Pacific Shipper articles from November 2008

Pacific Shipper archives from November 2008

Smelling fear.
November 3, 2008... I don't watch much television news, but if I walk through a room with cable news on, that's the enduring question. Maybe I should stay longer, but I haven't heard any of the analysts give a sensible answer. So, day by day, the stock market...

Seattle, BNSF delay rail deal.
November 3, 2008... The credit crunch will delay the closing of the $107 million Eastside Rail Corridor deal between the Port of Seattle and BNSF Railway, the port said last week. Seattle's acquisition of the 42-mile corridor will not be finalized until the...

November launch for clean-trucks fee.
November 3, 2008... Terminal operators at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will launch the clean-trucks program known as PortCheck "sometime in November," according to the West Coast Marine Terminal Operator Agreement. PortCheck is the electronic...

MOL to resign from discussion agreements.
November 3, 2008... Japanese carrier MOL has announced that it will resign from the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement and the Canada Transpacific Stabilization Agreement on Nov. 27. The company said it is leaving the two discussion agreements because the...

Stevens found guilty of public corruption.
November 3, 2008... Sen. Ted Stevens, D-Alaska, has been found guilty of public corruption, placing the re-election bid of the Senate's longest serving Republican, and former vice chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, in jeopardy....

Transport interests plot a new political course.
November 3, 2008... BYLINE: Ari Natter For a business world anxious about what transportation investment and regulation will look like in Washington next year, the ongoing debates over a second major economic stimulus package and plans for infrastructure...

Apparel importers face global uncertainties.
November 3, 2008... BYLINE: ALAN M. FIELD For apparel importers, there is an ironic upside to the global credit crisis: In credit-default swaps, derivatives and mortgage-backed securities, apparel executives have finally discovered complexity that outdoes...

Clean-trucks program under way - and so is litigation.
November 3, 2008... BYLINE: Stephanie Nall and Bill Mongelluzzo For the last month, trucks that entered container terminal gates at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have had to prove they belong to a not-so-elite club. Trucks allowed in to drop off or...

UN calls for overhaul of China food safety system.
November 3, 2008... In a move that will affect exports of food products from China, United Nations officials called on Beijing to overhaul its food safety system after tainted milk led to the deaths of at least four children and sickened tens of thousands more....

Chubb Group on cargo theft: Avoid truck stops, rest areas.
November 3, 2008... A study released last week by the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies has found that high-value food, consumer electronics, and clothing are the three most stolen cargoes, and that theft of these and other items occur most often during weekends....

Sinotrans, CSC Group merger approved.
November 3, 2008...   The merger would create China's second-largest transport company. China's State Council has approved the merger of Sinotrans Group, the country's largest logistics provider, and China Yangtze Transportation Group (CSC Group),...

Nehru rate hike denied.
November 3, 2008... India's Tariff Authority for Major Ports has allowed the Port of Jawaharlal Nehru to levy its existing scale of rates for inter-terminal rail-handling operations of inland containers until Dec. 31. The authority earlier fixed a fee of $8...

Point of no returns.
November 3, 2008... BYLINE: WILLIAM HOFFMAN The world's biggest retailer is setting an ambitious goal of eliminating virtually all defective product returns from its supply chains by 2012. Wal-Mart also ratcheted up its sustainability expectations for its...

Aiming for prime time.
November 3, 2008... BYLINE: Richard Knee Work to expand and upgrade ports in Central America is coming in fits and starts as port authorities and national governments grapple with governance and social issues. "All of the Central American ports have some...

Security rules keep seafarers from shore leave.
November 3, 2008... BYLINE: Peter T. Leach Adolf Adrion, chairman and CEO of Hapag-Lloyd, recalls his days as an able seaman with nostalgia. In those days, young men went to sea to see the world, as well as to earn a living. Times have changed. "Unlike in my...

Powering a deal.
November 3, 2008... BYLINE: JOHN D. BOYD California and Union Pacific Railroad are undertaking an innovative deal in which the state will help pay for 10 new cleaner-burning line-haul locomotives in return for UP keeping them inside state boundaries and...

GM uses Hueneme for Caddy exports.
November 3, 2008...   The Port of Hueneme expanded its new role in the auto export market with a shipment of Cadillacs and Buicks bound for China. General Motors recently expanded its market by exporting vehicles to China through the Port of Hueneme,...

