Two container shipping companies have announced that they will begin services from South China and Vietnam to the East Coast of the USA via the Suez Canal.  Beginning in June, the service is designed to answer customer’s requirements for improved transit times   for container freight shipping from Asia to the USA.  The route will [...]

Five new offices have been opened at Chennai port zero gate in India in order to speed up the customs clearance of freight containers. The new facility was opened officially by the Shipping Secretary, P.K. Sinha, last Friday. Local logistics suppliers said that this solution is suitable only on a temporary basis, and that they needed [...]

Lloyds of London Maritime Academy is offering a new distance learning course covering all aspects of container shipping. The course examines the commercial, technical and operational aspects of the liner shipping industry and is ideal for people working for shipping lines. It would also be especially beneficial to personnel engaged in the wider container logistics [...]

The Transport Ministry of Vietnam is drawing up plans to transfer more freight containers to rail, in order to ease road congestion.  It is proposed to upgrade three main routes this year with others to follow.  Only one port at the moment has links to the national rail system.  This means that most freight travels [...]

Indian Railways is planning to run the country’s first horticulture freight container trains from the inland depot at Bhusawal to national capital Delhi.  The train, with 90 containers, will transport bananas, potatoes and apples. The containers, which are insulated and ventilated, are expected to provide better preservation for the fruit and vegetables and the container [...]

A Dutch rail operator has instituted a new daily freight container service between Rotterdam and the Rhine terminal of Germersheim. The service area  may expand to include the areas of Germersheim, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Strasbourg and Ludwigshafen, and possibly as far as  Alsace and Lorraine in France.

As shipments of bulk goods decrease, the port of Nantes in France is expanding its capacity for container freight. The port is planning to extend quaysides at its Montoir container terminal by 350 metres to 600 metres so it can accommodate bigger containerships of 6,000-8,000teu. Their objective over the next 10-15 years is to raise annual [...]

The Port of Belfast was pleased to report an increase in freight volumes in 2011 over the previous year.  Bulk cargo, especially steel and steel coil traffic doubled in 2011, compared with 2010. This reflected improved activity in Northern Ireland’s engineering manufacturing sector, while the number of freight vehicles using the port rose by 14%. Belfast [...]

London Gateway port, currently under construction 40 km east of London, will be the United Kingdom’s newest deep-sea container port combined with one of Europe’s largest logistics parks. The port is hoping to attract at least 70 percent of containers arriving from China. With a capacity of 3.5 million TEU the port will be almost [...]

The Essex port of Tilbury is to be re-branded as London Container Terminal.  Its new owners will combine the deepsea and shortsea container facilities. As the closest deepsea container terminal to London, it focuses on north-south trades and handles a high volume of reefer cargo, including Australian and New Zealand meat, and butter, cheese and fruit. The [...]

Container freight shipping has been seriously disrupted today by gales affecting the coastal ports.  The UK’s biggest port by volume of freight, Felixstowe, is completely closed as the high winds make it too dangerous to use the ship to shore cranes. Freight lorries which are already en route will be parked in the port area; [...]

A new rail terminal at Felixstowe will be the first in the UK to be able to handle longer, 30-wagon freight trains which allow more containers to be moved on the same infrastructure, and provide greater carbon savings. Felixstowe is already benefitting from two new ship-to-shore gantry cranes and 10 rubber-tyred gantry cranes. The new ship-to-shore [...]

Container freight rates are continuing to fall while shipping lines have excess capacity and compete with each other for reducing volumes of cargo. Rates on the Asia to Europe and Asia to west coast Europe are falling according to the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index. While some container lines have been withdrawing capacity, growth has been [...]

Last week the rate for container shipments from Hong Kong to Los Angeles fell $64 from the week before to $1,457 per feu. This means that the rates has reduced by about 21.2%, since last August and 29.9% below the same week a year ago. Freight rates on the transpacific and Asia-Europe routes have been falling [...]

This month a new direct rail container service from  Germany to China will be officially opened. The transit time of 23 days for a journey of about 11 000 kilometers will run from Leipzig to Shenyang in Northeast China.  The rail operator says that this will be more than twice as fast as the previous [...]

Xiamen Port in the Fujian province of East China has plans to increase freight volumes in response to reducing exports caused by weakening demand from the USA and Europe. By building large scale industry clusters and port warehouses, accompanied by a strong logistics network. the provincial government hopes to increase the annual throughput to 10 [...]

Intermodal Europe, featuring a free to attend conference and exhibition, is returning to Hamburg on 29 November – 2 December 2011.  It is expected to attract key decision makers from some of the world’s leading shipping lines, cargo owners, freight forwarders and logistics operators. Visitors will also be able to attend a series of free high-level [...]

According to the Chairman of Gothenburg ports, that is the stated aim of port situated on the West Coast of Sweden and new investment will help it to achieve that aim. In October  APMT Ports acquired the Skandia Container Terminal, the largest container terminal in Scandinavia which has a 25-year concession agreement with the Port [...]

Prospects for the freight industry remain uncertain, but different carriers have adopted different strategies for dealing with this.  The largest container line in the world has ordered the largest ships yet, which are being tested now but will not be used for shipping freight until 2013. Other shipping lines are consolidating their financial position and [...]

On 28 September Felixstowe, which is the largest freight container port in the UK, opened two new berths.  They will be the only container berths in the country which are large enough to handle the largest container ships which are currently on order. It is hoped that the new development will create around 1,500 jobs. The [...]

