Pacific Shipper articles from January 2006

Pacific Shipper archives from January 2006

Normal Things.
January 5, 2006... BYLINE: Bill DiBenedetto Last-minute trade negotiation compromises are nothing new in the mirrored world of the World Trade Organization. December's Doha festivities in Hong Kong stretched the limits of what has become normal. Only in...

Safmarine Adds Eighth Vessel to Amex Service.
January 5, 2006... The America Express Service (AMEX) between southern Africa and North America is set to return to a fixed-day, weeklyservice early this year. This follows a decision by Safmarine and vessel-sharing partners Maersk Sealand and Mediterranean...

Rotterdam Handles Record Container Volume.
January 5, 2006... BYLINE: Bruce Barnard The Port of Rotterdam handled record container traffic last year, consolidating its position as Europe's No. 1 box hub and driving total cargo throughput to new highs. Container traffic grew more than 12 percent...

Panalpina Chief Resigns Amid Accounting Fraud.
January 5, 2006... Panalpina, the Swiss logistics group, last week said its chief executive stepped down after accounting misconduct by an employee was discovered that will cost the company about $25 million. The company, which generated revenue of $4.6...

Lloyd Triestino to Change Its Name.
January 5, 2006... Lloyd Triestino di Navigazione SpA announced that it will changeits name on March 1 to Italia Marittima SpA and will be known by the acronym ITS. Chairman P.L. Maneschi said the new name reflects the company's ambitions to strengthen its...

Yellow Roadway Becomes Yrc Worldwide.
January 5, 2006... Yellow Roadway Corp. changed its name to YRC Worldwide Inc., and as of Jan. 4, its stock ticker changed to "YRCW" on the NASDAQ stock market. The company acquired Roadway Corp in December 2003 and USF Corp in May 2005, adding nation-wide...

Hazmat Transportation: Risky, Complicated and Difficult.
January 5, 2006... BYLINE: Rosalind McLymont If there is one thing that domestic and international shippers of dangerous goods agree on, it's that theirs is a trying business. Regulations governing the transport of such goods are increasingly stringent in...

Airfreight Growth Slowed in 2005.
January 5, 2006... International airfreight growth, a prime indicator of the health of world trade, slowed sharply in 2005 after a massive surge in 2004, the International Air Transport Association reported. Passenger traffic, however, performed better during...

Export Compliance Increases.
January 5, 2006... BYLINE: Susan Kohn Ross Whether in the context of the annual update program in Washington, D.C., or in presentations and discussions taking place elsewhere, it has become clear that the Bureau of Industry and Security is focused on export...

Stb Issues Environmental Statement on Powder River Project.
January 5, 2006... The Surface Transportation Board on Dec. 30 made its final supplemental environmental impact statement available regarding the Powder River expansion project of the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad. Release of the statement opened a 30-day...

Us Missed Cafta Target.
January 5, 2006... The U.S. missed its Jan. 1 target date for implementing the Central America Free Trade Agreement, but hoped the countries involved would write it into law in the next couple of months. "I can confirm we will miss the target date of Jan. 1...

Employing Best Practices in Cargo Security Speeds Clearance.
January 5, 2006... BYLINE: Suzanne Richer The Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism continues to evolve. Customs and Border Protection requires participants and potential newcomers in the voluntary cargo-security program to demonstrate greater control...

Shippers Get Warning on China Wood-Packing Rules.
January 5, 2006... Shippers of goods shipped to China face delays beginning this month if they fail to comply with the country's new rules covering treatment of wood-packing materials, a Hong Kong-based non-vessel operating common carrier said. The new...

Hanjin's Cax Service to Call at Oakland.
January 5, 2006... Hanjin Shipping said its China America Express Service (CAX), which connects China and the U.S. West Coast, added Oakland to its port calls on Jan. 1. The CAX service, operated by four 4,300-TEU-class vessels, called at the ports of at...