Seattle containers off 19.8 percent for month.
November 3, 2008... The Port of Seattle posted its lowest container volume month of the year in September at 135,296 TEUs, a total that was 19.8 percent below the same month last year. September also marked the sixth straight month of declines at the port,...

More competition?
November 3, 2008... BYLINE: Joseph Bonney Before Aug. 27, 2005, the Port of Gulfport, Miss., was thriving. Banana imports and other cargo had pushed container volume to more than 200,000 TEUs a year. Shipments of meat, lumber and breakbulk cargoes were brisk....

Intermodal dinosaur?
November 3, 2008... BYLINE: PETER T. LEACH   Rising costs could price intermodal routes out of business. After years of dominating the U.S. maritime trade, the intermodal route connecting the major West Coast ports with interior regions is...

Bumpy ride.
November 10, 2008... One day's headlines from Reuters Daily Investor Update provides insight, but little clarity, into the financial and economic mess that is getting messier each day. These were the headlines that hit the inbox on Oct. 30: * Economy...

San Diego voters defeat port deck proposal.
November 10, 2008... Voters in San Diego and four surrounding cities voted by an overwhelming margin to keep the Port of San Diego's busy 10th Avenue Marine Terminal for maritime uses only. With 100 percent of the precincts counted the proposal was opposed by...

Houston to resign from Port Metro Vancouver.
November 10, 2008...   Gordon Houston The Port of Vancouver, British Columbia, has begun a search to replace Capt. Gordon Houston, president and chief executive of Port Metro Vancouver, who is retiring. Houston has served as president and CEO at...

Teamsters union celebrates Obama victory.
November 10, 2008... The victory by Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama could be a victory for re-regulation, at least if James P. Hoffa, general president of the Teamsters union, has his way. Hoffa said re-regulation of the transportation industry...

Privatization comes under congressional scrutiny.
November 10, 2008... The credit crisis is leading some key lawmakers to question the role of public-private partnerships in transportation funding, and they are asking the Department of Transportation to ensure that future deals receive more oversight. Rep....

Factory orders, shipments decline.
November 10, 2008... New orders for manufactured goods as well as shipments dropped dramatically in September even as inventories dwindled. Nondurable goods led the decline. New orders for manufactured nondurable goods decreased $13 billion, or 5.5 percent, to...

Maersk lowers Mideast fuel surcharges.
November 10, 2008... In another sign of falling fuel prices, Maersk Line announced plans to lower bunker surcharges imposed earlier on cargo moving between the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, including Bangladesh, the Red Sea and Europe. Effective Dec....

Losing a market.
November 10, 2008... BYLINE: Robert Frump Tim Demarais, a vice president of ABRO Industries, was cruising through the exhibits at the Canton Trade Fair in the fall of 2002 when he spied a picture of his wife happily staring back at him from a tube of super...

Do your homework.
November 10, 2008... Organizations and Web sites worldwide have an abundance of tips for protecting intellectual property. These range from the simple to the complex. The simplest, and most important, can be summarized in six words: "Due diligence, due...

Bush signs bill creating IP czar.
November 10, 2008... President Bush signed into law last month a bill that stiffens penalties on movie and music piracy. The PRO-IP Act also creates the position of intellectual property czar who will report directly to the president. The czar - or czarina - will...

Stimulus envy.
November 10, 2008... BYLINE: ARI NATTER For months, Democratic leaders in Congress have been calling for infrastructure projects to be a major part of an economic stimulus package. Now comes the hard part - divvying up what could be hundreds of billions of...

Transport world eyes Obama DOT.
November 10, 2008... The business world started batting around names of potential nominees to be transportation secretary last Wednesday amid reports that President-elect Barack Obama could start lining up his Cabinet choices as early as this week. Rumors and...

Taiwan, China to expand direct shipping links.
November 10, 2008... Negotiators from Taiwan and China last week signed a historic agreement in Taipei that will significantly expand the number of airline flights between the two countries, and allow cargo ships to directly cross the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait....

Profit plummets at Wilh. Wilhelmsen.(Financial report)
November 10, 2008...   Wilh. Wilhelmsen says ro-ro volume is growing. Wilh. Wilhelmsen, the world's biggest auto logistics and roll-on, roll-off shipping company, and part owner of Wallenius Wilhelmsen, reported third-quarter earnings down more than...

