Shipping lines running the Taiwan — Hong Kong/South China trade announced that from July 1 they would levy a new surcharge of RMB400 per TEU to be collected from consignees in South China, regardless of whether the freight had already been prepaid in Taiwan.

Shipper organizations in Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macau have called on their members to reject this.

Toland Lam, executive chairman of the Shenzhen Shippers’ Association, said, ‘South China shippers are very angry with shipping lines’ action, which is totally unjust. Shippers will reject the charge.’

Hong Kong Shippers’ Council chairman Willy Lin said the emergency bunker surcharge ‘violated international shipping practices’ and would not be accepted.

The shipping lines involved comprise most of the carriers on the trade, leaving shippers with no choice of taking their business elsewhere.

The annual volume on the trade is estimated to be around one million TEUs, and the shipper’s organization estimate that the lines will pocket $56 million from shippers in Hong Kong and South China.
Source: CargoNews Asia

At the Port of Savannah, shipping containers from China arrive attached with small plastic boxes that track the cargo inside — and send a radio-signaled alarm to remote computers if someone tries to break in.

This is not RFID tagging although based on the same technology. This is something else in that it is a security device. Port officials say these electronic tags, a little larger than a pack of cigarettes, could prove a tremendous boon to the shipping industry.

The Savannah port has teamed up with the world’s second-largest seaport in Shanghai to test the tagging technology on all cargo shipped between them.

Curtis Foltz, chief operating officer of the Georgia Ports Authority said, ‘It’s a huge benefit. From the beginning of shipping to the end, if a container is compromised at any point there will be an immediate alert.’

Savannah and Shanghai started shipping tagged cargo in March and have since used them on 2,375 containers spread over 18 trips. They hope to reach 10,000 tagged containers shipped over the next six to 12 months getting the system beeded in and the bugs out.

The tags are programmed with the type of cargo being shipped, its weight, the name of the ship transporting it and the destination.

That information gets picked up via radio by monitors at the port gates when the cargo arrives by truck or train, and again at the crane loading the container onto a ship a process that’s repeated, in reverse, when the shipment reaches its destination. The monitors send the information to computers that can track the cargo’s whereabouts in real time.

The tags will also sense if a container is opened or if its seal is broken in transit, and will broadcast an alert marking the time of the intrusion. Its location is plotted by Global Positioning System.

Wally Barelka, the Georgia ports’ general manager for strategic systems development, said, ‘It’s like a cell phone. The first cell phones were clunky and didn’t have many functions. Now your cell phone checks your e-mail and is your address book.’
Source: Forbes

Against the story that precedes this from Maersk comes news that strong US export growth is not enough to offset the trade imbalance on the transpacific route with shipping lines still struggling to cope with crippling operational costs.

Container shipping lines in the Westbound Transpacific Stabilisation Agreement said in a statement that while eastbound traffic grew by less than one percent in 2007, the volume of loaded containers shipped from Asia was still more than twice that of loaded container volume for return US exports.

In other words Asia, specifically China, is shipping more than it takes back. A fairly obvious conclusion.

A sharp increase in Asia demand for US products, driven primarily by the weak US dollar, along with a significant falloff in eastbound volumes as the US economy has slowed, has resulted in little to no new capacity entering the trade.

WTSA chairman Ron Widdows, who is also CEO of Singapore-based container line APL, said, ‘No one sets out to turn away business, but at this point carriers face hard choices with each sailing about how best to balance competing customer demands for limited vessel space and equipment.

‘Carriers are doing the best they can to work with their customers to satisfy their need for space under very difficult circumstances.’

Westbound cargo grew nearly 17% in 2007, with a further 12-13% growth forecast over 2008-09.

Widdows acknowledged that, for the first time in over a decade, some US exporters to Asia have experienced difficulty getting container equipment delivered to their premises for loading after having made a booking.
Source: CargoNews

Concerns have been raised that the supply/demand situation in the shipping sector will deteriorate over the coming years due to a combination of weakening demand and large orders for new container vessels.

Shipping giant A P Moller-Maersk Group, however, disputes this and strongly believes demand will continue to outstrip supply.

Jesper Larsen, country manager for Maersk Line Philippines said, ‘If you look at the figures provided by well-reputed independent analysts, such as Drewry and Clarkson, it is clear that this view that supply will be in excess of demand is not supported by hard numbers. Both groups are forecasting fairly solid global GDP growth. GDP growth is a key driver of demand growth. It is evident that while the world economy is expected to slow down in 2008, it is still well above the long-term average of three percent.’

The forecasts also indicate container demand will be robust and capacity growth is likely to slow down from peak levels.

Jesper Larsen said, ‘While the supply/demand balance will indeed soften over the next few years, it is likely that we will end up around the healthy 2003 levels where we, particularly over the peak season, saw demand exceed the supply of shipping capacity.’

Regarding bunker surcharges, Larsen said, Maersk Line has a total consumption of well over 10 million tonnes of bunker fuel a year, and carriers could not continue to pay all the costs of rising fuel prices while at the same time sustaining high service levels on the various trades.

So as fuel prices go up so will the cost of shipping.

No great surprise there.
Source: Cargonews Asia

Shanghai’s Yangshan port is currently in the splendid position where any new additional capacity that becomes available is immediately fully booked by shipping lines days in advance.

