Monday, June 7, 2010
Top Story
Tacoma must deal with post-NYK terminal financing
The Port of Tacoma faces a financial dilemma.
Unless port officials can reach agreement with banks to do otherwise, the port faces the prospect of issuing $230 million worth of bonds intended to finance a container terminal it no longer needs.
Otherwise, the port could end up paying banks more than $24 million to extricate itself from bond financing agreements.
The port’s treasurer, David Morrison, told port commissioners this week he believes the port can work a deal with its bankers that makes both of those potentially painful scenarios unlikely.
The port is talking with those financial institutions because it signed financing deals two years ago that obligated it to issue bonds to finance its ambitious Blair-Hylebos Project. That project was to create a new terminal for NYK Lines at the port.
But the port and NYK cancelled the terminal deal in midstream last year when container volumes plummeted with the recession. Instead, NYK signed a lease for an existing port terminal vacated by a shipping line that moved to Seattle.
Under terms of those complex deals, the port can’t simply decline to issue the bonds without paying termination fees to the banks totalling $24.2 million. Those termination fees vary depending on the prevailing interest rates.
Morrison hopes to craft a new deal with those institutions to allow the port to substitute some existing bonds for some of the new bonds it would have had to issue.
-Tacoma News-Tribune
For the full story: www.thenewstribune.com
Hanjin to take delivery of Korea’s first mega-box ship
Hanjin Shipping Co. is set to receive Korea’s first supersized container ship - roughly four years after it cemented a contract with Samsung Heavy for five massive vessels.
The ship, which will be delivered at the beginning of July, is as big as three soccer fields and can carry nearly 10,000 TEUs, or 20-foot equivalent units, of cargo.
Korea’s largest shipping company inked a contract with Samsung Heavy Industries in 2006 for five supersized ships. This marks the first vessel delivered under the contract. The other four will be delivered in coming years.
Hanjin plans to deploy the vessel on U.S.-bound routes through the Pacific Ocean and in the other direction to Europe.
The company had to postpone the original acquisition date of February as a result of last year’s severe shipping slump. Hanjin currently owns 96 container ships.
-JoongAng Daily (South Korea)
For the full story: joongangdaily.joins.com
Yang Ming expects Q2 profit
Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp., Taiwan's second-biggest container shipping line, said it expects second-quarter profit to be higher than in the previous three months as economic recovery drives up demand for exports.
Yang Ming Chairman Frank Lu said earnings per share will probably surpass NT$1 in the year ending in December, from a loss of NT$6.18 per share in the previous 12 months. The average of 15 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg is for earnings per share of NT$0.05.
Yang Ming Marine and competitors have improved earnings as a global economic recovery spurred demand for cargo shipments.
-eTaiwan News
For the story source: www.etaiwannews.com
Maersk launches “Priority Product” service
A new service has been introduced by shipping group Maersk Line that makes it possible to get urgent cargo onto a ship that already has limited space available.
The upgrade option, called 'Priority Product', is designed to offer loading priority to companies when placing bookings for key shipments, based around a dynamic pricing structure.
According to Maersk Line, the service offers major business benefits, including reduced risk of costly delays, time saving, immediate confirmation on loading possibilities and booking acceptance where otherwise it would have been rejected.
First introduced on 1 June, Maersk noted that it does not make room for priority products but removing cargo, rather reserving limited space on vessels when anticipating high demand.
The price paid by a company is determined by vessel space availability and market demand and will not be a fixed fee, while the group also offers a money-back guarantee by refunding the cost of the upgrade and rescheduling if cargo cannot be loaded on the planned ship.
-Fruitnet.com
For the full story: www.fruitnet.com
EU willing to check Gaza-bound ships
The European Union is willing to check cargo on board ships heading to the Gaza Strip if Israel ends its blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory, France's Foreign Minister said Sunday.
Bernard Kouchner, who spoke after dinner with British Foreign Secretary William Hague in Paris, noted that the EU has had monitors deployed at Gaza's border crossing with Egypt at Rafah, and could do so again.
France and Britain have pushed urgently for an end to the blockade since a deadly raid last week on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. Nine activists were killed in an Israeli commando mission.
