Original news was published on 18 December, 2014

Mundra International Container Terminal (MICT) has hit the one million TEU annual container throughput milestone for the first time.

From handling twenty thousand TEUs in its first year of operations in 2003,MICT has achieved the landmark while pioneering the container revolution in the Kutch Regionand emergingas the gateway for the North and the North West regions of the country.

Mr. Anil Singh, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, DP World,SCO Region, said: “MICT is one of the cornerstones of our ongoing success and growth across India and this achievement is an example of the important role all our employees there have played in positioning the terminal as a key pillar of the economy. This remarkable achievement means that MICT has carved a place for itself in the premier ranks of the global container market.”

Mr. Tejas Nataraj, Chief Executive Officer, MICT, added: “Customer service is central to everything we do and we constantlyinvest in infrastructure, equipment, technology and training to increase our operational efficiency and ensuring a fast turnaround of vessels. We service over 55 vesselsand more than 160 trains a month withover 30 crane moves an hour.The confidence of our partners, the local community and our customershas helped us achieve this remarkable growth and we hopeto continue this success while deliveringworld class service to our clients.”

MICT is one of the most sophisticated and technically advanced terminal facilities on the Indian Subcontinent with its strategic location, hinterland connectivity and on-dock rail facility attracting shipping lines calling along the Indian coast. It regularly upgrades its IT systems and equipment to keep them comparable with the latest developments in the industrywith employee skills developed by an Operator Training facility.An active programme of engagement with the local community and stakeholders is also a feature of its drive to promote sustainable business practices.

MICT has won numerous national and international awards including the‘Terminal of the Year’ Award at The Gujarat Awards 2014; Best Container Terminal Asia (Under 1 Million TEU category – Cargo News Asia).

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was published on 17 December, 2014

Dutch transportation company BigRoll Shipping has contracted COSCO Dalian Shipyard Co. Ltd to build two more MC Class module carriers, bringing the total number of vessels under construction to four, the company said.

The first two vessels BigRoll Barentsz and BigRoll Bering were ordered in 2013 and are scheduled for delivery late 2015 and early 2016.

The two additional vessels will be named BigRoll Baffin and BigRoll Beaufort. They are due for delivery mid 2016 and early 2017 respectively.

All BigRoll vessels are named in honour of famous Arctic explorers, which was inspired by the ships’ suitability for shipping to Arctic
 areas.

The MC Class are designed with particular focus on a high ballast capacity, low fuel consumption, high service speed and sea keeping behavior – which in turn provides lower acceleration forces on the cargo.

The Dutch-flagged MC Class vessels are specifically designed to deliver modules and equipment for large projects and are highly suited to travel to remote areas such as the Arctic regions as well as directly offshore.

They have Finnish Swedish 1A Ice classification, and are designed and fully prepared for a DP2 notation, according to BigRoll.

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was published on 12 December, 2014

HongFa Shipping, the Shanghai‐based new emerging ocean carrier, is ready for its new liner service. Chipol Changjiang, the carrier’s first newbuilding multipurpose vessel has just successfully completed its sea trials on Dec. 8, 2014. One week earlier, Chipol Huanghe, the second sister vessel, was launched.

Starting from January 2015, a total of four 36,000-deadweight-ton vessels will be delivered into service and planned to be employed on the pendulum liner service between Far East, South East Asia and the East Coast of South America, covering major ports en route.

The vessels include well designed features, such as triple-decks with movable pontoons, very large box-shape cargo holds (53 meters by 23 meters), three self-geared heavy cranes with a maximum lifting capacity up to 520 tonnes and low fuel consumption.

HongFa Shipping is now open to all for cargo booking on the Chipol Changjiang.

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was published on 09 December, 2014

SAL Heavy Lift has completed a series of complex and sensitive shipments totaling more than 100,000 freight tons for the Ichthys LNG Project near Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.

SAL Heavy Lift was contracted by the project’s freight forwarder SDV, Asia, for five consecutive shipments. Cargo was loaded in the ports of Sattahip in Thailand, Masan and Busan in South Korea and Shanghai, China.

SAL’s type 176 vessel Regine, with its two 700-ton-capacity cranes, open hatch capability and third aft-mount crane of 350-ton capacity, was selected as the ideal candidate to provide utmost flexibility, cost efficiency and safety to the project, SAL said in a statement.

