Archive for March, 2010
Thursday, March 18th, 2010
There will be more container transports going through the Aqaba Container Terminal now that two new ship-to-shore cranes have arrived at the port. The new cranes are part of the Port of Aqaba’s current expansion program and are expected to help improve container transport movements through the port for customers considerably. Plans also call for the quay to be extended by 460 metres and the wharf length being increased to about 1,000 metres. All of the improvements should help move container transports through the Aqaba Container Port more efficiently and faster.
The ports of Jordan have been recieving freight for hundreds of years, and while the original Port of Aqaba is no more, the new Port of Aqaba has continued the business of moving freight into and out of Jordan as always. The current Aqaba Container Terminal of Jordan is the primary shipping port for the Red Sea area and provides port services for more than just Jordan. The container port serves as a freight gateway for the whole Red Sea region and is essential to the health and welfare of the people and economy of the region.
The Aqaba Container Terminal was one of the container ports that had a satisfactory year, if you look at the numbers while considering the overall picture in the container port industry. The Aqaba Container Terminal certainly had to deal with the same drop in container business worldwide that the rest of the ports had to deal with. Still, the amount of containers being moved through this container terminal increased by as much as 25 percent at times during the first part of 2009, as compared to the numbers experienced in 2008 at the port.
https://www.act.com.jo/Lists/News/Attachmen…TS%20carnes.pdf
https://www.act.com.jo/default.aspx
http://www.ifw-net.com/freightpubs/ifw/ind…tid=20017749633
Tags: container transport, container transports, freight, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking services, Trucking transport
Posted in Auto Industry News, Freight Industry News, Momentum Freight, Momentum Freight News, Shipping News, freight shipping | No Comments »
Thursday, March 18th, 2010
There appears to be a red horizon in view over the container transport industry of the United States according to the recently released Global Port Tracker report by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Hackett Associates. The Global Port Tracker is meant to be relevant for container transport ports on both the east, west and gulf coast of America, including Oakland, Long Beach, Houston, Hampton Roads, Charleston and others. The newest Global Port Tracker is a business forecast of the next six months at eleven major US container transport ports, but it might be expanded to include ports on the east and west coast of Canada in the future. In fact, it wouldn’t be surprising for this kind of service to be expanded in the future to include the major ports of the world. The information could create another market that would employ people and actually be useful to the freight industry as a tool to help make business and expected profits more predictable.
The report expects that due to increases in freight volumes during January and excellent forecasts for volume increases in the month that has always been the slowest year to year, February. Expectations of the report are that freight volumes during the first six months of 2010 are going to continue to go up as much as twenty five percent from the volumes experienced in 2009. This is great news for an industry that is looking for anything to give them hope for an improvement in business in 2010. The century of the environment has hit business pretty hard, so far, but humans and the freight industry are starting to get an idea of what we need to do to get business and life back on track.
Hopefully, the report’s assessment under estimates the increase in the numbers that are predicted and the first six months of the year are even better than expected. We need to try to get the freight industry back to where it was before the recession, if possible, and then try to keep driving down the road to improving the industry for all. We have been distracted from this task during the past twenty months by the problems in the industry, but if things start to look better we can get back to this task.
http://www.ifw-net.com/freightpubs/ifw/ind…tid=20017749646
http://www.globalporttracker.com/home.html
Tags: container transport, freight, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking services, Trucking transport
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Friday, March 12th, 2010
The European economy may be stagnant, but Asian economies seem to be doing somewhat better, and West Coast ports are making sure they have enough room to handle future freight carrier traffic. Both Oakland and Vancouver, BC were in the news this week looking to expand their ports.
The Port of Oakland signed a deal to take over part of an old Navy base and convert it into warehouse and distribution centers; there will be some work needed to stabilize the ground, for part of the old base was build on fill material which is a disaster waiting to happen during the next earthquake to hit the area; the infrastructure work for the area is slated to cost a million dollars an acre, but prime property in the Bay Area will be worth that kind of money.
