News

DP World, the fourth biggest port operator globally, will not consider alternative legal options outside a court settlement in a dispute with the Djibouti government over the Doraleh Container Terminal. The Nasdaq-listed company is awaiting a ruling by the International Arbitration Court in London, a DP World spokesman said in a statement Saturday, in response to media reports that it is considering settling the matter outside the court. “We await the outcome of this process,” a DP World spokesperson said. “We remain committed to operating Doraleh port as per the original agreement of the concession, and we will not consider any other alternative settlement option.” In February, the Djibouti authorities abruptly cancelled DP World’s contract to run the Doraleh terminal. DP World said the move to take control of the port was illegal and began court proceedings.

APL unveiled the new weekly China Australia Service 6 (CA6) that will connect the central and southern China ports of Shanghai, Ningbo and Yantian to the largest eastern Australian cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.Designed to provide the industry's fastest transit times, CA6 promises to deliver shipments from Yantian and Shanghai to Sydney in 11 and 14 days respectively. With CA6 complementing APL's China Australia Service 3 (CA3), China Australia Service 2 (CA2) and China Australia Service (CAS) that provide weekly coverage between China and Australia, APL shippers can expect to benefit from yet another shipping cut-off time from Shanghai and Shenzhen to eastern Australia each week.

The number of ships waiting to berth at Brazilian ports to load soybeans and its byproducts is currently almost 60 percent larger than in the same period last year, according to data from shipping agency Williams compiled by Reuters. At the same time, the amount of ships that are berthed and currently loading is 42 percent smaller than seen at this time last year. Associations representing soy processors and grain exporters said the situation is caused by slower transportation of grains from producing regions to the ports, mainly due to lack of definition of truck freight prices following a nationwide truckers strike last month. A source at a shipping operator, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to press, said another cause for the slow loading and large number of ships at bay was still the truckers protests for 11 days in May that paralyzed grain transportation in the country. According to Williams, there were 46 vessels at bay in Brazilian ports waiting to berth and load soybeans, soymeal and other grains. One year ago at the same period, there were only 29 ships at bay.

Fifteen ships were queuing at the Richards Bay Coal Terminal in South Africa Wednesday, down slightly from 17 two weeks earlier, according to cFlow, S&P Global Platts trade flow software. The reduction of the queue is understood to be caused by an easing of supply tightness which had been in place for the last few months, although sources said the current situation was not having much direct impact on prices. “Nothing seems seriously delayed” a sell side source said. Stocks at the terminal were heard to be around 4 million-4.3 million mt, having been below the 4 million mt level for most of May.

American talk show host and actress Oprah Winfrey will serve as godmother of Holland America Line’s newest vessel Nieuw Statendam, which is currently under construction at Fincantieri’s Marghera shipyard in Italy. Nieuw Statendam, which will sail her maiden cruise in December 2018, will be officially named during a private christening ceremony in 2019. The date will be revealed soon. Winfrey, who has been working with the cruise line as part of the O, The Oprah Magazine since 2017, will also board Nieuw Statendam for a ‘Girls’ Getaway cruise in January 2019. She will be joined by the magazine’s editor Gayle King and other members of the editorial staff. “We are so excited to have Oprah set sail with us again for the ‘Girls’ Getaway’ cruise in partnership with O, The Oprah Magazine, and we’re deeply honoured that Oprah will serve as godmother of Nieuw Statendam,” said Orlando Ashford, president of Holland America Line.

Kalmar, part of Cargotec, has been contracted by Noatum Ports to perform specialised repair work on a ship-to-shore crane located at its container terminal in Valencia, Spain. The order was booked in Cargotec’s 2018 first quarter order intake and the work, which is scheduled to last 24 weeks, will be completed early in the third quarter of 2018. Noatum Container Terminal Valencia (Noatum CT Valencia) is the Iberian Peninsula’s main gateway for container transportation and the natural port of the Spanish capital, Madrid. Served by all major global container-shipping lines, the terminal’s location close to the Suez-Gibraltar axis connects it with the main interoceanic routes. Noatum CT Valencia is part of the Noatum Group, one of Spain’s leading maritime terminal operators.

Stena Line has confirmed that its three E-Flexers ordered at AVIC Weihai will be introduced on the Irish Sea. The first ship in the series will be introduced between Holyhead and Dublin in early 2020, ahead of the introduction of Irish Ferries’ new 5,610-lanemetre ro-pax.

