Breakbulk News

The MPV/HL sector has been in the doldrums for four or five years.

The blades were loaded onto telescopic trailers and transported to the Republic of Adygea at night.

Recently, consolidation in the sector has accelerated, with acquisitions, mergers, alliances, and other cooperation among the stakeholders becoming routine.

Founded in 2011, HHL was the successor to Beluga Shipping but struggled to gain a foothold in the heavy-lift market as the global shipping crisis worsened in the mid-decade.

New factors will increase pressure on the US wind power logistics market, which already experiences late-year bottlenecks.

India's breakbulk and project cargo trade growth has become a “sweetener” for container carriers struggling to fill up their large vessels with niche freight in the wake of continued lackluster demand in other global markets.

TecPier plans to invest in maritime digitization opportunities in energy efficiency, online marketplaces, and process optimization.

The concerns have weighed on oil prices, and the health of the global energy market strongly affects the movement of project cargo.

Both clauses are designed to be "simple and practical" and ease the global fleet's Jan. 1, 2020 transition to a low-sulfur fuel era, BIMCO said.

Founded in 2011, Hansa Heavy Lift was the successor to Bremen-based Beluga Shipping.

An initial cargo of 19 units weighed more than 850 metric tons (937 tons) combined and included separators, heaters, and columns designed for hydrocarbon processing.

Everything transported to an Antarctica research station by Trans Global Projects required extensive care and, due to the threat of intrusion by non-native plants and animals, extensive biosecurity and decontamination processes.

Italy’s Porto Marghera has a unique capability on the peninsula, as two 1,692-ton heavy lifts of reactors bound for a refinery in Nigeria recently demonstrated.

In the next two decades, project construction and transport sectors can expect electricity generation to grow in importance, as emerging nations, particularly those in Asia, shift toward light industry, service economies, and digitization.

Imports are important to Gulf ports’ growth because ocean carriers in the major east-west trades deploy capacity based on imports, which command freight rates about four times higher than exports.

Many project shippers have reported a lack of clarity regarding contracts extending into or beyond 2020; these clauses will help set the stage for the IMO 2020 transition.

The port's primary facilities at the west terminal sustained relatively minor damage; it was a "mixed bag," the port's executive director said, including lost doors, canopies, and skylights, and some damage to the port's container terminal.

Brunswick is the second-busiest roll-on, roll-off port in the United States by tonnage, and although tariffs have affected trade, the upward trajectory remains intact regarding 2019.

Although the industry is unlikely to see another all-encompassing fiat like IMO 2020, the International Maritime Organization's (IMO’s) ambition is to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from international shipping to 50 percent of 2008 levels by the year 2050, and to someday eliminate the fleet's GHG emissions entirely.

Effective in February, Stehle will focus on business development, key accounts, and managing large projects, as well as supporting organizational restructuring efforts that began earlier in 2018.

Von Taube will assume the role of director, Zeamarine, during the fourth quarter of 2018, taking over responsibilities from Irich Ulrichs, including Zeamarine's tramp and liner services.

"The amount [of risk] is up,” said Pat Roche, vice president, project and energy services, Expeditors, a freight forwarding company. “EPC [engineering, procurement, and construction] contracts are evolving.” Elements that have become more open-ended include execution of performance bonds, cargo lien waivers, and indemnification clauses, he said.

Factors pushing up the rate included a rising oil price, slightly shrinking capacity in the MPV/HL sector (especially toward the high-end sector), and uncertainty across the global fleet regarding IMO 2020.

The breakbulk and project cargo transport and logistics community raised approximately $60,000 earlier this month in Houston for the Maritime Emergency Workers Medical Fund, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping maritime families with their finances during medical crises.

The looming IMO regulation, which reduces maximum sulfur emissions from 3.5 percent to 0.5 percent across most of the world's shipping lanes, “is arguably one of the industry’s most defining moments since the shift away from coal,” according to US energy giant ExxonMobil.

Many questions remain concerning the low-sulfur rule that goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2020: how best to comply, how to manage fuel supply after IMO 2020, how to estimate changes in fuel costs, and how to plan for enforcement.

The breakbulk/project market, buoyed by adequate global GDP growth, is finally reviving after a recession-triggered downturn magnified by the 2015 crude oil crash. But challenges loom, including shifting customer demand preferences and the low-sulfur mandate.

Since 2015, the production rate at Airbus' Mobile facility has increased to four Airbus 320s per month, so four sets of fuselages and wings are needed monthly, and "a weekly lo-lo [lift-on, lift-off] transport for these [would be] too expensive," the project's leader said.

The SeaWing will harness wind power to blow the vessel across the ocean, reducing fuel costs. The roll-on, roll-off ship will be used in an already existing service transporting airplane sections from Saint Nazaire, France, to Airbus' manufacturing facility in Mobile, Alabama.

Project cargo totaling 176,000 freight tons bound for the Gazprom Amur project in Russia will be shipped in five phases from 2018 through 2022.

Toepfer's index is one of few measurements that create a window into the primarily privately held and still-fragmented, despite recent moves toward consolidation, multipurpose/heavy-lift fleet.

If you sense that matching a US Gulf Coast port channel’s depth to the depth of the new, expanded Panama Canal would generate more business opportunities, you’re correct.

Zeaborn, which was established in 2013, became a major player in the multipurpose shipping sector through the acquisitions of Rickmers-Linie.

A stronger US economy and pent up demand in emerging markets, among other factors, bodes well for the multipurpose sector moving forward.

To say that the Trump administration’s steel tariffs and quotas have upset the global steel market would be an understatement, as nations who have hit their quotas are scrambling for new markets, and US importers are searching for new sources of affordably priced steel.

With its close proximity to Boeing, the port has geared up to streamline the supply chain for its biggest customer. And there's a substantive reason why it has done this.

Mining interests are once again upgrading and investing in activities that require inbound project cargo after years of merely status-quo maintenance.

Specialized Freight Solutions of Lake Mills, Wisconsin, has been commissioned by the new High, Wide and Heavy Corridor Coalition to conduct a feasibility route study for moving up to 1,000-ton mega-loads from Pacific Northwest ports east into Idaho and Montana and up into Western Canada.

A coalition of Pacific Northwest ports and transportation organizations has raised a war chest to fund a proposed 1,300-mile multimodal high, wide, and heavy transport corridor intended to smooth the transit of energy and infrastructure project cargo.

Megaload/heavy load logistics is part science, part craft, and part ballet, and there’s no better example of that than CMI Energy’s recent heat recovery steam generator transport project.