Florida Shipper articles from April 2007

Florida Shipper archives from April 2007

No excuses.
April 30, 2007... Those of us who have never had the helm of a cargo ship or tug-and-barge array cannot fully appreciate the intense responsibilities of the captain of the ship, the bar pilots and the captain of the port. Each week, dozens of tugs with...

A contender.
April 30, 2007... BYLINE: Rick Eyerdam Jacksonville rated as leading U.S. growth port Global Insight recently labeled the Port of Jacksonville and the Jacksonville area the best of the fast-growing U.S. foreign trade gateways. Global Insight...

Gateway to the world.
April 30, 2007... Jaxport sets records, declares new vision When the Port of Jacksonville's annual report was released earlier this month, it declared that Jaxport would hence be marketed as Northeast Florida's "Gateway to the World." Rick Ferrin,...

Jaxport's Talleyrand reports record moves.
April 30, 2007... A container crew working a Mediterranean Shipping Co. vessel at the Jacksonville Port Authority's Talleyrand terminal recently set a Jaxport record, accomplishing an average of 47.19 moves per hour. Under the direction of SSA Cooper, the...

Horizon Lines' Raymond:.
April 30, 2007... Jacksonville could begin short sea by 2008 Short-sea shipping is a necessary solution to the impending intermodal congestion crisis facing the U.S. and the maritime industry is ready to prove it if regulatory hurdles are overcome this...

UPS calls for rail trust fund.
April 30, 2007... UPS is calling for the creation of a federal Railroad Trust Fund to pay for needed capacity expansion of U.S. railroad networks. Testifying at a Surface Transportation Board hearing on April 11, UPS official Thomas Jensen said such a trust...

Rail tax breaks proposed.
April 30, 2007... Bipartisan legislation proposing tax breaks linked to railroad spending on track and equipment was introduced in the Senate on April 17. The Freight Rail Infrastructure Capacity Expansion Act (S.1125), co-authored by Trent Lott, R-Miss.,...

EU in trade negotiations with US neighbors.
April 30, 2007... The European Union has begun initial steps toward a comprehensive package of trade agreements with Latin American and Caribbean nations. The talks took place in Washington, D.C., during the week of April 16. There has been a push for...

Port of Americas moves ahead.
April 30, 2007... The proposed $250 million Port of the Americas at the Puerto Rico Port of Ponce is moving ahead and could be operational as soon as next year, according to Ramon Torres Morales, port executive director. In a speech to the Council of...

10,000 tons of Cuban nickel booked to China.
April 30, 2007... The People's Daily Online reports that Cuba has agreed to supply more than 10,000 tons of nickel to China in 2007, quoting visiting Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Felipe Ramon Perez Roque. In his speech at the China Institutes of...

Mitigation impacts Bridgestone deal at Cecil.
April 30, 2007... The planned Bridgestone distribution center at Cecil Commerce Center will proceed without further ado now that the City has agreed to reduce the sales price by $2.8 million for the 67-acre transshipment center. Bridgestone Firestone...

Companies can find their own supply-chain SCOR.
April 30, 2007... BYLINE: Bill DiBenedetto It could be called "Benchmarking: The Next Generation," or maybe "Benchmarking for the Rest of Us." The nonprofit Supply Chain Council is making an open-standards benchmarking system, using the Supply Chain...

Operation Conquistadors nets cargo workers.
April 30, 2007... Virginio "Lulo" Rudy Suarez, Alberto Chang "Chino" Cabrera, Lazaro "Tata" Fundora, and Celis "Alexis" Alvarez had the name game down as they allegedly smuggled cocaine and heroin across the docks at Miami International Airport, the Port of...

Free Trade Zone booming in Jacksonville.
April 30, 2007... Foreign goods entering the Jacksonville Free Trade Zone increased 46 percent in 2006, at the same time that exports from the zone were up nearly 20 percent, according to the trade zone's annual report. For the fiscal year ending Sept. 30,...

2007 Global Trade and Commerce Expo set for May.
April 30, 2007... The Jacksonville Sister Cities Association will present the 2007 Global Trade and Commerce Expo, an event bringing together those interested in trade with Jacksonville's six sister cities: Nantes, France; Port Elizabeth, South Africa; Bahia...