Panama to Begin Bidding Process for New Port.
January 5, 2006... Panama's maritime authority will start the bidding process to build a $600 million container port near the western entrance of the Panama Canal, according to project director Rogelio Orillac. "We will have the pre-qualification documents on...

Corporate Profit Picture under Pressure in 2006.
January 5, 2006... BYLINE: Bill DiBenedetto The difficult trick for corporate financial officials is to balance their shareholders' needs for immediate gratification on Wall Street in terms of quarterly profits and rising stock value with their companies'...

Charter Ship Rates Reflect Capacity Fears.
January 5, 2006... Container ship charter rates are on the verge of a freefall as ocean carriers rein in expansion plans amid fears that a flood of new ships will cause liner freight rates to slide this year. Brokers said carriers were holding off chartering...

Cn Rail's Engineers in Us Approve New Contract.
January 5, 2006... Locomotive engineers on Canadian National Railway Co.'s former Illinois Central operations ratified a new five-year labor agreement, the union and railroad said in December. The agreement, which covers 400 members of the Brotherhood of...

Hong Kong Partially Lifts Ban on Us Beef.
January 5, 2006... Hong Kong said on Dec. 29 that it had partially lifted a ban on U.S. beef imports that became effective two years ago following the discovery of mad cow disease in the U.S. The decision, effective immediately, came about two weeks after...

Cosco Pacific to Acquire 20 Percent Stake in Port Said Terminal.
January 5, 2006... Cosco Pacific Ltd. said it has signed an agreement to buy a 20 percent stake in the Suez Canal Container Terminal in Egypt, its first port investment in the Middle East. The company will buy its stake from Egyptian International Container...

Qingdao, Weihai Ports Establish Terminal Company.
January 5, 2006... China's Qingdao and Weihai ports jointly established the Qingwei Container Terminal Co. According to a report by the Xinhua news agency, port officials said the new venture will create a win-win situation for the ports and will help to speed up...

Up Opens New Intermodal Terminal in Utah.
January 5, 2006... Union Pacific Railroad has opened a bigger transportation terminal in Salt Lake City capable of handling nearly three times as much cargo as the existing facility. The terminal, called the Salt Lake City Intermodal Facility, opened on Jan....

Cp Rail Trims 2006 Capital Spending.
January 5, 2006... Canadian Pacific Railway last month said it will spend C$810 million ($698 million) to C$825 million in capital investment in 2006. The company said the spending will be focused on track infrastructure, locomotive power, information...

Avion Group Orders Four More Boeing 777 Freighters.
January 5, 2006... The Boeing Co. and Avion Group, based in Iceland,signed a contract for the purchase of four 777 Freighters late last month, an add-on to an order for four 777 Freighters that Avion placed in September. The new cargo planes will be operated...

New Terminals Will Ease Europe's Congestion Woes.
January 5, 2006... BYLINE: Bruce Barnard Europe's top container ports last year managed to avoid a repeat of the serious congestion that plagued the industry during the 2004 peak season, when scores of ships were forced to lie at anchor while containers...

Growing Trade with Western Europe Brings Rewards and Challenges.
January 5, 2006... BYLINE: Richard Knee U.S. trade with western Europe continues to accelerate, and while that might bring economic benefits on both sides of the Atlantic, it poses challenges as well. Aside from the usual spats regarding export subsidies,...

Will Singapore Challenge Dp World for P&O Ports?
January 5, 2006... BYLINE: Rick Eyerdam Temasek Holdings Ltd., the investment arm of Singapore's government, said last month that it has increased its stake in P&O Ports, sparking speculation that it may make a bid rivaling DP World's offer for the world's...

Consolidation Reduces Forwarder Numbers in Greece, But it's Still a Growth Business.
January 5, 2006... BYLINE: Richard Knee Ownership consolidation in the freight forwarding and logistics sector in Greece has pared the number of participants, as in other countries, but several factors make it a growth business, a spokesman for an...