Although the monthly volume of container freight through China’s ports was the highest in history in the first half of 2011, growth began to slow down in the second quarter.  A shipping industry expert said that this was caused by a decrease in demand from overseas.  Growth in container freight volumes is expected to be [...]

Jawaharlal Nehru Port in India has revealed plans for a fifth container terminal to accommodate the increase in freight volumes which they are expecting.  This is a long term project for India’s largest container gateway. Shipping lines have been forced in recent months to miss calling at the port and re-route to further up the [...]

One of the world’s major shipping lines has announced a new service from Asia to Europe which will ‘guarantee’ a sailing every day at the same time, with a guaranteed arrival time.   From next month, the service will operate as a giant ocean conveyor belt, and will compensate customers if containers are not delivered [...]

Intermodal Europe will take place in Hamburg, Germany from 29 November to 1 December 2011.  Focussed on Logistics and Container Shipping by road, air and sea, you can either visit the Fair free of charge, or take a stand in the exhibition hall.  The Conference, covering subjects such as intermodal innovation, the role of rail [...]

There will be an open auction in Russia next month, to sell 75% of the freight subsidiary of Russian Railways.  There seem to be three main contenders to purchase the business, funds from which will help Russian Railways to finance its future investments.  The funds will be a key element in reforming the freight side [...]

The World Shipping Council warned earlier this year that there would be a shortage of shipping containers in the second half of 2011.  An industry analyst has said that the predicted shortage has not materialised, and that container availability is likely to be sufficient during the peak season for imports from the Far East.

The Indian Ministry of Shipping unveiled plans to triple its exports of merchandise by March 2017.  Part of the plan is to create seven new ports, as so far export growth has been limited by inadequate investment in infrastructure. Freight handling is extremely slow in Indian ports compared with major ports in the rest of [...]

According to a recent article in the journal of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, it is time to re-design the distribution of freight to reduce cost and environmental impact.  Current practice relies on using existing facilities, which were located according to location of raw materials and the markets for them. When freight containers [...]

Logistics managers for the military services in Iraq are planning the transport of eight years of war materiel within months.  It is uncertain whether US bases will remain in Iraq next year, and logistics staff estimate that they will have to arrange the shipping of about 1 million pieces, either to other locations or within [...]

The world wide economic climate resulting in lacking consumer confidence has meant that orders for consumer goods are falling below expectations, and ships are sailing below capacity.  Carriers on the Asia-US container lines usually introduce surcharges around mid-June.  But this year, the surcharges have been delayed because the main routes have excess shipping capacity. The [...]

With container movement already being delayed due to lack of gates, the situation has now been made worse by a flash strike which started on Friday. As of yesterday morning, over 500 vehicles, including export containers, lined up for over 8 km up to Ernavur in North Chennai waiting to enter the port. The strike means [...]

The port of Tilbury has submitted plans for an extension of about 26 hectares.  The port was built in the 1880′s by the East and West India dock company, and has continued to adapt to changing shipping methods.  It is now Britain’s third largest container port. Concentrating on port-centric processes, Tilbury is expanding to meet [...]

Container Trade Statistics report that imports into Europe from Asia in June were 4.6% down on May, but are above the levels recorded during the same month last year.  Exports to Asia in Quarter 2 of 2011 increased compared with last year. There was a decrease in imports from South and Central America to Europe, [...]

The World Shipping Council claims that its members operate 90% of global container ship capacity.  The Council has just published research, showing that previous estimates of 10 000 freight containers lost per year were grossly exaggerated. The shipping inndustry has been supporting a number of efforts to reduce the number of containers lost at sea: one [...]

The balance between the supply of ships and demand for space has become more and more unstable since 2009, according to a specialist shipping analyst.  They expect this volatility to remain in force for about the next four years. There are a number of reasons for this: firstly, shipping lines are taking time to adjust [...]

Having announced last week that they would impose a freight increase on the Asia Europe route in August, shipping lines have revealed that spot rates have fallen on average.  The Shanghai Containerised Freight Index showed that rates declined from 809 dollars per tonne two weeks ago,  to 800 dollars per tonne. Shipping line hope that [...]

Container shipping lines are imposing surcharges on shippers, to recoup the extra costs caused by drastic congestion at Mumbai, the busiest port in India.  The port has been suffering equipment failure, work to replace cranes and monsoon delays. The Western India Shippers’ Association, which represents about 130 exporters and importers, have advised that six shipping [...]

Network Rail is hoping to remove up to 50 000 freight container lorries per year from the roads by up-grading a second rail route from Southampton docks.  The first route runs from Southampton via Eastleigh and Romsey; the new route will run via Romsey and Andover, and will require 17 bridges to be knocked down [...]

A recently published report on North Europe produced by Hackett Associates and the Bremen Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics shows that volumes of container shipping declined in April compared with March.  The report tracks volumes through Le Havre, Zeebrugge, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Bremen and Hamburg, which are estimated to have decreased by 2.1%. Consumer confidence [...]

The Lyttelton Port of Christchurch(LPC) is expecting freight operations to be resuming at the port within the next two days after the two earthquakes which struck on Monday. Although engineering assessments are still ongoing across the ports facilities, management expects the resumption of general freight shipping immediately and that the container terminal will be operational by [...]