Posts Tagged ‘freight transport’

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Domestic Freight Shipping of oil

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

America’s domestic freight carriers of bulk crude oil have to keep the oil moving to destination in the United States for the gears of industry, business and life to continue in America and the world. The crude oil must continue to flow in America for the present time, if we’re to keep the wheels of business greased, and eventually change over to alternate forms of renewable energy, but the change-over is going to have to be gradual for it to be feasible.

ExxonMobil is one dometic freight shipping firm of crude oil operating on the waters of this great nation that has been busy keeping the oil flowing in America. ExxonMobil has been busy working on new ways to increase production from its existing wells, of late, rather than concentrating on finding new sources of oil, which still have to be developed.

ExxonMobil appears to be having some success in increasing production from its existing wells, which considering the number of wells in production in the United States, could represent a significant volume of crude oil, if their new ideas work to increase production in America’s existing wells.

ExxonMobil announced the other day that it has completed the world’s longest extend-reach oil well from an existing fixed platform, which according to ExxonMobil will increase their ability to produce barrels of oil from the company’s Santa Ynez facility off of Southern California. Sources indicate the well platform in question to be the Heritage platform, which now extends more than 9.65 kilometres (six miles) horizonally and more than 7,000 feet below sea level, using ExxonMobil’s Fast Drill technology. ExxonMobil claims that its Fast Drill technology improves drilling rates by up to 80 percent and decreases the cost of drilling.

Reports around the freight shipping industry of the United States indicate that ExxonMobil might be able to produce an additional 5.8 million barrels of oil using this new extended reach well. This is equal to the yearly energy consumption of about 144,000 Californians, from a well that has already produced more than 450 million barrels of domestic oil for America.

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Heavy Haul Services in Florida up to 88,000 pounds

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

Heavy haul services on the roads of Florida could soon be carrying as much as 88,000 pounds as they travels down the roads of America’s sunny state. The bill that would make this law went into effect on July 1 and was recently signed by Florida Governor Charlie Crist on July 4. Advocates and critics of this idea were very quick to respond to the news, when it was announced, and have since each had their say. Long haul professionals of the Florida Trucking Association and the American Trucking Associations have decided this is a good idea that has definite benefits for the business of freight shipping on the roads of the United States. Groups like the Florida Coalition for Safe Highways and the Florida Association of Professional EMTs and Paramedics are against the idea. Apparently, the EMT group thinks that the bridges of Florida are already in bad enough condition and that heavier freight trucks is just going to make the bridges even more unsafe and could even make it difficult for medical services to access areas of Florida. The Florida Coalition on the other hand thinks that this idea could make it more difficult for commercial transports to get moving and stop when operating on the roads and that this could actually contribute to the volume of accidents on the roads of America involving heavy haul freight shipping services.

The President and CEO of the American Trucking Association is so serious about this idea that they have sent a letter to Florida’s Governor Charlie Crist, asking him to sign the bill. The increase of allowable truck weights from 80,000 to 88,000 pounds is expected to increase productivity of trucking services, possibly decrease the level of traffic congestion on the roads of the United States, reduce the volume of fuel being consumed and the total volume of carbon emissions being released into the air due to the transport of roro and ltl freight, according to sources in the freight trucking industry of America.

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Freight Load of Pharmaceuticals Recovered

Monday, July 5th, 2010

Heavy haul professionals will be glad to hear that a full truckload of pharmaceutical products stolen from a truck stop along the I-81 at 9 p.m. in Glade Springs, Virginia were recovered by the security provider for the load FreightWatch International on the I-81 in Tennessee on June 25. Apparently, the truck and load was stolen while the two man team driving the long haul rig in question were having dinner in a restaurant close by, while the thieves were busy stealing their truck and its freight load of valuable pharmaceutical products. The drivers must have been surprised to find their freight shipping vehicle missing when they came back from dinner, but apparently they had little to worry about as the truck was apparently quickly recovered.

Sources indicate that the truckload of pharmaceuticals had a tracking device embedded in the load that allowed FreightWatch to track and pinpoint the location of the load and truck. All FreightWatch had to do was contact the local police, who found the truck and its load waiting at a truck stop along the I-81 in Tennessee. FreightWatch indicated that the company had helped recover tens of millions of dollars in stolen pharmaceutical freight over the past few years. That tracking devices like the one used in this instance were only part of their layered security solutions their customers implement in order to prevent theft of pharmaceutical freight and recover it once stolen.

This is great news for the drivers and trucking company they work for, but it’s particularly important for people that might unknowingly end up using these pharmaceuticals once stolen. Hopefully, the investigation leads to an arrest and they find the individuals responsible for the theft, before they strike again. The next time they might find the tracking device and remove it from the freight load or find away to shield it from detectors, which is always possible once they know the tracking devices are being used.

