Port News

Panama transshipment activity is expected to jump by double digits after the new Panama Canal locks open in 2016 and will be followed by longer-term annual growth of about 5 percent, Drewry Maritime Research said in the latest issue of its Container Insight Weekly.

Container traffic jumped 5.8 percent in 2014 at the port of Rotterdam, putting it on track to post one of the highest increases in the fiercely competitive Le Havre-Hamburg port range after years of the port trailing its rivals.

APM Terminals-operated Gateway Terminals India closed its gates Sunday after truck drivers protesting intermittent gate closings at the facility violently clashed with police at the Nhave Sheva port complex.

U.S. West Coast marine terminals will suspend vessel operations on all shifts Monday so they can concentrate their resources on clearing containers from the dangerously congested facilities, the Pacific Maritime Association reported Sunday.

Hong Kong port ended a year it would rather forget with annual container throughput falling for a third consecutive time, registering 22.2 million TEUs in 2014 that was down 0.3 percent on the previous year's numbers.

China Merchants Holdings (International) handled 80 million TEUs in 2014, a 13 percent increase over the previous year and a continuation of the double digit growth annual that has been recorded since 2012 by the mainland’s largest container port operator.

A growing number of trade associations that have signed their names to a series of letters calling for a resolution to West Coast longshore talks points to the widening economic impact of port delays that have now lasted for months.

Union and non-union drayage drivers serving Port Metro Vancouver will likely strike at Canada’s largest container port as soon as Feb. 1 if the provincial government doesn’t meet their demands.

Albert Cernadas Sr., a former high-ranking officer in the International Longshoremen’s Association, was sentenced Friday to three years’ probation and fined $50,000 for his role in a decades-long mob extortion racket on the New Jersey waterfront.

Addressing U.S. port congestion will be the Federal Maritime Commission’s top priority in 2015, FMC Chairman Mario Cordero has told commission staff.

Spot rates on the Asia-U.S. East Coast rose to their highest level in more than a year, suggesting that the rapidly deteriorating labor talks on the West Coast are driving cargo owners in search of alternative gateways.

Last year was good to Cosco Pacific as the port operating arm of China’s largest shipping company saw its container throughput rising 10.6 percent in 2014 with 67.3 million TEUs crossing its busy wharves.

Ships are backing up rapidly at the major West Coast gateways following a decision by employers to stop working vessels at night in order to concentrate on clearing out congested marine terminal yards.

A veteran shipping executive says U.S. West Coast port problems are structural and “will not go away” and that as a result beneficial cargo owners should add three weeks to trans-Pacific import lead times to accommodate what will become chronic congestion.

PSA International has divested its entire stake in a container terminal facility at India’s Port of Kolkata.

The well-liked and respected IT leader, 46, built his career on a foundation of family history in the business, a deep understanding of the market and a talent for technology.

Wilhelmshaven’s bid to shake off its white elephant tag is set to gather traction in the coming weeks amid reports Maersk Line is about to bring four regular short sea services to Germany’s only deepwater port.

Rep. Janice Hahn said Los Angeles-Long Beach marine terminal operators’ ending of night shifts equates to a “nighttime lockout” of dockworkers. She urged employers to “not act unilaterally and hurt port operations.”

A U.S. West Coast port lock out would be “a catastrophe beyond belief” for the footwear industry that imports the vast majority of its products through the Southern California terminals, said Matt Priest, president of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America.

Transportation executives dependent on seaports meeting today in Long Beach agreed that a multi-modal planning and lobbying effort is needed to develop and fund waterside and landside capital projects at U.S. seaports.

Worsening congestion at Southern California ports is starting to show up in the Federal Reserve’s reports on economic activity across the nation.

Recent increases in throughput for the port of Santos – which handles 28 percent of all Brazil’s foreign trade and 33 percent of its containerized trade - are concealing a slump in international box movements at South America’s largest port.

Representatives of union and non-union drayage drivers serving Port Metro Vancouver will meet with British Columbia’s minister of transportation on Thursday in what drivers call a final attempt to avoid another strike at Canada’s largest container port.

The Philippine Ports Authority has announced it will be “business as usual” during the papal visit that begins on Jan. 15, despite a five-day shutdown of Manila South Harbor (MSH) and disruption to other terminals in the capital city’s long congested port.

Longshore contract negotiations on the U.S. West Coast have degenerated into a war of attrition in which the union’s work slowdowns have significantly increased operating costs for shipping lines and terminal operators, and the employers are countering by reducing work opportunities for rank-and-file longshoremen.

The Port of Prince Rupert says it can handle more diversions of U.S-bound cargo after import traffic jumped 72 percent last month, a likely result of shippers rerouting cargo away from congested U.S. terminals.

New York-New Jersey port truckers say chassis shortages and dislocations have continued into 2015 while industry officials work to develop a portwide pool of interchangeable “gray” chassis by mid-year.

Could the industry be approaching a point of no return in West Coast longshore talks?

The congestion that hit Asia hard in 2014 took many ports by surprise, and even as a new year begins there is no sense that terminal operators will find solutions soon to lengthy delays and productivity shortfalls.

Drayage companies are pressing their fight with New York-New Jersey marine terminals over a tariff change that allows terminals to refuse to compensate truckers for waiting time caused by late ships or other reasons beyond motor carriers’ control.

Despite worsening delays the Port of Oakland said it achieved record container volume in 2014 aided by strong import volumes in December stoked by diversions from Southern California.

Eric A. Sisco has been named chairman of Virginia International Gateway, Inc., the new owner of the semi-automated container terminal that APM Terminals developed at Portsmouth, Virginia. Sisco had been president of APM Terminals Americas.

APM Terminals has ordered 16 rubber-tired gantry cranes for its terminals in Algeciras, Spain, and Apapa, Nigeria, as part of an ongoing program to boost capacity and productivity across its global network.

Despite the involvement of a federal mediator in contract negotiations over the past week, West Coast dockworkers are continuing their policy of work slowdowns and the withholding of skilled labor, bringing West Coast ports to the brink of “complete gridlock,” the Pacific Maritime Association said Monday.

Importers and exporters who ship through the Port of Portland, Oregon, will experience higher costs next month because of work slowdowns by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

From port congestion and new ocean alliances to driver shortages and rail service worries, the global supply chain is more fragile than at any point in recent memory. Three shippers discuss how they’re adjusting to the challenges.

A Washington state-based timber company said it will lay off an unspecified number of workers at its Longview liquid packaging site because the labor dispute between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association has hampered its ability to ship certain products.

Drayage drivers at Shippers Transport Express, a subsidiary of SSA Marine, on Friday chose to make Teamsters Local 848 in Southern California their exclusive bargaining representative, making Shippers Transport the second trucking company at Los Angeles-Long Beach after Toll to be represented by the trucker union.

Container volume through the top U.S. port gateways is expected to continue rising through the first half of 2015 after traffic rose 6 percent year-over-year in 2014 despite U.S. West Coast port congestion, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report.

Customs brokers in Mumbai are blaming a lackadaisical inventory management by DP World-operated Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal (NSICT) for the long truck waits outside Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, India’s largest container gateway.