One of Oakland’s visions is to set up the kind of intermodal network with the Midwest that the LA and Long Beach ports have with areas like Dallas and El Paso. If trade to Asia continues to grow, that might be a viable option for shippers looking for container transport to and from the center of the country.
Meanwhile, there is more going on in Vancouver than the Olympics. Most of the Winter Games development has been at ski resorts away from the coastal areas, so the port authority has been busy buying up waterfront property in metro Vancouver in order to keep it from being turned into residential areas. Waterfront property is a prime location for apartments and condos, but a certain amount of that property needs to be available for shipping and shipping-related business, else economic growth in the region will be slowed.
Sources: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?…L#ixzz0fLTT5yhq
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nation…article1460900/
Tags: container transport, freight, freight carrier, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking services, Trucking transport
Posted in Auto Industry News, Freight Industry News, Momentum Freight, Momentum Freight News, Shipping News, freight shipping | No Comments »
Friday, March 12th, 2010
The European economy may be heading into a double-dip recession, something that should scare freight fowarders and anyone else in the shipping industry. The fourth quarter 2009 figures had the Eurozone (the countries using the Euro) growing at an anemic 0.1% rate. If the Greek economic problems continue (which they have in the first half of the first quarter) to bring downward pressure on the Eurozone, the European economies may have a second recession on their hands this year, or at least a negative growth first quarter of 2010.
That has repercussions across the pond. Container transport, which is the preferred mode of transport for exports, will likely be stagnant if there is a decreased demand for US goods in Europe; that is going to throw a monkey wrench into the President’s plan to double exports in five years. Fewer stuff will be flowing into the ports on the east coast and freight carriers in the east will have less business.
In a recessionary environment, the Euro will weaken, especially if the Greek debt situation casts doubt on the long-term stability of the Euro, which will make European exports more competitive. That will be good news for European car makers and US makers with European connections, but bad news for US car haulers.
This might encourage the US to be more Pacific-focused, as a growing Asia and a stagnant Europe will tend to skew the US economy towards more of a Pacific focus. The ports of the West Coast may become even more important in the years to come.
Source:http://www.marketwatch.com/story/german-gd…dist=beforebell
Tags: container transport, freight, freight carrier, freight carriers, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking services, Trucking transport
Posted in Auto Industry News, Freight Industry News, Momentum Freight, Momentum Freight News, Shipping News, freight shipping | No Comments »
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Freight forwarders have to be careful how they get stuff to their customers, for they might wind up shipping stuff via an adversary of your customer. For instance, shipments heading to Israel had best avoid sending the shipment through Arab countries hostile to Israel.
A lot of folks may have forgotten that the British and the Argentineans are not on good terms due to their dispute over the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic near Argentina; the British grabbed custody of the Falklands in the 1830 and reversed an Argentinean invasion of what the Argentineans call the Malvinas in 1982. When governments are in tough shape, they can sometimes look to create a foreign policy crisis to rally public support, and the current Argentinean government, who lost control of the legislature last fall, is looking to protest British oil development in the Falklands.
Getting caught up in the middle of this is a Danish bulk carrier carrying oilfield equipment that was in the port of Campana near Buenos Aires; the Danes and the Argentinean producers of the pipes claim that they were heading for the Mediterranean, but the government states that the ship was heading to the Falklands’ main city of Port Stanley.
Whether the Danish ship was heading to the Falklands or they were just used as a convenient tool to gin up nationalist support reminds to be seen; meanwhile, trucking logistics firms may need to tread carefully in that region and steer clear of Argentinean ports.
Sources: http://www.handyshippingguide.com/shipping…s-shipping_1288
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/artic…j3BTCewpI_bplPg
Tags: freight, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking services, Trucking transport
Posted in Auto Industry News, Freight Industry News, Momentum Freight, Momentum Freight News, Shipping News, freight shipping | No Comments »
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
The second big storm to hit the east coast in a week is still slowing down freight carriers; Delaware still is under a state of emergency that precludes most trucks from traveling in the state, including I-95. Package delivery services suspended service to some affected areas, including Maryland and the District of Columbia and many trucking firms with hubs in the mid-Atlantic had to shut down operations.