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Heavy Haul Job of Massive Proportions

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

Plans of Exxon Mobil Corp. to transport massive pieces of freight starting this fall from the Port of Lewiston is being looked at suspiciously by American citizens concerned about a possible environmental disaster if one of the massive pieces of heavy haul freight should happen to end up in the Clearwater or Lochsa rivers. The Idaho Transportation Department has stated that it’s their job to issue permits for long haul loads of large size, such as the ones in question, as long as the loads in question can be transported without damaging roads or bridges along the proposed transport route. They want to have freight shipping services take the freight loads along US 12 through the Lochsa River canyon, over the Lolo Pass and then through northwestern Montana, before finally reaching the Kearl Oil Sands in northeastern Alberta.

This is a trip that would make any trucking company proud to complete as this job entails hauling 200 oversized loads of Korean-made freight along transport routes that travel across rough terrain in many areas, according to sources. Sources surrounding this affair also indicate that the largest load would weigh in the neighbourhood of about 580,000 pounds and be up to 210 feet in length, which is going to be a massive transport job for any firm. These shipments would in fact exceed legal weight limits for the Idaho stretch of the transport as a typical tractor-trailer is around 90 feet in length and weighs about 80,000 pounds. This fact is certainly one that’s going to catch the eye of observers looking on and this is certainly the case as a few concerned politicians have also been heard recently commenting on the proposed transport of these massive pieces of freight.

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New RoRo Rail Loading Ramp in Port of Everett

Monday, June 21st, 2010

Heavy haul trucking professionals will be rolling roro freight onto the rail cars using a new 70-ton rail loading ramp that Port of Everett Marine Terminals maintenance crews built to the standards of the United States military in order to enhance intermodal freight shipping services in the ports terminal facilities in the future. This news should definitely decrease the amount of time it takes to move the roro freight onto and off of the rail cars and once news gets out of the enhanced roro freight services in the Port of Everett, we should see more customers show up at the port with freight to transport to destination in the months ahead in the century of the environment.

This announcement also has a number of other benefits, such as being able to drive heavy machinery onto the rail cars, instead of lifting the equipment with a crane, which is a lot more dangerous for the workers involved. This news also means that the Port of Everett can help serve the needs of the United States military since Naval Station Everett is located in the port and the new ramp will allow tanks and other heavy military equipment to quickly and efficiently be loaded onto rail cars should the need arise. One thing is for certain, we can certainly expect to see military transports loading roro freight onto rail cars more often in the Port of Everett in the future, and the volume of freight that can be moved through the ports terminals should increase significantly with this new rail loading ramp.

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A niche freight industry grows

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

The LNG freight carrier sector has huge ships that carry massive loads of volatile gases to destinations around the world. The industry employs smaller LNG carriers that like some smaller vessels in other ocean freight shipping industry sectors often work in a specialized niche industry within the larger LNG freight carrier industry. Smaller LNG carriers have in fact been transporting gases to destination for around 17 years, but the sector is currently going through a few growing pains of late as orders for smaller LNG carriers have grown. This sudden growth has created the belief in some freight industry professionals that business for smaller LNG carriers could be about to explode as the freight carrier industry travels farther into the century of the environment.

What’s driving the sudden growth in demand for smaller LNG carriers? It use to be that demand for coastal transport of LNG was contined to Japan for the most part. Lately though players in Northwest Europe, specifically the Baltic and Scandinavian regions of Europe, have been servicing isolated customers without access to other ways of transporting LNG. The 1,100-cbm Pioneer Knutsen is one smaller LNG carrier currently at work servicing a number of smaller terminals in these regions along the Norweigan coast, according to freight industry sources. Small LNG carriers like the Pioneer Knutsen also operate on low-sulphur fuels in these regions which have Emission Control Areas (ECAs) in place similar to recently proposed Emission Control Areas for Canada and North America. In addition, some of the newest small LNG carriers like the 7.500-cbm Coral Methane can actually use LNG as a fuel source, which reduces carbon emissions by about 20 percent and particle and nitrogen-oxides by close to 100 percent and 85 percent respectively.

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White House Pushes For Truck Fuel Economy Standard

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

Car Transport FuelThe White House announced that fuel efficiency standards for larger trucks will be in the offing for the 2014 model year; that will change what is under the hood for freight carriers and possibly change how they do their business. That will force truck makers to improve the fuel efficiency of standard truck engines and increase the emphasis on alternative fuel trucks. Truck manufacturers will likely look to hybrid technologies, battery-powered engines, aerodynamics, and other fuel-saving techniques, especially for short-haul trucks that can recharge their batteries back at base at the end of the day.

