Pacific Shipper articles from January 2008

Pacific Shipper archives from January 2008

'Hurry up please its time'.
January 7, 2008... Nowhere is time more relative than on these pages, except when relatives come to visit. That is proven all of the time in a weekly publication and even more so when we put the year-end chronology together -- the passage of news and events line...

Los Angeles port OKs box fee.
January 7, 2008... BYLINE: Bill Mongelluzzo The Los Angeles Harbor Commission on Dec. 21 approved a $35-per-TEU fee that will help to fund the replacement of some 16,800 trucks with new trucks that meet the rigid emission standards in the Los Angeles-Long...

Rail traffic plummets.
January 7, 2008... Freight traffic on U.S. railroads declined dramatically during the week ending Dec. 15 from a year ago, according to data collected by the Association of American Railroads. Severe weather in some parts of the country may have contributed...

State audit slams Seattle port capital program.
January 7, 2008... BYLINE: Bill DiBenedetto A performance audit from the Washington State Auditor's Office this month found "serious and pervasive" problems with the Port of Seattle's capital construction programs since 2004 that has resulted in $97.2...

Cosco Busan departs US.
January 7, 2008... The Cosco Busan has departed the United States for China, six weeks after it crashed into the San Francisco Bay Bridge and spilled tens of thousands of gallons of fuel oil into the bay. The container ship underwent repairs before it was...

2007: Looking back.
January 7, 2008... BYLINE: Stephanie Nall       Wind turbine shipments became more important at West Coast ports.   Los Angeles Port Chief Geraladine Knatz took to the fashion runway as part of the port's...

December '06.
January 7, 2008...   Port officials in Vancourver, Wash., are investing in an expanded rail system to accommodate expected growth. Dec. 4, 2006 * Maersk Line and Hapag-Lloyd announce plans to increase rates and reduce capacity. * DHL...

January 2007.
January 7, 2008...   Port officials around the cournty worry about waterfront gentrification, like this project in Boston. Jan. 1, 2007 * The Port of Portland's comeback year in 2006 included new services by Zim Integrated Shipping Services...

February 2007.
January 7, 2008...   China's inland transport network, like the Yangtze River, have a hard time keeping up with demand. Feb. 5, 2007 * Shippers and port officials in Washington state oppose a proposed container tax designed to fund state...

March 2007.
January 7, 2008...   Security experts observe the latest security devices in Southern California. March 5, 2007 * Speakers at the Faster Freight, Cleaner Air conference in Long Beach, Calif., indicate that ports around the country are taking...

April 2007.
January 7, 2008...   CN plans construction of an intermodal rail terminal in Prince George, British Columbia. April 2, 2007 * Supply-chain experts say 2007 looks like another year of smooth sailing with nearly double-digit trade gains. Paul...

May 2007.
January 7, 2008...   Chiquita sells its Great White Fleet to NYKLauritzenCool. May 7, 2007 * Chiquita Brands International sells its 12 refrigerated cargo vessels, known as the Great White Fleet, for $227 million to NYKLauritzenCool. *...

June 2007.
January 7, 2008...   The TSA says container ships were running nearly full as the peak season approached. June 4, 2007 * Canada-based cold-storage operator Versacold Income Fund agrees to a takeover offer from Iceland's Eimskip Holdings. *...

(Broken) promises.
January 7, 2008... In June 2001, the Natural Resources Defense Council sued the Port of Los Angeles and stopped any and all development and expansion at the port in its tracks. While the group was skillful in its use of technical requirements of a law, the...

Tacoma to grab MOL box service from Seattle.
January 7, 2008... BYLINE: By Bill DiBenedetto The Port of Seattle is bracing for the loss of one service operated by Japanese carrier MOL through the port to the Port of Tacoma. Specifics about the pending move 35 miles south, particularly the timing,...

Tacoma box numbers plummeted in November.
January 7, 2008... Cargo containers moving through the Port of Tacoma in November fell more than 22 percent, virtually ensuring the port will close out 2007 with a container decline in the 5 to 7 percent range. And unless the port moved about 250,000 TEUs in...

Tuticorin lines to move import containers to off-site facilities.
January 7, 2008... Container lines serving India's Port of Tuticorin announced they have decided to move import boxes to off-dock facilities of their choice in a bid to speed evacuation of cargo from the container terminal operated by PSA-Sical. Carriers in...