Canadian Ports See Increased Volume This Year.
January 5, 2006... BYLINE: Courtney Tower Canada's three main international cargo ports, coming off a year of growth despite local setbacks, are forecasting increased traffic in 2006 as the Pacific boom continues and Atlantic trade rises more moderately. ...

La, Long Beach Ports Enter Environmental Pact.
January 5, 2006... The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach reached a tentative agreement to establish a coordinated air quality-monitoring network, officials said. Under the agreement, the two ports will share sampling data from four air-monitoring stations...

Maruba Expands Service to Include Vancouver, Seattle.
January 5, 2006... Maruba Lines is expanding its California Express Service to include port calls at Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. The initial sailing of the new vessel deployment will leave Manzanillo, Mexico, on Jan. 12. The port rotation will be...

Port Operators Weigh El Salvador Project.
January 5, 2006... Ten international port operators from Taiwan, Japan, the U.S. and Europe are interested in bidding on El Salvador's La Union port concession, according tothe newspaper El Diario de Hoy. Although the bidding process for the port's concession...

Port of Longview Finalizes Property Sale to Simpson Timber.
January 5, 2006... The Port of Longview, Wash.'s board of commissioners late last month formally approved the sale of 35 acres of land to Simpson Timber Co. Simpson also holds an option to purchase an additional 25 acres. "We are particularly pleased that a...

North Carolina Plans New International Port.
January 5, 2006... The North Carolina State Ports Authority is moving toward building a 2 million-TEU-per year port near the southern tip of the state that the authority said would attract larger ships than the state's two other ports. "It's a truly historic...

Mexican Port Seeks Bigger Share of Us-Asia Trade.
January 5, 2006... Guaymas port is regarded as a "serious" target for the development of international trade between Mexico, the United States and Asia. Authorities in Mexico feel the port has the potential to accept "overflow" cargo from ports in the Los...

St. Lawrence Seaway Closed for Winter.
January 5, 2006... The St. Lawrence Seaway closed for the winter on Dec. 30 after a busy season that lured cargo away from rail and road, a Seaway spokesman said. Traffic on the Seaway, which connects the Great Lakes to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the...

Dhx-Dependable Hawaiian Express Begins New Truck Service.
January 5, 2006... DHX-Dependable Hawaiian Express last month started a new trucking service on the Big Island of Hawaii, a move designed to "better serve the business and residential communities on the fastest growing island in the state," the company said. ...

Horizon Lines Elevates Three.
January 5, 2006... Horizon Lines has promoted three senior managers. John W. Handy, a retired four-star general who most recently served as commander of the United States Transportation Command, joins Horizon as executive vice president. Reporting to Handy will...

Bombard to Host Ferry Conference.
January 5, 2006... Greg Bombard, president and chief executive of Catalina Express, which operates a fleet of high-speed modern ferries that run between Southern California ports and Santa Catalina Island, has been selected to host the 31st Annual Interferry...

New President, Officials to Steer Das.
January 5, 2006... Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics has named a new president at the vehicle services company it acquired last year, and announced plans to relocate its headquarters. Gary R. Long replaces Bill Siscao as president and chief operating officer of...

Crowley Promotes Mead, Warner.
January 5, 2006... Crowley Maritime Corp. promoted Art Mead to senior vice president and general counsel. He will remain in Jacksonville and will report to Bill Pennella, Crowley's vice chairman and executive vice president. Mead joined Crowley in Oakland in 1996...

Trans-Pacific Lines See 7 Percent Cost Increase.
January 5, 2006... Neptune Orient Lines Ltd. and 11 of the largest shipping companies moving cargo from Asia to the U.S. last month predicted that costs will rise 7 percent on higher fuel prices in 2006, which may spur them to raise freight rates. The cost...

The Funding Shuffle.
January 12, 2006... Pork-barrel politics have always been in vogue, albeit in a quiet, semi-embarrassed way. Then along came Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., with his loud declaration that he intended to funnel $1 billion in federal tax money to his state within a short...

