| Company shorts - 5 Jan. 11 Posted: APM Terminals has won a 25-year concession for Skandia Container Terminal in Gothenburg, the largest box hub in Scandinavia, which handles more than half of the total container traffic in Sweden.
The Board of Trustees at the Cochin Port Trust (CPT) in India is hoping to attract more freight by announcing that port, cargo and vessel-related tariffs will remain unchanged for three years.
South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering is to build five very large crude carriers worth US$556 million for Kuwait Oil Tanker Co.
Cosco Container Line and China Shipping have unveiled a space-swap agreement for the services operated by the two Chinese giants between Asia and Europe.
DP World sold its 25 per cent stake in a joint venture which operated Med Europe Terminal in Marseilles. French carrier CMA CGM has become the sole owner of the shortsea terminal.
An international consortium formed by DP World, Odebrecht Transport and Coimex Group is to build the largest private multimodal port terminal in Brazil. Rail-connected Empresa Brasileira de Terminais Portuários (Embraport), close to Porto de Santos, will a have a capacity of 2.5 million teu.
Sources: Lloyd’s List; International Freighting Weekly; 4-5 January 2012 |
| Strong results for Antwerp port, but Rotterdam port is hit by Eurozone crisis Posted: The Belgian port of Antwerp is to set a record year with container traffic expected to reach 8.64 million teu in 2011, after handling 186.4 million tonnes, up 4.6 per cent on 2010.
Year-on-year average growth for conventional freight and ro-ro volumes was 14 per cent.
The port of Rotterdam, the largest in Europe, has reported a weak 0.8 per cent increase in cargo volumes, which rose to 433 million tonnes last year. Hope for a consistent recovery is for 2013, as container traffic is forecast to remain at the same level in 2012.
Source: International Freighting Weekly; 5 January 2012 |
| Bad year for the container industry Posted: The total loss expected to be posted by all box lines for 2011 could be around US$5.2 billion, a dramatic drop from an overall profit of $17 billion recorded in 2010.
London-based analyst Drewry has recently said that 2012 could be another “challenging year” for crisis-hit container lines, but not as disastrous as 2009 when the industry lost almost $20 billion. Small carriers may face tough competition with major shipping alliances.
Overcapacity, low rates, and a softening demand could force shipping lines to change their strategies and lay up more than one million teu in the second half of 2012, according to Drewry.
Source: Lloyd’s List; 5 January 2012 |
| Capacity expansion for top shipping lines Posted: The top 20 carriers have increased their share of the world capacity to 84.2 per cent in 2011 from 83.1 per cent the previous year, according to Paris-based analyst Alphaliner.
Overall, the total container capacity grew 7.3 per cent last year to 15.9 million teu. The three largest shipping lines – Maersk Line, Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) and CMA CGM – have added more than 620,000 teu to their combined fleet.
Meanwhile, three carriers from the top 20 – Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores (CSAV), Zim and Hanjin Shipping – have seen their fleet shrinking. CSAV lost more than a third (378,000 teu) of its fleet capacity.
Source: Lloyd’s List; 4 January 2012 |
| Government support for SeaFrance Posted: A commercial court in Paris has postponed the ruling on the future of the state-owned ferry operator SeaFrance after the French government announced its support for the bid submitted by a co-operative of SeaFrance employees and unions.
However, no further details about the nature of the support have been made available and rival operators have condemned the move, saying it could breach the EU regulations.
As the local authorities in Calais have pledged only €12 million for the rescue plan, it appears the government is suggesting to provide redundancy packages which could be used by SeaFrance workers to top up the bidding fund.
Source: International Freighting Weekly; 4 January 2012 |
