Brazil’s richest man, Eike Batista has announced plans to build one of the world’s largest ports.
Batista, a mining mogul, came up with the idea of building a new port after experiencing constant delays in getting iron ore from his mines onto ships bound for China, according to CNN.
The port will include a cement causeway that will stretch approximately 1.8 miles into the ocean. It will have a four-lane highway, pipelines, and conveyor belts that will move raw materials onto vessels heading to China. Batista told CNN last week that the new port, which will be bigger than Manhattan, has attracted both local and foreign investors and is more than a just a pipeline project to China.
"This is a story about connecting Brazil to the world, because for the last 20 years, why haven’t German companies or European or American companies come to Brazil?" he asked, "very bad logistics."
The Acu Superport, nicknamed "highway to China," will be completed in 2012 and will cost approximately $2.7 billion.
Acu Superport will be a 10-berth terminal off the Brazilian coast.
Cape Town Terminal Introduces Simultaneous Loading And Discharging Of Container Ships
Transnet Port Terminals says it is aiming to further improve productivity and efficiency at its Cape Town Terminal with the implementation of Dual Cycle operations, where containers are discharged and loaded simultaneously from a vessel using ship-to-shore cranes.
Says Hector Danisa, TPT’s assistant terminal executive of the Western Province terminals, “This methodology involves planning the discharging and loading of containers on the same bay of the vessel. So, instead of finishing a discharge across the vessel before doing a load operation, this is done simultaneously.”
This internationally recognised practise lends itself to faster operation and savings by minimising minimum empty trips for both haulers and cranes. Shipping lines also enjoy the benefits of increased productivity, vessel turnaround time and efficiency.
Danisa said the challenges associated with Dual Cycle included identifying suitable vessels with an even split of exports and imports and ensuring they are planned properly to facilitate this type of work. In addition, resourcing the terminal appropriately for quicker productivity and smarter planning of the stack could become a challenge.
Dual Cycle was piloted at the Cape Town Terminal in early October as a collaborative initiative between TPT and shipping line Maersk. The terminal has since worked three vessels with the Dual Cycle operation, with the most recent being the MAERSK DRYDEN on 3 November.
The terminal achieved excellent performance on this vessel by reaching a GCH (container moves per gross crane hour) of 34 GCH and ship working hour (SWH) rate of 82 moves.
This represented a 41% improvement on the terminal’s average GCH of 24. SWH is the number of containers moved by the cranes working on a vessel in one hour, which is a key performance indicator for shipping lines to measure productivity.
“Some glitches are expected in the initial period but the most important thing is that a new way of operation has been introduced and eventually only benefits can accrue from it,” said Dakalo Mboyi, Operations General Manager Maersk Western Cape.
She added that the productivity improvement and other initiatives witnessed in the last few months at the terminal had been “great.”
Panalpina To Pay US$ 81.9 Million In Settlement Of Bribery Charges
Swiss-based global freight forwarder Panalpina and five oil and gas service companies and their subsidiaries have agreed to pay a settlement of US$ 156.6 million and to disgorge another $ 80m in profits, interest and penalties, following a plea bargain agreement regarding accusations of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations.
The settlement arises from charges in a Texas district court detailing bribery paid to foreign officials on behalf of oil and gas customers, in Nigeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan between 2002 and 2007. Panalpina admitted paying thousands of bribes to officials in those countries amounting to at least $ 27 million.
Panalpina’s customers for whom it paid the bribes included Royal Dutch Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary, Transocean Inc, and Tidewater Marine International Inc, which admitted they approved or condoned the payment of bribes on their behalf in Nigeria and that they falsified records of these bribe payments in their corporate books and accounts.
In terms of the settlement Panalpina has to pay a $ 70.6 million penalty and disgorge $ 11.3m in profits. Shell must pay a $ 30 million criminal penalty and $ 7.2m in profits and prejudgement interest. Transocean must pay a R 13.4 million criminal penalty and $ 7.2m in profits and interest. Tidewater must pay a R 7.35 million penalty and $ 8.3m in profit and interest. Noble Group must pay a $ 2.6 million penalty and disgorge $ 5.5m in profits and interest, and Pride International, together with a French subsidiary will pay a $ 32.6 million penalty and $ 23.5m in profits and interest after admitting to bribing officials in India, Venezuela and Mexico with amounts adding up to R800,000.
Liberia Looks Up To Philippines For Maritime Training
The government of Liberia, the second largest country in the world in terms of registration of ocean-going vessels, has expressed interest in the possibility of the Philippines opening the doors of its maritime educational institutions to Liberian students.
Liberia President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, in a meeting with Ambassador Nestor N Padalhin, said her government is also interested in taking advantage of the maritime educational institutions in the Philippines for training Liberian seafarers and in the manning aspect of her country’s shipping industry. A meeting has already been set with officials of Liberia’s Bureau of Maritime Affairs to meet with the Ambassador Padalhin.
