Container Shipping News

RollDock Shipping recently placed its first of eight new specialized heavy-lift vessels into service.

One of Intermarine’s most recent shipments began in December when it loaded two massive cold boxes for a liquefied natural gas plant under construction in the West African nation of Angola.

The market for breakbulk and project cargo is in terrible shape.

The catastrophic, 8.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked Chile on Feb. 27 killed more than 500 people and left behind a shambles of infrastructure, with damages topping $30 billion.

After an awful 2009, companies involved in international steel trade have started this year with cautious optimism – and plenty of questions.

Barges, the tortoises of the maritime industry, have “huge stability” but also come with a unique set of potential problems, said Capt.

Moving pieces of project cargo that weigh hundreds of metric tons or are five stories tall or higher from point A to point B can be a challenge of monumental proportions.

India’s mountain of infrastructure shortcomings have been the bane of the shipping industry for decades.

Sea Star Line, which operates container/roll-on, roll-off ships between Jacksonville, Fla., and Puerto Rico, will add a weekly call at Philadelphia next month, the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority

India has survived the global recession relatively unscathed.

The Supreme Court may have to decide whether or not ocean carriers will be considered “railroads” for cargo liability purposes after oral arguments on Wednesday morning.

A pirate died in a hail of bullets in a clash with private security contractors protecting a Panama-flag cargo vessel off the coast of Somalia, officials said Wednesday, according to the Associated Pr

Zebra Enterprise Solutions launched operating software designed for terminals that move less than 120,000 20-foot equivalent units a year.

Hamburg Süd said one of its services between Europe and Turkey will start calling at the TCEEGE Terminal in Aliaga, Turkey, instead of the Alsancak terminal in nearby Izmir.

Damco, the logistics arm of A.P. Moller-Maersk, will open its largest office in a new facility in Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan province in China.

Rickmers Maritime Trust chartered a containership of 5,060 20-foot equivalent units capacity to CSAV, the Chilean ocean carrier, for 12 months with an option for a further 12 months at a much higher r

DP World, the global container terminal operator, posted a 46 percent drop in 2009 profit compared with a year earlier but said signs of recovery in cargo volume began in the new year.

Japan's exports to the rest of the world rose for the third consecutive month in February, surging 45.3 percent compared with a year earlier to $56.99 billion, according to preliminary figures release

The Port of Seattle saw huge gains in container volume in February, while container volumes at its Pacific Northwest neighbors Tacoma and Portland were mostly down compared to the same month last year

The volume of containers handled by the Port of Savannah jumped 20.6 percent year-over-year to 202,620 20-foot equivalent units in February as the overall tonnage handled by Georgia’s ports incr

Taking advantage of the up-tick in demand for shipping capacity since last fall, CMA CGM announced on Tuesday that it is increasing freight rates on 11 different trade lanes on March 15 and April 1.

Hapag-Lloyd will raise freight rates on two major trade lanes covering the Indian Subcontinent, starting in April.

An independent auditor expressed “significant” doubt over whether Rickmers Maritime Trust can continue as a going concern.

Neptune Orient Lines plans to expand the capacity of APL, its container line, by about 7 percent this year to meet rising trade demand.

The government-affiliated Japan Bank for International Cooperation signed a loan agreement worth about $57 million to support Japanese vessel exports to a South Korean shipping firm.

In support of President Obama’s call to double U.S. exports in five years, the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma said they provided suggestions for the National Export Initiative to U.S.

Carriers in the eastbound Pacific predicted the volume of containerized imports from Asia will likely increase 6 to 8 percent this year.

Increased imports are pulling Canada’s largest seaport, Port Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, into a traffic recovery as the Canadian economy performs strongly after the recession.

Forth Ports, the UK's last listed ports group, reported its 2009 port operating profit fell 8.5 percent from a year ago on lower container traffic but said cargo volume rebounded in the first two mont

Zim Integrated Shipping Services will launch its new independent Asia-India-Mediterranean-Europe service, effective in early April.

Maersk Line launched the first direct deep sea liner service between Russia and South America.

The North Carolina State Ports Authority hired Peter F. Klaus as vice president of liner sales.

Carrier and shipper tempers, which have risen steadily into the red over who’s to blame for a shortage of cargo space and deteriorating service, are starting to cool down as the two groups gear

While many supporters of marine highways are looking to the East and West coasts to support the strategy, the Gulf of Mexico is providing support for the system to take root.

Coming off a year with container and breakbulk volume flat at best, Gulf container ports from Tampa to Texas are positioning themselves for future opportunities.

The columns of red numbers in the charts on these pages and those that follow provide more-than-ample proof of the woes global container lines have bemoaned over the last year.

Just as an underdog sports rival wants to win the big game against a major competitor, it seems every port in North America wants to take cargo away from Los Angeles-Long Beach.

The Port of Marseille Fos authority Friday said it granted to Hutchison Port Holdings the right to develop the proposed Fos 4XL container terminal.

Orient Overseas (International) Ltd., the parent of container line OOCL, reported a loss Friday of $400.6 million for the 2009 calendar year, compared to the profit of $275.5 million recorded in 2008.

Finnish longshoremen and port employers agreed to a new contract March 19, ending a two-week nationwide dock strike that crippled the country’s foreign trade.