Port News

The Port Authority of New York has agreed to several antipollution measures while it continues work on future phases of a program to replace older trucks at the East Coast’s largest port. But environmentalists aren’t content.

Labor and port opposition to legislation that would require U.S. ports to provide monthly productivity reports have stripped out what is the arguably the crux of the bill: productivity reports during negotiations with unionized port labor.

Container trade at Russian seaports continues to decline as the first half of 2015 saw container traffic in Russia’s maritime basins decline anywhere from 12 to 32 percent year-over-year.

Minor ports in India continue to rapidly gain market share on their major public rivals, thanks to aggressive marketing efforts and cargo diversions, with the newest data obtained by JOC.com showing so-called non-major cargo terminals recorded double-digit year-over-year container growth fiscal year 2014-15, which ended March 31.

As the container trade from Asia to the Middle East grows, Saudi Arabia is expanding the container-handling capacity of its ports, opening a new terminal at Dammam this spring.

All sectors of the Southern California transportation community are confident that they will handle the spike in container volume this peak season, but longer-term challenges with big ships, carrier alliances, truck turn times and rail performance remain a concern.

Two months after the International Longshore and Warehouse Union contract was approved by the membership of the union and the Pacific Maritime Association, the Port of Oakland is a mess, with an acute shortage of labor causing extensive delays for truckers and shippers, resulting in cargo diversions to Southern California.

Winds in excess of 60 miles per hour at the Port of Cape Town have led to delays in berthing vessels for the better part of a week.

Embraport in the Port of Santos has seen its prospects improve with the addition of regular rail service, adding a new dynamic to the lively competition for container traffic taking place in the country.

State and federal officials in Virginia broke ground on two major projects this week aimed at relieving congestion at the state port after delays hit near-unprecedented levels earlier this year.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and World Customs Organization gave a boost to Bangladesh’s efforts to reduce illegal shipping activities with the implementation of a container screening program’ at Chittagong Port, the country’s largest.

Hard to believe, but true: Just three and a half years ago, International Longshoremen’s Association President Harold Daggett was in Long Beach, warning the JOC’s Trans-Pacific Maritime conference about “dark clouds” over 2012’s soon-to-begin ILA contract negotiations.

PierPass Inc. on its 10th anniversary Thursday was basking in the warmth of comments from political and environmental leaders recognizing the program that was created by the terminal operators in Los Angeles-Long Beach for successfully mitigating daytime port-generated traffic.

Dennis Daggett, son of International Longshoremen’s Association President Harold Daggett, was elected Thursday to the union’s No. 2 post as several other mostly younger ILA officials also were elevated to higher positions.

California port executives Thursday urged key legislative representatives meeting in Oakland to invest in the state’s priority trade corridors to stem the loss of cargo to competing North American ports.

Port Metro Vancouver announced Wednesday that it will invest $12 million to install shore power at the Deltaport and Centerm terminals to reduce harmful diesel emissions from container vessels at berth. The projects, expected to be operational by March 31, 2017, will each eliminate 75 tons of emissions.

Linda Styrk, managing director of the Port of Seattle’s maritime division, is leaving the port to take the position of executive director for the Puget Sound Pilots. Styrk holds a U.S. Coast Guard Third Mate’s License, and she is married to a pilot who guides ships through the Northwest Passage to Alaska.

Congressional proposals to clamp down on longshore unions in reaction to West Coast port slowdowns could backfire, warned the chief attorney for waterfront employers on the East and Gulf coasts.

A new era of cooperation between Seattle and Tacoma will dawn Thursday when the Northwest Seaport Alliance becomes effective following approval of the agreement by the Federal Maritime Commission.

The first half of 2015 brought seven new services to Busan’s youngest terminal and an additional 1 million 20-foot-equivalent unit containers through South Korea’s largest marine gateway, port officials said Wednesday.

Despite the naming of EEL Infraestruturas Ltd.’s lowest bid of $110 million as a winner for a new dredging tender for the Port of Santos, shippers using Brazil’s leading gateway have started to get nervous about if and when work needed to handle larger vessels will be completed.

Hutchison Port Holdings Trust recorded a 26 percent fall in net profit in the first half as revenue remained virtually flat and container volumes at its South China terminals rose just 2 percent compared to the first six months of last year.

After months of saying it was nearing completion of a new, dedicated container facility, Mumbai Port earlier this week opened its first privately-developed offshore container terminal for an unexpected purpose — roll-on, roll-off operations.

The average port delay of mega-ships at five major European gateways in June was just half that of the overall average vessel delays at the ports, according to the surprising findings of a study by CargoSmart.

George Cohen, retired director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, took a curtain call at this week’s International Longshoremen’s Association convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The chief negotiator for East and Gulf waterfront employers told International Longshoremen’s Association officials that any long-term contract extension would involve “tweaks,” not a total rewrite of the current six-year agreement.

Port of Portland Executive Director Bill Wyatt is recuperating in a Portland hospital after a recent motorcycle accident while on vacation in Oregon.

Hamburg Sud has returned to the Port of Miami a decade after it left by joining an existing Ocean Three service connecting the U.S. East Coast to China, advancing the German carrier and the port’s effort to attract more Asian import cargo.

The Teamsters are deploying a bi-coastal strategy to challenge what the union charges is misclassification of drayage truck drivers as independent contractors, an indication of how the issue has expanded far beyond the San Pedro Bay area.

The Port of Mombasa’s aspirations to remain the largest container port in East Africa were dealt a blow after the Uganda government said that it would not prioritize the building of a multi-purpose freight railway between Kampala and the Rwandan capital of Kigali.

Container volumes at China’s top 20 ports rose by more than 5 percent in the first half as the mainland’s export sector continued to grow along with some surprisingly strong six-month figures emerging from port gateways into Europe and the U.S.

U.S. Federal Maritime Chairman Mario Cordero on Monday said that Los Angeles-Long Beach terminal operators should explain why they need to raise the traffic mitigation fee and raised the prospect of sunsetting the fee, providing ammunition to shippers’ fight against PierPass.

Efforts to repeal the Jones Act in the U.S. are part of a global campaign to weaken cabotage laws and undercut labor, said the president of a union representing U.S. seafarers.

A recently-launched Federal Maritime Commission Section 15 investigation of a terminal operators discussion agreement could have a chilling effect on the mandatory inspection of chassis by International Longshore and Warehouse Union mechanics at West Coast ports.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - International Longshoremen’s Association President Harold Daggett promised ILA convention delegates that any long-term contract extension will protect past union gains.

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone is betting big on the much-awaited Vizhinjam International Container Transshipment Terminal project, a deep-water, green-field site in India’s southern state of Kerala.

The battle for market share between Europe’s top two container ports is intensifying with second-ranked Antwerp’s traffic growing more than two and half-times faster than Rotterdam’s in the first half of the year.

Calls for an end to China’s cabotage laws have been growing with Maersk Line one of the loudest voices requesting restrictions on foreign carriers operating in the domestic markets be relaxed.

Direct ChassisLink Inc. has rescinded a $200 chassis usage fee that generated complaints from New York-New Jersey port truckers.