News

Four ship-to-shore cranes at Oakland International Container Terminal (OICT), the busiest terminal at the Port of Oakland, are 27 feet taller following completion this week of a year-long, crane-raising project. The fourth and final raised crane went back into service yesterday and is ready to serve larger ships with containers stacked high above vessel decks. Oakland already works the biggest containerships that call North America. Stevedoring Services of America (SSA) operates OICT and managed the crane-raising project in partnership with the Port of Oakland.

World’s smartest digital port with Northern collaboration: Largest multipurpose port in Finland adopts unique 3D operating system by Finnish high-tech company Port of HaminaKotka and a Finnish high-technology company VRT Finland Ltd., specialized in underwater 3D inspections, have signed a contract continuing their cooperation in building a smart digital port. In the cooperation, HaminaKotka port will expand the use of VRT Finland's 3D operating system to streamline day-to-day operations of the entire port. The Port of HaminaKotka has partly utilized the unique VRT BIM 3D online service in the past, and the upcoming extension of the system will make HaminaKotka port one of the world’s ports using digitalization comprehensively. Source: VRT Finland

Fuel Services’ (WFS) Falmouth Eastern Jetty, part of a major refurbishment programme of the Falmouth terminal, was officially opened earlier this month by local MP for Truro and Falmouth, Rt. Hon Sarah Newton. The Eastern breakwater project was the final stage of work required to complete the refurbishment at the Falmouth terminal, as the breakwater and jetty are considered to be crucial port infrastructure.

Zhe fire brigade of Harlingen was alerted on Aug 23, 2018, at 2 p.m. to a fire on the British fishing vessel newbuilding "Anna Lijdia" (no data available). Innsulation material had caught fire, and dense smoke emerged frimt the ship. Local residents had to keep doors and windows closed. The fire was difficult to combat because of the intense heat. Due to the enormous heat the hold was unreachable first. With a thermal camera, the fire department searched for the origin of the fire. But because the fire spread over the vessel, it remained difficult to localize the fire. Around 4 p.m. the fire brigade boarded the ship to extinguish the fire from inside. Because it flared up again, everyone had to leave the ship shortly afterwards. At 5 p.m. the smoke development has decreased again and fire fighting resumed. Most of the fire was in the bottom of the ship. The fire was still not under control three hours later. Only at 8.30 p.m. it was brought under control. About forty firefighters of six corps fight the fire. Six to eight men were simultaneously extinguishing on board, they changed every half hour. They were working with compressed air foam, which required little water and had a cooling capacity.An expert fromthe North Holland Safety Region and one of the Dutch Navy helped to bring the extinguishing work to a successful end. The cause of the fire was not yet clear. The "Anna Lijdia" was berthed at the jetty at the Damen Schipdock BV in the industry port. The ship's home port will be Lowestoft. The ship was launched in May in Harlingen and will be completed by TB Shipyards. Damen only facilitated the berth and was not involved in the construction itself. Dutch reports with photos and video: http://www.lc.nl/friesland/Brand-op-schip-in-haven-Harlingen-onder-controle-23477150.html https://franekercourant.nl/2018/08/23/fikse-brand-op-schip-in-harlinger-haven https://www.transport-online.nl/site/94514/grote-brand-op-schip-in-haven-van-harlingen-foto/ http://www.scannernet.nl/nieuws/actueel-nieuws-harlingen/brand-viskotter-shipdock-harlingen https://www.omropfryslan.nl/nieuws/835615-sein-brand-meester-gegeven-bij-schip-harlingen

A.P. Moller – Maersk, owner of the world’s largest shipping line, has agreed to a joint initiative with independent tank storage operator Royal Vopak to launch a low sulphur bunkering facility in Rotterdam. The facility will help Maersk and other carriers meet the strict rules regarding the International Maritime Organization’s .5% sulphur cap beginning in 2020. Located at Vopak Terminal Europoort, the facility will have the capacity to deliver approximately 2.3 million tonnes of 2020-compliant low sulphur bunker fuel per year, enough for approximately 20% of Maersk’s global demand. The agreement will allow Maersk, as well as any other interested third parties, to supply vessels trading with and inside Europe.

Canada’s Port of Quebec has received a CAN$30 million (US$23 million) investment to build a second cruise terminal, which will be capable of accommodating 4,000 to 5,000 passengers. To be built at Berth 30, the 100,000-square-metre facility will include a terminal building and two passenger gangways. The port will also carry out infrastructure improvements to the cruise berth before the terminal opens in 2020.

The North Carolina State Ports Authority is asking the public to weigh in on a feasibility study on proposed “enhancements” to the Wilmington harbor, but no specific proposals on how to make the port more accessible to larger and more fully laden ships were presented last week during a meeting at the Coastline Conference and Event Center. Bethany Welch, the authority’s communications manager, said port officials are exploring various options to allow deep-draft vessels to efficiently navigate to the port.

APM Terminals Maasvlakte II, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, has welcomed the arrival of two new Super Quay Cranes as it commences plans to increase capacity by over 20% before the end of 2019. The cranes, which were built by the supplier consortium of ZPMC and ABB, will join the terminal’s eight existing cranes on the deep-sea quay, offering the same high-speed and remote-control functionality.

In Spain, the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC), or the National Commission on Markets and Competition, has fined five stevedoring companies and five port unions for illegal agreements that have restricted competition in the Port of Vigo. These have kept prices artificially high and undermined the competitiveness of the port. According to the ruling, these agreements prevented the loading and discharge of finished vehicles and the receipt and delivery of goods by non-stevedores. "This goes against the relevant legislation, which gives freedom to companies to decide the composition of their workforce in activities that are excluded from [rules governing stevedoring],” said the CNMC.Source: Port Strategy

SSC Klaipedos Smelte in the Port of Klaipeda, Lithuania, has placed a large repeat order with Konecranes for ten Rubber Tired Gantry (RTG) cranes and two Ship-to-Shore (STS) cranes. The delivery of the RTG cranes will be completed in November 2019 and the STS cranes in December 2019.

