Maritime

Stevedores at Brazil’s port of Santos, Latin America’s largest container port, will join striking independent truck drivers demanding the resignation of President Dilma Rousseff.

Rich Higgins, director of global logistics at Rockport Group, recently told the New England Cargo Symposium in Foxboro, Massachusetts what should be asked and considered whenever a shipper evaluates which port to integrate into its supply chain.

Retailers anticipate a jolly November for U.S. ports, with the National Retail Federation predicting that containerized imports will increase 8.3 percent over November 2014. Furthermore, last-minute importers of holiday merchandise should experience little if any port congestion.

Nearly a month after a queue of ships began to mount on either side of the Panama Canal, canal authorities say they are now taking steps to expedite the traffic, decrease transit times and reduce the current backlog of vessels.

Brazil’s second-largest container terminal, Terminal de Conteineres de Paranaguá at the port of Paranagua, will soon be able to handle ships of more than 10,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units as a result of dredging.

Capacity at Ukraine’s Odessa seaport will increase to 400,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units annually by 2017 thanks to the addition of a second phase to the existing container terminal.

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, the biggest India port operator, reached an agreement to acquire Kattupalli Port, a minor port complex built by domestic engineering group Larsen & Toubro Ltd.

Carriers on the Asia-Europe trade were on time more often in the past 12 months than their trans-Pacific counterparts, according to a study of container shipping schedule reliability by CargoSmart.

The port of Felixstowe has officially inaugurated an extended berth that will enable it to simultaneously handle two mega-container vessels of more 18,000 TEUs capacity.

The port of Rotterdam has increased the discount for containers that are transshipped to other European ports and has extended the discount for feeder containers.

Growing competition between shipping lines in Europe and China to develop new logistics hubs in West Africa and serve growing container traffic in the region is expected to bring at least six ports with capacities of 1 million 20-foot-equivalent units or more online over the next decade.

Acquiring Neptune Orient Lines would enable either Maersk Line or CMA CGM to strengthen their trans-Pacific business and mitigate each’s weakness in the Asia-Europe trade lane, according to a shipping analyst.

South Korea carrier Hanjin Shipping has offloaded its stake in its Busan terminal operations as it continues with efforts to bolster liquidity.

Nicaragua’s government has long claimed that an economic feasibility study by blue-chip U.S. consultancy McKinsey & Co. is crucial to enticing Western investors to its $40 to $50 billion canal project. However, it has been confirmed that McKinsey has not worked on the Nicaragua Canal project since 2014, raising new questions about the Nicaraguan government’s public statements as well as the project’s chances of attracting Western investors.

In the latest sign of its recovery from 2011’s earthquake and tsunami, the Port of Sendai-Shiogama in northeast Japan has begun a new regular container service to the Port of Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East.

Raymond R. Miles, who headed CP Ships and Canada Maritime and helped shape the course of container shipping during a 43-year transportation career, died on Friday, Nov. 6, after a brief illness. He was 71.

Rice exporters in Cambodia say high port and container-related costs undermine their competitiveness with neighboring rivals and derail efforts to hit sales and export targets for the strategic rice exporting sector.

Shreyas Shipping and Logistics recorded a 33 percent fall in consolidated net profit for the second fiscal quarter through the end of September, the combined result of slowing trade volumes, freight rate erosion and increased competition with the entry of new short-sea ship operators into the Indian coastal shipping market.

The container shipping industry is facing another period of upheaval, with consolidation among top carriers threatening to disrupt the mega alliances even as the lines settle into their relatively new vessel tie-ups.

South Korea’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries has clarified its position with regards to ongoing speculation on a possible merger between Hanjin Shipping and Hyundai Merchant Marine, the country’s two biggest shipping companies.

Matson profit jumped 93 percent year-over-year in the third quarter, on continued high demand for its expedited China service, new Alaska business and volume gains in the Hawaii trade.

A 2 percent gain by the world's Top 50 largest transportation service providers in 2014 marked a turnaround after the group’s combined revenue slipped 0.1 percent in 2013.

Trans-Pacific eastbound spot rates tested new lows this week.

A U.S. Federal Maritime Commissioner said he was told earlier this week by representatives of China Shipping Container Lines and Cosco that the container lines are in the early stages of a merger.

UPS assumed the top spot on the JOC-SJ Consulting Group list of Top 50 Global Transportation Providers in terms of 2014 revenue, pushing Deutsche Post DHL to the No. 2 position. Of the Top 50, 13 companies are located in North America, 19 in Europe, 16 in the Asia-Pacific region, and one each in India and Australia.

Spot rates from Asia to North Europe and the Mediterranean this week fell 31 percent and 20 percent from last week, respectively, after rates in the last week of October skyrocketed as some carriers appeared to gain some of their Nov. 1 general rate increases.

Container lines are closely following developments in the run-up to the upcoming Paris climate change conference in early December given the possibility that a stricter approach to curbing the industry’s carbon dioxide emissions might result from the meeting.

CMA CGM declined to comment on reports it is in advanced negotiations to acquire Neptune Orient Lines, the Singapore-listed owner of ocean carrier APL.

Hapag-Lloyd made a lackluster stock market debut today with the German ocean carrier’s shares hovering around the 20 euros ($22) issue price in early trading on the Frankfurt exchange.

APM Terminals’ profit halved in the third quarter due to a sharp decline in imports of containers into oil-producing countries in West Africa, Russia and Brazil.

Maersk Line's profit plunged 60 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier as rising overcapacity and lower cargo volumes depressed ocean freight rates to historic lows.

Old Dominion Freight Line is rebuilding its drayage model around company drivers to better align container hauling with its less-than-truckload business and avoid court battles over worker classification. The less-than-truckload carrier is also focusing more on East Coast ports.

In an abrupt change of events that could lead to labor peace among office clerical workers in Southern California for the next five years, the president of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63 Office Clerical Unit said Thursday he signed individual contracts with three employers, and he has presented the same provisions to the 12 other employers in Los Angeles-Long Beach that have OCU contracts.

Renewed flare-ups of drayage driver discontent at Port Metro Vancouver have revived concerns that trucker disruption could return to the port despite moves taken to quell unrest.

The contract negotiation process between the International Longshoremen’s Association on the East and Gulf coasts and management is on firm footing and in need of no change, according to Tom Simmers, executive president of United States Maritime Alliance.

The Asia-Europe trade outlook going into 2016 has become increasingly uncertain because of the big unknown: When will the Chinese economy, the key driver of the head-haul westbound leg, bottom out. Questions also exist about whether the eurozone can maintain its snail’s pace recovery — and boost its imports from China — going into 2016.

Maersk Group will not make a major forward asset investment in Indonesia’s port or domestic shipping sector until the government addresses a range of investment concerns, according to the president director of Maersk Indonesia.

Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, India’s biggest container handler, saw its throughput volumes remain relatively flat in the first seven fiscal months, up just 0.3 percent year-over-year, hampered by off-and-on disruptions and slowing global trade, according to the newest port statistics compiled by JOC.com.

Rickmers Maritime swung to a net profit of $9 million in the third quarter from a $53 million loss a year earlier, but suspended dividend payments to conserve cash flow until the container charter market improves.

Transportation industry consultant Dan Smith for some weeks now has been studying why the Port of Oakland continues to experience unacceptably long truck turn times. His preliminary conclusion is that occasional truck surges are overwhelming terminal gates, and the solution to this problem might be a “robust appointment system.”