Port News

Bharat Mumbai Container Terminals, which officially opened in February, has added a fortnightly coastal service from domestic shortsea ship operator Shreyas Shipping and Logistics.

The revamped/upgraded rail link, which had its first train depart from Chennai on Monday with 80 TEU, is intended to speed freight handled via the government’s two flagship supply chain reforms — direct port delivery for imports and direct port entry for factory-stuffed exports.

The impasse occurred after the company fired a large number of contract workers — reportedly 99 — as part of an operational realignment to reduce costs and improve profitability.

Last year, a hurricane stalled resin exports from the Gulf Coast. This year, rising trade tension between the US and China threatens one of resin’s largest markets.

The new terminal gates at the Port Newark Container Terminal at the Port of New York and New Jersey have helped decrease turn times for trucks moving dry containers by 20 percent, and for refrigerated containers by 50 percent.

PierPass, the oldest extended-gates program in North America, was launched in 2005 to increase throughput capacity at the largest US port complex while diverting a sizable portion of the truck traffic from the peak daytime hours in order to relieve traffic congestion on local freeways and roads.

Hurricane Michael damaged many of the buildings at Port Panama City, but its docks, cranes, and equipment made it through the storm, according to a statement released by Director Wayne Stubbs on Monday.

Other performance metrics at Chennai also improved, on a year-over-year basis.

The new Harbor Trucking Association-Milestone pool at LA-LB is improving truck turn times and round-the-clock access to a variety of chassis types during the current peak season.

The company has resolved a concern raised by the Maritime Association of Nationwide Shipping Agencies regarding storage charges on import containers handled via the direct port delivery program.

Gulftainer has big plans for its Wilmington, Delaware facility. And although port competition abounds, if lower costs and a quick rail or truck trip from Delaware to the New York-Washington, DC hinterlands ensue, shippers would no doubt take notice.

On Tuesday evening, the owners of trucks called off their strike after a meeting with government officials. The officials said they would communicate the strikers' concerns to the prime minster about a new law's traffic liability provisions.

“We have to move together with the village so we can all advance together and create the solutions that the new economy requires,” PSA International Group CEO Tan Chong Meng told roughly 500 attendees in his keynote address at JOC's TPM Asia 2018 Conference in Shenzhen on Wednesday. “Somewhere in our strategies, I hope we will overlap.”

The US Coast Guard has declared Condition Yankee for the eastern US Gulf of Mexico ports including Panama City, Pensacola, Mobile, Pascagoula, and Gulfport. Under that status, ports are closed to inbound and outbound traffic.

The International Longshoremen’s Association’s boycott of the 44th Congress of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, which begins Sunday, provides additional evidence that the introduction of further automation will not be a quick and simple process.

In the decade ahead, the Port of New York and New Jersey will face intensifying competition — from multiple ports — for discretionary cargo. With the authority’s head of seaport departing, the moment requires the hiring of a leader with in-depth knowledge and experience overseeing container cargo moves through a complex, multimodal system.

Bharat Mumbai Container Terminal, which commenced full-fledged operations in February, increased volume substantially — powered by more ship calls — and notched a new, impressive quayside productivity rate, on the strength of crane upgrades.

Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust handles the majority of India’s container freight and, as such, that connectivity improvement is extremely significant for the emerging market economy — and for shippers.

Dwell times at Vancouver rail facilities are approaching last winter’s levels, when port congestion was the worst in years, but terminal operators say the factors driving the current delays are not a harbinger.

A chassis split creates two extra stops for truckers, wasting their on-duty hours, reducing asset productivity, and restricting available capacity to shippers.

In mid-May, top officials from Nepal, led by Nepal Ambassador to Bangladesh Professor Chop Lal Bhusal, visited Banglabandha land port to see the transit route and how the nation’s goods would reach Chittagong and Mongla ports.

Protesters Wednesday morning blocked all access points to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, bringing container movement to a halt. The stoppage was tentatively called off later in the day, after authorities agreed to hold talks with demonstrators on Oct. 10 regarding a new package deal.

The port authority, after discussions with rule-implementer the New Jersey Department of Labor, is disseminating detailed information to truckers on the new rules, which the authority believes will have little impact on the drayage fleet and won’t affect many truckers.

Tuesday’s job actions prompted an exchange of charges among the parties. The current round of picketing that began on Monday is expected to continue at least through Wednesday.

The Port of New York and New Jersey is looking for ways to increase the storage space for empty rail cars to prevent shortages as discretionary cargo volumes rise.

While these two related issues are present to various degrees at other gateways, the problems are magnified in the largest US port complex, where peak-season volumes now being handled at the 12 container terminals are contributing to an annual volume of more than 16 million TEU.

The port and government officials have created an advisory committee, called the North Atlantic Marine Highway Alliance, to stimulate barge use and reduce truck traffic and the pollution and congestion it creates.

The job actions were organized by Justice for Port Drivers, which is affiliated with the Teamsters union. A Teamsters spokesperson said picketing is scheduled to continue at least through Wednesday over 200 miles stretching from the Southern California desert to the Mexico border.

Global port-moves-per-hour, the top-line measure of port call productivity, decreased 4 percent, effectively meaning ships spent an extra 70,000 hours in port in the first half of 2018 compared with the first half of 2017, according to an analysis of JOC Port Productivity data.

The terminals in Brazil, the economic powerhouse of South America with more than $2 trillion GDP, have drawn inquiries from several international shipping operators.

Justice for Port Drivers, a Teamsters-sponsored group that has promoted picketing and other job actions over the past five years, will participate in job actions at the ports, two motor carrier facilities, warehouses, and rail yards beginning Monday morning.

By improving connectivity in the harbor through more on-dock rail, smoother hand-offs from the vessel to rail, and more timely and accurate data flow, West Coast ports will offer shippers a more attractive package for shipping discretionary cargo through their gateways to the eastern half of the United States, Los Angeles and Long Beach port executives agree.

Owner-operators want regulators to tackle detention time by shippers in addition to hours-of-service flexibility.

Executives from Rotterdam and Antwerp, barge operator neska Container Line, and Dusseldorf-based Asia-Europe shipper Metro Sourcing International gathered at JOC’s Container Trade Europe conference in Hamburg to thrash out a problem that has dogged the giant hub ports for years.

The addition of Milestone Equipment Holdings to the OPEN Choice Equipment Agreement-North East pool would take the pool a step closer to a pool of chassis from several providers that would be “interoperable,” meaning that truckers could pick up or drop off chassis from more than one provider at one or more locations.

Set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2019, the bill will discourage retailers and other shippers from contracting with the companies that misclassify drivers by making the beneficial cargo owners jointly liable for any fines assessed on those operators.

Front-loading, probably prompted by concern about tariffs, has affected US intermodal transport this peak season, as well as ocean transport, creating a quieter rail September. However, shippers should note there are some signs of conditions heating up in a key section of the United States that could be a harbinger.

As trade concerns persist, the Maritime Association of Nationwide Shipping Agencies — representing local ship agents — called on authorities to address "still-unresolved" inland logistics challenges faced by ocean carriers and others at Bharat Mumbai Container Terminals.

After being shut down for a week and a half, the Port of Wilmington reopened its gates to truckers on Monday, and the work to reduce and eliminate the backlog of containers from before Hurricane Florence and from vessels discharging since last Thursday continues.

Vancouver, Canada’s largest container port, until now has been limited in its capacity to grow by a lack of surge capacity at its rail operations, which serve eastern Canada and the US Midwest.