Container Shipping News

Dry bulk carrier Diana Shipping will pay $50 million for a stake in a new company that will invest in and operate containerships over the next 12 to 18 months.

Singapore-based heavy-lift crane specialist Hiap Tong signed a joint venture agreement with the Chinese firm Inner Mongolia Wulanchabu An Da Heavy Lift and Transport.

Hanjin Shipping executives and International Longshoremen’s Association officials met this week for the first time since June to discuss staffing requirements for a highly automated container te

Local agents of container lines serving Mumbai strongly protested a planned 30 percent increase in tariffs.

Hanjin Shipping said it will begin slow-steaming vessels on one of its all-water services from Asia to the U.S. East Coast in mid-January.

State-owned Shipping Corporation of India will implement a general rate increase on the trade from India to Europe, effective Feb. 4.

Hamburg Sud late Thursday christened the final new ship in a series of six identical container vessels of 5,900 20-foot equivalent units capacity each in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Horizon Lines cut its debt by $38.1 million during the fourth quarter and completed its fiscal year with $28 million less in funded debt than a year earlier, the company said Wednesday.

Containerized exports in Southern California soared in December, increasing 40.2 percent over December 2008 at the Port of Los Angeles and 30.9 percent at the Port of Long Beach.

Orient Overseas Container Line will implement a peak season surcharge on all Asia-to-Europe freight, effective Feb. 1.

Cargo bookings by the individual lines in the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement suggest that vessel utilization levels in the trade will run in the mid-high 90 percent range in most trade segments

German entrepreneur Klaus-Michael Kuehne called on TUI to sell its Hapag-Lloyd stake to make room for a new owner and a more stable shareholder set-up at the container shipping line.

The Transpacific Stabilization Agreement on Thursday elected Kim Young Min, president and CEO of Hanjin Lines, as the new chairman of its executive committee, replacing Neptune Orient Lines CEO Ron Wi

Port Everglades, Fla., announced that it will waive tariffs for relief cargo being sent to Haiti after the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Asia’s containerized exports to Europe grew 2.4 percent in November, the first year-over-year growth in the key world trade lane during 2009, according to the European Liner Affairs Association.

Officials with Crowley Maritime were in touch with relief organizations about shipping emergency aid to Haiti Wednesday, but the company was still trying to determine what would be needed or how it co

A.P. Moller-Maersk named Stephen Fraser as head of the Danish group’s information technology division.

Seaboard Marine announced Jan. 13 that it will not receive cargo consigned to Haiti until further notice.

Evergreen Line on Wednesday announced it will increase rates next month on westbound cargos it carries from Europe and the Mediterranean to the Far East, including Japan and Australia, and the Indian

The new $510-million Red Sea Gateway Terminal at Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Islamic Port marked its opening with its first call by a container vessel, the Al Muttanabi with a capacity of 3,802 20-foo

The spot rate for shipping a 40-foot container from Hong Kong to Los Angeles jumped 10 percent so far this week compared to the week ended Jan.

A Somali suspect in the hijacking of the U.S.-flag Maersk Alabama in the Indian Ocean last April has been charged with involvement in two additional hijackings, Federal prosecutors in New York said Tu

In a dire New Year’s speech to employees, NYK Line President Yasumi Kudo said the company is reducing the size of its fleet of container ships and car carriers and plans to focus on its non-asse

CMA CGM lost nearly $1 billion in ill-timed derivatives investments in 2008, largely in oil prices, leaving the world’s third largest container ship carrier financially crippled heading into the

Hoegh Autoliners will start calling the Port of Charleston later this month with its Middle East service, which will bring two new ship calls a month to the port.

Rising fuel prices and overcapacity are spurring container ship lines to operate more of their ships at extraordinarily slow speeds – a trend that is expected to continue, according to Alphaline

Neptune Orient Lines appointed former Microsoft executive Robert J. Herbold to its Board of Directors, as of Feb. 1, the company said Tuesday.

Maersk Line on Tuesday announced a general rate increase on eastbound dry cargo it carries from North Europe and the Mediterranean to the Middle East and South Asia.

The popular PierPass program giving shippers incentives to move cargo at off-peak hours through Southern California ports may no longer be justified because of reduced cargo volumes, the U.S.

A senior executive at container ship operator NYK Line said Monday the carrier is seeing stronger trans-Pacific demand than expected at the start of the year but will wait several weeks before decidin

The monthly Port Tracker, which projects containerized imports at major North American gateways, launched a new format in the current issue.

U.S. container ports finally turned the corner in December, with imports estimated to be higher than in December 2008.

Crowley Maritime is swapping the jobs of its senior management team.

OOCL on Monday christened its newest vessel, the OOCL Seoul, the 14th SX vessel in OOCL’s line of 16 SX class vessels with capacities of 8,063 20-foot units that it has ordered from Samsung Heav

Shipping lines in eastbound Pacific lanes are recovering from their worst losses ever through a series of small, staggered rate increases, a new policy aimed at gradually returning the industry

What’s the TEU capacity of the biggest container ships? It depends on who’s counting and which measuring stick is used.

If there’s a constant theme in freight transportation’s evolution in recent times, it’s that bigger is better.

Prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office for Western Washington charged a clerk for Maersk with stealing more than $250,000 from the company by means of a long-running wire fraud.

Seaspan on Jan. 8 took delivery of its latest containership. The MOL Empire from Hyundai Heavy Industries has a capacity of 5,100 20-foot equivalent units.

With the holidays come and gone, international shippers and ocean carriers are asking whether the rate hikes carriers got last fall on their Asia-Europe and trans-Atlantic services will hold through t