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Justice for Port Drivers, a Teamsters-sponsored group that has promoted picketing and other job actions over the past five years, will participate in job actions at the ports, two motor carrier facilities, warehouses and rail yards beginning Monday morning.

IEnova and Trafigura have signed a long-term agreement to develop a refined products marine terminal in the Port of Manzanillo in the Mexican Pacific state of Colima, the companies said Friday. The new terminal is scheduled to begin operating by the end of 2020 with a total storage capacity of 1.48 million barrels of fuel in its first phase. As part of the agreement, IEnova bought 51% stake of a subsidiary of Trafigura, which is developing the terminal. Trafigura is going to contract 740,000 barrels of storage capacity at the project’s first phase. The Manzanillo terminal is well located to supply the greater Guadalajara region, Mexico’s second- largest demand center.

ZIM and MSC announce a new cooperation, offering a fast and reliable connection between the sub-continent and the Mediterranean, as follows: ZII – ZIM India Israel Service with the following rotation: Nhava Sheva - Mundra - Haifa (west bound only) ZIE – ZIM India East Med Express with the following rotation: Mundra - Nhava Sheva – Colombo - Port Said West – Mersin – Piraeus- Istanbul – Mersin – Iskenderun– Mundra This new alignment is a major enhancement for ZIM customers on the trade, benefiting from a wide range of direct calls and improved transit time along with ZIMs renowned personal dedicated customer service.

Intensification of fighting around Hodeidah in Yemen is choking the port which the aid operation and the commercial markets depend on, a UN relief chief has stated. Mark Lowcock, UN emergency relief coordinator, last week told the Security Council that all parties involved in the civil war need to avoid further military activity around the Port of Hodeidah to protect its operations and the main supply of food and fuel coming into Yemen. “It is far from clear that the recent intensification of fighting is producing any winners,” Mr Lowcock said. “It is, though, abundantly clear, all too abundantly clear, who the losers are: millions of Yemenis civilians, most of them women and children, whose lives are right on the line.” Since 2014, the port has been in the hands of Houthi rebels who have been battling government forces aided by a Saudi-led coalition, which has been deploying war planes since fighting escalated in 2015.

MPLX LP (NYSE :MPLX ) today announced it has purchased an eastern U.S. Gulf Coast export terminal with 4 million barrels of third-party leased storage capacity and a 120,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) dock from Pin Oak Holdings, LLC, for approximately $450 million. The transaction will be financed with a combination of cash from operations and debt. This facility has the capability to significantly expand its storage capacity to 10 million barrels and is permitted for construction of a second 120,000 bpd dock. This growth potential is significant, as multiple pipelines and rail lines cross the property, and the terminal is positioned as an aggregation point for liquids growth in the region for both ocean-going vessels and inland barges. As the facility expands, this investment is expected to generate a mid-teens percent return.

The dispute regarding the fairway adjustment on the Lower and Outer Elbe is one of the most comprehensive court cases against an infrastructure project that has ever been brought before the Federal Administrative Court. And considering the complex European environment regulations, in many areas this involved virgin legal territory. Today it is clear that the third supplementary planning decision will also be legally challenged by the associations. However, the claimant environment associations have not applied for a court injunction. This means that despite the legal action, planning permission stands. The work that has already begun, and the tendering already commenced, will continue as planned. The deepening and widening work will go ahead on schedule in March. Senator Frank Horch says: “Even though the dispute is now going to continue, I am convinced that we have long since found a good balance between economic and ecological interests. I am, moreover, also convinced that the remaining concerns expressed by the Court have been very carefully handled and eliminated. The Port of Hamburg is and will remain a central economic motor, which here alone in North Germany provides more than 150,000 jobs. As an important global port, it serves as a hub for international goods transport for Germany and Europe. We are now able to enhance this position.”

Vinalines is seeking approval from the government for building two container terminals at Lach Huyen Port in northern Hai Phong City. Nguyen Canh Tinh, director of the state-run Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines), said its subsidiary, Haiphong Port JSC, would build terminals No.3 and No.4 at the port. He said the Haiphong Port JSC used to work mainly at Hoang Dieu terminal, which has now been taken over for the construction of an urban area, and so new terminals are needed in its place. The two proposed terminals would have a total length of 750 meters and the capacity to handle vessels of up to 100,000 DWT (8,000 TEU), and cost around VND7 trillion ($299 million), he said.

