Port News

As West Coast waterfront employers prepare to enter contract negotiations in May with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, their message to the ILWU is clear: The new contract must keep West Coast ports competitive in the battle among North American ports for discretionary cargo.

The volume of export and import containers handled at major ports in India slid 3 percent year-over-year in fiscal year 2013-14, from April 2013 to March 2014, but total cargo tonnage inched up 1.78 percent, according to the latest traffic data released by the Indian Ports Association.

Truck drivers have been back on the job for about one week now at Port Metro Vancouver, but Canada’s largest port remains quite congested, and moving containers into and out of the harbor is a chore.

The Virginia Port Authority listed a series of steps it is taking to ease cargo and truck delays while the port and its users seek long-term answers to challenges of rising volumes, larger ships, and spikes in demand at container terminals.

The Port of Virginia said part of its Portsmouth Marine Terminal, which was closed in 2011, will return to service as a staging area for automobiles that will be exported to China.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union this past week won several battles in its war against the Port of Portland and terminal operator ICTSI, and it lost a battle.

Container volumes at North American West Coast ports declined in February as factories in Asia closed for the Chinese New Year celebration.

In the battle between West Coast and East Coast ports for discretionary cargo, it is becoming clear that the winners will be those ports with the best waterside and landside infrastructure.

NEWPORT, R.I. — Working groups in a New York-New Jersey port performance task force are scheduled to report initial recommendations next week, providing a foundation for the task force’s scheduled recommendations in June.

NEWPORT, R.I. — Retailers are stepping up their criticism of management and labor in the upcoming West Coast longshore negotiations, saying they should give shippers the predictability they are looking for by using the time between now and the June 30th contract expiration to get a deal done.

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Long truck lines and excessive delays at marine terminal threaten present and future growth at the Southern California ports, a trucking association official said today at the annual Pulse of the Ports meeting in Long Beach.

NEWPORT, R.I. — With a shortage of chassis a major contributor to gridlock at the Port of New York and New Jersey this winter, the idea of a portwide chassis pool is gaining traction as one possible element in an overall solution to the port’s growing congestion issues.

Maersk Group signed an agreement with China Shipping paving the way for negotiations on further collaboration on new container terminal projects and the establishment of joint ventures with its port arm, APM Terminals.

Container throughput at India’s Port of Jawaharlal Nehru declined 2.5 percent year-over-year in fiscal year 2013-14, which ended March 31, 2014, continuing a slide that began in the previous fiscal year.

Port Metro Vancouver is confident that the revised 14-point action plan that convinced truck drivers in late March to end their four-week strike will establish the framework for a long-term solution to the port’s frustrating drayage problems.

WASHINGTON — A group representing agricultural shippers and forwarders has warned members to prepare for labor disruptions and slowdowns at U.S West Coast ports starting in June and to make contingency plans

South Carolina’s new inland port at Greer will get a big increase in the volume of autos and containers it handles for rail shipment to and from the Port of Charleston over the next couple of years. The leg up will come from the $1 billion investment that BMW announced March 28 to expand production at its automobile plant in nearby Spartanburg over the next two years.

Pricing for drayage is like many other aspects of the business — chaotic.

Joe Lozano bid goodbye to port drayage work in February after seven years of hauling containers to and from New York-New Jersey marine terminals. He hasn’t regretted his decision.

Teamsters union officials are hailing a National Labor Relations Board district office’s ruling as a breakthrough in their effort to prove port drayage drivers should be classified as company employees.

Drayage is a fragmented industry composed of thousands of small carriers, with a limited number of larger players. That could change as barriers to entry for owner-operators rise and the number of qualified truck drivers drops.

With the spring retail season at hand, the U.S. economy showing signs of accelerating and the import peak season six months away, there’s growing concern that shippers and their supply chains will feel the impact unless systemic problems with how containers flow from ships through ports to inland destinations are addressed.

HHLA, the port of Hamburg’s largest container handler, warned the crisis in Ukraine threatens to slow its important Russian feeder traffic and impact this year’s financial performance.

Striking truck drivers late yesterday reached an agreement with Port Metro Vancouver, the federal government of Canada and the provincial government of British Columbia...

WASHINGTON — Members of a U.S. House subcommittee yesterday accused the Obama administration of underfunding port and inland waterway projects through its proposed fiscal 2015 budget.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management is to invest €100 million euros ($138 million) to expand capacity and improve intermodal facilities at the container terminal at the port of Valencia on Spain’s Mediterranean coast.

SHANGHAI, China — The Hong Kong government, in an effort to prepare for and attract mega-container ships, plans to deepen ports in the region, according to Hong Kong maritime officials.

The Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor has authorized New York-New Jersey port employers to hire 150 additional longshoremen.

The volume of all containers handled by U.S. and Canadian East Coast ports in the fourth quarter of 2013 increased by 4.4 percent year-over-year to 4.2 million 20-foot-equivalent units, according to port-published data collected by the JOC.

The Kandla Port Trust has canceled a global tender to build and operate its long-planned mega container terminal project, dealing a serious blow to India’s port privatization program.

The Houston Ship Channel was partially reopened to vessel traffic on today, three days after a barge carrying 900,000 gallons of oil collided with a cargo vessel, spilling about 170,000 gallons of oil into the busy ship channel.

The Port of Yokohama in Japan saw its container trade with foreign countries plunge 5.2 percent in 2013 from a year earlier to about 2.588 million 20-foot-equivalent units (TEUs), according to preliminary figures released by the Yokohama municipal government.

The provincial government of British Columbia was making progress today on implementing a back-to-work bill designed to end a crippling truckers’ strike that is now in its fourth week at Port Metro Vancouver.

Several hundred New York-New Jersey longshoremen halted work for two hours today to cheer union, business and political officials who denounced the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor and urged repeal of the commission’s authority over dockworker hiring.

Truck traffic at Port Metro Vancouver continued to increase over the weekend, but still remained below normal as the maritime community anticipated introduction of back-to-work legislation today...

Georgia’s Port of Savannah moved a record 248,746 TEUs in February, increasing 2.6 percent year-over-year and marking the port’s highest volume of containers ever for the month of February.

The Port of New York and New Jersey said its container terminals have recorded increases in truck gate moves and reductions in dwell time for containers and that operations are improving following winter disruptions.