Australian Industrial Energy (AIE) has secured a critical component of its Port Kembla Gas Terminal. The Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU) will be supplied under charter contract from the global leader in the development and operation of modern FSRUs, Norway’s Höegh LNG. Under the Exclusivity Agreement signed with Höegh LNG, AIE has the right to lease one of Höegh LNG’s state-of-the-art 300-metre-long 170,000m3 FSRUs. The FSRU will be permanently moored at Berth 101 in Port Kembla’s inner harbour for the duration of the Time Charter Party contract. The FSRU has the capability of re-gasifying liquefied natural gas that can then be injected through high pressure loading arms into a pipeline from the berth to the existing east coast gas transmission network, approximately 10 kms away. The FSRU will form part of the final port infrastructure design plans which will also address the NSW Government’s planning assessment and development approval requirements. These requirements were provided to AIE last week under the Government’s Critical State Significant Infrastructure planning process. Final receipt of such approvals will be an important step towards AIE being in a position to make a final investment decision enabling the supply of gas to industrial customers from Q1 2020.

Keel laying ceremony for CRYSTAL ENDEAVOUR will take place on 21st August at Stralsund. Chancellor Angela Merkel as well as Manuuela Schwesig, prime minister of federal state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, as well as Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay, Gentig CEO and Chairman, will attend. http://cruisedeck.de/kreuzfahrtschiff-neubauten-aus-deutschland-die-naechsten-meilensteine/

Keppel Corporation terminated an agreement to manage and provide technical services to Baku Shipyard. Baku Shipyard LLC is a joint venture by Keppel Offshore & Marine (KOM), State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR), and Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC) that was formed in 2013 to develop a shipbuilding and shiprepair facility in Baku, Azerbaijan. As part of the development, Baku Shipyard signed agreements (MSA and TSA) with KOM subsidiaries Caspian Offshore and KSM Management for the JV company’s management and technical services.

he Port of Koper operator in Slovenia, Luka Koper d.d., has ordered five electric Konecranes RTG cranes. The cranes will be equipped with cable reels featuring an auto plug-in system. They will be delivered in the summer of 2019.

The Argentinian government’s decision to unify the Port of Buenos Aires’ five box terminals under the single operator in 2019 has caused skirmishes to break out between some of the existing operators. DP World has made the first move. Its concession covering Terminales Río de la Plata (TRP) is due to expire next year, but the operator is reported to be threatening to pull out all together, blaming unfair competition. It accuses Maersk Line, Hamburg Süd and APM Terminals, which run Terminal 4, of “conduct and restrictive acts that are against competition”. Source: Port Strategy

Russian natural gas producer Novatek is considering building a 20 million mt/year transshipment terminal in the northern city of Murmansk, CEO Leonid Mikhelson said late Monday, in a move that could help it save on transporting LNG westward from its active and future LNG plants in the Arctic via the Northern Sea Route. The Murmansk terminal would mirror the transshipment terminal the company plans to build off the northeastern Kamchatka peninsula, to allow reloading LNG cargoes traveling east along the NSR onto regular tankers for onwards shipment to Asia to optimize transportation costs. “In Murmansk, we plan to build an analogous transshipment [terminal to the one in Kamchatka] also with the capacity of up to 20 million mt/year,” Mikhelson was quoted by Prime news agency as saying in the port of Sabetta, from where the company has been shipping LNG since December when it launched the first train of its first LNG plant, Yamal LNG. The Kamchatka terminal is expected to be launched in 2022 and has an option of doubling the capacity to 40 million mt/year, Novatek officials said earlier this year.

China’s Sinopec Corp has teamed with Zhejiang Energy Group Co Ltd on a 3 million tonne-per-year liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in east China, with the first phase set for operation at end-2021, the state oil giant said on Wednesday. The project, to be built in Wenzhou of Zhejiang province, includes four tanks each able to store 200,000 cubic metres of LNG, a berth to dock tankers of 30,000 cubic metres to 266,000 cubic meters, as well as a 26-km (16-mile) pipeline. The two companies launched on Monday new entity Zhejiang Zheneng Wenzhou LNG Co Ltd that is 51 percent owned by the Zhejiang group, 41 percent by Sinopec and 8 percent by a local investment firm, said a Sinopec press official.

The Port of Houston’s Bayport Container Terminal welcomed this week the arrival of three new Super Post-Panamax cranes, highlighting of the port’s $100 million investment in port upgrades to handle the increasingly larger ships calling at the port. The three 270 foot-tall Neopanamax ship-to-shore (STS) cranes are the first of two crane shipments Port Houston is to receive this week. An additional five cranes scheduled for delivery are rubber-tired- gantry (RTG) cranes.

AIDAnova will leave the construction hall on the Meyer yard at Papenburg on 21st August and will prepare to be finally equipped. http://cruisedeck.de/kreuzfahrtschiff-neubauten-aus-deutschland-die-naechsten-meilensteine/

In the first half of 2018, Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) improved on the already strong prior-year result. Both Group revenue and the Group operating result increased slightly in the first six months against the same period of the previous year, which was already very strong. This development was driven by both subgroups, the listed Port Logistics subgroup and the Real Estate subgroup. A 1.2 percent increase in container throughput was recorded. As projected, container transport declined by 4.2 percent on account of the realignment of Polzug activities following its successful integration into the Metrans group. Revenue in the Port Logistics subgroup was up by 1.6 percent.