-Fox News/AP
For the full story: www.foxnews.com
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Top Story
China could be bellwether of global shipping recovery
The global shipping industry is beginning to show signs of returning to profitability after suffering through one of its worst years ever in 2009. Falling exports and a glut of too many ships ordered during the boom years drove prices down to unsustainable levels on some routes, but the outlook is now improving for both the ports and the shipping companies.
China's exports returned to growth late last year after recording 13 months of declines during the financial crisis. The country's exports rose to $119.9 billion in April, a jump of 30.5% from a year earlier, while its imports surged 49.7% to 118.2 billion.
China Merchants Holdings, the country's largest publicly traded container port operator, said volumes this year may exceed 2008's level, according to a recent Bloomberg report. China Merchant's container throughput increased over 20% in the first four months of the year.
China's resurgent economy and renewed demand for commodities is also benefiting its Asian neighbors. The Baltic Dry Index, which measures shipping rates for commodities, has jumped 40% for the year so far, 22% in May alone.
-Forbes
For the full story: www.forbes.com
COSCO says contract rate increases achieved
China Cosco Holdings Co., the nation’s largest container line, said it had won a targeted increase in transpacific rates, bolstering industrywide efforts to end losses.
The company has signed almost all of its annual contracts and customers have agreed to pay $800 more for shipping a forty- box to the U.S. west coast from Asia, Executive Vice President Sun Jiakang said today in Shanghai. China Cosco will also levy peak-season surcharges of about $400 from July 15, he said.
-BloombergBusinessWeek
For the full story: www.businessweek.com
New UK container port looking for business
The UK’s first new container port in two decades is still looking for its first customer, in a sign of the sharp reversal of fortune in a sector that two years ago was booming.
PSA Great Yarmouth, completed earlier this year, is the first UK terminal for Singapore’s PSA, the world’s second-largest container terminal operator. The facility is part of Great Yarmouth outer harbour, a £50m project to create a deep-water port in an area that has struggled with high levels of unemployment since the fishing industry went into decline.
PSA agreed to take on the Great Yarmouth terminal in 2007, when the main UK container ports of Felixstowe and Southampton were severely congested and any new facility in eastern England looked almost certain to find customers quickly. The position has been changed radically by last year’s sharp decline in container volumes – worldwide volumes fell more than 10 per cent, with the UK seeing a still sharper decline. This has freed space at the other ports.
-Financial Times
For the full story: www.ft.com
Industry report: Airlines could return to profitability this year
Airlines are expected to collectively return to profit in 2010, a year earlier than expected, thanks to the industry's cost-cutting efforts and a nascent recovery in demand for air travel, a leading industry body said Monday.
The International Air Transport Association expects airlines to post a profit of $2.5 billion this year, a sharp improvement on its previous forecast for a loss of $2.8 billion, and the industry's first profit since 2007.
Revenue is seen rising 13% to $545 billion.
-MarketWatch
For the full story: www.marketwatch.com
Oldest-known shipwreck off North Carolina believed to have been found
A shipwreck exposed on the beach by winter storms could date to a time of commerce between England and Jamestown in the early 1600s.
Possibly the oldest-known wreck on the North Carolina coast, the timbers and construction of the ship are very similar to the Sea Venture, the 1609 flagship of seven vessels that carried people and supplies to Jamestown, said Bradley A. Rodgers, a professor of archaeology and conservation in the maritime studies program at East Carolina University.
Residents Roger Harris and Ray Midgett found coins from the early 1600s encrusted on the timbers. Three fleur-de-lis symbols are visible on one side, but the bust of King Louis XIII on the other side is worn away. Midgett found a coin stamped 1603.
-Winston-Salem Journal
For the full story: www2.journalnow.com
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Top Story
Intermodal rail traffic up 18.9 percent in May
Intermodal rail traffic was up 18.9 percent in May 2010 to 867,516 units over the same period last year, according to the American Association of Railroads (AAR).
However, intermodal rail was off 3.8 percent from May 2008, the AAR reported.
Monthly rail carloads for May 2010 were up 15.8 percent over last year, but were down 11.8 percent compared with May 2008, and down 1.1 percent compared to April 2010, the AAR said.