Customs to roll out ACE trade portal this summer.
April 30, 2007... Customs and Border Protection later this year will launch the first phase of the Automated Commercial Environment, the agency's long-awaited digital trade portal. The $3 billion makeover of the computer system through which Customs will...

WTO: No radical changes in textile trade.
April 30, 2007... China's textile and clothing sales remained unaffected by U.S. and European Union quotas in 2006, the World Trade Organization announced recently while releasing its preliminary data on global trade. Major trends in textile trade were...

American Airlines expands Dominican transport.
April 30, 2007... Miami-based American Airlines has requested from the Dominican Civil Aviation Board permits to operate new routes in the Caribbean area, from the international airports Las Americas and El Catey, in Samana. Eduardo del Pozo, directorate...

Maersk, Hamburg Sud join on Americas service.
April 30, 2007... Maersk Line and Hamburg Sud announced that they are jointly offering the NASA service linking Jacksonville with the east coasts of North and South America. Southbound service includes weekly scheduled calls in six ports on the east coast...

Trailer Bridge expanding service to Dominican Republic.
April 30, 2007... Trailer Bridge in the third quarter plans to extend its tug-barge network to cover the Dominican Republic. Trailer Bridge plans to deploy one additional container barge in a service that will augment its existing Puerto Rico service and...

Trailer Bridge sees tax credit.
April 30, 2007... Trailer Bridge said the audited results of its previously announced fourth-quarter and full-year 2006 earnings have given it an income tax credit of $4.98 million. The credit was recorded in the fourth quarter as a reduction of the...

Jacksonville considers cruise terminal alternative.
April 30, 2007... The Jacksonville Port Authority continues its search for a cruise terminal east of the Dames Point Bridge and has asked the Marine Corps for some help. The Dames Point Bridge limits the height of cruise ships to those with a smaller...

Chassis pool adds locations.
April 30, 2007... Consolidated Chassis Management LLC, which last September created the South Atlantic Consolidated Chassis Pool covering the ports of Charleston and Savannah and major inland hubs in Atlanta and Charlotte, said recently the pool is being...

Retroactive Dominican duty available.
April 27, 2007... U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab provided notice on April 17 that, pursuant to s.205(b) of the Dominican Republic-Central America-U.S. Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, she had determined that the Dominican Republic is an...

Intermodal business declines.
April 27, 2007... BYLINE: John D. Boyd The freight slump that began in the housing and automotive sectors has clearly hit the strongest part of the rail business. Intermodal is taking it on the chin. A cluster of events adds to the evidence: A leading...

Logistics is (are) good business(es).
April 23, 2007... The recent tussle over who would pay the most for the underperforming EGL Logistics makes more sense when you realize that revenue for third-party logistics companies grew at double-digit rates domestically and internationally in 2006,...

Prophets of highway doom.
April 23, 2007... BYLINE: Rick Eyerdam Former DOT secretary warns of 'Traffic Armageddon' Former U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta has joined the chorus of political, business and academic leaders who are predicting doom and...

Back to the future: Revalidating the supply chain.
April 23, 2007... BYLINE: Bruce Proctor For much of the past 10 years, a key philosophy underlying developments in the trade finance world has been "dematerialization." Advances in communications technology and a related re-examination of the role played...

Testing may delay TWIC.
April 23, 2007... Enrollment for the Transportation Worker Identification Credential will not begin until testing is complete on the underlying processing system, even if that means missing a July 1 deadline set by Congress, Edmund "Kip" Hawley, head of the...

IMF worried about credit debt in Latin America.
April 23, 2007... The International Monetary Fund said Latin America's private credit expansion requires "careful vigilance," particularly with household loans and collateral conditions. "Recent rapid increases in banking credit require careful vigilance...

New Charleston port faces threats.
April 23, 2007... The lengthy permitting process for the $600 million North Charleston port project is moving along with the Army Corps of Engineers expected to issue its decision this month. But local papers are documenting the concerns and questions about...

Dominican 'personal effects' shipments get duty-free ticket.
April 23, 2007... Laparkan has signed an agreement with the Dominican Republic to collaborate on shipments of personal effects boxes from the U.S., according to Guyanese newspaper Starbroek News. According to a press release, Laparkan signed the agreement...

Dominican Republic already feels CAFTA benefits.
April 23, 2007... Eddy Martinez, director of the Export and Investment Center of the Dominican Republic, told local reporters that the Central America Free Trade Agreement recently implemented in the country has already had positive effects. "We have...