However, another storm is brewing in Europe, one that is man-made; customs workers in Greece are slated for a three-day strike next week, protesting budget cuts by the Greek government. That will cut off any seagoing traffic going into the country and cut off interstate transport coming from Turkey and the rest of the Middle East from its main land route with the EU.
The Greek government has run a massive deficit and has implemented an austerity plan to close the deficit, which includes a pay freeze for government workers, including the striking customs workers as well as only replacing 20% of retiring workers. The large deficit has put downward pressure on the Euro, as Greece has the Euro as its currency; the rest of the EU is debating whether to do anything about the Greek government’s deteriorating financial position.
Without any outside help, budget cuts are the government’s best solution, but one that angers the unions that helped put the current government into office. That will mean trucking logistics will be made very problematic in the weeks to come as militant public-sector unions protest having to bear the brunt of the country’s budget woes.
Sources: http://www.capegazette.com/storiescurrent/…/updates12.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8508688.stm
http://www.handyshippingguide.com/shipping…-next-week_1283
http://www.breakbulk.com/content/?p=1219
Tags: freight, freight carriers, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, interstate transport, moving freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking logistics, trucking services, Trucking transport
Posted in Auto Industry News, Freight Industry News, Momentum Freight, Momentum Freight News, Shipping News, freight shipping | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
Survival of the fittest is definitely the rule of business in the freight carrier industry of late and Europe has had just as tough a time dealing with the problems in the industry as the rest of the world. The moves and hard choices that have had to be made by many firms has kept them in business while firms in financial situations that aren’t as strong have fallen by the roadside. The ocean freight industry has started slow-steaming and put freight capacity away in order to reduce costs and keep the ships traveling back and forth with freight. The container trucking industry has begun looking at the newest technologies to help reduce costs and deal with the problem of reducing their carbon footprint on the surface of the Earth.
European freight carriers LD Lines and Transeuropa Ferries have decided to combine business resources in an effort to improve the services each firm supplies to customers in the geographical regions of Europe in which they both do business. The current agreement is for the firms to share space on ferries moving back and forth along the channel run between Ramsgate and Ostend next month. This means that freight capacity on the run will be increased sometime in the second half of 2010. They haven’t provided a firm date for the start of the service, but this will improve freight movements on this run and provide customers using the run with the more space for moving freight.
The freight industry could see more similar agreements between firms looking to take advantage of freight capacity that isn’t being used. Firms can improve their services by using the ability of another firm with overlapping freight services and services that one firm or the other doesn’t have as much capacity for. This kind of agreement is good for the industry as it makes use of the present capacity we have, rather than building additional capacity that is expensive and might not be used to its full. This will definitely reduce overall costs for firms that can use this strategy and should make the freight industry healthier as a whole.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/8504588.stm
http://www.ifw-net.com/freightpubs/ifw/ind…tid=20017746639
http://info.jctrans.com/jcnet/news/osn/2010210850387.shtml
Tags: container trucking, freight, freight carrier, freight carriers, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking services, Trucking transport
Posted in Auto Industry News, Freight Industry News, Momentum Freight, Momentum Freight News, Shipping News, freight shipping | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
The old Harry Truman joke was that if you laid all the economists end to end, you couldn’t reach a conclusion; that may well be true of folks who are forecasting container transport volumes.
On one hand, we have the monthly Global Port Tracker report, which is forecasting a 25% rise in containerized traffic from for the first quarter of 2010 compared with the first quarter of 2009. The report is put out by the National Retail Federation, who may well be cheerleading people into stores to buy all those imports.
President Truman always longed for a one-handed economist, because the able-bodied ones always added “On the other hand …” Playing the second hand, we have a major railroad executive expecting international intermodal shipping to be flat for 2010.
However, those two factoids could coexist nicely. If traffic rebounded in the last part of 2009, we could have container trucking going to stores up quite a bit from early 2009 and yet be stable when compared with late 2009. The other prospect, which goes against trends, is for intermodal to get a smaller share of import traffic. Given that we’re seeing an increase in intermodal traffic over the years, a reversal of intermodal market share seems unlikely.
