Port News

Two retired US Navy admirals are recommending that the national security impact of the Port of Oakland’s Howard Terminal ballpark project be considered more seriously.

The ports of Tampa Bay and Jacksonville were closed to all vessel and truck moves as of midday Wednesday as major Hurricane Ian approached the west coast of Florida.

A jurisdictional dispute between the ILWU and the machinists union over jobs at Terminal 5 in Seattle has become a major snag in West Coast contract talks between the ILWU and waterfront employers.

The ILA is planning to work on local contract talks as it seeks to avoid any disruptions on the East and Gulf coasts that could derail negotiations over extending the master contract ahead of the current deal’s 2024 expiry.

The Port of Portland is on pace to recover approximately half of the volume it once handled.

Slowdown tactics employed by the ILWU last week reduced cargo handling productivity in Oakland and Seattle-Tacoma and come as the union and waterfront employers continue to negotiate for a new contract.

The Georgia Ports Authority is lowering the number of empties carriers can store at its terminals and increasing fees for storing empties that exceed those allotments.

Shanghai International Port Group will begin construction on its new 11.5 million-TEU container terminal at the world’s busiest port complex next month, with completion expected in 2030.

Congestion is easing along Canada’s rail networks and at inland rail hubs in Toronto and Vancouver, and this is translating to declining rail container dwell times at the Port of Vancouver.

Cosco Shipping wants to make Hamburg a strategic transshipment hub for North Europe, but German regulators have yet to approve a minority terminal stake in the port.

A tentative contract agreement between security guards represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and employers in Los Angeles-Long Beach eliminates one possible source of cargo-handling disruption.

The move to allow for transshipment cargo from Bangladesh via barge and short-sea container ships builds on a previous carve-out for cross-border trucking and rail services.

Port terminals in Alexandria, Sokhna, Port Said, and Damietta are edging closer to full utilization, prompting operators to expand existing facilities and build new ones.

The Port of New York and New Jersey has seen an uptick in empty container sweeps by ocean carriers after its decision to impose a tariff aimed at empty boxes lingering in the region.

Freight forwarders warned that shippers could face weeks of delays due to back-to-back typhoons that have battered China, while blank sailings are rising ahead of the Golden Week holiday.

A veteran of the US chassis market says “a lot more capacity” will be arriving into the sector to help relieve the shortages that have contributed to delays throughout the country’s supply chain.

Although West Coast longshore labor and management in July announced progress in the form of an interim agreement on health benefits, headway in recent weeks has been minimal on what are considered far more difficult issues.

Typhoon Muifa is expected to make landfall in the Shanghai-Ningbo area Wednesday, just over a week after another storm forced the ports to close, delaying services for ocean carriers.

Runaway inflation has driven up union pay demands that employers are unwilling to meet, escalating industrial disputes in several sectors across the UK.

Terminal operator PSA has officially inaugurated its Tuas terminal, which will consolidate container handling operations from Singapore’s four existing terminals.

Departures from Shanghai and Ningbo are expected to face a two-day delay after a typhoon hit coastal areas of eastern China over the weekend, while some Busan services were also disrupted.

While the security guard contract is separate from the coastwide longshore deal being negotiated, officials are working feverishly to avoid a strike, given the possibility that dockworkers would honor any picket lines, thus shutting down affected terminals.

Just days after dockworkers at the UK’s largest container port ended a strike, laborers at the Port of Liverpool set the dates for their own walkout, the latest industrial action hitting Europe amid a deepening cost-of-living crisis.

Technology intended to help shippers and forwarders manage arrival notice information might be the solution that federal regulators are seeking to bridge data gaps from carriers and terminals.

The Port of Oakland says increasing a long-dwell container fee is needed to reduce congestion on the docks, but the port’s largest terminal worries that could attract unwanted pushback from the FMC.

Improving the flow of cargo through marine terminals is the primary focus of many who want to implement long-term changes to the US supply chain in the wake of the chaos wrought by the pandemic.

COVID restrictions have significantly cut cross-border container traffic between China and Hong Kong, but Chinese authorities have little reason to ease the rules with cargo being shifted to Shenzhen.

The July spike in imports from Asia arriving at US East and Gulf coast ports overwhelmed some of those gateways with vessel backlogs and congested marine terminals.

A joint venture in Rotterdam between two of Europe’s largest terminal operators will dramatically expand the port’s container handling capability.

New White House port envoy Gen. Stephen Lyons tells JOC Executive Editor Mark Szakonyi how transport providers and shippers can help accelerate the recovery of the US container shipping system as import pressures wane.

The Asia East Coast service will offer one of the fastest transits between the US Southeast and Asian ports, cutting a week of travel time for Jacksonville importers.

A new rail-road corridor in Prince Rupert will streamline the transfer of commodities from rail to marine containers, with the port hoping that export volumes through the gateway will boom in the coming years.

Barge services along large parts of the Yangtze River, a critical Chinese transport artery, are severely disrupted due to the continuing drought in central and western parts of the country.

The latest acquisition by RoadOne strengthens its national intermodal drayage fleet, connecting customers and containerized freight from the Northeast to the US Gulf Coast.

The US Surface Transportation Board has given CSX, Norfolk Southern, and the Port of Mobile more time to reach an agreement with Amtrak over the restart of a Gulf Coast passenger service.

NY-NJ marine terminals have been almost constantly offering Saturday gates over the last two years to help move import volumes, but those gates have accounted for only about 5 percent of total truck transactions.

The industrial action hanging over Germany’s busiest container ports has been resolved, but there is no agreement in sight at the increasingly bitter Felixstowe strike in the UK.

Shippers who move cargo through Houston say more needs to be done to address how exports are handled in the face of surging import volumes that have also sucked up truck, yard, and chassis capacity.

RoadOne sees demand for transload services as being sustainable enough to outlast any economic downturn as it invests in facilities in Norfolk and Oakland.

Vancouver has experienced excessive container dwell times for several months as congestion at rail hubs in Toronto and Montreal reduced intermodal services to and from Canada’s largest port.