Abbott begins Puerto Rico production of HUMIRA.
April 23, 2007... Abbott Biotechnology has opened a new biologics manufacturing facility in Puerto Rico to support the long-term supply of its biologic agent, HUMIRA (generic name adalimumab), and other future biologics. The new facility called Abbott...

Customs update: FDA changes.
April 23, 2007... BYLINE: Susan Kohn Ross At an association program in March, Michael Mullen, assistant commissioner of international affairs and trade relations for Customs and Border Protection, recommended that other federal agencies undertake three...

Project cargo vessel shortage looms.
April 23, 2007... BYLINE: Shura Bary An ocean cargo specialist is warning that bottlenecks will continue to tighten this year and during the remainder of the decade for shippers of heavy, oversize and outsize freight known as project cargo through the...

Rice assures Haiti of US support.
April 23, 2007... Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has assured Haitian diplomats that the Bush administration has earmarked $200 million for aid to Haiti for this fiscal year. She said that aid follows more than $600 million provided since 2004 and...

No night checks at Jaxport.
April 23, 2007... An apparent lack of communication caused an NYK Line ship loaded with cars to arrive at the mouth of the St. Johns River last month after dark. This NYK vessel was on the Coast Guard's mandatory search list, which meant it required...

Port of Tampa calls increasing.
April 23, 2007... On March 28, the Port of Tampa received the inaugural call of the Emirates Wats, a 3,169-TEU container vessel operated by Emirates Shipping Line, at the Port of Tampa's Hooker's Point Container Terminal. The new terminal worked the ship...

Miami port tunnel builders make bids.
April 23, 2007... The Florida Department of Transportation has received bids from the three teams for construction and operation of the Port of Miami tunnel to downtown. According to the Florida DOT, a contract is expected to be awarded in May. The...

Panama Canal board names chairman.
April 23, 2007... A new chairman with substantial financial background has been appointed to the Panama Canal Authority board of directors following the resignation of Chairman Ricaurte Vasquez, who is leaving the authority to pursue opportunities in the...

Amerijet opens Fort Lauderdale cargo drop.
April 23, 2007... Amerijet International has opened a Fort Lauderdale airfreight station adjacent to Amerijet's corporate headquarters at 2800 South Andrews Ave., according to Pamela Rollins, vice president, business development, at Amerijet. "We have a...

Work to do.
April 16, 2007... First, another apology to John Abisch. I try to forget when I do stupid things, but I seem to remember that this is the second time I misspelled my friend's name. If it is any consolation, the top two items when you Google John Abish are...

Coastal cargo: Grassroots grow for maritime highways.
April 16, 2007... BYLINE: Rick Eyerdam From New England to California, and certainly along the Heartland Rivers and Great Lakes, U.S. shippers are shipping cargo by barge and Jones Act vessels, which might also be transported by train or truck. Grassroots...

Project cargo: The Gulf-to-North Atlantic plan.
April 16, 2007... BYLINE: R.G. Edmonson Salvatore J. "Torey" Presti has found a niche in the transportation market, and a ship to serve it. Presti is president of National Shipping of America, a new name for the former San Francisco-based Gulf Pacific...

High cost of Jones Act keeps out competitors.
April 16, 2007... BYLINE: Stephanie Nall Unlike other trade lanes in the trans-Pacific, the Jones Act routes between the U.S. West Coast and Hawaii and Alaska have seen slight decreases in volume in the last year. But in another difference between the...

Seattle sells bonds to fund box terminal.
April 16, 2007... The Port of Seattle recently sold $228 million worth of First Lien Revenue Bonds to fund various terminal projects, including a major project to return Terminal 30, which is currently a cruise facility, to container operation. "The sale...

Trailer Bridge expanding tug-barge service to Dominican Republic.
April 16, 2007... Trailer Bridge in the third quarter plans to extend its tug-barge network to cover the Dominican Republic. Trailer Bridge plans to deploy one additional container barge in a service that will augment its existing Puerto Rico service and...

Gottwald Port Technology expands sales in Latin America.
April 16, 2007... With the expansion of ports in Latin America, one German-based crane manufacturer has reported record growth. Gottwald Port Technology, a member company of Demag Cranes AG Group, reported selling 11 new cranes and one used crane to Latin...

