International ports

Colombo had respectable container volume growth last year, but saw its dominance over Indian cargo begin to slip following cabotage reform enacted in mid-2018.

A rail blockade in Ontario as part of a more than week-long First Nation protest against a proposed oil pipeline in Canada remains in place, and CN’s eastern Canadian network is at a near standstill.

Shippers in Bangladesh are preparing for delays and higher costs after the Chittagong Port Authority implemented a precautionary measure related to the coronavirus that will keep vessels coming from China idling offshore for at least a week.

A weak performance in the second half of 2019 caused Rotterdam to end the year with only a slight gain in cargo volume.

The reform measure approved by India’s federal cabinet aims to provide more functional independence — operational and financial — to public ports that have stagnated due to years of underinvestment and bureaucratic controls.

Container dwell times in Vancouver and Prince Rupert are mounting as First Nations demonstrators defy court injunctions and continue to blockade Canadian National mainlines in Western Canada and Ontario. CN cancelled hundreds of trains this week.

Congestion and excessive container dwell times at the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert began to dissipate Monday following the cleanup of rock slides along rail lines in British Columbia and an injunction against First Nations’ protestors who were blocking truck traffic in Vancouver.

Supply chain participants should be putting coronavirus contingency plans in place, not only for what appears to be inevitable near-term disruption of their China-based supply chains, but also for potential knock-on effects that could extend well beyond the Chinese economic sphere.

Citing ever-increasing vessel sizes and a desire to not lose future business to private ports, the Indian government will move ahead with the development of a deep-water container port about 120 miles north of its primary gateway Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust.

Bangladesh’s top port of Chittagong says shippers will have one week to move containers that have overstayed their free time in storage that is at 78 percent capacity.

JNPT, India’s busiest public container harbor, has issued a trade notice setting a uniform rate scale linked to handling services for transshipment containers as part of what it called a move to “eliminate discrepancies.”

The Port of Montreal is looking for a new CEO and president after Sylvie Vachon announced she will retire after 30 years, the last 11 years leading the port, as cargo volumes -- especially Asian cargo -- grew.

It has taken many years, but tangible progress is finally being made in the engineering works to widen and deepen the Port of Hamburg’s key access waterway.

Carriers are pushing back against the latest move by Indian regulators to streamline logistics costs, saying it will result in inefficiencies and delays in trade flows.

The combination of Mexico’s economic woes and weakness among key trading partners pulled down the volume of cargo moving through Mexican ports in 2019, the first year volumes have fallen since 2013.

CN’s new approach to developing the ports of Halifax and Quebec comes after its limited success in growing intermodal volumes out of the Port of Montreal.

A strike by French dockworkers this week is causing severe disruption to carrier schedules as port calls to Le Havre and Marseilles-Fos are cut.

As India continues its transparency push for logistics costs, regulators are turning an eye toward the pricing practices followed by carriers for container yard-to-container yard shipments.

The new year has hardly gotten off to a quiet start for shippers using DP World’s four Australian terminals as industrial action by dock workers and an increase in port charges has thrown up fresh challenges.

India continues its march to bring transparency and efficiency to logistics costs, with the latest move allowing shippers to bypass carriers when settling terminal handling charges.

The Indian government is looking for a new roadmap to boost underutilized infrastructure at major ports, including increasing private participation in cargo operations.

The Panama Canal Authority is making operational changes so it can mitigate the effects of low water levels that have previously prevented fully-loaded, larger container ships from traversing the waterway.

A jump in pilotage fees at China’s Yantian International Container Terminal come as Hong Kong is already under pressure to maintain its position as one of the world’s top 10 container ports amid a continual shift of volumes to nearby Chinese ports and some shift in manufacturing from China to southeast Asian nations.

Although the pace of Indian container growth has moderated in recent months, the latest trends suggest volumes will remain in positive territory through the end of the 2019-20 fiscal year in March.

El transporte de la carga hacia el interior desde los puertos de México seguirá siendo un desafío para los consignadores en 2020, y se espera que la capacidad de transporte por camión siga siendo limitada. Pero dos nuevas iniciativas podrían ayudar a redirigir la carga desde las carreteras.

Dockworker and other logistics-related labor unions in Hong Kong are looking to stem a decline in membership that began after a 2013 strike that disrupted operations at Hutchison Port Holdings’ Hongkong International Terminals (HIT).

The country's government is looking to improve cargo fluidity at key seaports and border crossings — and reduce traffic on congested roads — via increased use of intermodal rail and a new marine highway program.

There is no denying the Indian government has in recent years demonstrated a stronger intent to recapture domestic cargo transshipped through Sri Lanka’s Colombo and other foreign hubs, but there appears to be no quick fix on the table in 2020.

Altamira, Mexico’s fourth-largest port by cargo volume, is moving ahead with dredging work and a bridge repair project that port officials hope will attract larger cargo volumes.

The Pacific Northwest ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert are moving forward with short-term marine terminal, rail, and roadway infrastructure projects, while on the East Coast, Halifax is extending a container terminal berth to handle larger ships and Montreal is increasing annual container handling capacity.

The Indian government is moving ahead with regulatory reform meant to streamline terminal charges after rejecting calls by a key carrier group to alter some parts of the proposal.

Hutchison Ports will have to keep APM Terminals Rotterdam at arm’s length for a while once the sale is approved, with volume guarantees and a ban on firing staff also included the deal.

As the Indian government continues its push to streamline and tighten logistics costs, it has now fixed its gaze on rail charges levied at its primary gateway, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust.

India is considering measures to bolster the port of Cochin’s standing in the region to boost volumes and better compete with the Sri Lankan transshipment hub of Colombo.

The Port of Montreal on Tuesday began posting artificial-intelligence driven predictions for next-day truck turn times to help truckers and BCOs make decisions on when to drop-off or pick-up a containers.

The benefits of automated port terminals go beyond lower labor costs and are likely to drive an increase in their use worldwide, a top industry speaker said Wednesday.

Container volumes handled by Indian ports fell 10 percent in November, as data showed the country’s minor, private gateways have begun to show declines that had been borne exclusively by their major, public counterparts.

México está avanzando con un nuevo programa de cabotaje para permitir a los cargadores mover la carga sobre el agua dentro de las fronteras del país, proporcionando una alternativa al transporte por camión. Esta traducción al español de una historia de JOC es parte de nuestra cobertura mejorada de México.

November data shows the cargo loss from India’s major public ports is accelerating, putting even more pressure on stakeholders to stop the bleeding.

The Port of Montreal has the funding to advance construction of a fifth container terminal after the Canada Infrastructure Bank committed financing of up to $300 million (US$230 million).