Port News

South Korea’s port of Busan handled more than 10 million transshipment containers for the first time in its history last year moving the port closer to its goal of becoming the world’s second largest transshipment hub.

Moody’s said its rating for China Merchants Holdings International (CMHI) remained unchanged after the announcement of its investment in Dalian Port but the U.S. credit ratings agency said it was concerned about the business prospects for the port.

The Tecon Santos container terminal reopened Saturday night after firefighters put out a blaze at the largest South American port gateway that lasted more than 40 hours.

After a chemical fire closed the biggest terminal at South America’s largest container gateway, container lines are considering rerouting cargo away from the facility of Tecon Santos to other terminals at the Port of Santos and other Brazilian ports.

Japan’s Toyo Construction Co. and JFE Engineering Corp. have won a contract to build a new container terminal at the Port of Thilawa near Yangon, Myanmar, to expand one of the country’s key logistics hubs.

More than 100 shippers groups urged the U.S. Department of Transportation to drill down on port productivity metrics via a new initiative aimed at helping Uncle Sam better monitor marine terminal congestion.

Container traffic at the Port of Los Angeles in December declined 4.9 percent from the same month the previous year, reflecting the normal seasonal lull and the loss of a handful of services to the neighboring Port of Long Beach.

Rotterdam’s container volume shrank by 0.5 percent year-over-year in 2015 but total throughput reached a record on a sharp rise in crude oil shipments.

Despite oft-repeated claims by DP World Subcontinent that its flagship terminal at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust is operating normally and truck turn times are no more than the normal average, logistics providers in India’s largest container harbor said the roadway to the private facility continues to remain clogged and gating in containers is a chore.

PSA International said throughput at its global terminals fell by 2 percent in 2015 as a result of tepid growth in global trade and structural changes in the industry.

China Merchants will acquire a 21.05 percent stake in Dalian Port Co., making it the second largest shareholder of the northeast China port operator, as the country continues to restructure its state-owned sector.

Fire at South America’s busiest container gateway of the Port of Santos has crippled operations at the port for the second time in less than a year, closing a marine terminal that handles about a third of the port’s container volume, according to a Reuters report.

Container volume moving through the Port of Long Beach in December increased 5.1 percent over December 2014, helping to propel the port to the third best year in its history.

Money, environmental and labor issues are complicating the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s effort to replace or retrofit old trucks with newer, less-polluting engines.

A proposed $272 million CSX Transportation intermodal hub would give shippers using the Port of Wilmington better access to the fast-growing markets of Charlotte, Raleigh and the Research Triangle, along with the entirety of the CSX network.

An analysis of federal data by the American Trucking Associations shows the truck-related fatality rate dropped in 2014 for the second straight year, and is 40 percent lower than it was a decade ago, despite increased travel by truckers and motorists on U.S. highways.

Shippers and ocean carriers pushing for capacity and productivity improvements at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust could see some results, as the port administration has significantly increased the length overall limit for ships calling at India’s biggest container gateway.

The world’s fifth-largest container line, Hapag-Lloyd, expects no major tonnage changes on all-water container services through the Panama Canal before the end of this year.

DP World Subcontinent said it is working to end the protracted slowdown at its flagship terminal in Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, India’s biggest, public container gateway.

Deepening of the Port of Charleston’s 45-foot channel to 52 feet moved a step closer this week when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recommended congressional authorization of the project.

The Port of Virginia’s container volume topped 2.5 million 20-foot-equivalent units for the first time as its terminals posted a 6.5 percent increase in TEUs during 2015, despite a decline in December volume.

A proposal by the Port of Long Beach to reduce the amount of time allowed for the storage of containers at marine terminals from four days at present to six work shifts has brought into sharp focus the congestion issues that cargo interests face not only in Southern California, but at all major gateways as they struggle to handle some of the largest container ships afloat.

The municipal government of Yokohama in Japan’s Kanagawa Prefecture has set up a new company to operate the prefecture's ports in Yokohama and Kawasaki in an integrated manner.

Seatrade Group’s StreamLines, N.V. plans to add a call at Port Canaveral to its weekly Blue Stream container ship service between the Caribbean and Central America and Europe, giving the Florida port its first regular container service.

The Singapore port is reducing the fees it charges container lines 10 percent as the volume at the world’s second-busiest port and Asia’s top transshipment hub sags.

Container throughput at the Port of Oakland in December declined 8.3 percent as both imports and exports were down compared to a relatively strong December 2014, according to numbers posted on the port’s website.

Greece today confirmed Cosco Pacific is the only bidder for a majority stake in the Piraeus Port Authority and immediately asked the Chinese company to submit an improved offer for control of the nation’s largest port.

Even though the official opening of Panama Canal’s third set of locks is only about four months away, the true impact of the $5.25 billion project on U.S. East and West Coast ports is yet to be determined because of the many factors that affect international trade flows, the vice president of marketing at Manzanillo International Terminals said Monday.

Long truck lines and gate congestion that flared up off-and-on last year have come back to haunt shippers and ocean carriers using Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, India’s biggest, public container handler, according to trade updates issued by local logistics services providers.

A tug strike on Australia’s eastern seaboard has disrupted shipping with further nation-wide industrial action scheduled by an engineers union over the following week.

Retailers who ship through the Port of Long Beach urged the second-largest U.S. port not to move forward with its proposal to change free time provisions in its tariff from four days at present to six work shifts until the Southern California port complex gets a better handle on its congestion problems.

An environmental group criticized as “disgraceful” a plan by the Port of New York and New Jersey to relax a Jan. 1, 2017, deadline for replacement of more than 6,000 port drayage trucks with newer vehicles.

Amid the backdrop of the global shipping downturn, South Korea’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries has decided to hold off on raising fees for using the country’s trading ports and plans to reduce port fees by 70 percent over the next three years.

Mumbai-based J.M. Baxi Group is reportedly the final bidder for a public-private-partnership contract to upgrade, operate and maintain existing container terminal infrastructure at the Port of Kandla, a major, state-owned port complex on India’s west coast.

The government of Tanzania said the $10 billion Bagamoyo Port development project, one of the largest port developments currently planned worldwide, has not been suspended and that work on the project would commence in July.

Product inspection failure rates at factories in the export powerhouses of Asia rose sharply in 2015, both in China and across the newer sourcing countries, according to global quality control and compliance firm Asia Inspection.

Container ship lines say they’ve been forced to skip port calls at New Orleans because of high Mississippi River levels that have reduced clearance under bridges.

Port Canaveral has selected Capt. John W. Murray, President and CEO of Hapag-Lloyd USA, to lead the port.

Container throughput at India’s major, state-owned ports showed a modest increase in the first three fiscal quarters from a year earlier as sluggish global demand continues to weigh heavily on the country’s foreign trade.

Gate operations at Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal, a DP World facility in India’s biggest container gateway, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, are back to normal Friday even as the industrial action by a group of unionized workers over wage improvement demands entered its 10th day.