  Thursday, March 11, 2010 |
Port Tracker upbeat, expecting 13pc hike in US March box traffic
IMPORT cargo volume at America's retail container ports is expected to rise 13 per cent year-on-year this month according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by Hackett Associates and the National Retail Federation (NRF), with double-digit increases expected to continue through till the middle of the year.
Federation vice president Jonathan Gold said the sustained growth was a testament to retailers' confidence in the US economy, marking a significant change to the inventory swings over the past two years.
December 2009 was the first to break the 28-month streak of year-on-year declines, with January and February following suit, recording two per cent and 29 per cent gains respectively.
Growth rates for the four months following March are expected to hover somewhere between 17 and 25 per cent, with the first half of the year expected to experience a 6.9 million TEU throughput, up 17 per cent from 2009.
Port Tracker is produced by consulting firm Hackett Associates on behalf of the NRF, and covers a number if major US ports, including Long Beach, Oakland, Los Angeles, Tacoma, and Seattle on the West Coast; Hampton Roads, New Jersey, New York, Savannah, and Charleston on the East; and Houston along the Gulf.
Ningxia aims for 43 million tonnes of rail cargo this year
CHINESE inland region of Ningxia has received the task assigned by the Lanzhou Railway Administration to achieve an annual rail cargo movement of 43 million tonnes by the end of this year, Xinhua reported.
The target is nine million tonnes, or 26.5 per cent more than last year's targeted volume, and 2.3 million tonnes, or 5.7 per cent, more than last year's actually achieved volume.
Respective targets for different kinds of cargo are: coal, 31.4 million tonnes, 8.2 million tonnes, or 35.4 per cent more than last year; petroleum, five million tonnes, 200,000 tonnes, or 4.2 per cent more than last year; grain, 580,000 tonnes, nine million tonnes or 18.4 per cent more than last year; chemical fertiliser, 1.6 million tonnes, 290,000 tonnes or 22.1 per cent more than last year; other commodities, 4.5 million tonnes or 5.2 per cent more than last year.
Maersk three-year charters on five 13,000-TEU megaships
LONDON's Zodiac Maritime's five 13,092-TEU megaships are to be chartered for a three-year period at a fixed and "relatively cheap" rate with Danish giant Maersk.
The megaship delivery date by Hyundai-Samho is due first half of 2011 and adds to Maersk orders made in 2007 of eight vessels of similar capacity. These are to be charted from Rickmers Reederei/Rickmers Maritime for delivery from mid-2010 and mid-2011 by at Hyundai Heavy Industries.
This is the first charter for a vessel of this size since the financial crisis and adds to the Danish line's fleet of sixty-three aged ships between one and 13 years old according to Alphaliner.
Fujian to increase customs clearance simplification on all trade cargo
SOUTHEASTERN China's Fujian province is to become the first in China to widen the coverage of its simplified customs clearance to both imports and exports effective March 15, Logistics Week reported.
The simplified service has always been given to only export cargo. With the improved service, now importers can also enjoy one-stop inspection service at the customs where their cargo are declared and no longer have to go through such procedures again at destination city customs.
Government official of the province said the measure is a pilot run in a bid to enhance customs operation efficiency and facilitate trade.
Director of Fujian Customs Yang Biao divulged that the province is striving to expand the new service to cover 25 cities in other regions like Jiangxi, Hunan province as well as Shenzhen and Shanghai within the year.
NYK purchases stake in Tata Logistics arm
NYK Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NYK, recently acquired a 26 per cent stake in TM International Logistics (TMILL), a subsidiary of India's largest steelmaker, Tata Steel.
Founded in 2002 as a joint venture between Tata Steel and Germany's IQ Martrade, TMILL specialises in the provision of steel-related logistics and harbour operation services.
The acquisition marks NYK's latest bid in its on-going effort to strengthen its position in the India. In 2007 the company established Tata NYK Shipping Pty Ltd a joint venture with Tata designed to tap the growing demand for transportation of raw materials, both in and out of the sub-continent.
Eight bids arrive to run new JNPT, but no interest from China
EIGHT bids to build an 800,000-TEU container terminal at Jawaharlal Nehru-Nhava Sheva (JNPT) port complex near Mumbai has arrived in response to a call for tenders, reported India's LiveMint Wall Street Journal.
Bidders include DP World, which already manages one of three existing terminals at the port, India's largest as well as Mundra Port and SEZ, which runs the country's busiest private container terminal in Gujarat. Other bidders were Indian companies.
Absent from the process were PSA International and APM Terminals, which both operate terminals in India (APM operates another of the Nhava Sheva terminals), Hong Kong's Hutchison Port Holdings and mainland China's Cosco Pacific.
India has maintained an unwritten policy of barring Chinese operators from managing terminals, reported American Shipper.
CAI beats quarterly estimates, shows strong growth potential
INTERMODAL container lessor, CAI International, posted fourth quarter 2009 profits of US$3.1 million, narrowly beating analyst forecasts, though still a big improvement on 2008 loss of $44.4 million.
Net profit, which included a restructuring charge in 2009 related to the CAI Consent acquisition, and a goodwill impairment charge in 2008, was still down year-on-year with revenue also down 48 per cent.