House panel urges test of 10+2.
November 10, 2008... Leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee have urged Customs and Border Protection to take an intermediary step that would allow real-time testing of the importer security filing rule known as 10+2 before it becomes final. The letter,...

WTO to meet on trade finance issues.
November 10, 2008... The World Trade Organization will bring together senior executives of leading global banks on Nov. 12 to discuss ways to finance global trade of goods and services, which has slowed during the financial crisis. In addition to WTO chief...

US, EU reach pact on cargo screening.
November 10, 2008... The Transportation Security Administration has reached agreement with the European Union on the screening of air cargo on U.S.-bound passenger aircraft. The TSA said that under the agreement, the EU will establish screening procedures that...

RFID market expected to top $5.3 billion.
November 10, 2008... The worldwide market for radio-frequency identification technology will reach $5.3 billion in 2008, according to a new forecast by consultant ABI Research. Despite the slowing global economy, the annual growth rate of RFID-related business...

Nippon Express reports drop in profit.(Financial report)
November 10, 2008... Nippon Express Co., Japan's largest freight forwarder, said that it suffered a decline in fiscal first-half consolidated profit despite increased sales, because of fuel costs and other negative factors. Group sales totaled 951.9 billion...

Rail traffic numbers show sharp decline.
November 10, 2008...   Intermodal trafic is down 4.1 percent. Intermodal and carload freight volume on U.S. railroads took a major tumble in the week ending on Oct. 25, according to figures released by the Association of American Railroads. The...

Marad delays action on short-sea program.
November 10, 2008...   Financial weakness forced Marad to delay the program. The Maritime Administration has rescinded its invitation to companies that might want to participate in the marine highways program. Marad's notice in the Federal...

Reversing returns.
November 10, 2008... BYLINE: WILLIAM HOFFMAN In what could be the opening of a new front in the corporate war on waste, Wal-Mart is taking the ultimate step in reverse logistics by aiming to virtually eliminate returns of defective merchandise by 2012. ...

FFEX reports earnings growth.(Financial report)
November 10, 2008... Frozen Food Express Industries put together two consecutive profitable quarters for the first time since 2006. For the three months ending Sept. 30, revenue increased 15 percent to $132.5 million. Net income was $1.4 million, compared with...

Crowley acquires Customized Brokers.
November 10, 2008... Crowley Holdings Inc., the newly formed holding company for Crowley Maritime Corp., has acquired Miami-based Customized Brokers, a customs clearance company specializing in refrigerated cargoes arriving by air and sea. Terms were not disclosed....

USDA database streamlines veggie info.
November 10, 2008... The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, a unit of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has put together a new database on fruit and vegetable import requirements. The database allows importers to quickly check the latest...

MOL sets plans for new service to South America.
November 10, 2008... Japanese carrier MOL announced plans to launch an independent liner service between Asia and the east coast of South America in January. The move follows the termination of the carrier's existing joint service on the route, operated with...

WTO rules for US in India liquor tariff dispute.
November 10, 2008... The United States won a World Trade Organization dispute with India, concerning extra duties that India placed on its imports of wines and spirits. The U.S., the world's third-largest exporter of spirits and sixth-largest exporter of wine,...

Asia-Pacific airfreight declines 9 percent.
November 10, 2008... The collapse in Asia-Pacific air cargo shipping escalated in September as airlines across the region reported a 9 percent drop in traffic. The decline compared to the same month a year ago was the worst for Asian carriers since the...

India trade deficit widens.
November 10, 2008... India's trade deficit soared to $10.63 billion in September from $4.55 billion a year ago, amid fears that global recessionary trends would have an adverse impact on the country's export growth in the coming months. In the April-September...

Japan feels America's pain.
November 10, 2008... BYLINE: Richard Knee Economic turmoil in the U.S. is reportedly socking Japan's auto and electronics-component manufacturers. And while exports of U.S. beef to Japan have risen sharply, regaining a firm foothold in that market remains...

FMC wields regulatory weapon.
November 10, 2008... BYLINE: BILL MONGELLUZZO   The FMC is challenging what it sees as anti-competitive rules. For 24 years, the Federal Maritime Commission has had the power to seek court injunctions against what it sees as anti-competitive...