Chrystal balls have a way of getting rather hazy, especially on the economic front. We’re not quite sure what 2010 will bring yet, as there are too many variables at play to make a firm conclusion of where the world economy is going.
Sources:http://www.joc.com/node/416609
http://www.cargobusinessnews.com/news/monday/news1.html
Tags: container transport, container trucking, freight, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking services, Trucking transport
Posted in Auto Industry News, Freight Industry News, Momentum Freight, Momentum Freight News, Shipping News, freight shipping | No Comments »
Monday, March 8th, 2010
There’s a battle brewing in the container transport industry in the Philippines over suggestions by freight professionals in the Philippines freight industry that they’re paying fees and charges that are unfair in order to move freight. Apparently, the list of charges and fees is significant and suspicious to many firms and they have called for an investigation to be conducted on whether shipping lines have been adding charges that are unnecessary and over the top.
There’s no reason not to investigate claims of abuse, but freight carriers have to be prepared to accept the decision of the agencies tasked with the investigation. They might not get the decision they’re looking for, but they could be right and such things do need to be investigated. Shipping lines should have the right to alter their fees and charges, depending upon conditions and expenses, after all they do need to make a profit, but just as surely we need to keep an eye out for possible abuses.
There are a few changes in the works that could help alleviate this problem a little in the future, they’re planning on implementing a new nationwide Import Assessment System in the ports of the Philippines that should help decrease charges and fees by moving the assessment process on line. This system has already been in use in ports in the Philippines and has been met with some success, so maybe the implementation in all of the ports of the Philippines will allow for the fees and charges to be more consistent.
In the meantime freight carriers will just have to deal with the situation, until the investigation comes to a decision, which could take awhile. The costs will be passed onto customers anyway, which is a bad situation for all involved, but what other choice to they have?
http://www.ifw-net.com/freightpubs/ifw/ind…tid=20017747342
Tags: container transport, freight, freight carriers, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking services, Trucking transport
Posted in Auto Industry News, Freight Industry News, Momentum Freight, Momentum Freight News, Shipping News, freight shipping | No Comments »
Monday, March 8th, 2010
A different type of intermodal transport is being proposed for the I-81 corridor, which is quickly becoming a favorite of freight carriers; since it goes through the relatively unpopulated Shenandoah Valley rather than the more populated I-85 and I-95 routes, it has less traffic to contend with. A rolling highway has been proposed for a Harrisburg PA-Knoxville run, giving trucks the option of rolling onto a flatbed rail car, grabbing a seat in a passenger section and let the railroad do the rest.
That’s not as efficient as classic intermodal transport, where just the container is moved by rail and picked up by another tractor or ship at the other end. However, some freight can’t be containerized and some firms might opt to have their driver and trailer come along. Such systems are currently being used in Austria and Switzerland to ease the burden of trucks trying to tackle the Alps on their own.
It’s a nine hour drive between Harrisburg and Knoxville, and if trucking loads came from a bit further away, drivers would have to stop for the night to finish the run; with a rolling highway taking 15 hours to cover that run, a trucker could get his time away from the truck in and be ready to do the rest of the leg. That would cut four hours off the trip if a trucker needed 10 hours of down time to keep HOS-legal.
Such a rolling highway would take some of the strain off of I-81 and take away the need to expand the highway to accommodate extra traffic. The key question is whether such a rolling highway would make economic sense to trucking transport firms and whether it would have to be subsidized by state and local governments in order to make it cost-effective for truckers.
Sources: http://www.thetrucker.com/News/Stories/201…81gridlock.aspx
http://www.railsolution.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_highway
Tags: freight, freight carriers, freight forwarders, freight moving, freight shipping, freight transport, heavy haul, moving freight, shipping freight, trucking companies, trucking loads, trucking services, Trucking transport
Posted in Auto Industry News, Freight Industry News, Momentum Freight, Momentum Freight News, Shipping News, freight shipping | No Comments »