Port News

With a two-phase expansion of its container facilities, Mexico's top automotive gateway says it is taking aim at competitors in the U.S. such as the Port of Houston.

The Mombasa County government is trying to extract more fees from users of the Port of Mombasa at two points in the supply chain, which would further drive up shipping costs in East Africa’s largest container gateway.

The 10 ports on the JOC's list of fastest-growing leading global container ports for 2014 each achieved year-over-year throughput growth of at least 10 percent.

Shippers and ocean carriers using India’s Tuticorin Port, or V.O. Chidamabaranar, may see significant productivity improvements in the coming months, as logistics providers are introducing an automated system for the movement of containers to and from the harbor.

APM Terminals has reached an agreement to buy the remaining 39 percent of Grup Maritm TCB, finalizing the $1 billion acquisition of the Spanish port operator and consolidating its position as the world’s second-largest container terminal operator.

There was no let up for Hong Kong in the month of September as container volumes fell for the 15th consecutive month.

The Port of Baltimore handled a record 86,149 twenty-foot-equivalent units of total container volume in August, continuing a strong run that has produced the highest three-month volume of total containers, full TEUs and full import TEUs in the port’s history.

Total container volume at the Port of Los Angeles declined 5.8 percent in September compared to the same month last year, with imports down 9.4 percent and exports declining 17.5 percent. Although Los Angeles in recent months has been regaining some of the market share it lost to East Coast ports during the 2014-15 West Coast labor dispute, volumes are still down 2.9 percent year-to-date from last year.

The problem of port congestion cannot be solely attributed to mega-ships and should be addressed through better industry collaboration and fundamental change across the supply chain, according to a global consultant in the container industry.

Container traffic at Ukrainian ports is steadily declining, reversing a previous trend of 11 to 13 percent annual growth.

The Port of Los Angeles has launched a supplemental environmental impact review of the China Shipping Container Line terminal to determine if some of the ambitious pollution-reduction measures in the earlier EIR should be revisited and possibly revised given the state of technology, and the already significant achievements in reducing pollution at the largest U.S. port.

The government of India on Wednesday approved extending an earlier productivity-linked incentive scheme for port and dockworkers through the current fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2016, averting potential labor stoppages at major public ports.

Rotterdam’s container volume increased just 1 percent in the first nine months of the year due to lower Chinese exports, the deteriorating Russian economy and slowing growth in emerging economies such as Brazil.

China’s land and maritime transport initiative linking Asia with Europe and Africa, and the countries in between, promises to add up to $2.5 trillion in trade to the country over the next decade, a Kuehne + Nagle executive said Thursday.

The Port of Mobile, Alabama, is working to build a near-dock refrigerated warehouse for transloading poultry into containers for export.

Sea Pac LLC is building a 1.5 million-square-foot facility that the South Carolina Ports Authority hopes will help Charleston compete for plastic resin exports, a market that Houston now dominates.

Two financial ratings services have affirmed their debt ratings for the South Carolina Ports Authority, which is preparing to issue $290 million in revenue bonds for container terminal upgrades and other capital projects.

Antwerp’s container traffic grew 8 percent in the first nine months of the year as the Belgian port boosted traffic on the troubled Asia-Europe route.

U.S. East Coast ports will increase their share of containerized trade from 35 percent to roughly half by 2020, putting them on parity with the West Coast, according to Rafi Danieli, CEO and president of Zim Integrated Shipping Services.

The first cold-treated citrus imports from Latin America have arrived at the port of Savannah under a U.S. pilot program that aims to cut logistics costs for produce shippers and stands to boost Savannah’s already growing refrigerated cargo business.

The Port of Long Beach has exceeded the 2014 pollution-reduction goals contained in the San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan, and is moving forward with a program to further reduce harmful diesel emissions.

After months of delay, the Port of New York and New Jersey is moving to break a truck-replacement deadlock that motor carriers say threatens their continued ability to serve the U.S. East Coast’s busiest port.

California Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed a bill that will enhance the ability of ports to secure additional bond revenue for infrastructure and environmental projects. This will make it easier for Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland, three of the six largest U.S. container ports, to be more competitive through freight infrastructure development.

The Russian government will begin work on a new deep-sea port in the enclave of Kaliningrad, between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea, by the end of the year.

Privately-operated Mundra Port recorded double-digit container throughput growth in the first fiscal half, driven in part by diversions from Jawaharlal Nehru Port disruptions and congestion that dragged down volumes at India’s largest public container handler during the same period.

Long Beach had one its best Septembers ever, continuing a recent trend in which West Coast ports are regaining some of the market share they lost this past year due to congestion and work slowdowns that accompanied the coastwide dockworker negotiations.

Containerized imports at the Port of Oakland in September increased for the seventh straight month, demonstrating that the Northern California port has recaptured some of the market share it lost earlier this year during the congestion that plagued all West Coast ports during the longshore contract negotiations.

A Tokyo-based research firm has significantly downgraded its outlook for the Japanese container trade in fiscal 2015, predicting a 1.3 percent contraction compared to its previous forecast of 2 percent growth.

Brazilian port and trade associations have won an extension of a policy allowing terminal operators to import equipment with little to no tax.

PSA International this weekend broke ground on a fourth container terminal at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, which will provide a future avenue to ease congestion at India’s largest container gateway.

Singapore’s Ministry of Transport and terminal operator PSA Corporation are planning to develop a container truck system that will boost port productivity by increasing the flow of boxes within the port and across the city-state’s streets.

APM Terminals has signed a contract for four ship-to-shore gantry cranes and 14 automated rail-mounted gantry cranes for its Vado container terminal under construction on Italy’s north-west Ligurian coast.

The first stage expansion of Yard 7 at Manila International Container Terminal Services (MICT) will be completed by the end of the year, increasing the terminal’s import capacity by 18 percent.

If there is one take-away for shippers, carriers and labor from the West Coast port congestion of 2014-15, it has to be that reliability is always more important than cost and transit time in determining cargo routing.

SSA Marine Vice President John DiBernardo says it is no wonder that many container terminals today are struggling to handle the cargo surges generated by big ships. They continue to do business much as they did in the days of breakbulk shipping, acting as storage sheds as they await the arrival of truckers who show up in randomly.

Retailers project that U.S. containerized imports from Asia this month will rise only 3.3 percent year-over-year, a further sign that what normally is the busiest month of the annual peak season in the eastbound Pacific will be only a “bump” this year.

Efforts to merge Brazil’s Special Ports Ministry (SEP) with the Ministry of Transport seem to have been put on hold, at least temporarily, with the appointment of Helder Barbalho as the ministry’s new leader.

Kazakhstan Railways, the national railway company of Kazakhstan, will build a 1 million 20-foot-equivalent unit container terminal in Klaipeda, Lithuania, home to one of the largest Baltic seaports.

The government of India this week approved an infrastructure upgrade project at the major public port of Paradip, allowing the country’s second-largest general cargo handler to expand capacity and improve operational efficiency.