Singapore Tops Dubai's Bid for P&O.
January 12, 2006... Temasek Holdings Pte., Singapore's state-owned investment company, made a 3.5 billion-pound ($6.17 billion) offer for Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co., topping the previous bid by Dubai's DP World for the British ports company. ...

China Repeals Duty on Us Kraft Linerboard.
January 12, 2006... China repealed an anti-dumping duty order on kraft linerboard from the U.S., following U.S.-Chinese negotiations on the issue. U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman said last week that he was pleased with the decision. "As we made clear to the...

Hanjin Pegs 2006 Profit at $548 Million.
January 12, 2006... Hanjin Shipping said it has set targets of $6.5 billion in revenue and $548 million in operating profit as part of its 2006 business plan. And the South Korean carrier set a 2006 container volume goal of 3.3 million TEUs and 49 million tons...

Taca Charges to Remain Unchanged Through March 15.
January 12, 2006... The Trans-Atlantic Conference Agreement said last week that its bunker adjustment factor will be held unchanged through March 15. The charges for traffic to, from and via: Atlantic-Gulf Coast Ports is $423 per 20-foot container and $846 per...

Coast Guard Suspends Search for Man Who Fell from Ship off Oregon Coast.
January 12, 2006... The Coast Guard last week suspended the search for a man who fell into the ocean while climbing down the ladder of a 558-foot merchant vessel to a Columbia River pilot vessel near Astoria, Ore., on Jan. 9. The Coast Guard searched for the...

Davis Elected President of Port of Seattle Commission.
January 12, 2006... Patricia Davis was elected president of the Port of Seattle Commission by her fellow commissioners at the port's regular meeting on Jan. 10. Other officers for 2006 are: Lloyd Hara, vice president; Alec Fisken, secretary; John Creighton,...

Cepa III -- China and Hong Kong Solidify Their Economic Partnership.
January 12, 2006... BYLINE: Bill DiBenedetto It's generally good to keep a good thing going, and that is what Hong Kong and the Mainland China governments are doing. When Hong Kong, born and bred as a capitalist, commercial and financial haven in Asia...

Cepa III -- The Hong Kong Trade Development Center Analysis.
January 12, 2006... Trade in goods CEPA III provisions Under CEPA III, the mainland agrees to give all products of Hong Kong origin tariff-free treatment, except for prohibited articles such as used electrical machinery and medical products, chemical...

China Taking Charge in Southeast Asia.
January 12, 2006... BYLINE: Alan M. Field These days, few multinationals based in the U.S., China or elsewhere can afford to ignore Southeast Asia, which offers not only cost-effective, high-quality sources of supply, but also rapidly expanding, domestic...

Hours-of-Service Rules to Go Back to Court.
January 12, 2006... Truck driver hours-of-service rules are headed back to court. After having its request for a federal review of the latest HOS rules denied, the Owner-Operator Independent Driver Association plans to take the rules back toa federal appeals...

Eagle Global Logistics Admits to Overcharges.
January 12, 2006... Eagle Global Logistics wants to limit the damage from a case in which the company overcharged the U.S. Department of Defense in 2004 by $1.14 million for logistics work in the Middle East. The target of a Pentagon investigation, the...

Federal Agencies to Begin Using Online Trade Data System This Year.
January 12, 2006... BYLINE: R.G. Edmonson The International Trade Data System is coming of age. ITDS was touted five years ago as a "single window" to government agencies at the border. ITDS is likely to fulfill that promise in the next two years, but not...

Container Ship Found Liable in Tricolor Sinking.
January 12, 2006... A U.S. District Court judge ruled this month that a container ship that changed course twice to avoid a collision with a bulk carrier is solely responsible for damages in the 2003 sinking of a roll-on, roll-off vessel in the English Channel....

