Port News

DP World and the Russian Direct Investment Fund today announced the launch of a joint venture that will target investments in ports, transportation and logistics infrastructure in Russia.

When the Panama Canal’s third set of larger locks open to commercial traffic this spring, the massive expansion project will be more than a year and a half behind the original target date of October 2014 and an estimated $150 million over the $5.25 billion budget set 10 years ago.

International Container Transshipment Terminal, or Vallarpadam, at India’s Port of Cochin expanded its intermodal freight access earlier this week when state-owned Container Corp. of India introduced a weekly train service connecting the DP World facility with Coimbatore, a major southern India inland point.

Greece has accepted a “significantly improved” offer from China’s Cosco Group for the state’s majority stake in the Piraeus Port Authority.

International Container Terminal Services Inc. is expanding its footprint in Africa and the Middle East with two new terminals under development and an eye for more opportunities in the region.

Despite watershed changes taking place in the shipping industry in 2016, the market share of containerized imports of East, West and Gulf Coast ports this year is set look a lot like it did during the second half of 2015, according to port and industry analysts.

Container volume at the Port of Charleston rose 10.1 percent last year, to 1.97 million 20-foot-equivalent units, but the port authority’s chief executive expects slower growth during the first half of 2016.

New Orleans Cold Storage has more than doubled the size of its facility near Charleston, South Carolina, with an 81,000-square-foot expansion that more than doubles its blast-freezing capacity.

Dockworker unions at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust on Tuesday agreed to recall their previous notice calling for a stoppage on Jan. 20 over demands tied to medical benefits following an intervention by port management that averted disruptions that would have placed more pressure on shippers and ocean carriers using India’s biggest container handler.

Contship Italia’s container traffic declined in 2015 but it maintained its leading market position in Italy as four of its five domestic terminals posted higher volumes.

Greece’s privatization agency will today weigh an improved offer from China’s Cosco Pacific for a majority stake in the port of Piraeus.

Ports America and its joint venture partner announced Tuesday it will terminate in March its 50-year lease for the Outer Harbor Terminal in Oakland as the company concentrates its investments in other U.S. container ports to prepare for today’s mega-ships operated by powerful carrier alliances, according to Peter Ford, chief strategy officer.

Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal, a DP World facility at India’s Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, on Tuesday said operations have returned to “near normal speed” and all freight accesses are open, a day after the private operator was forced to close following blockades set up by striking employees at entry gates.

Chinese investors aren’t scaling back on freight projects in Russia even though both countries’ economies are suffering, according to Russia’s minister of Far East development.

The port of Antwerp has said that it expects the European Commission to clear it of a charge from logistics group Katoen Natie that it had been guilty of discrimination in its treatment of the port’s leading container terminal operators.

India has ousted China as the emerging market with the most growth potential, according to a global survey of more than 1,100 logistics and supply chain executives.

Shore handling charges at the key East Africa gateway ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam increased in 2015 while port dwell times for cargo continued to languish well below global standards.

After bottlenecks and delays in 2014, it was tempting to greet the lack of congestion in ports across Asia in 2015 with relief, but the open berthing windows and “come right in” signs were, in fact, an indicator of falling demand.

European cargo terminal operators today called on their national governments to clarify regulations requiring all containers to be weighed before they are loaded onto ships.

Container ship berth times at Australia’s Port of Brisbane were the shortest among the top four gateways in the country, despite the port handling the largest vessels in the trade, CargoSmart data shows.

To meet potential California environmental rules, marine terminals in Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland would spend billions of dollars more by replacing diesel-powered container-handling equipment with units powered by electricity, according to an engineering report.

The opening of larger Panama Canal locks, already postponed several times by construction delays, has been pushed back again and now is expected early in the second quarter, a canal official said.

Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal reopened to partial operations this afternoon after striking employees forced a temporary halt to all shipping activities at the DP World facility by staging blockades at entry gates on Sunday, adding to the trade woes that had already been building at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, India’s busiest, public, container gateway.

Port truckers at the Port of New York and New Jersey will soon test ways to measure their wait times both inside and outside container terminal gates, providing visibility that could be the basis of an hourly surcharge to drayage customers.

Thirty miles of steel girders for a new highway bridge rising over the Hudson River near New York City are being delivered on a roundabout route using trucks, barges and ports with the space to handle the big cargo.

The flawless discharge and reloading of the CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin, the largest container ship ever to call at a North American port, proves the Southern California port complex’s efforts to more efficiently handle mega-ships are paying off, Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said last week.

Antwerp’s container traffic increased 7.5 percent year-over-year in 2015 to reach an all-time high and narrow the gap with its main rival Rotterdam, which saw volume shrink over the past 12 months.

South Korea’s port of Busan handled more than 10 million transshipment containers for the first time in its history last year moving the port closer to its goal of becoming the world’s second largest transshipment hub.

Moody’s said its rating for China Merchants Holdings International (CMHI) remained unchanged after the announcement of its investment in Dalian Port but the U.S. credit ratings agency said it was concerned about the business prospects for the port.

The Tecon Santos container terminal reopened Saturday night after firefighters put out a blaze at the largest South American port gateway that lasted more than 40 hours.

After a chemical fire closed the biggest terminal at South America’s largest container gateway, container lines are considering rerouting cargo away from the facility of Tecon Santos to other terminals at the Port of Santos and other Brazilian ports.

Japan’s Toyo Construction Co. and JFE Engineering Corp. have won a contract to build a new container terminal at the Port of Thilawa near Yangon, Myanmar, to expand one of the country’s key logistics hubs.

More than 100 shippers groups urged the U.S. Department of Transportation to drill down on port productivity metrics via a new initiative aimed at helping Uncle Sam better monitor marine terminal congestion.

Container traffic at the Port of Los Angeles in December declined 4.9 percent from the same month the previous year, reflecting the normal seasonal lull and the loss of a handful of services to the neighboring Port of Long Beach.

Rotterdam’s container volume shrank by 0.5 percent year-over-year in 2015 but total throughput reached a record on a sharp rise in crude oil shipments.

Despite oft-repeated claims by DP World Subcontinent that its flagship terminal at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust is operating normally and truck turn times are no more than the normal average, logistics providers in India’s largest container harbor said the roadway to the private facility continues to remain clogged and gating in containers is a chore.

PSA International said throughput at its global terminals fell by 2 percent in 2015 as a result of tepid growth in global trade and structural changes in the industry.

China Merchants will acquire a 21.05 percent stake in Dalian Port Co., making it the second largest shareholder of the northeast China port operator, as the country continues to restructure its state-owned sector.

Fire at South America’s busiest container gateway of the Port of Santos has crippled operations at the port for the second time in less than a year, closing a marine terminal that handles about a third of the port’s container volume, according to a Reuters report.

Container volume moving through the Port of Long Beach in December increased 5.1 percent over December 2014, helping to propel the port to the third best year in its history.