Argentina’s government wants construction of the country’s first LNG liquefaction terminal to start in the second half of 2019, making it possible to export an increasing surplus of production from the giant Vaca Muerta shale play, an official said. “We are confident that the decision to push the button on this project will come after the next presidential election in October 2019,” Daniel Dreizzen, the country’s secretary of energy planning, said at a Moody’s finance seminar in Buenos Aires. He said companies have brought forward proposals for building the terminal, which will be evaluated. Earlier this month, the country’s biggest gas transporter, Transportadora de Gas del Sur (TGS), and Texas-based Excelerate Energy, which operates two floating LNG import terminals in Argentina, agreed to study the possibility of a liquefaction project in Buenos Aires province. They said they would present the proposal to the government by the end of this year for evaluation. But if no company is ready to advance by next year, Dreizzen said the government will hold an auction to find a builder and operator of the project. The terminal will have six trains for exporting supplies and should start operations by 2023, with the capacity to ship an initial 40 million cu m/d from Vaca Muerta, Dreizzen told S&P Global Platts on the sidelines of the event.

Poland is to build a short canal so that ships leaving from one of its ports will no longer need to transit Russian waters. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the ruling Law and Justice, said this week the 1 km long canal cutting through the Vistula lagoon in the northeast of the country to the Baltic Sea will show Poland’s neighbours, the Russians, that “the days they dictated to us are over”. Currently ships leaving the lagoon from the port of Elblag must pass through Russian waters to get to the open sea. Russia has already complained to the European Commission about the canal, saying its construction threatens the ecology of the lagoon.

Liebherr, a lifting solutions provider, has delivered seven new reachstackers to Durban Port in South Africa, where they have already been put into operation as of March 2018. The assembly of the machines took place at the port after they arrived from a manufacturing site in Sunderland, UK. Liebherr have designed the machines to withstand harsh conditions. Nene Thubelihle, Regional Supply Chain Manager for terminal operator Transnet SOC Ltd, said: “The decisive factor for the purchase of a Liebherr machine was to find a reachstacker that could withstand the difficult maritime environmental conditions such as dust and salt that prevail in the Port of Durban and defy them permanently.

A cybersecurity attack at the Port of San Diego has disrupted IT systems and resulted in limited functionality. In a statement on 26 September, CEO Randa Coniglio said the port first received reports of the disruption on Tuesday 25 September and is now working to minimise disruption. He stated there may be “temporary impacts on service to the public”, particularly “in the areas of park permits, public records requests, and business services” but did not provide details of any impact on scheduling and cargo. Mr Coniglio said: "The Port of San Diego has experienced a serious cybersecurity incident that has disrupted the agency's information technology systems.” http://www.portstrategy.com/news101/world/americas/cyber-attack-leaves-san-diego-systems-down

A ground-breaking ceremony for the new Hamina LNG terminal that is to be engineered, procured and constructed by Wärtsilä was held on September 25. The ceremony was attended by Finland’s Minister of Finance Mr Petteri Orpo, as well as local officials and executives from Hamina LNG Oy and Wärtsilä. The 30,000 m3 capacity terminal will provide storage of liquefied natural gas (LNG). It will also have re-gasification capability for sending the gas to the existing distribution network serving both regional and national markets. In addition, the terminal will have a truck-loading area for LNG, as well as the possibility to supply bunkering barges and small-scale carriers. The tank foundation for the terminal has already been cast, and the facility is scheduled to become fully operational in 2020.

Container freight stations (CFS) servicing Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) faced mob attacks in two separate incidents recently after they laid off staff due to a dip in business with the introduction of direct port delivery in early 2017. Buses carrying CFS employees of APM Terminals Inland Services were the target of attack by ‘some retrenched contract workers’ on August 3 and September 10. APM Terminals, which runs two CFSs near India’s busiest container gateway, is a unit of Danish shipping giant AP Moller-Maersk Group A/S that also runs Maersk Line, the world’s biggest container shipping company.