Wto Compromise Avoids Doha Round Deadlock.
January 12, 2006... BYLINE: Alan Field December's WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong left trade ministers, lobbyists and non-government organizations from 149 nations deeply divided on a wide range of issues. Yet everyone agreed on one key point: The...

Greenbrier Net Earnings Increase 49 Percent.
January 12, 2006... Railcar manufacturer The Greenbrier Cos. said its net earnings increased 49 percent to $8 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2006, and earnings before interest, income taxes, depreciation and amortization rose 35 percent to $23.4 million...

Crowley Acquires Fuel Distributor.
January 12, 2006... Crowley this month acquired Columbus Distributing Inc., a fuel distribution business based in Anchorage, Alaska. Terms were not disclosed. The newly acquired company will keep its name. Crowley's Dorine Tessier was named CDI general manager....

Kuehne & Nagel Completes Acquisition of Acr Logistics.
January 12, 2006... Shortly after the European Commission's approval of the ACR Logistics takeover, Kuehne & Nagel completed the deal late last month. "This acquisition marks a quantum leap for our organization," said Klaus-Michael Kuehne, executive chairman of...

Cma Cgm Completes Delmas Purchase.
January 12, 2006... CMA CGM formally completed the acquisition of French shipping group Delmas on Jan. 5, making the combined entity the world's third-largest ocean carrier. Delmas, a unit of the Bollore Group, is a specialist in the Africa trade, and the...

Cp Ships Finalizes Plans for New Australasian Services.
January 12, 2006... CP Ships this month agreed with CMA CGM and Marfret to cooperate in a vessel-sharing agreement between Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, the U.S. East Coast and North Europe via the Panama Canal, starting in February. The service...

Jardine Matheson to Sell Its Stake in Baltrans to Mitsui.
January 12, 2006... Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd. recently agreed to sell its entire stake in Hong Kong freight forwarder Baltrans Holdings Co. to Japanese conglomerate Mitsui & Co. for HK$241.2 million (US$31.1 million). Mitsui will acquire 60.3 million...

Dhl Plans Bigger New York Service Center.
January 12, 2006... DHL, the global express delivery and logistics company, announced plans to build its largest U.S. service center facility in New York City. The $181 million investment will consolidate two existing service center locations into a new...

Greenbrier Declares Quarterly Dividend.
January 12, 2006... Railcar manufacturer Greenbrier Cos. announced a quarterly cash dividend of 8 cents per share, payable on Feb. 15, to stockholders of record as of Jan. 25. Greenbrier, based in Lake Oswego, Ore., supplies transportation equipment and...

Aircraft Orders Soar to Record at Boeing.
January 12, 2006... The Boeing Co. easily eclipsed its previous single-year record for airplane orders in 2005, recording 1,002 net commercial aircraft orders worth an estimated $112 billion. Its previous net order record was 877, set in 1988. Last year's...

Mtc to Use Savi Rfid System.
January 12, 2006... Savi Networks, a provider of RFID-enhanced information services for global container shipments, and Marine Terminals Corp. announced an agreement to extend SaviTrak real-time, supply-chain information services to MTC's port facilities. MTC...

Airfreight Surcharges Likely to Remain Volatile.
January 12, 2006... BYLINE: Ian Putzger Airfreight rates were of little importance in 2005. You read that right. But while basic rates showed little change, the surcharges that cargo carriers imposed to keep up with surging fuel prices pushed up the cost of...

Bnsf Launches Fuel Surcharge Program.
January 12, 2006... BNSF Railway on Jan. 1 introduced a fuel surcharge program based on mileage for unit coal train and agricultural shipments. The charge is based on the carrier's rail mileage between a shipment's billed origin and destination points. ...

Dhl Opens Facility in Bangalore, India.
January 12, 2006... Express and logistics company DHL opened a new facility in Bangalore. According to the Business Standard newspaper, DHL is the first company to process and clear express packages directly at its customs courier express clearance facility at the...

