Gulf Shipper articles from August 2008

Gulf Shipper archives from August 2008

A New Deal?
August 4, 2008... We have so many crises today that it makes one's head reel. There's the housing crisis, the credit crunch, the energy crisis, the trucking crisis, the fuel surcharge crisis, the Social Security crisis, the weak dollar, the employment crisis,...

One-two punch.
August 4, 2008... BYLINE: DAVID BIEDERMAN Flood-related hazards and low water levels force lighter loads and slower movement just as barge operators on the Mississippi need to make up for lost time The inland waterways shipping industry is scrambling to...

Martin to lead Waterways Council.
August 4, 2008... Cornel J. Martin has been hired by the Waterways Council as president and chief executive (designate), effective Aug. 1. Martin will serve alongside current president and CEO R. Barry Palmer, who will retire at the end of December.  ...

Intermarine taps ex-OMI CEO for strategic planning.
August 4, 2008... Craig Stevenson has joined Intermarine as chairman. Stevenson, the former chief executive of tanker operator OMI Corp., will work closely with Intermarine management in this non-executive position to formulate the company's strategic objectives...

CMA CGM names chief of US commercial business.
August 4, 2008... CMA CGM (America) LLC named John C. Driscoll senior vice president, USA Commercial. Driscoll will oversee sales, trade and marketing for the company's U.S. operations. He most recently worked as vice president and general manager for CMA CGM...

Saddle Creek hires marketing director.
August 4, 2008... Saddle Creek Corp., a Lakeland, Fla.-based third-party logistics company, recently appointed Tom Collins as director of marketing. Collins has more than 18 years of experience in consumer and business-to-business marketing. Collins will plan...

LaGrange earns Professional Port Manager Certification.
August 4, 2008... Gary LaGrange, president and chief executive of the Port of New Orleans, has earned a Professional Port Manager Certification from the American Association of Port Authorities, the port announced. LaGrange completed the certification after...

Jones Act carriers face shipper lawsuits.
August 4, 2008... BYLINE: JOSEPH BONNEY Three months after raiding offices of U.S. offshore domestic carriers, the Justice Department has shed no light on its antitrust investigation of the lines' pricing practices. But that hasn't stopped lawyers from...

New vessel expands Caytrans breakbulk service.
August 4, 2008... Caytrans BBC LLC has added a fifth vessel to its project and heavy-lift service. The new vessel, the BBC Gibraltar, is a 3,500-ton multipurpose 'tweendecker with two 35-ton cranes combinable for 70-ton lifts. The vessel is suitable for project...

Port of Houston Authority authorizes over $20 million in Bayport bid proposals.
August 4, 2008... The Port of Houston Authority Board of Commissioners has approved the advertising and receipt of proposals for a Bayport terminal maintenance and repair building. Plans for the facility, which is expected to cost $16 million to $18.5 million,...

Alabama State Port Authority plans bond financing for steel terminal.
August 4, 2008... A $115 million steel terminal being built by the Alabama State Port Authority will be funded by the sale of long-term bonds. A team headed by senior underwriter Citigroup Global Markets will bring the bonds to market, according to the Mobile...

Panama City, Progreso sign agreement.
August 4, 2008... Officials from the ports of Progreso, Mexico, and Panama City, Fla., hope to increase traffic in the Florida-Yucatan Peninsula trade lane now plied by carrier Linea Peninsular. Officials recently signed a sister-port agreement, according to the...

New Orleans to revitalize Alabo and France Road terminals.
August 4, 2008... The Port of New Orleans Board of Commissioners has awarded $5.3 million in construction contracts for major renovations to the Alabo Street Terminal and is moving forward on an agreement with Seaboard Marine for the use of the France Road...

Homeland steel.
August 11, 2008... Steel transportation costs are soaring, prompting countries such as China to export less steel to keep producers closer to consumers. Steel is staying closer to home in the U.S. because the weak dollar has whacked imports, leading locally...

Getting river transit flowing again.
August 11, 2008... BYLINE: JANET NODAR New method of prioritizing vessels causes friction They speak highly of the Coast Guard, in general, and of most aspects regarding the handling of the Mississippi River oil spill last month, including the agency's...