Cosco orders 16 ships.
January 7, 2008... China Cosco Holdings Ltd. said it is ordering 16 4,250-TEU vessels for $1.08 billion to meet rising demand. The company will ask Jiangsu Tianyuan Marine Import & Export Co. and Jiangsu New Yangzi Shipbuilding Co. to build the vessels,...

Evergreen chief says shipping profits to improve.
January 7, 2008... Evergreen Marine Chairman Wang Lung-hsiung said the container shipping industry can expect improved profits in 2008 now that it has gotten the problem of overcapacity under control. Because of a spike in oil prices, major shipping companies...

Macquarie to invest in Busan New Port.
January 7, 2008... The trend to global investments in terminal operations continued into the new year as Macquarie Korea Infrastructure Fund said on Jan. 1 that it will invest 259.4 billion Korean won ($277 million) in Busan New Port Container Terminal, which has...

Transportation and trade outlook.
January 7, 2008... BYLINE: Richard Knee    With export and import volumes rising in virtually all U.S. foreign trades, ocean carriers are advising customers, especially smaller shippers and consignees, to book their sailings early even if it...

Free trade in trouble.
January 7, 2008... BYLINE: Rosalind McLymont     Asia will experience the most robust trade growth In the mid-November 2007, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez led a bipartisan congressional delegation to Colombia to show the...

White (House) noise.
January 7, 2008... BYLINE: Ari Natter     While much of Washington focuses on primaries and caucuses, the transportation industry is looking beyond this year's presidential election to 2009. That's when the highway bill that...

Overcapacity, slow economy point to lower air-cargo rates.
January 7, 2008...   To handle China's growing trade, new all-cargo airlines are emerging. Overcapacity, slow economy point to lower air-cargo rates International air-cargo rates will be under pressure in 2008 because of overcapacity in lift,...

Connecting the dots reveals declining maritime picture.
January 7, 2008... BYLINE: Peter T. Leach     The maritime industry is headed for choppy seas in 2008, according to a fresh analysis of leading economic indicators. Conventional wisdom says global economic expansion will compensate...

New year could bring changes by the trainload.
January 7, 2008... BYLINE: John D. Boyd   In a year that saw rail traffic near record levels, train service measures improving, Wall Street chasing rail stocks and carriers still able to hike freight rates to spur profits, it might seem like the...

Jack Fabulich retires from Tacoma post after 31 years.
January 7, 2008...   Jack Fabulich Jack Fabulich, appointed to the Port of Tacoma Commission in 1976 and then elected to the post the following year, has retired. Over his span of service on the commission, Fabulich, 79, presided over the...

Elaine Ko to head Seattle social responsibility office.
January 7, 2008... Elaine Ko was named to head the Port of Seattle's newly established Office of Social Responsibility. She'll begin work at her new post on Jan. 22. Since 2006, Ko has served as executive director of the city of Seattle's InterIm Community...

Damage control.
January 14, 2008... BYLINE: Bill DiBenedetto It's tough to mount an effective damage-control campaign while the damages mount seemingly uncontrollably, but that is the difficult situation confronting Tay Yoshitani, the Port of Seattle's chief executive. ...

Dorgan blasts DOT's Mexican truck program.
January 14, 2008... BYLINE: Ari Natter Critics of the Department of Transpor-tation's cross-border trucking program are crying foul. The program is 5 months old. The author of an amendment aimed at stopping the movement of Mexican trucks into the United...

US ports end box slide.
January 14, 2008... BYLINE: Bill Mongelluzzo Leading U.S. container ports in December handled more containers than a year earlier, ending a four-month slide in volume. Volume at the major U.S. gateways increased 3.3 percent from a year ago, according to...

Criminal probe launched of Port of Seattle.
January 14, 2008... A damning state performance audit of the Port of Seattle's capital construction practices has prompted a criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office for Western Washington. In a 334-page report, the state auditor's office in...

USL, ANL realign services.
January 14, 2008... Ocean carriers U.S. Lines and ANL announced a major realignment of their alliance service structure in three key trade lanes. Between the Pacific Coast of the U.S. to and Australia and New Zealand, the carriers' joint service will turn...

Supply chain shift.
January 14, 2008... BYLINE: Peter T. Leach When the global quotas on imports of textiles from China expired at the end of 2004, the textile industry braced for a massive shift in production to China. With its huge low-cost labor force, China appeared poised...

