Port News

DP World said it is currently experiencing a seven- to eight-day turnaround in vessels being worked at four major ports in the country, a significant delay compared with the usual two-day turnaround.

The funding shortage for breakbulk port facilities will create severe constraints on both cargo owners and vessel operators as offshore wind construction accelerates and new types of energy projects are developed.

The Georgia Ports Authority plans to open a third ocean terminal in Savannah in 2030 and says updating its current hybrid labor model to an all-union workforce could cost the port $600 million in its first operating year.

While neither side has made public its terms for a new collective bargaining agreement, sources familiar with the talks say the union is looking for a 20% increase in wages over four years and a faster seniority path for dockworkers.

Seeing the demand growth, niche intra-Asia liners have beefed up their networks out of India, deploying bigger vessels and opening more calls to the country’s East Coast ports.

The Panama Canal faces the prospect of transit and loading limitations becoming a regular feature of all-water transits to eastern North America, while a shift of trade out of China increasingly favors Suez Canal routings in the longer-term, writes Journal of Commerce Executive Editor Mark Szakonyi.

The latest service suspensions signal that US and European demand for some Asia-sourced consumer goods will remain tepid following the record spending splurge of the previous two years.

The announcement was made simultaneously with the forwarder releasing its nine-month financial results that reflected softening air and ocean markets, dragging down profitability from last year’s record performance.

Antwerp-Bruges follows neighboring rival Rotterdam in reporting a decline in container throughput this year through September.

The FMC complaint is atypical in that it’s an ocean carrier challenging fees rather than a cargo owner, forwarder or trucker pushing back against detention and demurrage charges.

Crowded terminals and a truck driver shortage in Europe and the Mediterranean are increasing landside delays and driving some shippers to consider calling secondary ports.

As US project cargo demand — and cargoes themselves — grow, heavy-haul trucking carriers are struggling with permitting delays, infrastructure complications and a rapidly aging workforce.

Mexico’s second-largest port is being added as regular and irregular call to trans-Pacific services due to draft restrictions and increasing availability of intermodal rail.

A weak regional economy in which increasing demand for services is cutting into consumer goods spending, high inflation and rising geopolitical tensions are dragging on containerized trade through Europe’s largest port.

Forwarders in Brazil say Hapag-Lloyd’s entrance into the feeder market through a joint venture will inject competition amid an easing of the country’s cabotage rules.

Amid a down year overall, Gulf Coast port volumes are holding up thanks to petrochemical exports, as well as growing imports related to energy projects and specialized manufacturing in the region.

Construction of the C$750 million, 400,000-TEU facility for Canadian and US agricultural and resin exports will be key to achieving more balanced two-way trade through the Western Canadian port.

After jettisoning previously planned October rate hikes, some India-USEC carriers have published new, modest rate increase plans for November.

SC Ports says the work will allow the terminal to attract growing volumes of cargo moving through the Suez Canal on large ships that are too big to call the facility now.

Existing overcapacity in the container shipping market has provided the resilience required to handle a potential prolonged blockage of the Suez Canal, says analyst Lars Jensen, who wonders if stakeholders are willing to pay higher freight rates to maintain that safety net.

Discretionary cargo is returning to the West Coast as the confidence of retailers is boosted by ratification of the longshore labor contract in late August and the ability of the ports to immediately handle more cargo.

Demand for industrial warehousing is surging along the Southeast US, with Virginia attracting more than 11 million square feet in the last three years.

Meeting the Biden administration’s target of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy installed by 2030 will require floating offshore wind, which means building new, specialized port facilities to facilitate development in much deeper waters.

CMA CGM chairman Rodolphe Saade said he is seeing more customer demand than ever for Southeast Asia services that will eventually call at the carrier’s two recently acquired terminals at the Port of New York and New Jersey.

Deepening Savannah’s shipping channel, which would take about 10 years to complete, would put the port on par with other major Southeast ports such as Charleston and Norfolk.

Transportation sensor provider Nexxiot and Deloitte are aiming to connect cargo visibility data with the consulting firm’s “know your customer” process to fast-track container movement.

While more port dredging will also be necessary, New York-New Jersey marine terminals are installing more of the cranes needed to handle 18,000-TEU ships that may eventually call the port.

Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM jointly opened the IN2 in September 2021 as a complementary loop to their sought-after Indamex service to capitalize on pandemic-linked demand swings.

The Montreal Port Authority said the funding will allow it to “implement a new delivery model” for the Contrecoeur terminal project after talks with initial bidders did not lead to a “satisfactory” result.

With retailers shipping early this year and showing caution in placing orders with Asian factories for holiday merchandise, a major retail group has lowered its forecast for US imports in the coming months.

Both Hongkong International Terminals and Modern Terminals confirmed cargo handling operations at their facilities at Hong Kong’s Kwai Chung container port were halted for about 33 hours, gradually resuming late Monday afternoon.

Tri-Cities Intermodal said it will revive plans to refurbish a cold storage warehouse and rail ramp served by Union Pacific’s intermodal service.

Marine terminal operators in Los Angeles-Long Beach and the Pacific Northwest are dealing with an increase in rail container dwell times owing to an east-west imbalance in rail equipment that has worsened in recent weeks.

While shippers say the situation — which could linger through mid-November — is less than ideal, many noted there have been no real impacts yet.

MSC’s move to extend its partnership with Eurogate in the north German gateway port follows a bid by the carrier for a half-stake in Hamburg’s largest terminal operator.

If shippers found the post-IMO 2020 bunker fuel formulas confusing and misaligned across ocean carriers, just wait until they see the surcharges linked to Europe’s new emissions trading system, says analyst Lars Jensen.

Consolidated Chassis Management is the sole provider of chassis to the newly launched South Atlantic Chassis Pool 3.0, which covers the ports of Jacksonville, Savannah and Wilmington, North Carolina.

While three companies jointly control some operations at marine terminals at Savannah and Charleston, they are not considered marine terminal operators, an FMC judge has ruled.  

The multimodal transshipment connector is taking shape as the industry puts a heavier focus on end-to-end, point-to-point carrier offerings to enable more resilient and sustainable trade flow.

The financial health of the powerful International Longshore and Warehouse Union is in jeopardy as the union seeks to avoid paying $19 million in damages to a Portland, Ore., terminal operator over disruptive job actions years ago.