Clean-trucks fee set to begin.
November 10, 2008... BYLINE: BILL MONGELLUZZO   The ports will use the fees to subsidize new trucks and develop less polluting models. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will begin to collect a $35-per-TEU clean-trucks fee on Nov. 17. ...

NAFTA trade growth slowed in August.
November 10, 2008... Surface trade with Canada and Mexico increased in August but at its slowest pace so far this year, according to a government report. Trade using surface transportation between the United States and its North American Free Trade Agreement...

Prince Rupert container traffic nearly tripled in third quarter.
November 10, 2008... The Port of Prince Rupert, which opened its Fairview Container Terminal just a year ago, has seen its traffic jump at a time when other Pacific Coast ports are losing business volume. Containerized shipments moving from Asia to the U.S....

STB backs Coos Bay shippers in rail line dispute.
November 10, 2008... RailAmerica must sell an Oregon short line it sought to abandon to the Port of Coos Bay, under a Surface Transportation Board ruling. The order represents a victory for lumber shippers and other businesses along Oregon's East Coast, who were...

Ports America promotes Rupert, Trombley, Dunton.
November 10, 2008... Ports America has announced the appointments of Donald Rupert, Steven Trombley and Peter Dunton. Rupert, now vice president of sales and marketing, previously served as regional marketing director of sales and marketing. Domiciled in the...

California Cartage hires business development director.
November 10, 2008... California Cartage Co., a national trucking, distribution, deconsolidation and warehousing provider, has hired Michael Stockwell as its new director of business development. In the position, Stockwell is responsible for managing sales and...

Pandora's ballot box.
November 17, 2008... For a working journalist, there is a certain charm to living in the state reputed to be the home of the fruits and nuts. Watching the state Legislature argue the merits of ferrets and writing about a city council that declares palm trees must...

Maersk posts profit, will close China center.(Financial report)
November 17, 2008... Maersk Line, the world's biggest ocean container carrier, last Wednesday reported an operating profit of $92 million in the first nine months of 2008, compared with a year-earlier loss of $57 million, driven by a double-digit increase in...

10+2 filing rule likely this month.
November 17, 2008... Customs and Border Protection's long-awaited importer security filing rule is likely to be published by the end of November, officials said. The rule reached a major milestone on Nov. 6 when it gained the White House Office of Management...

DHL Express slices US service.
November 17, 2008... Deutsche Post World Net will drop its DHL domestic package delivery business in the United States by the end of January. The move, which will eliminate 9,500 jobs, is the second major restructuring in five months and signals defeat in the...

Domestic intermodal turns in solid gains.
November 17, 2008... Domestic intermodal volume in the third quarter was the best since the second quarter of 2004, according to a report by the Intermodal Association of North America. Domestic containers increased 10.5 percent - the strongest gain since 1999...

Has the export boom gone bust?
November 17, 2008... BYLINE: Bill Mongelluzzo As Chinese manufacturers raced to fill their orders before the government shut factories to clear the air for the Beijing Olympics, their appetite for wastepaper knew no bounds. This scrap commodity helped carriers...

Export growth? It's complicated.
November 17, 2008... BYLINE: Stephanie Nall A global credit crunch, low consumer confidence and a strengthening dollar have combined in a toxic formula that threatens to stop a resurgence of U.S. exports. But some economists and transportation officials...

Will Obama moderate his trade stance?
November 17, 2008... BYLINE: Alan M. Field   During the campaign, Ogama frequently spoke against free trade.During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama sounded like a fire-and-brimstone anti-trade populist. He promised to revise the North American...

Mexican truckers pass safety test.
November 17, 2008... BYLINE: ARI NATTER   Trucks wait to cross into the U.S. from Tijuana, Mexico. The Mexican truckers enrolled in the cross-border trucking program have a good safety record, sometimes better than their U.S. counterparts, an...

Evidence grows on transport contraction.
November 17, 2008... Idled container fleet estimated at 150,000 TEUs A dozen container ships in the 5,000- to 8,500-TEU range are currently believed idle at the ports of Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai, according to AXS-Alphaliner, a Paris ship broker. ...

