Wang Jing, the Chinese billionaire who intends to build a shipping canal through Nicaragua connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific, has dismissed the project's critics.

An international consortium of environmental scientists has expressed strong concern about the impact of a controversial Central American canal across Nicaragua. The leading researchers from 18 institutions in the United States and Central and South America -- have voiced their opposition to the Nicaragua Interoceanic Grand Canal and the haste with which the project has been initiated, reports UPI. The path of the Nicaragua Interoceanic Grand Canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans will cut through Lake Cocibolca (aka Lake Nicaragua), Central America's main freshwater reservoir and the largest tropical freshwater lake of the Americas.

Port of Le Havre has called Expression of Interest (EOI) for Storage facility for liquid Bulks to be set up inside the port. The Grand Port Maritime du Havre (GPMH), a State-owned public corporation, which has taken over the rights and duties of the ‘Port Autonome du Havre’ (Autonomous Port of Le Havre) pursuant to decree no. 2008-1037 of 9 October 2008 is the largest French port for external trade and containers, and the 5th largest port in northern Europe. The GPMH wishes to strengthen the position of its industrial and port platform as a major hub for Chemistry in Europe by developing the logistics offering for chemical and petrochemical industry along the Seine corridor and fostering the development of transhipments.

Wang Jing, the enigmatic businessman behind Nicaragua's $50 billion Interoceanic Grand Canal, shrugs off scepticism about how a little-known entrepreneur can be driving a huge transcontinental project, insisting he's not an agent of the Beijing government. "I know you don't believe me," said Wang, who reckons that he's forked-out about $100 million in canal preparation work, and is burning as much as $10 million a month on the project. Wang grabbed global headlines last June when he sealed a controversial no-bid 50-year renewable concession from Nicaragua's Sandinista government to develop the $50 billion canal to rival Panama's, and related facilities. Nicaragua preparation is on schedule, Wang said.

Wang Jing, the enigmatic businessman behind Nicaragua's $50 billion Interoceanic Grand Canal, shrugs off scepticism about how a little-known entrepreneur can be driving a huge transcontinental project, insisting he's not an agent of the Beijing government. "I know you don't believe me," said Wang, who reckons that he's forked-out about $100 million in canal preparation work, and is burning as much as $10 million a month on the project. "You believe there are people from the Chinese government in the background providing support. High-ranking Chinese officials including President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and former leaders Jiang Zemin and Wen Jiabao have all visited the state-connected wireless communication technologies company Wang took control of four years ago.

Odfjell Terminals Europe and Grand Port Maritime du Havre (GPMH) have today signed a Site Reservation Protocol for a plot of land in the Port of Le Havre to develop a bulk liquid terminal. The planned terminal will be located inside the Port of Le Havre along the Grand Canal Maritime and the plot is approximately 31.5 hectares. The first phase will consist of at least 150,000 cbm for storage of petrochemical and petroleum-related products. Construction is currently expected to start in 2015 and the terminal is foreseen to open in 2nd half 2017. The total investment for the first phase is estimated to be about €150-200 million. HAROPA – Port of Le Havre is one of Europe’s largest ports, strategically located by the entrance to River Seine.

More than 600 artifacts have been recovered from the sunken vessels, which date back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), according to the Tianjin Cultural Heritage Protection Center. The wrecks first came to light in April, after workers dredged a section of the canal in the northern municipality of Tianjin, said Mei Pengyun, director of the center. After the month-long excavation, experts revealed fragments of one ship and the well-preserved structure of another. A large numbers of bricks, ceramic pieces, bone and wooden wares were found scattered around the site, Mei added. The second ship, measuring 13 meters long, is believed to have been a barge that once plied the 1,776-km canal, which stretches through several provinces in north and east China.

A 87-ft Z-drive tug has recently been delivered from the Jiangsu Wuxi Shipyard Co., Ltd. in China to a Peruvian owner Trabajos Maritimos S.A. The shipyard is located inland from Shanghai on Lake Thai near the town of Wuxi and the Jinghang Grand Canal. Trabajos Maritimos is a comprehensive marine organization offering everything from port agency services, terminal operations, pilotage and towing. The new tug, delivered in November of 2009, is powered by a pair of Cummins QSK60 engines each delivering 2200 hp at 1800 rpm to hrp model 7111 WM (P3) azimuthing drives with 6.681:1 reduction.