Supply chain's dark side grows.
January 14, 2008... BYLINE: William Hoffman The cargo thieves who broke into a Cranbury, N.J., warehouse were surprised to discover the freight they planned to steal had already been shipped. But rather than leave empty-handed, they broke through a wall into...

'K' Line, shippers association face off over contract terms.
January 14, 2008... BYLINE: R.G. Edmonson An uncommon complaint before the Federal Maritime Commission is about a common fear among shippers associations, non-vessel-operating common carriers and other intermediaries: back-solicitation. Service contracts...

APL to train US merchant seamen.
January 14, 2008... Container carrier APL has agreed to train U.S. maritime academy cadets aboard its international-flag container ships. Under terms of a partnership with the U.S. Maritime Administration, cadets from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and all...

Hudd Distribution rebranded as Maersk Distribution Services.
January 14, 2008...   Hudd Distribution Services Inc., the North American warehouse and transportation arm of A.P. Moller-Maersk, changed its name to Maersk Distribution Services Inc. on Jan. 1. Hudd Distribution's warehousing and transloading...

MOL expects loss in container business in 2008.
January 14, 2008... Japanese carrier MOL says it expects to lose money on its container ship business in 2008 because of losses on its North American routes. In a New Year's message, MOL President Akimitsu Ashida said that the MOL Group's overall results are...

Maersk to cut 3,000 jobs in reorganization.
January 14, 2008... BYLINE: Peter T. Leach   Maersk Logistics and Damco are being separated from the Maersk Line organization to allow the line to focus on its core services. Photo: Maersk Line Maersk Line will cut 8 to 12 percent of its global...

New box fee set.
January 14, 2008... BYLINE: Bill Mongelluzzo and Stephanie Nall If your cargo moves through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach by truck, get ready to pay more. The ports' harbor commissions are preparing to impose a per-container fee to finance improved...

Fenway parks cash in logistics.
January 14, 2008... A deepening credit crunch isn't slowing down private equity firm Fenway Partners' interest in the transportation and logistics market. The New York-based firm last month bought a majority stake in East Coast Warehouse & Distribution,...

Preferred Freezer Services opens Los Angeles facility.
January 14, 2008... Preferred Freezer Services has opened a facility with a 31,000-square-foot loading dock in Southern California. Located on Washington Boulevard in Vernon, the facility has 7.4 million cubic feet of freezer capacity and 19 dock doors. It...

Textainer back in reefers.
January 14, 2008... Container lessor Textainer Group Holdings Ltd. has re-entered the refrigerated container market. The Bermuda-based company has ordered 800 40-foot high-cube reefers with Carrier and Daikin machinery for delivery this month. The company...

AgriWorld Exchange signs agreement with Mission Produce.
January 14, 2008... AgriWorld Exchange, an online perishable goods trading marketplace, said Mission Produce, one of the world's largest avocado producers and shippers, has signed an agreement to trade fresh produce using AgriWorld Exchange. The agreement enables...

Rail traffic declined for year.
January 14, 2008... Freight traffic for North American railroads fell 2.3 percent in 2007, halting a strong expansion in demand that pushed carriers to record profits in recent years.   BNSF Railway Intermodal traffic, an engine of much of the...

US air cargo rose in November.
January 14, 2008... Cargo traffic for U.S. airlines, pushed by a surge in trans-Atlantic trade, grew 3.5 percent in November, the sharpest expansion in more than a year, the Air Transport Association reported last week. The November report bolstered...

NAFTA surface trade hits monthly high.
January 14, 2008... Trade using surface transportation between the United States and its two North American Free Trade Agreement partners Canada and Mexico hit a new monthly high in October. The record amount of $74.2 billion in goods carried by truck, rail...

YRC Logistics to acquire Chinese LTL provider.
January 14, 2008... U.S.-based YRC Logistics has agreed to acquire less-than-truckload provider Shanghai Jiayu Logistics Co. for about $75 million. Jiayu is one of China's largest providers of LTL ground transportation services, with 1,800 employees and more...

Mumbai reports increase in third-quarter tonnage.
January 14, 2008... The Port of Mumbai, India's leading cargo hub, handled 43.16 million tons of cargo in the third quarter of the current fiscal year, up 12.5 percent from 38.37 million tons in the previous year. Details about containerized cargo handled...

