Maritime

The G6 Alliance has added the Canadian port of Halifax to its Asia-U.S. East Coast service, citing market demand as the container shipping industry limps closer to the traditional peak season period.

China’s ability to throw staggering amounts of money at projects was on display again this week with the announcement that a state-owned investment giant will pour $113 billion into supporting the One Belt, One Road trade strategy.

The new locks at the Pacific end of the Panama Canal began to fill with water in late June in preparation for months of testing of their new gates before they open to commercial traffic next April.

Chibatao and Super Terminais, the two container terminals serving Manaus, are both getting their operational acts together before more competition heats up in the region, investing a combined $115.5 million in new equipment and terminal improvements this year.

Speculation is rising that the three largest global container lines are considering buying the last surviving Brazilian-owned container shipping company, Log-In Logistica Ltda.

While container carriers haven’t had much to cheer about as spot rates take a beating, they can at least take solace in the fact that equipment costs have hit a 10-year low, according to shipping consultant Drewry.

Four new super post-Panamax gantry cranes capable of handling the largest vessels in the world are now en route to Manzanillo International Terminals in Panama.

The International Longshoremen’s Association and its U.S. East and Gulf coast employers plan additional meetings after two days of “productive” talks on a contract extension that could run to 202

Shippers tapping containerized rail services between the Port of Antwerp and Duisburg are poised to see greater reliability and experience less congestion at the North European seaport after the former joined forces with duisport, Europe’s largest inland port.

One of the most isolated and intriguing cities in the world, Manaus, Brazil, also presents some of the most difficult container shipping challenges to be found anywhere.

Container traffic at West Coast ports was down 2 percent in May from the same month last year as importers and exporters who had diverted cargo to other ports during the lengthy period of labor disruptions and port congestion did not return all of their business to the West Coast.

Crowley is continuing its investments in the U.S.-Caribbean-Latin American services by buying more than 4,300 pieces of equipment that will be used on its services connecting the Caribbean, South America and the U.S.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has approved $1.303 million in funding for engineering and design of a project to deepen the port’s 45-foot channel to 52 feet in order to handle larger container ships.

Daseke Inc., the fastest growing U.S. trucking company, is merging with Bulldog Hiway Express, an open-deck and flatbed carrier with extensive port drayage operations in the Southeast.

The Port of Virginia’s two main container terminals will operate on Sunday, a day after they are closed on Saturday for the July 4 holiday.

U.S. exports of cotton (not carded or combed) by dollar value tumbled 20.6 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2015, the tenth consecutive quarterly decline. The trade outlook for 2015 looks disappointing, mostly because of a global glut of the fiber and weakening demand from China, the top-. Cotton exports by dollar value are forecast to decline 1.6 percent for an annual total of $4.3 billion with downside risks, following a decline of 21.4 percent in 2014.

A Southern California company’s emissions treatment system for ocean-going vessels has been approved by the California Air Resources Board, giving operators of container vessels a second option for complying with the state’s strict emissions requirements for vessels at berth.

U.S. containerized imports from South America are rising on a double-digit basis while U.S. exports to the region stagnate, a recent trend that is narrowing the trade lane’s north-south imbalance and emboldening carriers to seek higher rates.

The start of the second phase of construction of the Yangtze River channel extension project at Nanjing will allow China’s largest inland port to handle ocean-going vessels.

Simatech has received the first of two new container ships with capacities of 4,350 twenty-foot-equivalent units, reflecting continuing and rapid intra-Asia trade demand.

Intermodal industry veteran Steven L. Rubin has been appointed chief executive officer of ITS Technologies & Logistics. ITS provides outsourced operating services for intermodal railroad facilities, container yard services for global shipping and container leasing companies and automotive loading and unloading services.

The Far East-South America trades are facing the threat of rate wars this month as carriers add significant additional capacity to an already oversupplied market, according to Alphaliner.

Transportation providers are preparing for a rebound of containerized apparel imports through U.S. West Coast ports after inbound shipments plunged by double-digits in the first five months of this year.

The arrival of mega-ships is having a profound effect on port operations at all major U.S. gateways, but the biggest impact by far in terms of congestion is being felt in the two largest port complexes, Los Angeles-Long Beach and New York-New Jersey.

State-owned rail operator Container Corporation of India has slashed its charges for the movement of empty containers between Chennai Port and Bangalore, providing some respite for shippers struggling with port delays and ocean carrier surcharges.

Hapag-Lloyd’s seeking of a rate increase in August on its eastbound trans-Pacific services after pushing for identical increases in the last two months suggest recent attempts fared poorly.

In exactly one year new global regulations requiring every packed container have a verified container weight will go into effect, and shippers need to be prepared, an industry trade group warns.

Saturday hours for truck gates at the Port of Charleston will be revised to eliminate the lunchtime closure, the South Carolina Ports Authority said.

The Chinese economy has said goodbye to high-speed growth as well as stable foreign trade volumes, which is putting pressure on the operations of Chinese ports, Tong Mengda, chief economist of Ningbo Port Group, told delegates at the Intermodal Asia 2015 conference in Shanghai in March.

New York officials are seeking a tenant to reactivate the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, which recently was designated as part of the U.S. Maritime Administration’s Marine Highways initiative.

The christening last week of the Vicente Pinzon marks the completion of Alianca Navegacao’s reais 700 million ($224.5 million) cabotage and coastal fleet upgrade aimed at securing its dominance in the Brazilian cabotage market

CMA CGM will sign a $1 billion financing agreement with the Export-Import Bank of China on Wednesday when Chinese premier Li Keqiang visits the French carrier’s headquarters.

As part of Busan’s larger effort to shore up its transshipment business amid fierce competition, the Korean government has announced plans to demolish an island to allow it to better handle mega-ships.

Shippers on Asia-Europe have never been fans of the host of surcharges levied by carriers on the trade and have routinely levelled complaints that the ad-ons were more boosters of revenue rather than a cost recovery mechanism.

The G6 Alliance continues to add port calls to its Asia-North Europe services, this time in China, in a bid to secure additional cargo loads on the trade during the much hoped for peak season.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez said Monday that bills before Congress seeking to avoid lengthy negotiations marked by slowdowns and employer retaliation that recently plagued West Coast ports aren’t the answer.

European ports’ hinterland connections will get a boost via the European Union’s largest-ever infrastructure investment totaling 13.1 billion euro ($14.5 billion).

The Port of Los Angeles announced Monday it will begin construction this summer on a two-year, $127 million project to improve the marine terminal operated by Yusen Terminals, so that it can more efficiently handle larger vessels.

The Oakland Board of Port Commissioners Monday approved a $470 million fiscal year 2016 budget that will fund the continued development of logistics center aimed at boosting container volume at adjacent marine terminals, and other port productivity initiatives.

A proposal that could drastically increase costs for harbor pilots at the Port of Savannah could cause operational problems at the U.S. South Atlantic’s busiest port, a Georgia congressman warned last week.