No fence, no gates, no problem.
August 11, 2008... BYLINE: JANET NODAR Unfinished Mobile Container Terminal handles unexpected visitor "We got the call at 8:30 Thursday morning," said Brian Clark, project director at the Mobile Container Terminal. The 3,200-TEU Hapag-Lloyd Rome Express...

Oil spill in Mississippi River impacts traffic for six days.
August 11, 2008... BYLINE: JANET NODAR Late last month, vessel traffic on the lower Mississippi River from mile 98 to the Southwest Pass was either halted completely or tightly restricted for nearly six days after an oil spill caused by a collision between a...

Steel imports increased slightly in June.
August 11, 2008... Strong markets overseas, high freight rates and the weak dollar continue to hold back the import side of the steel market, David Phelps, president of the American Institute for International Steel, said in a prepared statement. June steel...

Is Chinese steel unsafe?
August 11, 2008... BYLINE: ALAN M. FIELD U.S. tube and pipe producers push for trade sanctions Bridges that could collapse easily. Chemical pipelines that might separate and leak poisonous fumes. More American workers unfairly thrown out of work. What do...

A new kind of clean.
August 11, 2008... BYLINE: STEPHANIE NALL Technologies emerge to help clean up transportation industry. In California, a 'sock on a stack' cuts vessel emissions After years of research and development, millions of dollars of private capital investment...

Port of Beaumont, rail lines reach agreement.
August 11, 2008... The Port of Beaumont's eight-acre rail interchange yard has been a barrier between downtown Beaumont and the bank of the Neches River for decades. Now the port and the three rail lines that serve it, BNSF Railway, Union Pacific Railroad and...

Industry group files proposed rate increase for Galveston-Texas pilots.
August 11, 2008... BYLINE: JANET NODAR In a surprise move, the West Gulf Maritime Association has filed a proposed rate increase for the Galveston-Texas Pilots Association with the Board of Pilot Commissioners for Galveston County. The proposal calls for a...

Less for more.
August 18, 2008... Keeping today's grocery bill under control is a losing battle for many families. Food shippers have seen fuel prices jump more than 50 percent in the past year, while commodities such as wheat and corn are up even higher. In the 1990s, we...

Space squeeze hurts exports to Mediterranean.
August 18, 2008... BYLINE: WILLIAM ARMBRUSTER Labor unrest in France creates further problems It's a familiar story for U.S. exporters these days. As with so many other outbound trade routes, vessel space on the shipping lanes to the Mediterranean is a...

Logistics has good potential in Italy.
August 18, 2008... BYLINE: BILL DIBENEDETTO Logistics has been slow to develop in Italy, but third-party logistics providers are touting the country as a natural logistics hub for southern Europe. Logistics is even getting attention from Italy's leaders. The...

Weak dollar boosts exports.
August 18, 2008... BYLINE: WILLIAM ARMBRUSTER The weak dollar has resulted in muscular growth for U.S. export to key Mediterranean nations. Total exports to Italy, for example, rose 11.5 percent to $5.24 billion in the first four months of this year compared...

TSA spreads the task of scanning belly cargo.
August 18, 2008... It's taken far longer than anyone wanted, but the Transportation Security Administration has devised what seems to be a workable plan for screening the 12 million pounds of air cargo that fly daily on passenger aircraft. The Certified...

Nationwide container fee may be in US future.
August 18, 2008... BYLINE: BILL MONGELUZZO A national container fee may be the most equitable means available for the United States to raise the billions of dollars needed to build freight infrastructure, a congressional hearing held this month in Long Beach...

Lake Charles board votes to renew McBride's contract.
August 18, 2008... The Lake Charles Port Board of Commissioners last month unanimously decided to extend Port Director Adam McBride's contract for three years. The board reviewed the salaries of 14 other Gulf port directors, according to KPLC TV. The average...