The cargo included two acid gas removal units that weighed more than 800 tons apiece and measured 42 meters long, 10.5 meters wide and 10.8 meters high, as well as two radiant convertor modules at 217 tons each and heights of more than 25 meters

The radiant convertor modules offered a significant challenge since the client required them to be lifted with a single crane in the same shipment. Lifting height, rigging geometry and clearances became a complex problem, which took some time to successfully resolve, SAL said.

All shipments were discharged at the Ichthys LNG module offloading facility.

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was published on 09 December, 2014

THE port of Boston posted a 16.5 per cent November year-on-year increase in container volume to 18,371 TEU, while recording a year-to-date increase of 11 per cent to 197,936 TEU through at the Massport's Conley Terminal.

November was the fifth straight month of year-on-year gains, brought on by new by Evergreen and Hanjin calls on top of already-scheduled stops with the CKYHE Alliance.

Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) also increased its ship size on its northern Europe service, deploying ships as large as 8,000 TEU that now call at Boston.

Truck turn-times at Conley Terminal were kept to 30 minutes in October - and productivity was high, thanks in part to an agreement with International Longshoremen's Association, reported Newark's Journal of Commerce.

Boston pays ILA members for full shifts, even if they finish unloading and loading vessels early, said port director Deborah Hadden.

Ms Hadden said the port is marketing itself aggressively, playing up the fact that it experiences little to no congestion and New England shippers can get goods faster, and cheaper, if they ship directly through Boston rather than New York-New Jersey.

Shipping into the New York-New Jersey port complex means paying up to US$1,000 per load to truck it north, she said.

Imports at the port of Boston were up 17.6 per cent year on year to 8,911 TEU in November with exports rising 18.2 per cent to 6,701 TEU. Empties totalled 2,759 TEU, up a 9.3 per cent during the same period.

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was published on 10 December, 2014

Parcels carrier TNT is launching a five-times a week B737-400 freighter service between Venice and its Liege air hub in Belgium, aimed at exporters and importers trading with north-east Italy.

The morning flight from Liege arrives at Venice Airport Marco Polo (VCE) at 6:00 am and continues onto Ljubljana (Slovenia) before returning to Liege.

Five weekly flights from Athens to Liege will stop in Venice on the northbound leg, departing VCE at 11:00 pm.

Said TNT: “To ensure smooth connections between air and road operations, the air gateway is located in the existing TNT Marcon depot, near Venice. It is TAPA-certified and can handle up to 10 air freight containers (or ULDs) with a loading capacity of 2,000 kg each.”

Opened in 2013, TNT's Marcon depot uses advanced automated scanning and sorting equipment. From February 2015, the air gateway and the depot will use a new, fully automated sorting machine, which will speed up the sorting of export shipments by two hours. This equipment is being rolled out across TNT Italy depots.

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was published on 05 December, 2014

The construction of the new sea lock in the Port of Amsterdam, the Netherlands is scheduled to begin in 2016.

The construction completion is set for 2019, when first ships should be able to transit the new lock.

At the moment, executive organization of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment, Rijkswaterstaat, is at the start of the second dialogue phase of the procurement tender. The procurement procedure will be completed around summer 2015, Rijkswaterstaat Communication Officer Jonna Brandsma told World Maritime News.

Once the procurement process is completed, a more precise schedule on the construction will be available along with details on the contractor and the construction process itself.

The City Council of Amsterdam approved the acceleration of construction of the new large sea lock in IJmuiden, on November 26.

The initial plan by the national government was to replace the locks no later than 2029, however this date seemed to be too far away as the port may reach its maximum capacity of 95 million tons already in 2020.

The new lock system would allow the port to increase its capacity to 125 million tons.

The total cost of the project is estimated to be EUR 889 million, of which a considerable portion should be assigned by the EU.

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was published on 05 December, 2014

BigLift Shipping's newbuild heavy lift vessel Happy Star has loaded her first cargo in Nantong, which included two large modules for an iron ore wharf under construction in Port Hedland.
 
The first module, which weighed 711 tonnes and measured 33 m long by 25 m wide, was place on the forward end of the main deck; while the second module, which was much larger and more awkwardly shaped, measuring 60 m long by 37 m wide at its widest point, was more of a challenge to load, said the company.

