Momentum Freight's Weblog

What do you do with container transport ships that aren’t designed for the way the business of ocean freight is conducted in the century of the environment? Ships made as early as 2006 were designed to run as fast as possible to destination across the world. The current slow-running strategies of shipping companies makes these types of ships too inefficient to use in the century of the environment because they just burn too much $700 a barrel diesel at slow speeds that they weren’t designed to run efficiently at. The design of the hull and all aerodynamic systems of these ships is designed for optimum use at around 30 knots, not at slower speeds, so they use more fuel at slower speeds than they would at the optimum speed they were designed for.

This is exactly the situation that Maersk found themselves in with six container transport vessels that were designed in 2006 and 2007 to operate at the speed of around 30 knots. They decided to lay up these ships in the Scottish Loch of Striven for awhile until they can decide what’s going to happen with these fast running container transport vessels.

Things haven’t gone as expected for Maersk as the residents that live around Loch Striven have noticed the large vessels sitting in their Lock and have decided they want something done about this. They have repeated sent letters of protest that apparently have been ignored, which hasn’t gotten the response Maersk was hoping for.

Recently, a filming company approached the owners of Maersk to see if they could use one of the vessels laid up in Loch Striven to film scenes for their up coming children’s feature film. Apparently, Maersk thought this was a good use for the ships and even one that could make them some money because they agreed to let them use one of the vessels to film.

The whole controversy appears to have cooled a bit, now that both sides are making a little money off of the whole affair. There’s still people that want the vessels to be removed to another location, but opposition to the presence of the container vessels has definitely lessened

http://www.ifw-net.com/freightpubs/ifw/ind…tid=20017749433

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

Container transport in 2009 was actually pretty good for the Port of Prince Rupert, along the West Coast of Canada’s province of British Columbia . Despite the economic problems around the world, the Port of Prince saw an increase of about 15 percent in container freight volumes moving through the Fairview Container Terminal. My friends at the Fairview Container Terminal indicated to me that the union and officials at the port were looking forward to a much better 2010. This is after a 2009 at the Port of Prince Rupert that was pretty good when compared to most of the freight industry.

The future of the container transport port is looking pretty good and they’re planning to increase the freight handling capacity of the Fairview Container Terminal by about 4 times in the future. The city of Prince Rupert also hosted the recent 51st Annual ACPA Conference in Prince Rupert, during which they discussed problems facing the Canadian container transport industry in the future. The presentation talked about things like sustaining freight ports in an industry that is turning green, surviving the recovery and moving freight in a green world.

The Port of Prince Rupert is a big employer in the region around the city and the continued growth and health of the city is tied to the success of the port. My longshore friends that work at the Fairview Container Terminal tell me they’re confident in the future of the freight industry in Canada and around the world. That the future plans for the container terminal outlined are expected to provide growth for other industries in the region, jobs for the citizens of British Columbia and opportunities for further growth in the container terminal industry of Canada.

http://www.ifw-net.com/freightpubs/ifw/new…20017743220.htm

The container transport ports of the United Kingdom are coming to a crossroads of sort in their history as new sources of energy and environmentally friendly goods will be coming through the ports, rather than the energy sources and goods we have been using for the past century and a half, in the future. 2009 was a tough year to be a container port in Britain and ports like Teesport and the Port of Tyne have begun plans to bring both ports into the century of the environment, the twenty-first century.

Teesport lost one of its biggest customers in 2009, with the closure of Teeside Cast Products (TCP), but the port is pinning its future on the growth of the container transport industry at the port will help alleviate some of the problems produced by the closure of the facility. The volume of containers being moved through Teesport increased by over fifty percent in the last half of 2009 as compared to the year before, according to Teesport officials. This is good news for the many of the workers who lost jobs when Teeside Cast Products closed as the employer as stated that it would be moving many of these workers to the container transport side of their business.

The ports of the United Kingdom have problems that they have to deal with if the container freight industry is to grow in the United Kingdom, but the government and industry are currently talking about ways to improve the port system. The growth of the energy sector in the United Kingdom will provide the ports with extra business they’ll need and with the increase in container freight movements in the ports, they should have enough business and freight volume to keep the ports healthy.

http://www.ifw-net.com/freightpubs/ifw/fea…4167679719&sp=1