Pacific Northwest Ports Set to Reach Teu Milestone.
January 12, 2006... BYLINE: Bill DiBenedetto Container volume through the Northwest region of North America -- from Portland, Ore., to Vancouver, British Columbia -- likely will meet or exceed the 6 million-TEU mark for the first time when the final 2005...

It's Back to Basics at Staples, and It Works.
January 12, 2006... BYLINE: William Hoffman A basic tenet of supply-chain management is that periodically things need to be located and counted. When office products superstore chain Staples decided a few years ago to put inventory management square in...

Hong Kong Export Value Grows 11.5 Percent in November.
January 12, 2006... The value of total exports in Hong Kong rose 11.5 percent in November compared to the same month in 2004, to HK$200.4 billion (US$25.9 billion) after a year-on-year increase of 11.6 percent in October. Within this total, the value of...

Sinotrans Chairman to Resign.
January 12, 2006... Sinotrans Ltd., the Chinese freight forwarding and express delivery company, said its chairman, Zhang Bin, plans to resign from the company, according to a Dow Jones report. In a legal notice earlier this month, the firm said Zhang had...

Hutchison Given Go-Ahead to Submit India Port Bid.
January 12, 2006... Hutchison Port Holdings, a subsidiary of the Hutchison Whampoa group, received permission to submit a $260 million plan to build container terminals in Mumbai, India. The green light for the port project came after initial reluctance from...

Shanghai Handled 24 Percent More Containers in 2005.
January 12, 2006... The Port of Shanghai handled 18.1 million TEUs in 2005, according to port officials. The Shanghai International Port (Group) Co. told the Shanghai Daily newspaper that the record throughput was 3.5 million TEUs more than that in 2004, an...

Still Free-Wheeling Hong Kong.
January 12, 2006... BYLINE: Richard Knee Hong Kong has been under Communist Chinese control for nearly nine years, but it remains very much a bastion of free-wheeling capitalism; free trade and investment-friendly policies still prevail in Special...

Southeast Asia Nations Losing Market Share to China.
January 12, 2006... BYLINE: Bill Mongelluzzo For the next few years at least, it looks like Southeast Asia will live in the shadow of China. Although the export-oriented economies of the region are generally healthy, they are geared more toward feeding parts...

California Governor Seeks Infrastructure Upgrades.
January 12, 2006... BYLINE: Bill Mongelluzzo The 10-year, $222 billion infrastructure development program for California proposed on Jan. 5 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger includes "trade corridor" improvements that could potentially help ports such as Los...

PierPass Will Track Trucks with Rfid Tags.
January 12, 2006... BYLINE: Bill Mongelluzzo PierPass, the extended gates program in Los Angeles-Long Beach, is adding a security feature to the menu of services it provides to marine terminals by distributing radio-frequency identification tags to every...

PierPass Program Diverts 1 Million Truck Trips.
January 12, 2006... PierPass said on Jan. 6 that more than 1 million truck trips have been diverted from peak daytime traffic since the start of the OffPeak program on July 23, 2005, thus "eliminating costly bottlenecks at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach...

Hanjin Mega-Ship Calls at Long Beach.
January 12, 2006... The Hanjin Dallas, the fifth in a series of five 8,000-TEU vessels deployed in Hanjin Shipping's Asia-West Coast service, called at Long Beach this month on its maiden voyage. Hanjin now operates a full string of mega-ships on its service from...

Noaa Offers Online Navigation Charts.
January 12, 2006... The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is offering free scanned versions of its paper navigation charts online. Available at http://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/staff/charts.htm, the Raster Navigational Charts recently were incorporated...

Tnt Express Deploys Rfid System Between China and Europe.
January 12, 2006... Supply-chain services provider TNT Express said it will deploy Xterprise's Trax Visibility real-time supply-chain execution system to support the movement of high-value electronics goods from China to Europe. The solution was deployed...