"May’s rail traffic numbers continue to show mixed results,” said AAR Senior Vice President John Gray. “Intermodal traffic has now risen for three straight months, but carloads in May 2010 were actually down a bit from April 2010. Several economic indicators this month, including unemployment, reinforce the fact that the economy still has a long way to go to full recovery,” Gray said.
According to the report, U.S. unemployment slipped to 9.7 percent in May from 9.9 percent in April even though railroads hired 1,783 employees in April.
The railroads put 747 cars back into service in May, the AAR said.
Eighteen of the 19 commodity groups the AAR tracks posted gains compared with the same month last year. Coal, the railroads’ single highest volume, posted a notable increase last month, up 6.8 percent compared with 2009, the AAR said.
“Coal exports in the first quarter of 2010 are up 31 percent over the first quarter of 2009,” added Gray. “That coupled with decreasing coal stockpiles has fueled notable increases this month in coal traffic. However, even after these gains, coal volumes are still significantly below where they were in 2008,” he said.
Port of Long Beach launches $40 mil harbor deepening project
The Port of Long Beach and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers formerly announced the launch of its $40 million main channel-deepening project being conducted by Manson Construction Company at a ceremony attended by officials this week.
The dredging includes $2.4 million in federal economic stimulus money, the port said.
The 17-month project actually began earlier this year with dredging at the Catalina Express ferry landing in downtown Long Beach with what the port described as “removal and containment of decades-old contaminated sediments in the harbor.”
“This is a vital project that is creating jobs and will help keep the port competitive as the economy rebounds,” said Port of Long Beach Executive Director Richard D. Steinke.
The port said the project will improve navigation, safety and efficiency, especially for oil tankers calling the BP crude oil terminal. The vessels will be able to turn around in the port and to approach their berths fully loaded as opposed to the current method for the largest ships having to be partially unloaded or “lightered” offshore before docking, the port said.
Hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of dredged-up sediment will be transferred to create new land area on Pier G to help provide space for on-dock rail expansion, the port said.
General Maritime set to spend $620 mil on double-hull vessels
New York-based General Maritime Corporation announced it has agreed to purchase five very large crude carriers (VLCCs) built between 2002 and 2010, and two Suezmax new-builds from the Metrostar Management Corporation for approximately $620 million.
Subject to completion of the transactions, General Maritime said the acquisitions would bring the company’s fleet total to 38 double-hulled vessels, consisting of seven VLCCs, 13 Suezmax tankers, 12 Aframax, two Panamax and four Handymax product tankers, with total carrying capacity of approximately 6.0 million dwt.
“With this acquisition, we expect to grow our high-quality fleet by approximately 50 percent on a tonnage basis, said John P. Tavlarios, president of General Maritime Corporation.
Cathay to launch round-the-world freight service
Cathay Pacific Airways will launch its first round-the-world freighter service on July 9, offering its cargo customers a wider choice and at the same time helping to further develop Hong Kong’s position as a leading international air cargo hub.
The airline has spent months developing the new route, which will initially be operated twice weekly, every Friday and Sunday, using a Boeing 747-400 freighter.
The flight will leave Hong Kong and fly via Anchorage to Chicago. From there it will fly onward to Amsterdam and Dubai before returning to Hong Kong.
The flight from the United States to Amsterdam marks the first time for Cathay Pacific to ever operate a transatlantic service.
The round-the-world flight will take 44.5 hours to operate, including ground time to uplift freight.
-Manila Bulletin
For the full story: www.mb.com
Longtime APL, MOL exec dies
Veteran shipping executive John Gurrad, formerly of APL and later MOL passed away June 2.
For the full obituary: www.legacy.com
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Top Story
Sec. LaHood's recap of NITL address
The Port of Tacoma faces a financial dilemma.
Unless port officials can reach agreement with banks to do otherwise, the port faces the prospect of issuing $230 million worth of bonds intended to finance a container terminal it no longer needs.
Otherwise, the port could end up paying banks more than $24 million to extricate itself from bond financing agreements.
The port’s treasurer, David Morrison, told port commissioners this week he believes the port can work a deal with its bankers that makes both of those potentially painful scenarios unlikely.