China’s Ports Struggling With Overcapacity
CHINA’s port giant, China Merchants Holdings International, says the country’s ports are struggling with overcapacity as global demand has failed to maintain its growth momentum with years of rapid facilities expansion.
CMHI chief economist Su Xingang told reporters at the World Shipping (China) Sumit in Guangzhou that China’s port capacity was estimated to be as much as 40% more than current demand. The large scale port construction in recent years and market demand slump last year was seeing actual overcapacity and a large scale of idle facilities among small and medium-sized ports, Mr Su said.
It could take more than three years for demand to catch with capacity at port that were well-operated and as much as five years for the others even if no new ports were built in China, he added.
He said China’s economy would slow down and the main economic driver would be internal demand instead of exports as a result of the readjustment of the economic structure and the change of development mode.
China had six of the 10 biggest ports in the world, which reflected the Chinese government’s vast investment in infrastructure to facilitate growth in trade, he said.
In Uganda, Tororo Dry Port to Begin Operations By 2012
After nearly three years of juggling officialdom, bureaucracy and outright opposition from competitors, the Tororo Inland Dry Port is finally underway and is to begin operations by November 2012.
The port is expected to speed up transportation of goods to Uganda and the Great Lakes region, as well as ease congestion at the Kilindini harbour on the Kenyan coast.
According to Muhamed Jaffer, the chairman of the Great Lakes Ports Ltd of Kenya — owners of the Tororo port– landlocked Uganda, which has been suffering undue delays, loss of cargo through diversions and pilferage will benefit greatly from the facility. "The port of Mombasa is a transit area and not a storage area.
Cargo destined for Uganda should go there directly for clearing. Goods in transit will now take four days, down from 15, to arrive Uganda," he said.
The proposed 200-acre port is less than a kilometre from Malaba border post and is being built at a cost of Ksh9.6 billion ($120m). The dry port concept means a seaport is directly connected to inland terminals by rail, where containers are handled in the same way as they would be at a seaport.
Mozambique Warns Against Unauthorized Navigation On Shire And Zambezi Rivers
Mozambican Defence Minister Filipe Nyussi has warned the Malawian government not to try any further unauthorised navigation on the Mozambican stretches of the Shire and Zambezi rivers.
According to a report on Radio Mozambique, Nyussi gave this warning during a meeting of the Mozambique-Malawi Joint Defence and Security Commission, held on Friday in Lilongwe.
This follows the attempt by the Malawian authorities in October to send two barges loaded with fertiliser up the rivers so that they could arrive at the Malawian inland port of Nsanje in time for its inauguration by President Bingu wa Mutharika on 23 October. The Mozambican authorities refused to allow the barges to make this journey. One of those who attempted to accompany the barges was the Malawian military attache in Maputo, who was briefly detained.
The Mozambican government insists that the question of making the Shire-Zambezi waterway into a route for international trade can only be decided after a full viability study, including an environmental impact assessment.
Nyussi said that his warning to the Malawian authorities was intended to reaffirm Mozambican sovereignty over its territory. He declared that any disputes should be resolved "on the basis of dialogue and never of force".
"In our common history we find no place for any kind of confrontation or violence", stressed Nyussi. He pointed out that the need for environmental studies was included in the tripartite agreement on the Shire-Zambezi waterway signed between Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia in 2005.
The Lilongwe meeting, according to Nyussi, also dealt with interchanges between the chiefs of the armed forces of the two countries, the exchange of "strategic information" and the extradition of Malawian ad Mozambican prisoners held in the prisons of each country.
Nyussi said that a joint commission is now harmonising the documents needed to ensure prisoner exchanges.
AP Moller Maersk has strong third quarter
The owner of the world’s biggest container line, AP Moller Maersk Group, in reporting for the third quarter 2010, says that revenue for the period increased by 17% to US$ 41.4 billion, primarily as a result of higher freight rates for the Group’s container shipping activities and higher oil prices. The net result for the period was a profit of US$ 4.2 billion.
“The result is exceptional, and we are very satisfied. Markets have been favourable, but first of all, our businesses are in excellent shape. Especially our container business has improved and is ahead of competition on profitability. We have moved from defence to the attacking zone, and we are ready to take more territory, especially in emerging markets,” says Group CEO Nils S Andersen.
In its statement AP Moller Maersk says the Group is now expecting a result for the full year in the order of US$ 5 billion, compared with an interim report of 18 August 2010 which stated an expected result for 2010 to exceed US$ 4 billion.
The statement says that a seasonal decline in both volumes and freight rates for the container activities is expected towards the end of the year and consequently a somewhat lower result in the fourth quarter.
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