New Nehru terminal tops 1 million TEUs.
January 14, 2008... Gateway Terminals India Pvt. Ltd., the third container terminal at the western Port of Jawaharlal Nehru, announced that it handled 1.17 million TEUs in its first year of operations. Gateway, a joint venture of A.P. Moller-Maersk's APM...

PIL, PSA enter joint venture in Singapore.
January 14, 2008... Pacific International Lines has entered into a joint venture agreement with terminal operator PSA International to operate a dedicated container terminal in Singapore. The new entity, PIL-PSA Singapore Terminal Pte. Ltd., will operate...

Green initiatives can soften oil's hit.
January 14, 2008... BYLINE: Erv Bluemner As oil approaches the $100 per barrel mark, businesses must shift from dealing with something that was once only theoretical to a situation that is now a reality. That's why companies continue to search for ways to...

Cashing in.
January 14, 2008... BYLINE: Peter T. Leach   The Port of Portland lost busines last September when Zim Integrated Shipping Services suspended its service to the port. Now the port is seeking private investors to help with the expansion of its...

Rough waters roil Seattle waterfront.
January 14, 2008... BYLINE: Bill DiBenedetto   New Port Director Tay Yoshitani inherited a politically difficult situation. These are difficult days at the Port of Seattle. Already facing the loss of a second container line in a year to nearby...

FTA elects 2008 officers.
January 14, 2008... The Foreign Trade Association of Southern California last month elected a new slate of officers and directors for 2008. The FTA's new chairman is Joseph P. Cox, of Stein, Shostak, Shostak, Pollack & O'Hara. Hud Warren, ChinaWest LLP, was...

Port of Vancouver, Wash., names three managers.
January 14, 2008... The Port of Vancouver, Wash., announced new management hirings in its property, contracts and human resources units. Dave Hurt joined the port's facilities department as contracts manager. His responsibilities will include writing and...

Who's the user?
January 21, 2008... BYLINE: Stephanie Nall It's the start of a new budget year and all around the country, politicians are looking for magical ways to buy things such as roads and bridges without it appearing to cost anything. Raising taxes has become a...

Economist sees decline in US imports.
January 21, 2008... BYLINE: Bill Mongelluzzo A maritime industry economist said the U.S. economy is most likely in a recession now, and this will result in declining imports in 2008. Bill Ralph, senior economist at R.K. Johns & Associates, said retailers...

NTSB finds design flaw in bridge.
January 21, 2008... The collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis last August resulted from a design flaw in the original construction, according to a preliminary finding of the National Transportation Safety Board. Investigators said several steel plates...

India port delays vex lines.
January 21, 2008... Delays to vessels calling at India's ports of Kolkata and Haldia have forced container lines to seek immediate intervention with port management as well as the ministries of Shipping and Commerce. Carriers in the Container Shipping Lines'...

Buffett buys more stock in BNSF.
January 21, 2008... BYLINE: John D. Boyd Investor Warren Buffett celebrated the start of 2008 with a new round of stock purchases that left him with a larger stake of the continent's second-largest railroad, BNSF Railway. His Berkshire Hathaway investment...

Clinton, Obama back plan for employee truckers.
January 21, 2008... Democratic presidential frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, weighing in on a controversial environmental plan in California, are urging state officials to back a Teamsters union drive to require that all port truck drivers be...

Piling on.
January 21, 2008... BYLINE: Stephanie Nall and Bill Mongelluzzo Transportation, a corporate bargain that helped fuel economic expansion globally throughout much of the past two decades, is about to get much more expensive as local, state and federal lawmakers...

Gas tax hike?
January 21, 2008... BYLINE: R.G. Edmonson The National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission last Wednesday issued a report that calls for a complete overhaul of the way the federal government spends money on surface transportation, and...

Private expertise plays role in cold-storage infrastructure.
January 21, 2008... BYLINE: Louis Perez Thirty years ago, ports were the least-known component in the shipping matrix. Words and phrases such as "intermodal," "paradigm shift" and "tipping points" were not part of the transportation vocabulary. Today, the...

APL chief says container outlook isn't all gloom and doom.
January 21, 2008... BYLINE: Joseph Bonney People should not confuse current economic conditions in the United States with the overall health and prospects for container shipping, said Ron Widdows, chief executive of APL Ltd. Slowing growth in the...

Ports America management group formed.
January 21, 2008... AIG Highstar Capital, the owner of Ports America Inc., MTC Holdings and Amports Inc., has formed a single management structure to operate the total enterprise. The Ports America Group will combine the management of Ports America and MTC...