The port is talking with those financial institutions because it signed financing deals two years ago that obligated it to issue bonds to finance its ambitious Blair-Hylebos Project. That project was to create a new terminal for NYK Lines at the port.
But the port and NYK cancelled the terminal deal in midstream last year when container volumes plummeted with the recession. Instead, NYK signed a lease for an existing port terminal vacated by a shipping line that moved to Seattle.
Under terms of those complex deals, the port can’t simply decline to issue the bonds without paying termination fees to the banks totalling $24.2 million. Those termination fees vary depending on the prevailing interest rates.
Morrison hopes to craft a new deal with those institutions to allow the port to substitute some existing bonds for some of the new bonds it would have had to issue.
-Tacoma News-Tribune
For the full story: www.thenewstribune.com
Rickmers granted financial lifeline
Rickmers Maritime has been granted a five-year extension to repay a US$130 million top-up loan facility from its lenders, the company said in a stock exchange filing.
At the same time, Polaris, a sister company within the Rickmers Group, has released the shipping trust from its obligation to buy seven vessels worth US$918.7 million.
Polaris will be paid compensation of US$64 million, with US$15 million in the form of cash and the remaining US$49 million in an interest bearing convertible loan.
Rickmers Maritime will be seeking specific approval from shareholders in an upcoming extraordinary general meeting.
In March, its auditors had cast doubt on the company's ability to service its borrowings and financial commitments.
-Channel News Asia
For the full story: www.channelnewsasia.com
Freight index squeaked up for April
The Freight Transportation Services Index (TSI) rose 0.3 percent in April from its March level, rising for the third consecutive month, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported.
The BTS reported that the Freight TSI index has risen 4.9 percent over the last 11 months, starting in June 2009, after declining 15.3 percent in the previous 10 months beginning in August 2008. The index has increased in nine of the last 11 months.
The April Freight TSI of 98.1 is a 4.9 percent increase from the recent low of 93.5 reached in May 2009, the BTS report said. In May 2009, the index was at its lowest level since June 1997. The Freight TSI is down 13.1 percent from its historic peak of 112.9 reached in May 2006.
Virginia longshore bulk-handlers to vote on big pay cut
Longshoremen who handle bulk cargo at Virginia-owned marine terminals in Newport News and Portsmouth are poised to vote on proposed wage and benefit cuts.
The vote scheduled for Thursday would slash pay and benefits by an average of 30 percent.
Union and port officials say the cuts are needed to attract more bulk cargo to the state-owned terminals, and would put more longshoremen to work.
About one-fourth of the region's 1,600 to 1,800 longshoremen have logged fewer than 100 hours of work this year. That is far short of the 700 they need to qualify for the most basic health insurance and other benefits.
The reductions also would apply to a barge service that shuttles containers between Norfolk and Richmond.
-Daily Press
For the story source: www.dailypress.com
Astoria port commission approves LNG settlement, new waterfront plan
The Port of Astoria Commission put two long-standing controversies to rest Tuesday.
In unanimous 5-0 votes, the board approved a new strategic business plan that shifts the Port's five-year focus toward waterfront commerce and agreed to settle a lawsuit with its tenant on the Skipanon Peninsula, liquefied natural gas developer Oregon LNG.
The Port's attorney in the LNG case, Thane Tienson of the Portland law firm Landye Bennett Blumstein, said Oregon Department of State Lands has approved the Port's request to renew its lease of 94 acres on Warrenton's Skipanon Peninsula for 30 years, as mandated by a federal judge. The state has also agreed to let the Port off the hook for the rent on the Skipanon tract if Oregon LNG backs out of its sublease of the property.
The Port leases the proposed LNG terminal site from the state and subleases it to Oregon LNG without making a profit.
Over the past year, the Port has spent more than $100,000 on legal fees in attempting to resolve problems with the Oregon LNG lease.
Having the approved plan will allow the Port to lease land on Pier 3 for the Westerlund Log Handlers log export project, which has raised concerns from existing tenants on the Port's central waterfront.
-Daily Astorian
For the full story: www.dailyastorian.com
Friday, June 11, 2010
Top Story
APL still ag shippers’ favorite
SAN FRANCISCO - APL remains the favorite containership operator with the nearly 590 agricultural-products shippers that responded to an annual survey conducted by a group representing their interests in Washington.