Despite a reversal in fortunes seemingly still out of reach, CEO Masaaki Nishibori took an optimistic approach on the company's prospects, citing continually increasing demand for containers in the latter half of 2009 and early 2010, with February recording the most lease outs for any month since August, 2008.
"The improved lease out activity during the first quarter of 2010 from the fourth quarter of 2009 is particularly promising considering that the first quarter is traditionally one of our seasonally weakest quarters for new lease outs," he said. "Our bookings for future lease outs remain strong and we expect continued good demand in the coming months."
Current utilisation rates, reported to be above 80 per cent, appear to be in support of Mr Nishibori's outlook. The numbers are largely being attributed higher freight volumes than expected, as well as an apparent manufacturing constraint on the ability to produce new containers, which has caused an artificial shortage.
Mr Nishibori continued to note that the acquisition of CAI Consent in 2008 - despite compelling a hefty integration charge for the quarter - has nevertheless proved to be a successful move overall. "It has allowed us to further cross-market both specialised containers and traditional ISO dry vans, while at the same time reduce our overall overhead costs by approximately $1 million per year," he said.
"We are optimistic about the prospects for 2010 and although our profitability in 2009 was lower than in 2008 after adjusting for the goodwill impairment, we were profitable in every quarter of 2009 and believe it shows the resiliency and strength of our industry," he said.
Rail inefficiency causes 62pc of Canadian shippers big losses: study
CUSTOMERS of Canada's big railways Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, blasted service quality, with 62 per cent claiming to have suffered "significant financial loss" because of poor rail service.
The federal Rail Freight Service Review, which may lead to regulatory changes, is to be presented to Parliament in the autumn, reported Toronto's Financial Post. Findings not only criticised CN and CP, but also blasted the regulatory system itself for being "cumbersome and expensive".
Only 17 per cent of those surveyed said they have a high level of satisfaction in the service they have received from CN or CP. Mostly, customer satisfaction surveys elicit a response in the 50-70 per cent range, said Andrew Ennis, who conducted the survey by NRG Research Group.
Terminal operators, port authorities and shipping lines have also reported concerns about the level of service they have received from the rails.
"Most businesses, if you don't have satisfied customers, you go out of business," Mr Ennis said. "I think, quite frankly, there's not many options."
Cathay Pacific announces record US$604.4 million profit for 2009
HONG KONG's Cathay Pacific Group announced a record profit of HK$4.69 billion (US$604.4 million) in 2009, compared to a loss of HK$8.69 billion the previous year.
Group revenue fell by 22.6 per cent to HK$66.97 billion in 2009.
The price of aviation fuel in the first half of the year was significantly lower than mid-2008, though it rose in the middle of 2009. This rise was reflected in mark-to-market gains of HK$2.01 billion on fuel hedging contracts for the period 2010-2011.
Cathay Pacific and Dragonair between them carried 24.6 million passengers in 2009 - a fall of 1.6 per cent on the previous year. Passenger revenue fell by HK$45,920 million, reflecting substantial reductions in premium traffic and in economy class passenger numbers held up well. At the same time capacity fell by 3.7 per cent.
As a result of poor first-half performance, passenger yield fell 19.5 per cent.
The group's cargo business in the first half was worse than expected, but there was a slight increase in October.
Cargo revenue for Cathay Pacific and Dragonair combined fell by HK$17.25 billion in 2009, while total tonnage carried fell by 7.1 per cent to 1,527,948 tonnes. Capacity fell by 13.1 per cent reflected by a load factor of 70.8 per cent. Cargo yield for the year fell 26.8 per cent.
Air China to suspend Chongqing-Japan Centrair Airport line
AIR China is to suspend the lines from Chongqing to Centrair, a Japanese airport located near the city of Nagoya, on March 27, and launch another new line to the airport from Chengdu the following day, Logistics Week reported.
The new line offers one round-trip flight per day and will stop over at Shanghai.
In the meantime, the carrier will increase the frequency of its service from Beijing to Hokkaido's New Chitose Airport from two to three times weekly effective July 18.
New cargo carrier Deccan 360 copies low-fare biz plan
EXPRESS logistics start-up Deccan 360 aims to offer lower cargo tariffs than rivals by keeping costs down, says founder GR Gopinath, who plans to reproduce his own experience in setting up Air Deccan, India's first budget airline.
"We are selling our product on expansion network besides distributing cargo 10-15 per cent cheaper," Mr Gopinath told India's Economic Times.
"The mandate is to keep the cost structure as low level as possible by introducing new technology and operating a larger network. In the next few years, we could be serving 500 cities of the country," Mr Gopinath said, with the report noting that Deccan 360 plans to grow based on a franchisee model in most of the cities.
It said the cargo airline plans to invest INR4 billion (US$87.3 million) in building infrastructure, including warehouses, as well as fleet expansion.
Deccan 360 operates a fleet of seven air freighters, comprising five ATRs and two Airbus A310s that serves about 10 destinations. The company also operates a fleet of nearly 1,000 trucks.
The report noted that India's domestic express cargo industry is growing 15 per cent a year. "The industry has, however, potential to grow at much faster rate given the pace of economic growth in the country," it said.
"We have just 15 cargo aircraft compared to 100 in China. The Chinese air cargo industry is worth about $5 billion," Mr Gopinath added.
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