MIA cargo up while US airfreight declines.
April 16, 2007... Miami International Airport reported a 7.6 percent increase in cargo during February, driven by the 9.3 percent gain among all-cargo lines, according to Miami-Dade Aviation Department statistics. Total freight volumes increased to just...

CMA CGM details new services.
April 16, 2007... CMA CGM announced the addition of the CMA CGM Herodote to its fleet, the first in a series of six new container ships that will be dedicated to the Europe-Guyana-North Brazil trade. The six vessels each have 1,700-TEU capacity, making...

An actual C-TPAT benefit.
April 16, 2007... Trusted shippers were told that they will in fact receive a new benefit for participating in the government's Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism. Todd Owen, executive director for cargo and conveyance security at U.S. Customs...

USDA seeks flower import registration.
April 16, 2007... The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has developed import rules for cut flowers from countries where chrysanthemum white rust is known to exist. To be eligible for importation, the flowers must...

Panama Canal delays toll increase.
April 16, 2007... The Panama Canal Authority said it is postponing the implementation of its proposed new toll and pricing structure from May until July at the request of maritime industry users. It said it is reopening its pricing proposal to public...

Agility in buying mode.(Company overview)
April 12, 2007... The United Arab Emirates-based logistics company now known as Agility, formerly called PWC Logistics, has reached agreement to buy WTS of Houston Inc., and its sister company, World Transportation Services Inc., operating under the name of...

EU and US open skies.
April 9, 2007... Great Britain's decision not to veto a landmark aviation pact between the European Union and the U.S. will open up the $18 billion trans-Atlantic cargo and passenger market to greater competition. London has signaled it wants to delay its...

Homeland insecurity.
April 9, 2007... When it comes to the agencies of the Department of Homeland Security, the only luck they have is bad as their best-laid plans go awry or simply miss their target dates. On March 15, Customs and Border Protection extended to May 2 the...

Open door to Europe.
April 9, 2007... BYLINE: Rick Eyerdam Econocaribe going global with Ecu-Line Econocaribe Consolidators has opened the door to Europe, Africa and the Middle East for customs brokers and forwarders seeking weekly schedules for less-than-containerload...

Europe calls for short-sea proposals.
April 9, 2007... The European Commission has published the first call for proposals for the creation of new freight transport services under a program it calls Marco Polo. The goal is to find projects that fight congestion on European roads and improve...

Hanesbrands to close NC plant.
April 9, 2007... Good news for Florida carriers is bad news up north. Hanesbrands Inc. will close its Stratford Road textile manufacturing plant in Winston-Salem, N.C., and move production to existing plants it calls "lower-cost" in the Caribbean basin and...

Farm-machinery exports jump.
April 9, 2007... Exports of U.S.-made farm machinery totaled $7.3 billion in 2006, a gain of more than 10 percent over the previous year, according to data released by the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. Gains were strongest to markets in Asia,...

President authorizes Haiti trade preferences.
April 9, 2007... President Bush has authorized the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity Through Partnership Encouragement (HOPE) Act to help Haitian businesses involved in apparel and electrical assembly. The HOPE Act is part of the Caribbean Basin Economic...

Europe-Caribbean-S. America carriers to boost bunker fee.
April 9, 2007... The ESPMC-WITASS shipping conference that covers the Europe-Caribbean-South America trade lanes plans to increase its bunker surcharge for May. The surcharge will be $226 per TEU, up from $209. The fee per FEU will be $452, up from $418....

Miami River supporters push short-sea service.
April 9, 2007... Activists involved in promoting the Miami River are advocating a plan to use light barges and tug combinations to move cargo containers from the Port of Miami up the Miami River to an intermodal depot where they can be loaded on trucks. ...

$250 million in credit offered for new Dominican-US businesses.
April 9, 2007... The Overseas Private Investment Corp. is offering Dominican business interests a $250 million credit facility to be used when they associate with U.S. investors to develop projects. Those credit facilities will be deployed now that the...

Report: Chavez promises storm relief.
April 9, 2007... The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, established by 18 Caribbean states with the assistance of the World Bank, has gotten a promise of help from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, according to reports in the Jamaican press. The...

Port Georgialina planning begins.
April 9, 2007... South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and his counterpart in Georgia, Sonny Perdue, each will appoint three people to serve on a commission to iron out details of the Jasper County port agreement recently announced by the states to build Port...