But a company executive said here Thursday that there’s still room for improvement.
“We feel we’re doing our job but there’s more work to be done before we get service levels back to where they should be,” George H. Hearn, the Singapore-based carrier’s vice president and managing director for the U.S. West, told a dinner audience at the annual conference of the Agriculture Ocean Transportation Coalition.
APL got the top rating among 19 shipping lines for the second straight year and the third time in four years. Peter A. Friedmann, AgTC’s executive director, said criteria included documentation, ease of booking, booking fulfillment, customer service “and other things.”
Notably, Friedmann said, Maersk Line has climbed to seventh place this year from last four years ago. At the bottom rung this year, as in 2009, is Zim Container Line.
Rounding out this year’s list, from the top down, are Hamburg Sud, OOCL, Hapag-Lloyd, Evergreen, Yang Ming, K-Line, Mitsui O.S.K., U.S. Lines, Hanjin, NYK, COSCO, Hyundai, China Shipping, United Arab Shipping, CMA-CGM and Mediterranean Shipping.
– Richard Knee for Cargo Business Newswire
Virginia longshoremen vote down pay cuts
Longshoremen on Thursday voted down two labor agreements that would have meant an average pay cut of about 36 percent for two kinds of work - to $16 an hour - but would have given hundreds of idled workers the chance to get back on the job.
The vote affects all eight locals of the International Longshoremen's Association in the port of Hampton Roads - between 1,600 and 1,800 workers - and is a setback for port managers eager to go after part of the shipping business de-emphasized decades ago when the decision was made to focus on containerized cargo.
Workers rejected a pay cut for handling "break-bulk" shipments - noncontainerized cargo that is packed in or on bales, drums, crates or pallets - and for work on an expanded barge service ferrying containers between Norfolk and Richmond.
The vote against the break-bulk agreement was 557-480 and 775-323 against the barge service agreement.
The average pay of an ILA member in the port is $25 an hour, said Ricky Pravato, an ILA wage-scale delegate who helped in the contract negotiations.
-The Virginian Pilot
For the full story: www.hamptonroads.com
Consumer and wholesale prices climb in China
Consumer and wholesale prices in China accelerated in May, with retail inflation outpacing the upper level of the government's target, while bank lending also rose faster than expected, though down from levels in April, according to data released Friday.
Consumer price rose 3.1% in May from a year earlier, while wholesale prices rose 7.1%, according to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics. The results exceeded expectations for a 3% rise in CPI and a 6.9% gain in PPI, according to a Dow Jones Newswires survey.
The CPI is now exceeding the 3% ceiling of the government's targeted inflation range.
However, some analysts expressed doubt the CPI figures would prompt a major tightening response from Beijing, as softening food prices in May suggests some inflationary pressures may be about reach a high-water mark in the next few months.
-MarketWatch
For the full story: www.marketwatch.com
AMB leases 455,200 sq. feet to four 3PLs in Guangzhou
Guangzhou, China-AMB Property Corp. has recently leased about 455,200 square feet to four tenants in its new AMB Guangzhou development Zone Logistics Center, which is still under construction. The one-million-square-foot business park is due for completion in the second quarter and is more than 50% leased, said the company in a statement.
The new tenants include three third-party logistics providers and one electronic solutions company. The tenants were not named. The park is part of the company’s 16.2-million-square-foot Asia portfolio.
-GlobeSt.com
For the full story: www.globest.com
Texas to rid coastal waters of more than 400 scuttled vessels
Texas is pairing up with local governments, nonprofits and metal recyclers to clean its coastal waters of vessels scuttled in the Gulf of Mexico.
Texas General Land Office official William Grimes says that until 2005 there was no law barring people from ridding themselves of unwanted boats, ships and even rigs by sinking them or abandoning them in the Gulf. A law passed in 2005 made that practice illegal.
Now Grimes says Texas is on a mission to clear the water of all the unwanted vessels, some dating back to World War I and even the Civil War. Texas is aware of more than 400 such vessels.
Grimes says the scuttled vessels present environmental and navigational hazards.
-AP
For the story source: www.google.com
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