International ports

Customs agents striking in the Lagos-Apapa port complex could cause crippling congestion at the Nigeria’s largest gateway, the port said today.

The Panama Canal container shipping route has become the less-popular route for carriers sailing from Asia to the U.S. East Coast for the first time in history, according to new data from Drewry Maritime Research, with more than half of capacity in the trade sailing via the Suez Canal.

Brazil's port managers and unions are uniting to try to keep the country's Special Ports Ministry separate from the Ministry of Transport.

The port of Antwerp is soliciting proposals from companies interested in operating a liquefied natural gas bunkering station, in order to meet growing global demand for the alternative fuel.

Europe’s top container ports are hunkering down for a potentially tumultuous 2015 dominated by a growing capacity glut and slowing cargo growth that will make the congestion of the past year appear like a minor irritant.

Throughput at China’s major ports continued to show strong growth in October, rising 6.1 percent year-over-year in support of the robust U.S. economy and a steady increase in foreign trade.

The terminal at the center of the congestion crisis in Rotterdam over the summer has just set a new port record for the number of containers loaded on and off a ship at Europe’s largest container hub.

APM Terminals is postponing its “main strategic event in 2014” — the opening of a state-of-the-art container terminal in Rotterdam — to 2015.

The Port of Dublin took its first steps toward doubling capacity, as environmental and planning studies began on a $250 million redevelopment project.

Booming refrigerated shipments have given a boost to containerized operations at Brazil’s Port of Pecem, which is operated by APM Terminals.

Russia, struggling after it enforced food embargoes on European Union countries, is ramping up its chicken imports from Brazil, registering a massive 291 percent year-over-year increase in imports of the white meat in September.

Construction on a new seaport in the Indian Ocean town of Bagamoyo, Tanzania will begin in 2015, Tanzania announced Tuesday.

Flames raged aboard two container ships, one from UASC, another from Hamburg Sud on Monday after the ships collided at Port Klang near Kuala Lumpur.

The International Transport Workers' Federation condemned actions taken against striking Costa Rican dockworkers today, including the use of non-union substitute labor, saying it will join the fight against APM Terminals after a strike at the Limon and Moin terminals turned violent.

Malaysia’s biggest state pension fund is reportedly preparing a $2 billion bid for a stake in Associated British Ports, the UK’s largest port operator.

Crippling congestion has spread from Manila to Batangas, one of the ports handling spillover cargo from Manila this year, leading Maersk line to tell customers on Friday that it will be limiting shipments to the port “to an absolute minimum.”

Russia's ban on food imports from a number of Western countries has created new shipping opportunities; fruits and vegetables traditionally supplied by European producers are being replaced by suppliers from other countries.

Rotterdam’s container traffic increased 4.2 percent year-over-year in the first three quarters of 2014 as strong growth on deep-sea routes offset lower feeder shipments.

The massive congestion affecting the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach is creating a fresh wave of diversions to other ports as shippers flee the worst congestion that the largest port complex in the Americas has seen in at least a decade.

Brazil’s presidential runoff betweenincumbent Dilma Rousseff and Aecio Neves has important implications for efforts to put the country’s ports and maritime industry.on a more solid footing.

Antwerp’s container traffic grew 5 percent year-over-year in the first three quarters of 2014, putting the Belgian port on track for a record total throughput in 2014.

Dockworkers in Costa Rica walked off the job today, continuing a long battle over a proposed container terminal operated by APM Terminals with a strike.

DP World's newest Jebel Ali terminal received its first vessel call today, paving the way for the automated terminal to become fully operational next year.

A container terminal in Sydney, Nova Scotia, in eastern Canada is unlikely to be built because of poor rail connections and a slow recovery in container shipping, a prominent Canada shipping authority said this week.

Guangdong Province in south China is working in several ways to improve its port competitiveness, by encouraging collaboration among Pearl River Delta container terminals, easing customs rules and establishing more robust rail and waterborne connections into the interior, said Liu Xiaohua, Vice Director, Guangdong Provincial Transportation Department.

India will invest $85.21 million in the development and operation of cargo facilities at Iran’s Chabahar port, as New Delhi seeks to enhance its strategic interest in Central Asia.

The global shipping community is feeling the effects of Ebola in the form of vessel delays and schedule changes, along with potential quarantines and ship health screenings.

Severe port congestion at the Philippines’ port of Manila in recent months resulted in average vessel delays of more than five days, according to a recent report from CargoSmart.

A European construction consortium will begin work this year to expand the Suez Canal under a $1.5 billion contract from the Egyptian government announced on Saturday.

Two organizations in Rotterdam are calling for urgent dialogues concerning the ports' congestion and overcapacity

India’s Port of Visakhapatnam reopened to marine traffic today, five days after Cyclone Hudhud’s devastation at the state-owned port complex.

Brasil Terminal Portuaria in the Port of Santos handled around 69,000 containers in the month of September, nudging ahead of long-time market leader Tecon Santos, which handled only 62,000 in September.

A nine-hour operation to reign in a rogue container ship in Australia's Port Botany apparently only resulted in superficial damage to ships from Hapag-Lloyd, OOCL and Safmarine.

A new, $54 million initiative in Singapore will research port management and urban congestion to help boost the country's port efficiency.

Europe’s top container hubs have slammed the European Union’s plan to focus investment on peripheral ports in a bid to shift traffic from the dominant Le Havre-Hamburg range to the Mediterranean.

India’s Port of Visakhapatnam is likely to remain closed to vessel traffic for a few more days, after sustaining what local sources said was severe damage from Cyclone Hudhud’s winds and tidal surge on Oct. 12.