Longshoremen at Lake Charles opposed McBride's contract.
August 18, 2008... Union longshoremen at the Port of Lake Charles recently told southwest Louisiana paper American Press that the decline of bagged cargo at the port since the early 2000s has hurt local union members. Hillery Langley Jr., president of the local...

Beaumont longshoremen, shipping company near agreement.
August 18, 2008... Workers from International Longshoremen's Association Local Nos. 1316, 1924 and 21 at the Port of Beaumont neared an agreement with James J. Flanagan Shipping Corp. earlier this month after several days of picketing. The workers load and...

New South American breakbulk service calls at Tampa.
August 18, 2008... Peruvian Amazon Line began calling at the Port of Tampa last month with its multipurpose vessel, the Yacu Puma. The vessel can carry breakbulk, heavy-lift and project cargo, as well as containers. The Yacu Puma delivered forest...

Plaquemines Parish Council appoints new port director.
August 18, 2008... The Plaquemines Parish Council earlier this month appointed former Louisiana state senator and gubernatorial candidate Walter Boasso as executive director of the parish's port. Urban Treuil resigned as port director on the same day the...

Forest products hanging in there.
August 25, 2008... BYLINE: Janet Noder Weak dollar, housing downturn slow imports; low value hampers exports Forest products are in the doldrums, albeit with a few bright spots. The dejected U.S. housing market and stalled economy continue to hammer...

Planks used to build temporary roads.
August 25, 2008... The Port of Beaumont handled slightly less than 34,000 tons of mats during early 2008. Mats are wooden planks used to build temporary roadways to hard-to-reach construction sites, such as the marshy regions near Beaumont where many miles of...

First shipment of wood pellets leaves Panama City.
August 25, 2008... The Saga Voyager called at the Port of Panama City, Fla., last month to pick up slightly more than 33,000 tons of wood pellets, made from pulverized southern pine, to be shipped from Green Circle Bio Energy to Europe.   The...

Global Insight appoints three senior executives.
August 25, 2008... Global Insight, a Waltham, Mass.-based economic and financial analysis and forecasting company, appointed three new senior executives to its trade and transportation management group.   Paul Bingham, who has been with the company...

Panama Canal Railway promotes Kenna.
August 25, 2008... Thomas H. Kenna has been named president and director general of the Panama Canal Railway Co. He replaces David L. Starling, who left the company to assume the posts of president and chief operating officer of Kansas City Southern. Kenna joined...

Industry group files proposed rate increase for Galveston-Texas pilots.
August 25, 2008... BYLINE: JANET NODAR In a surprise move, the West Gulf Maritime Association this month filed a proposed rate increase for the Galveston-Texas Pilots Association with the Board of Pilot Commissioners for Galveston County. The proposal calls...

Tampa Bay Pilots request rate increase.
August 25, 2008... The Tampa Bay Pilots Association's request for a 27 percent pay increase over three years was roundly criticized at a public hearing this month. Protestors from cruise lines, maritime businesses and the ports of Tampa and Manatee said that high...

Corpus Christi sells cold-storage facility.
August 25, 2008... Port of Corpus Christi commissioners have agreed to sell the port's 100,000-square-foot cold-storage facility.   San Diego Refrigerated Services, doing business as Harborside, will purchase the warehouse and related equipment for...

Space shuttle sections visit Gulfport.
August 25, 2008... The NASA booster retriever-tow vessel Freedom Star called at the Port of Gulfport earlier this month to receive a barge carrying external tanks for the space shuttle. The shuttle pieces were barged to Gulfport from the Michoud Assembly Facility...

Shelter from the storm.
August 25, 2008... As tropical storm Edouard bore down on the Louisiana-Texas coast earlier this month, a variety of deep-water vessels, shrimp boats, oil well crew and supply boats and barges sought refuge at the Port of Lake Charles. The port's 1.6 contiguous...

The devil in the details: New bill aimed at illegal logging may make trade in some ordinary wooden products a federal crime.
August 25, 2008... BYLINE: BILL DIBENEDETTO Consider the wooden button on a shirt, blouse or coat -- did it come into the U.S. illegally? Or how about the kids' wooden alphabet blocks -- were they made from illegally harvested lumber?   ...