Ten plus two equals more questions.
April 9, 2007... BYLINE: Karen Lobdell Customs and Border Protection's proposal to require importers to provide additional data elements before cargo is shipped from a foreign port comes as no surprise. In the months immediately following the Sept. 11...

Already missed the boat.
April 2, 2007... A new national ports' strategy is a key element of a sweeping reorganization of the U.S. Maritime Administration that was advanced recently by Maritime Administrator Sean Connaughton. That is good news in states that take their ports...

Bigger chill.
April 2, 2007... BYLINE: Stephanie Nall and Rick Eyerdam CAFTA freshens reefer trade In the food business, the question is no longer whether the chicken or the egg came first. The question these days is "which came first, the market or the trade...

ILA's Bowers not ready to resign.
April 2, 2007... John Bowers told the International Longshoremen's Association executive council on March 22 that he was not ready to announce his long-rumored retirement after 20 years as union president. Bowers, 84, said he told executive council...

Marad will refocus.
April 2, 2007... The head of the U.S. Maritime Administration has begun to detail the first major reorganization of Marad in more than three decades. Sean Connaughton recently told the Connecticut Maritime Association that Marad will be reinvented as "a...

Colombia may seek Chiquita extraditions.
April 2, 2007... Colombia's attorney general has promised that his office will try to seek the extradition of eight executives from Chiquita Brands International following the company's admission that it paid $1.7 million in protection money to right-wing...

100 percent scanning to begin.
April 2, 2007... Three pilot projects to begin 100 percent scanning of U.S.-bound containers will be active within a couple of months, according to Thomas Winkowski, Miami operations director for Customs and Border Protection. Speaking at the recent Maritime...

Cuba-China trade doubles.
April 2, 2007... The trade volume between Cuba and China doubled in 2006 from a year earlier, reaching $1.8 billion, according to a quote from Chinese Ambassador Zhao Rongxian in the Cuban newspaper Opciones. "Growth has been really successful," Zhao told...

Venezuela's Chavez completes round of promises.
April 2, 2007... Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez toured Latin America and the Caribbean recently, stopping at Bolivia, Nicaragua, Jamaica and Haiti to sign a series of cooperation agreements. In Bolivia, Chavez and President Evo Morales signed an...

Barbados gets $2 million for port security.
April 2, 2007... Just in time for the Cricket World Cup, the Port of Bridgetown, Barbados, has awarded $2 million to AXCESS Inc. in a contract for an integrated radio-frequency identification and sensor system to enhance port security. AXCESS' ActiveTag...

White House targets loans as subsidy.
April 2, 2007... BYLINE: R.G. Edmonson The Title XI loan-guarantee program is a form of corporate subsidy for which the Bush administration does not request funding, Maritime Administrator Sean T. Connaughton told a House subcommittee last month. ...

Jaxport lays TraPac foundation.
April 2, 2007... Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton and Jacksonville Port Authority leaders joined with delegates from Japan-based MOL to ceremonially lay the first layer of foundation at the new 130-acre TraPac Container Terminal at Dames Point. The...

Foreign crewmen die unloading juice.
April 2, 2007... Two crewmen aboard an orange juice tanker died last month at Port Manatee, Fla. They were 25 and 35 years old. According to local reports, authorities suspect nitrogen poisoning as the cause of death. Nitrogen was being used in the...

TWIC computer delay.
April 2, 2007... Enrollment of port workers for the Transportation Worker Identification Credential has been delayed until late spring, according to Transportation Security Administration officials. Stephen Sadler, TWIC program manager, said the delay...

Port Canaveral aims for entertainment.
April 2, 2007... Port Canaveral, one of the world's busiest cruise ports, has recently taken steps to broaden and increase its appeal to the cruise and tourism industry. The Canaveral Port Authority has begun a $40 million-plus plan to widen the port's...

DP World to provide $500 million for Cochin port.
April 2, 2007... Freed of the need to keep P&O Ports' commitment to sustain and improve its U.S. ports, DP World has upped its commitment to the private terminal operator at India's southern Port of Cochin. DP World recently announced plans to invest $500...

Port security boosted by $295 million.
April 2, 2007... Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., recently secured approval by the Senate Appropriations Committee for $295 million for port security to be added to a supplementary funding bill. The amendment to an emergency funding bill mainly intended to pay...