Y. S. Gong, general manager, operations, OOCL (China), said Yangshan port was much more easily accessible because it was a deep-water port unlike Waigaoqiao’s facilities that were subject to tide conditions.

Gong added: ‘Furthermore, Yangshan port’s container handling cost is 10% cheaper than Waigaoqiao’s, although there is an additional trucking cost of about $72 per 20-foot container for transportation of the container from the city to Yangshan.’

Yangshan port is also more convenient as vessels can move in and out of the port within 24 hours.

A Waigaoqiao port official said all berths in Yangshan’s Phase 3A, which opened without any fuss on December 10 last year, have been already booked out.

He said, ‘Under Phase 3A, four berths with a length of 1,350m were constructed and they have an alongside water depth of 22m, which means they can accommodate vessels of 10,000 TEU plus.’ Where the letters TEU stand for a container.

Yangshan port’s Phase 1 and Phase 2 projects have five and four berths respectively with an alongside depth of 15m so they take smaller vessels. Still massive but slightly smaller.

Shanghai International Port Group, Singapore’s PSA International, China Shipping and French shipping giant CMA CGM have invested in Phase 3A.

Now 3B is open for bidding and it seems unlikely that anything will stop it getting it into operation sometime before the very end of the year.

Several port operators as well as carriers have expressed an interest in the project.
Last year, Shanghai port handled 26.15 million containers — TEU — which is up 20.4% year-on-year, and overtook Hong Kong to become the No. 2 port in the world after Singapore.

This year, the port expects to match Singapore and just possibly overtake it. To read much more on the subject click HERE.
Source: CargoNews Asia

Construction on the Chengdu railway container center station is expected to start soon, said Jin Dazhong, director of logistics for the Chengdu Municipal Committee of Communication.

With an investment of RMB2 billion ($286.39 million) from China United International Rail Container, the station will have a total cargo throughput of 2.2 or 2.5 million twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs) — that which we think of as containers — upon completion.

Jin Dazhong said, ‘It will be the largest railway container center station in Asia.’

The station will open direct lines from Chengdu, Southwest China’s Sichuan Province, to Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Lianyungang and Tianjin ports, and the transportation time will be shortened from 5 or 6 days to only 48 hours.

Covering an area of 2.140 mu (142.67 ha), the station is the largest of 18 container logistics projects planned by China United International Rail Container Co Ltd.

Chengdu aims to build itself into a logistics hub in western China by 2010, and 2,700 mu more land has been planned for the container logistics zone, with a designed annual handing capability of two million TEUs.
Source: China Daily

Shipping giant China Cosco Holdings will add 64 vessels to its fleet of 144 container ships this year.

China’s top ship line will raise its 2008 capital expenditure by 37% to $3.32 billion to expand its fleet and port investments.

China Cosco’s net profits more than doubled last year, going up 134% (these three digit increases have astoundingly become commonplace) to $2.78 billion, compared with $1.14 billion in 2006.

Much of the increase in profits was attributable to China Cosco’s acquisition of a subsidiary owned by its parent company, Cosco Group, which owns the world’s largest dry-bulk shipping fleet.
Source: CargoNews Asia

Port operator China Merchants Holdings (International) saw 2007 net profit surge 40% on increased capacity and strong container volumes.

The Hong Kong-listed company’s net profit rose to US$455 million from $325.6 million in 2006. Revenue was up 58% to $802.56 million from $507.69 million.

China Merchants has container port investments in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tianjin, Qingdao, Ningbo and Zhangzhou.

China Merchants 2007 throughput rose 17% to 47.12 million TEUs with mainland China ports handling 40.11 million TEUs, up 20% from 2006.

Earlier, Chairman Fu Yuning, seen here, said the company is planning to invest in more container terminals both in China and overseas.
Source: CargoNews Asia

TSK Line has launched a new joint India-China service with Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd (seen here), Thailand-based Regional Container Lines (RCL) and South Korea’s Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM).

Five ships of around 2,700 TEUs each will be traveling the route New joint India-China service by the end of month — two from TSK and one each from the other partners.

The port rotation is Xingang, Qingdao, Ningbo, Shekou, Singapore, Port Kelang, Mumbai-Nhava Sheva and Pipavav.

At the same time RCL, Taiwan’s Wan Hai Lines and feeder line Sea Consortium are to upgrade their South Korea-China-Straits-India service by replacing five ships of 1,790 TEUs with 2,500 TEU vessels but, at the same time, dropping South Korea from the route.
Source: CargoNews Asia

APL Logistics is introducing guaranteed delivery of full-container loads from Asia to nearly any destination in the United States.

The new service, called APL Guaranteed Continental, connects Shanghai, Hong Kong, Chiwan, and Yantian with virtually any ZIP code in the continental United States.

The service guarantees delivery of full-containerload cargo on a specified date or the shipper receives a 20% refund. The service is speedy. Full load shipments from Hong Kong to a consignee’s door in Boston will take only 15 days.

Under the Guaranteed Continental service, cargo receives priority stowage on APL container carrier vessels in Asia. That cargo is then among the first discharged after the vessels arrive at APL’s marine terminals in Los Angeles and Seattle.

Ocean containers destined for 13 metropolitan areas are loaded onto specially designed longhaul chassis. Cargo bound for any other U.S. destination is trans-loaded (or transferred) into domestic highway trailers at a Los Angeles-based APL Logistics facility.
Source: DC Velocity