China’s Sinopec Corp completed adding a third tank to store liquefied natural gas at its receiving terminal in Tianjin, marking the completion of construction of the first phase of the import facility, the state oil and gas group said on Tuesday. * The terminal, in the northern port city Tianjin, near Beijing, began operations last February. It has an annual receiving capacity of 3 million tonnes and an annual supply capacity of 4 billion cubic metres (bcm) * The terminal has so far this year received 22 shipments of LNG that totalled 1.46 million tonnes in volume. It has delivered 1.46 bcm of the fuel by pipeline and 339,000 tonnes by gas trailers, the company said * Sinopec operates two other terminals, one in Beihai in the southwest Guangxi region and one in Qingdao in the eastern province of Shandong * The Chinese government has asked gas suppliers and distributors to boost storage capacity to cope with winter demand spikes Source: Reuters

Warehouse workers and truck drivers at Los Angeles ports are planning to launch a three-day strike Monday, aiming to put pressure on logistics companies they claim owe them back wages. The action targets XPO Logistics Inc. and NFI Industries and marks the 16th strike mounted by the Teamsters union in recent years among nonunion workers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, according to the labor group. Rather than focus on slowing work at the ports, the strikers plan to concentrate picketing and leafleting Monday and Tuesday on warehouses, headquarters and retail outlets of clients of XPO and NFI, as well as demonstrating at the port itself.

Port of Marseille Fos and Monaco Marine seal partnership to create a mega yacht maintenance and refit centre in Marseille On Thursday 20 September 2018, the Port of Marseille Fos and Monaco Marine Marseille officially signed their partnership to create a mega yacht maintenance and refit centre in the Mirabeau harbour sector of the Port of Marseille Fos, the company said in its press release. For a period of 50 years the Port has granted an area of 55,000 m2 dedicated to marine pleasure craft repair to the company Monaco Marine, which specializes in yacht maintenance and refit between Monaco and Marseille. The Port of Marseille Fos launched a call for projects at the beginning of 2018 with the aim of attracting proposals and initiating a general industrial project in the area of the Port known as the Mirabeau harbour. At the end of the process, having presented an ambitious project for a maintenance and renovation centre dedicated to very large 90 to 133 meter yachts, the company Monaco Marine was selected.

Cargo handling specialist Kalmar has agreed to supply 12 hybrid straddle carriers to DP World Southampton in the UK.​ Southampton is often the first or last call for container ships serving trade routes between Northern Europe and the Far East, and will implement the new equipment at its container terminal. With an expected delivery date of Q2 of 2019, the order, which includes operator training and six months of on-site maintenance support, fulfils the aims of DP World’s sustainability programme by using natural resources responsibly.

Operations at the Port of Barcelona have remained unaffected by a cyber attack last week. Following the cyber attack on Thursday 20 September, the port warned on Twitter that delivery and reception of goods may be delayed but on 22 September stated it hadn’t altered its seaside and land operations and that its Information Systems Department had only found issues with internal functionality, which it was working to recover. A spokesperson told Port Strategy the port it was unable to comment on what action the port had taken to prevent any further attacks but confirmed “ports operations haven’t been affected and the Port of Barcelona has been operating as usual.” The port said on Twitter that it had already initiated the appropriate legal actions in relation to this serious attack, but did not comment further on what specific action it had taken. On 18 September, the port’s digital knowledge hub PierNext published a paper looking at whether ports are prepared to deal with threats from hackers. Source: Port Strategy

Vigo based shipyard Hijos de J. Barreras have secured an order for 2 coastal passenger ships by Havila Kystruten. The vessels are to be employed on the traditional Norwegian Hurtigruten service. http://cruisedeck.de/hijos-de-j-barreras-buchen-order-von-havila-kystruten-ein/

The U.K. government aims to address one of the big challenges of Brexit by creating a so-called inland port where imported goods can be checked without causing logjams at the coast, two people with knowledge of the plan said. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is in talks to rent a warehouse at Magna Park in Milton Keynes, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) from the coast and 50 miles northwest of London, the people said, asking not to be identified because the negotiations are private. Goods from the European Union could pass through customs there after the U.K.’s departure from the bloc. HMRC is talking to the owner of the property, Gazeley, about the lease, which is yet to be signed, the people said. A spokesman for the European warehouse developer owned by Singapore’s GLP Pte declined to comment, while an HMRC official said inland customs checks are part of its “business-as-usual” activity. The government’s plans for the Milton Keynes site come as demand for warehouse space booms in Britain, thanks to e-commerce, which now accounts for a fifth of retail spending excluding groceries. Manufacturers including Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc warn they may be forced to hold more stock if Brexit impacts their supply chains, a trend that would stoke demand for warehousing further.