A scrubber technology that saves on fuel costs while at the same time complying with the IMO 2020 0.5% sulfur emission regulations. Van Oord, also active in dredging and the construction of wind farms at sea, sees benefits in this solution. Marine scrubber-technology leader Ionada BV signed, during the PortXL event ‘Shakedown’, a pilot-agreement with Van Oord for the testing of Ionada’s Semi-Dry-Scrubbing-technology aboard the Van Oord vessel Lelystad, a hopper dredger. Ionada is one of the fourteen start-ups/scale-ups that signed contracts/pilot-agreements at Shakedown yesterday with well-known corporates.

GAC - Wednesday, June 13, 2018, Panama Canal, Panama The recent rainfall in the Canal watershed has increased the levels of Gatun and Alhajuela Lakes considerably in the past few days. Therefore, effective immediately, the maximum authorized draft for vessels transiting the Neopanamax locks will be 14.94 meters (49.0 feet) Tropical Fresh Water (TFW). Vessels arriving with drafts over 14.94 meters (49.0 feet) TFW may be allowed to transit depending on the actual level of Gatun Lake at the time of the transit. Otherwise, they will be required to trim or off-load cargo in order to be allowed to transit. The maximum authorized transit draft is the deepest point of immersion in TFW permitted for a particular vessel in Gatun Lake. Water density of Gatun Lake is 0.9954 at 29.4 deg. C (85 deg. F). Vessels shall arrive at Canal waters with no list.

Following a very successful 2017 financial year, today the Annual General Meeting of Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) resolved to increase the dividend per listed Class A share to € 0.67. This is 13.6 percent more than in the previous year. As such, € 46.9 million is being distributed to the shareholders of the Port Logistics subgroup for the 2017 financial year. The payout ratio has increased by one percentage point year-on-year to 66 percent of the profit after tax and minority interests. As in the last few years, this ratio is at the upper end of the dividend payout range of 50 to 70 percent. The dividend proposal made by the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board was ratified by 99.9 percent of the votes cast. In her speech at the Annual General Meeting, Chairwoman of HHLA’s Executive Board, Angela Titzrath, explained: “HHLA rests on solid foundations. Notwithstanding changing parameters, we therefore believe there is a good chance that we will further strengthen the company’s future viability and creative power.”

A pair of crane operators at the Port of Long Beach on the U.S. West Coast have set a new productivity record for moving the most cargo using a single crane during one eight-hour shift. The record was set on May 15 when two crane operators working the containership Gudrun Maersk at Total Terminals International’s Pier T terminal moved a total of 564 containers using a single crane over just an eight-hour period. This represents an average of 70 container moves per hour, which is nearly triple the West Coast average of 25 container moves per hour. The new record breaks the previous American record of 534 container moves set in 2014, also at the Port of Long Beach.

MSC Cruises has ordered a fifth Meraviglia-class cruise ship, cut the steel for its fourth Meraviglia-class ship, laid the keel for MSC Grandiosa and floated out MSC Bellissima – all in one ceremony at the STX France shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, France. Held on 14 June, the jam-packed ceremony saw MSC Cruises and STX France sign a contract for the €900 million (US$1.06bn) newbuild, which will be the first in the Meraviglia class to have dual-fuel engines powered by LNG. The 6,335-guest vessel will also have an advanced wastewater purification system to ensure she complies with the world’s strictest environmental regulations when she debuts in 2023. The newbuild is the 13th vessel to be ordered as part of MSC Cruises’ 10-year investment plan.

The project to deepen the shipping channel leading to the South Carolina’s Port of Charleston to 52 feet will receive $49 million in federal funding next year. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) announced the $49 million for the Charleston Harbor Deepening Project will be included in its Fiscal Year 2018 Work Plan. Together with financial support from the State of South Carolina, the funding will help ensure the help the project stay on track for completion by early 2021. Construction to deepen the Charleston Harbor Entrance Channel began in February following the awarding of the first two dredging contracts, totaling $260 million, by USACE.

A contract has been signed between Quark Expeditions and Brodosplit for a new polar expedition ship specifically built for the high latitudes of the Arctic and Antarctica. The 128-metre long ship will be built to Polar Class 6 standards and will accommodate 200 passengers in 103 cabins when delivered in the third quarter of 2020.