While the amount of battery power required to run a Class 8 truck would be rather massive, an extended tractor that could hold a bay of batteries would be feasible if there was an incentive for the truck makers to make such a monster battery grid. If the grid had, say, a 600-mile range, it could run for ten hours straight at 60MPH and then charge while the driver was taking its down-time at a truck stop equipped with chargers. However, that would require getting a network of recharging stations at truck stops or rest areas, which might become a DOT budget item to encourage those places to install chargers.

The new engines will likely be costlier and make demand for the 2014 models drop at first, just as the new 2010 emission standards raised prices for this year’s models; that will likely see a jump in costs and thus a corresponding jump in freight rates in the mid 10s, if the reduced fuel costs from better efficiency don’t offset the increased price of the engines.

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Ship Freight on America’s Inland Waterways?

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Trailer trucking professionals who have been reading any of the blogs that have been written by United States Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood have apparently been paying attention as more recent blog posts by the Secretary of Transportation have been a little more politically correct according to many watchers. The controversy of the his older blog posts surrounds his announcement that bicyclists should probably have a voice in the planning of America’s transport system and the thoughts of America’s trucking services industry about this announcement. Mr. LaHood’s more recent blog posts appear to be a little more guarded and add a few nice comments about America’s trucking transport industry and the possible need to think about making more room for walkers and bicyclists using the transport systems of America. Mr. LaHood seems to have embraced blogging as away to meet the common people who are concerned about the significant problems in America’s transport systems and this is probably an excellent idea.

The Secretary of Transport has apparently been increasing his blogging efforts lately and according to the latest reports has been blogging about his desire to get large transport trucks off of the roads of America in an effort to reduce the carbon wheel-print of America’s trucking industry. He would like to see America start using more inland waterways to transport freight to destinations in America, in preference to using heavy duty trucks, according to some sources. This is certainly a feasible idea that could help bypass congested roads around busy American ports in some cases and even reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but we obviously need to be very careful when trying to move more freight using the inland waterways of America. The environmental cost to American could in the end be greater depending on each particular waterway and we need to tread very carefully in this desire.

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OOCL Will Increase Container Transport Price

Monday, May 24th, 2010

Customers that need to ship freight between Europe, the United States, Canada and Mexico beginning in July will find the cost of Oriental Overseas Container Line’s (OOCL) Trans Atlantic container shipping services has increase. OOCL released a statement to this affect recently and this news appears to have been met with very little comment by customers. It appears that OOCL could be trying to make some of the money they might have lost during the past two years of rough seas for the container shipping industry. The truth of this statement doesn’t really mean much to customers that will have to pay the higher freight rates starting on July 1, according to the release by OOCL.

Just how much will the cost of transporting containers increase on July 1? The general rate increase on westbound 20 ft containers from Europe to the United States, Canada and Mexico will be US$400, while the cost for a 40 ft container will go up by US$500. Eastbound containers going from the United States, Canada and Mexico to Europe will go up by US$320 for 20 ft containers and US$ 400 for 40 ft containers.

This is news that many in the container shipping industry were probably expecting to hear at some point and we can probably expect other lines to follow suit eventually, if not sooner and increase their general price for container transport as well. The container shipping industry will be looking at trying to recover some of the financial losses that they might have experienced during the rough seas and this certainly won’t come as a surprise to customers or the container shipping industry in general.

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Overhead Cranes for India’s Container Transport

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

India’s container transport industry has been showing signs of amazing growth in the past year or so and with the expected growth in container movements in India in the years ahead there’s definitely a market for new container cranes in the Indian container transport industry. Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) is a world leader in the production of freight handling equipment for container terminals and according to the latest reports this firm has just signed a licensing deal with Anupam Industries Ltd of India that will see this Indian firm produce Mitsubishi Heavy Industries line of container transport equipment for the Indian transport industry to use in the years ahead.

According to sources in the Indian transport industry Anupam Industries Ltd was born in 1973 and is currently doing business out of India’s Gujarat state. The firm has also been vocal lately about the fact that they think they’re the container industry leader in the production of overhead cranes in India and with this deal they’re probably thinking about increasing their business share in India and other Asian markets in the century of the environment.

This is great news for India and its need to make sure it can handle the expected growth in container movements to and from the Indian-subcontinent in the years ahead. If things go as expected for Anupam Industries and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries partnership, we could see this deal turn into a game changer for the manufacture and use of overhead cranes to move containers in India and even the expansion of this partnership into the Middle East and Africa.

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