In order to manoeuvre the second module through the cranes, stairs and other protruding parts had to be removed from the base of the ship's cranes before the lifting operation could begin. In the end there was only half a metre to spare on both sides of the module as it was loaded onboard, said BigLift.

The combined weight of the shipment was 1,560 tonnes, which was no problem for Happy Star's two 900-tonne capacity heavy lift mast cranes.

*NEWS SOURCE

Dear Project Cargo Specialists,
 
Following to our successful 1st AGM of Istanbul, TURKEY, very professional agents are going on joining our group from all around the world. Today it is our pleasure to share with you that CLARIDON GROUP LTD. has become OPCA Platinum Member and we are very excited to see them in our group for a long term cooperation.

Let's welcome CLARIDON GROUP LTD. on board of Overseas Project Cargo Association !

Wish you a great cooperation together !

CLARIDON GROUP LTD. - UNITED KINGDOM

ADDRESS: Claridon House, London Road, Stanford-le-Hope, SS17 0JU, Essex, UNITED KINGDOM
CONTACT: Jo Taylor / Sales Development Executive
                 Tim Cleary / Managing Director
                 Mo Hadjkura  / General Manager
                 Tony Lea / Projects Manager
TEL: +44 (0)1375 656 100
FAX: +44 (0)1375 656 101
WEB: www.claridon.com

COMPANY PROFILE

Claridon Group Ltd are a privately owned, fully AEO & ISO9001 accredited British company established in 1988. Our branch offices in Luxembourg, Germany, Italy and Myanmar are all wholly owned by Claridon Group Ltd. Claridon Myanmar Co Ltd are a wholly owned office of Claridon Group of companies in Europe and the first privately owned European Freight Forwarder to open an office in Myanmar.

Claridon offers a comprehensive range of services by sea freight, air freight and surface freight to and from most global destinations, including remote and politically difficult regions not served by the majority of logistics providers, and is DGSA & NATO accredited. Our strengths are in large projects, OOG, mainly on ro-ro basis, Cold Chain, Perishable and Pharma.

Original news was published on 03 December, 2014

Hapag-Lloyd and the Chilean Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores (CSAV) are joining forces, by merging CSAV´s container business activities into Hapag-Lloyd, becoming the fourth-largest liner shipping company in the world, the German company said in a release.

The merger of Hapag-Lloyd AG with the container business activities of the Chilean shipping company founded in Valparaíso, in 1872, is expected to result in many synergies. Annual savings of at least USD 300 million are anticipated as a result of network optimizations, improvements to productivity and reductions in costs. The merged company will have around 200 vessels with a total capacity of approximately one million TEU, transporting some 7.5 million TEU every year, and will set up its fourth regional headquarter in Valparaiso, Chile. The company is expected to have revenue of around USD 12 billion.

“ Rolf Habben Jansen, Chief Executive Officer of Hapag-Lloyd, said: “This is a big day for both companies. With Hapag-Lloyd’s strength in Asian traffic and on the North Atlantic, combined with CSAV’s strong position in Latin America, we will become the leading shipping company in this region – and thereby be able to offer our global customers an even more attractive network and wider range of products. Our ability to compete will also be significantly enhanced by closing the gap to the top three of our industry. There will be no major changes to the way we work until the transition to the Hapag-Lloyd systems towards the end of the first quarter 2015.”
 

The main processes of integrating CSAV’s container business into Hapag-Lloyd are expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter of 2015.

In addition to integrating CSAV’s container business into Hapag-Lloyd, there are also plans to strengthen the company by raising capital of EUR 370 million (USD 457.6m) by December 31, 2014, in which CSAV will take a share of EUR 259 million (USD 320.3m) and Kühne Maritime EUR 111 million (USD 137.3m) .

The ownership structure of Hapag-Lloyd AG will therefore change as follows: CSAV will become Hapag-Lloyd’s biggest shareholder with 34% after the cash capital increase. The other shareholders are HGV (23.2%), Kühne Maritime (20.8%), TUI (13.9%), Signal Iduna (3.3%), HSH Nordbank (1.8%), M.M. Warburg (1.8%) and Hanse Merkur (1.1%).

CSAV, HGV and Kühne Maritime have agreed to pool 51% of the shares in Hapag-Lloyd in order to discuss and make key decisions together in the future. Of this pool structure, CSAV owns a 50% participation, while HGV and Kühne Maritime will own 25% each.

*NEWS SOURCE