Port News

A U.S. Senate committee Wednesday voted to send new legislation requiring U.S. ports to provide monthly productivity reports to the federal government to the Senate floor.

The Brazilian port of São Sebastião is poised to receive 1 billion reais ($318.5 million) of investment which will involve new terminal concessions for containers and general cargo, putting its well established rival, the Port of Santos, on edge.

The port of Hong Kong reached a dismal milestone in June, posting its 12th consecutive monthly decline in throughput for the first time, handling just shy of 13 percent fewer containers than in the same month last year.

Containerized cargo volumes at the Port of Los Angeles declined 2 percent in June compared to June 2014, with a 10.7 percent drop in loaded export containers accounting for much of the decline.

The Port of Charleston’s double-digit volume growth is expected to slow to about 5 percent during the coming year but will remain above the U.S. market average, said Jim Newsome, CEO at the South Carolina Ports Authority.

Harbor truckers in Los Angeles-Long Beach are accepting the fact that, at least for the moment, turn times are stuck at about 90 minutes, when a little over a year ago average turn times in the largest U.S. port complex were about one hour.

The APM Terminal at the Port of Itajai, already hobbled from the loss of an East Asia service that provided a good chunk of its volume and revenue, has been dealt another blow by a line owned by its parent company.

The Port of Antwerp is seeking proposals for construction and operation of an on-dock liquefied natural gas fueling station to serve the small but growing market for LNG-powered vessels.

The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles will win back most of the market share they lost to East and Gulf Coast ports during labor disruptions this past year by moving cargo to eastern destinations faster and cheaper than other ports are able, Long Beach’s chief executive said Tuesday.

Cosco Pacific’s Ningbo container terminal handled almost 20 percent more containers in the first half compared to the same period last year, helping overall throughput at the port just south of rival Shanghai to grow by 9 percent.

The U.S. Federal Maritime Commission is considering formation of an industry advisory council to discuss port congestion, and said a starting point might be demurrage and per-diem detention fees.

The Port of Gulfport, Mississippi, has encountered a setback to its hopes of dredging a channel large enough to match the port’s growth ambitions.

Noelia Rodriguez, a veteran communications executive with local and national experience, has been named to the newly-created position of director of communications at the Port of Long Beach. She will oversee the harbor department’s communications, government relations and marketing divisions.

The Port of Oakland in June recorded its fourth straight month of growth in containerized imports since the signing of a tentative coastwide longshore contract in late February. Imports should continue to increase through the busy peak-shipping season in late summer to fall.

Although China has some of the most productive ports in the world, the industry must continue to innovate and improve, a top Maersk Line executive said.

India’s Kerala state authority on Monday issued a letter of intent to domestic port infrastructure developer Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone for the development of its long-planned deep-water, container transshipment terminal at Vizhinjam, paving the way for construction on the green-field site to begin by November.

Singapore became the second Asian hub port to declare slowing container throughput in June following weak growth reported by Shanghai last week in the run up to the peak season period from July to September.

West Coast ports are seeing the number of man-hours paid to move containers rise as volume stagnates, while at the same time the hourly cost of longshore labor is increasing.

Construction on phase two of Mombasa’s second container terminal with a capacity of 450,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units has been held up by funding hurdles.

A niche liner service linking Europe with the Great Lakes port of Cleveland has quadrupled its container volume since adding a second monthly sailing, and port officials say the fledgling operation is starting to catch on.

The bailout deal Greece struck with its creditors in the early hours of this morning in Brussels will have a major impact on the beleaguered nation’s shipping industry and its ports.

Infrastructure developments in Thailand are proceeding erratically, thanks to rocky implementation and significant political shifts in the Southeast Asian country. Very little, however, is likely to impede plans to move ahead with rail and port-side improvements at Thailand’s largest port in the country’s main gateway in Laem Chabang.

After bleeding market share earlier this year due to congestion and labor problems, the Seattle-Tacoma gateway appears to be leveling off in the competitive Pacific Northwest region. Port Metro Vancouver, Canada, is likewise leveling off, although Prince Rupert continues to register impressive double-digit gains compared to last year.

Severe Typhoon Chan-hom is lashing two of the busiest container ports in the world, making landfall at Ningbo and moving up the coast to Shanghai.

The Sri Lankan government is to looking to attract overseas involvement in the running of two new port terminals in Colombo and Hambantota.

Drivers for the Southern California drayage company Eco Flow voted this week to join the Teamsters Union. This development is not a surprise because Eco Flow was formed on the employee-driver model, but it is nevertheless a victory by the union in its attempt to organize drayage companies across the country.

The port of Ancona, Italy, is upgrading its rail-side infrastructure, work that port authority President Rodolfo Giampiero says will allow the port to accommodate longer cargo trains.

The Port of Ningbo-Zhoushan’s growth spurt is continuing, with year-over-year growth in volume for the first six months of 2015.

China Merchants Holdings International, China’s largest port operator on the mainland, is urging terminals along the maritime silk road to align in an effort to counter the alliances among container carriers.

APM Terminals Itajai’s loss of three services, especially the ASAX/SEAS joint service to Asia threatens not only the terminal itself, which has begun layoffs, but also the very existence of the port.

A ruling by the National Labor Relations Board in a jurisdictional dispute between the West Coast longshoremen and a union representing machinists could result in a number of job gains and millions of dollars in back wages and benefits for the latter if it is upheld on appeal.

The South Korean port of Gwangyang will dredge one of its fairways to better serve larger ships, as sediment accumulation has reduced the channels depths.

Congestion at U.S. ports is providing cargo interests with additional incentives to use ports in Canada and Mexico, and the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission will monitor the trend, FMC member Richard Lidinsky said.

The traffic mitigation fee charged on container movements at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will increase to $69.17 per 20-foot-equivalent unit from the current $66.50 per-TEU fee, effective Aug. 1.

African ports are finding themselves without the land needed for expansion that their growing economies and consumer demand necessitate, forcing them to create it for themselves.

When it comes to containerized traffic in manufactured goods, the key ports in Mexico’s $5 billion port infrastructure initiative will remain Veracruz on the Gulf, where volumes have soared from 543,000 TEUs in 2001 to nearly 850,000 in 2014 and a projected 894,000 TEUs this year, and Lazaro Cardenas along the Pacific coast, which is handling 1 million TEUs a year, a decade after opening.

Shippers using Vallarpadam International Container Transshipment Terminal at India’s Port of Cochin can capitalize on a new intra-Asia connection from the Galex Consortium, which added a weekly call at the DP World facility.

Under Armour this week began receiving imports through Baltimore in yet another sign of the U.S. East Coast’s market share gains following recent West Coast congestion.