Horizon Lines to cut work force by 10 percent.
November 17, 2008... Jones Act carrier Horizon Lines said it plans to reduce its work force by at least 10 percent, or by approximately 70 of its 700-plus nonunion employees by Jan. 31, 2009. The company said it would offer voluntary severance to certain...

Horizon Lines makes voluntary debt payments.
November 17, 2008... The largest Jones Act carrier, Horizon Lines, announced that it has further reduced debt by making an additional payment of $5 million on its revolving credit facility. The payment brings the total debt reduction during the fiscal fourth...

Four-year low forecast in US inbound box traffic.
November 17, 2008... Inbound cargo volume at the nation's major container ports fell again in October, and 2008 is now expected to be the slowest year for box traffic since 2004, according to the latest Port Tracker report by the National Retail Federation and...

APL's volumes down for four-week period.
November 17, 2008... Neptune Orient Lines reported that its worldwide container volumes declined 1 percent in the four-week period from Sept. 20 to Oct. 17, but average revenue per container increased.  The Singapore-based parent of APL said volumes...

Yokohama box traffic up for fourth consecutive month.
November 17, 2008... The number of foreign trade containers handled by Japan's Port of Yokohama increased for the fourth month in a row in August. Traffic was up 2.3 percent compared to August 2007, to 262,049 TEUs, according to preliminary figures released by the...

OOCL opens agency office in Mundra, India.
November 17, 2008... Orient Overseas Container Line has expanded its Indian agency network with the opening of an office at Mundra in the country's western state of Gujarat. The move comes after the carrier's wholly owned local subsidiary, OOCL (India) Pvt....

Nagoya sees gains in US container trade.
November 17, 2008... Containerized exports to the United States from the Port of Nagoya in central Japan dropped 4.8 percent in July from a year ago to about 337,000 tons, but imports from the U.S. increased 7.6 percent to about 187,000 tons. Container exports...

Hong Kong air cargo decreases 10 percent.
November 17, 2008... Imports and exports declined steeply at Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals in October. Transshipments, too, turned downward for the second consecutive month, yielding an overall volume drop of 9.8 percent. The operator handled 222,166 metric...

Cargo revenue grows 4 percent at JAL.(Financial report)
November 17, 2008... Japan Airlines Corp., Asia's largest air carrier, reported group operating revenue from international cargo increased 4 percent in the first half of fiscal 2008, which started in April, from a year earlier to 95.4 billion yen (US$979 million)....

Kintetsu posts decline in profit for six-month period.(Financial report)
November 17, 2008... Kintetsu World Express Inc., Japan's second-largest international forwarder, said it suffered a decline in group profit during the April-September period compared to the same period last year, despite increased revenue, primarily because of...

Washington state anticipates record apple harvest.
November 17, 2008... The Washington state apple crop that was projected in August to be just so-so is turning out to be a record harvest as the fall progresses. The Yakima Valley Growers-Shippers Association reported the nation's largest apple-producing state...

USDA seeks comments on longan, eggplant import proposals.
November 17, 2008... The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is proposing to allow commercial shipments of fresh longan with stems from Taiwan into the United States. As a condition of entry, the longan would be subject...

Horizon Lines unveils reefer monitoring service.
November 17, 2008... Horizon Lines has introduced ReeferPlusGPS, a container tracking and shipment monitoring solution for refrigerated ocean containers moving between the continental United States and Puerto Rico.  The service, which is available now, is...

Terminals want productivity hike.
November 17, 2008... BYLINE: BILL MONGELLUZZO Cargo volumes are down, and congestion at marine terminals is only a bad memory, but industry veterans know they'll be scrambling for space when economic conditions improve. That is why terminal operators...

Industry supports Schwarzenegger on green exemption.
November 17, 2008... California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called the state Legislature back into session for an emergency budget session, saying the state could run out of money as soon as February. As part of his plan to kick-start the state's economy, he...

Humboldt Bay considers new cargo terminal.
November 17, 2008... The now tiny Port of Humboldt Bay is interested in getting a great deal busier with cargo shipments and is considering a plan to build a multiuse terminal. Earlier this year, the port hired TranSystems to develop a business plan for development...

Seattle cruises to record.
November 17, 2008... The Port of Seattle reports that its 2008 cruise season was its busiest ever. The port welcomed a total of 210 cruise vessel calls and 886,039 passengers, representing increases from a year ago of 13 percent and 11 percent, respectively. The...