The stalled mechanical dredging of the Azhikkal Port channel here has resumed nearly a year after the much-awaited dredging work formally got under way in August last year when Ports Minister Kadannappally Ramachandran flagged off the operation of the cutter-suction dredger, CSD Chandragiri. The operation of the dredger was to have begun after its formal inauguration nearly two years after it was brought here with much fanfare. It took another 10 months for the actual dredging to increase the depth of the basin and the channel to begin. The plan is to increase the depth of the channel by six metres for the full-fledged launch of coastal shipping services and cargo shipping to Lakshwadweep from here.

he Kingdom’s only deep-sea port, operated by state-owned Sihanoukville Autonomous Port (PAS), will launch a new multipurpose terminal on June 25, to accommodate larger vessels with heavy loads, it said on Wednesday. PAS Chairman and CEO Lou Kim Chhun said the inauguration of the multipurpose terminal will be presided over by Prime Minister Hun Sen. Once in operation, the new facility will be able to load shipments weighing in the range of 40,000-50,000 tonnes. This is more than twice the limit of existing terminals. “As the terminal at the sea-port is deeper and can handle bigger vessels with heavier loads, sea transportation costs will become cheaper,” Kim Chhun said. He said construction of the new terminal began in early 2015 using a soft loan from the Japanese development agency JICA. The final cost will be more than $70 million. Cambodia Freight Forwarders Association (CFFA) President Sin Chanthy said that PAS’s new facility will contribute to a greater level of competitiveness in exporting goods and will simplify the work of freight forwarders. Without the new terminal, Chanthy said PAS could not handle large vessels. This led to fewer customers and congestion while at port. “With the new terminal becoming operational, large vessels will make up a larger part of the traffic. Goods will be delivered on time in a shorter period which will strengthen the business’s competitiveness,” he said.

Shipping lines are looking at moving some business from the UK’s biggest container port, which has been hit by delays caused by IT problems. Tilbury port said it had been contacted by companies looking for an alternatives to Felixstowe. The Port of Felixstowe said talk of diverting ships was not unusual. While the Felixstowe Port Users’ Association told the BBC that the situation was improving with 60% of containers being loaded within an hour. On Wednesday, lorry drivers complained of tailbacks of up to 16 hours after the IT system was introduced on Sunday. One shipping line, that did not wish to be named, told the BBC cranes that normally handled 24 containers an hour, were at present only handling about eight an hour. A spokesman from London Container Terminal in Tilbury said: “We have been approached by a number of shipping lines seeking alternative options to Felixstowe.”

Irish Continental Group (ICG) is now set to debut Irish Ferries’ new €150 million (US$184 million) cruise ferry W.B. Yeats in September 2018, rather than July 2018, following delays at Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft (FSG) in Germany. FSG began construction with a steel-cutting ceremony in April 2017, laid the keel in September 2017 and then floated the 1,855-passenger ferry out of her building dock on 19 January 2018, the same day as her christening ceremony . Originally, W. B. Yeats was set to join the fleet in July, but there has been a delay in the delivery of the interior components for the public areas and in the electrical system installation in the hull and deckhouse. To speed up the process, FSG has made additional funds available to pay the second-level suppliers of the interior components directly.

MSC Cruises and STX yard had a triple celebration on 14th June, while Pierfrancesco Vago, Executive chairman of MSC Cruises, announced a further cruise ship order.... http://cruisedeck.de/dreifach-feier-fuer-msc-cruises-bei-stx-in-st-nazaire/

RIYADH/DUBAI, June 14 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates announced a five-point aid plan for Yemen’s Hodeidah port and surrounding areas on Wednesday, after a Saudi-led alliance of Arab states launched an attack on Yemen’s Houthi-held main port city. As part of the plan, the two coalition states aim to establish a shipping lane to Hodeidah from the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, and Jizan, a city in southern Saudi Arabia, officials told a news conference in Riyadh. They will also distribute food, provide medical supplies, equipment and staff to hospitals, sustain electrical stations and provide economic support, they said. “We have several ships stationed, and we have storage capacity very close to Hodeidah fully stocked up,” Reem al-Hashimy, the UAE minister of state for international cooperation, told Reuters in Riyadh.