Shippers file antitrust suit against forwarders.
January 21, 2008... A group of shippers is suing several forwarders in a class-action claim that they are violating antitrust laws. Precision Associates, James Barnes and Anything Goes, which does business as Mail Boxes Etc., filed a class-action lawsuit in...

Hapag-Lloyd parent moves to block possible takeover.
January 21, 2008... BYLINE: Bruce Barnard TUI AG, the German tourism and transportation company, is drawing up plans to integrate Hapag-Lloyd, its ocean container shipping business, into its parent company in a bid to thwart hostile takeover bids. The...

Slower growth forecast for retail sales.
January 21, 2008... Retail sales will grow 3.5 percent in 2008, a slowdown from growth last year, according to a forecast by the National Retail Federation. The group said the U.S. economy should avoid a recession this year, with the economy growing about 1.5...

Streamline congressional oversight of DHS, Chertoff says.
January 21, 2008...   Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff spoke to the council about the importance of streamlining congressional oversight. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has called for more streamlined congressional oversight...

NASSTRAC supports hours-of-service rules.
January 21, 2008... NASSTRAC, a trade association that represents the interests of shippers, has filed a brief in support of the FMCSA Interim Rule for truck drivers' hours of service.  The rule, which took effect on Dec. 27, preserves an 11-hour driving...

Railroads invest in intermodal service.
January 21, 2008... BYLINE: Bill Mongelluzzo   CSX and BNSF reduced the transit time from Southern California to Atlanta by one day through a joint venture last year. Intermodal volumes declined in 2007, but that did not deter railroads from...

Intermodal traffic declined in first week of '08.
January 21, 2008... U.S. railroads reported a decline of 3.2 percent in carload traffic and a drop of 13.1 percent in intermodal cargo for the first week of the new year compared to the first week of 2007. The Association of American Railroads estimated that...

Rewrapping shipping costs.
January 21, 2008... BYLINE: William Hoffman Shippers are thinking inside, outside and all around the box as they try to cut shipping costs. In particular, Wal-Mart's packaging reduction initiative and the introduction of dimensional pricing by parcel...

NYK Line to exit Asia-South America service.
January 21, 2008...   The alliance will use Hamburg Sud's Monte-class vessels. The 5,522-TEU vessels each have 1,365 plugs for reefer containers - much more than industry norms. Photo: Doug Webster Hamburg Sud, Maersk Line and NYK Line have decided...

IPBCC member carriers withdraw Chennai congestion fee.
January 21, 2008... Member lines of the India-Pakistan-Bangladesh-Ceylon Conferences will withdraw the congestion surcharge of $100 per 20-foot container imposed earlier on cargo moving through India's Port of Chennai. The move comes after feeder operators...

Container Corp. of India discounts fees on empty containers.
January 21, 2008... Container Corp. of India, the state-owned intermodal logistics provider, announced a 25 percent reduction in its freight charges for movement of empty boxes from the country's western port of Pipavav to various hinterland destinations. The...

India, Pakistan and Bangladesh: Subcontinent has rough road ahead.
January 21, 2008... BYLINE: Richard Knee Recent internal strife in Pakistan, including the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is reportedly having little, if any, effect on U.S. trade with the country, though domestic and foreign businesses...

Tacoma's Alaskan market.
January 21, 2008... BYLINE: Bill DiBenedetto   Alaska Gov. Palin this year could award a contract for the U.S.-Canada gas pipeline project to TransCanada that would help Alaska's oil industry. Alaska is one-fifth the size of the U.S. and 2.5...

Economist sees growth ahead for southern US box ports.
January 21, 2008... BYLINE: Bill Mongelluzzo The U.S. container trade will return to more normal growth patterns over the next two years, with ports in the Southeast and Southwest benefiting most from the increased trade. The container trade is influenced...

OOCL drops use of old trucks in Long Beach.
January 21, 2008...   OOCL will slash truck emissions by 80 percent in five years by progressively removing older, more polluting vehicles. Photo: OOCL Orient Overseas Container Line decided to beat a regulatory deadline and has stopped using trucks...

Tacoma opposes merger proposal.
January 21, 2008... BYLINE: Bill DiBenedetto The Port of Tacoma is strongly opposed to a proposal that would merge the port with the other major Puget Sound ports of Seattle and Everett. Glenn Anderson, a Republican legislator from Carnation, Wash.,...