Breakbulk News

Maersk Line and Russian aluminum producing giant Rusal have signed a three-year deal for the transportation of thousands of TEUs annually.

Siemens has awarded a four-year contract to heavy-lift specialist ALE.

DP World has signed a “term sheet” with the government of Somaliland to invest hundreds of millions of dollars.

Hamburg-based Rickmers-Linie will take over the multipurpose heavy-lift fleet of Nordana Project & Chartering.

U.S. Great Lakes ports, vessel operators and maritime trade groups have filed a lawsuit against the Coast Guard.

China’s Landbridge Group said it would invest in a major expansion of Australia’s Darwin Port.

The Port of Chennai said it has completed a dredging project to make it the deepest in India, but it is holding off on plans to build an outer harbor because of slumping traffic.

Japan has agreed to provide financial support for a new international port development project in Indonesia.

Roll-on, roll-off operators are positioning themselves as long-term competitors for heavy-lift shipments of traditional breakbulk vessels.

After recording sluggish growth last fiscal year amid a weaker global economy, India’s major public ports got off to a healthy and promising start in fiscal 2016 and 2017.

The Baltic Exchange today confirmed it is in exclusive talks with the Singapore Exchange over an offer for the international shipping market place.

The government of Pakistan is introducing extensive long-term tax concessions for Chinese companies operating at the port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea.

The Port of Hamburg’s container traffic shrank in the first quarter as breakbulk traffic stalled.

AirBridgeCargo Airlines has launched a weekly freighter service.

India and Iran on Monday entered into a formal investment agreement for Chabahar port, the first such agreement involving an Iranian port and international backers since the lifting of sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program.

Strike actions that paralyzed France last week have cut off rail access to the port of Le Havre.

Rickmers Group posted sharply lower earnings and reduced revenue in the first quarter.

China Cosco Shipping and the Belgium-based dredging, environmental and marine engineering group DEME have formed a joint venture to develop offshore wind farms in China.

Bangladesh-based Bengal Electric said it expects in July to have a new floating crane with 1,000-ton capacity ready for operation.

Diversified Port Holdings of Jacksonville, Florida, has acquired the Savannah and Charleston breakbulk operations of Liberty Terminals, and will operate them as Seaonus-Savannah LLC.

Port Panama City plans to develop a breakbulk forest products terminal on a newly acquired waterfront tract at the U.S. Gulf Coast port on the Florida panhandle.

Japan’s major transportation and logistics companies are on a spending spree in Myanmar.

The diverging fortunes of two container terminals in Itajai, Brazil, open a window into how carrier consolidation and the merger of joint services can impact port terminals worldwide.

Yildirim Holding is mulling investment in U.S. ports as the Turkish transport and industrial conglomerate pursues its bid to become a top 10 global terminal operator.

DP World has signed twin agreements with the Cyprus government to operate a multipurpose terminal at Limassol and provide marine services at the Mediterranean island’s largest port.

Container lines will continue to aggressively target the depressed breakbulk and project cargo market with “close to zero” freight rates for the foreseeable future, according to Drewry Shipping Consultants.

Germany’s Rickmers Holding and ER Capital Holding are weighing the merger of their ship-management units into a global joint venture with around 220 vessels.

India’s ports sector continued its financial recovery in fiscal 2015-16 after its 12 major state-owned ports, known as major ports, booked an increase in operating profit of 19 percent.

More than $80 billion in energy-related projects are under way or planned in the southwestern corner of Louisiana, where the presence of thousands of construction workers has created a boomtown atmosphere.

Motor carriers seeking road permits for oversize or overweight loads in the European Union face a patchwork of country-by-country rules, with little automation to smooth the process.

When a project shipment includes heavy or oversize cargo, among the first questions asked are: Which roads and bridges can safely handle the loads? And what permits will be needed? Answers can be especially tricky in the U.S., where 50 states and thousands of counties and municipalities issue permits for an ever-growing volume of out-of-gauge shipments.

When Plan A didn’t work for the shipment of 12 oversize loads of electrical smoothing reactors from Toronto to the Canadian province of Alberta, motor carrier Precision Specialized Division used the Great Lakes to succeed with Plan B.

Nordana Project and Chartering, which owns and operates about 25 breakbulk and heavy-lift multipurpose tweendeck vessels, has named Rickmers-Linie as its representative in China.

Project cargoes are becoming more important to ports and carriers on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway amid forecasts of continued weakness in bulk shipments.

Roll-on, roll-off operator Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics is best known for its fleet of pure car and truck carriers and has owners with deep shipowning roots, but the company’s fastest-growing business is on land.

News that the International Atomic Energy Agency had verified Iran’s compliance with requirements to curtail its nuclear program raised the hopes of project shippers eager to help restore Iranian infrastructure and energy production. But most companies will have to wait a while — and the wait may be longest for U.S. companies, which are likely to be stuck in line behind their European Union counterparts.

Operators of multipurpose vessels are catching it from all sides. Slumping oil prices are causing cancellations of energy projects, and there’s increasingly stiff competition from container ships, roll-on, roll-off vessels and bulk carriers.

Uncertain global demand for LNG and development of new export capacity could affect the project cargo industry by forcing cancellation of announced plants. Analysts are questioning whether several announced U.S. LNG export terminals will be built.

The Panama Canal Authority said its new locks will be inaugurated June 26, more than two years after the original completion target.

The Port of New Orleans is exploring the feasibility and cost of converting the former Avondale Shipyard on the Mississippi River into a breakbulk cargo terminal.