International News : Europe

Federal Maritime Commission Chairman Richard A. Lidinsky has forwarded a wide-ranging set of recommendations for revising the Shipping Act of 1984 to the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation. Lidinsky Included in the recommendations to committee Chairman Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, R-Md., are six proposals: • Bring container and chassis lessors within the ambit of...

Chief Customer Officer Vincent Gulisano officially left Greatwide Logistics Services on Aug. 21 to become chief executive officer of ParcelPort, a small non-asset-based warehousing, distribution and fulfillment outfit based in Arizona. Gulisano told AmericanShipper.com he wasn’t actively looking for a new job, but that the opportunity to have an ownership stake and lead a company was too ...

NYK and OOCL said Monday they would increased container freight rates in the transatlantic. NYK Line said effective Oct. 1 it would implement a general rate increase on cargo moving under NYK independent tariffs to and from North Europe and the United States or Canada by $150 per 20-foot container and $300 per 40-foot container. OOCL also said its rates will increase Oct. 1. The gener...

Hapag-Lloyd said Tuesday Jesper Praestensgaard, 46, will become a member of its executive board on Jan. 1. As chief commercial officer, he will be responsible for the marketing and sales areas. Praestensgaard has more than 20 years of liner shipping experience, holding senior positions for Maersk Line, most recently as Singapore-based chief executive Asia Pacific Region with responsib...

Allen DHL intends to expand its presence in China with the assistance of Ken Allen, global chief executive officer of DHL Express, who has joined the board of its DHL-Sinotrans joint venture in that country. DHL and Sinotrans, the largest logistics firm in China, have partnered for 24 years, Allen will work closely with Jerry Hsu, president of DHL Express Greater China, to take advanta...

DHL Global Forwarding said it has launched a weekly less-than-containerload service from Auckland, New Zealand, to Singapore, where shipments can be transshipped around the world. The direct service will provide customers with faster transit times, the company said. The service will be operated by Danmar Lines, DHL’s in-house non-vessel operating common carrier. DHL, which handles...

Global container terminal operators had their "toughest year ever" in 2009, said Drewry Shipping Consultants. But in a few years terminals may once again face a capacity crunch, the London-based consultants said in a summary of its Annual Review of Global Container Terminal Operators 2010. "Global economic trends meant that container throughput at the world’s ports fell for the first ...

APM Terminals Aarhus and Cargo Service have agreed to combine their two facilities into one port complex. The companies have created a joint venture, APM Terminals Cargo Service A/S, with APMT owning 60 percent of the shares and Cargo Service 40 percent in the terminal. APM, an affiliate of Maersk Line, said the merger would allow the companies to better serve customers "through one l...

Maersk said Friday it will further raise transatlantic rates on Oct. 1, as part of a plan announced at the end of last year. The routes and rate increases are: • North Europe/United States, eastbound and westbound, $250 per 20-foot dry container, $350 per 40-foot dry container, and $500 for 40-foot reefer boxes. • North Europe/Canada, eastbound and westbound, $250 per 20-foot dry ...

The U.S. Trade and Development Agency has awarded a $864,000 grant to Pakistan International Airlines to help it enter the growing aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul market. The grant will support a feasibility study designed to assist the airline developing a facility to service engines, landing gear, airframes and aircraft components for domestic and foreign carriers. USTDA said ...

Freight forwarder Greencarrier has opened an office in Shenzhen, China. Carman Yeung will serve as Greencarrier’s general manager in Shenzhen as well as in Hong Kong. The company also operates offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai, with about 30 staff in Greater China. From Asia, Greencarrier has developed services focused on shippers operating between China and the Nordic and Baltic coun...

The Georgia Ports Authority said the largest vessel ever to call on the Port of Savannah arrived Friday when the 8,500-TEU CMA CGM Figaro docked at Garden City Terminal. The port authority’s Executive Director Curtis J. Foltz said the ship's arrival was "a view into the future of shipping between Asia and the U.S. East Coast," once the new locks on the Panama Canal become operational in 2...

Container carrier Zim said it had second quarter net income of $3 million compared to a $186 million loss in the second quarter of 2009. The Israeli carrier said revenue for the quarter ending June 30 was $933 million, 72 percent higher than the $543 million in the comparable quarter of 2009. Average freight rates in the second quarter was $1,328 per TEU, 26 percent higher than the $1...

The European Union has begun an antitrust investigation into marine-insurance agreements among groups of ship owners, according to a Bloomberg report Thursday. The probe will examine the actions of 13 protection and indemnity clubs that collectively insure about 93 percent of the world’s commercial fleet, checking whether “they unfairly shut commercial insurers (not in one of the clubs) o...

The International Association of Independent Tanker Owners said its council will be invited at its October meeting to appoint Joseph “Joe” Angelo as managing director, to succeed Peter Swift as managing director when he retires Dec. 31. In addition, Katharina “Kathi” Stanzel has been named deputy managing director. Intertanko membership is open to non-oil companies and non-state-contr...

Australia-based global logistics company Toll Group said its operating profits rose 7 percent to $413 million in the financial year ending June 30. Revenue for the company, parent of Toll Global Logistics (TGL), also rose 7 percent to $5.7 billion. The TGL business saw operating profit increase 10.9 percent to $89 million, despite revenue decreasing 6.3 percent to $1.1 billion. Its forwar...

The Port of Jacksonville said Thursday that Rick Ferrin has stepped down as executive director. Ferrin The agency's board of directors named Chris Kauffmann, chief operating officer, as interim executive director, and asked port management to initiate the search for a permanent successor to Ferrin. Ferrin, who has led the port for 13 years, will "serve in a new position where he will e...

Two Scandinavian carriers said Thursday they are jointly transporting a shipment of iron ore from northern Norway to China via Russian and Arctic waters, the so-called Northern Sea Route. Tschudi Shipping Co. and Danish Nordic Bulk Carriers are working in partnership with Russian Rosatomflot (the Russian national ice-breaking fleet), to provide two icebreaking vessels to escort the bulk c...

The U.S. Transportation Department’s Maritime Administration on Wednesday Rear Adm. Philip H. Greene Jr. has been appointed to superintendent of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y. Greene comes to the academy from the U.S. Navy, where he was director of the Navy Irregular Warfare Office. There he developed and employed a global maritime preventive security strategy. ...

The U.S. Defense Department on Wednesday that Maj. Gen. Kevin A. Leonard has been appointed to commanding general of the Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC). Leonard replaces Maj. Gen. James L. Hodge, who will command the Sustainment Center of Excellence at Fort Lee, Va. Hodge took command of SDDC June 30, 2008. Leonard has served in a variety of joint and oper...

Containerships will continue to operate at slower speeds even as the economy improves, Maersk Line said in an article for its weekly newsletter. “Maersk Line will continue slow steaming even as market conditions turn to the better –-- slow steaming is here to stay,” says Morten Engelstoft, chief operational officer. Maersk said in 2007 it began slow steaming, a practice that "involves...

Ocean carrier Mediterranean Shipping Co. said Tuesday it is rearranging the rotation of its North Atlantic service between Northern Europe and the U.S. East Coast. From Aug. 28, the westbound leg of the service will call first at New York from Europe. Previously, Boston was called prior to New York. The new rotation will be Bremerhaven, Felixstowe, Antwerp, Le Havre, New York, Boston,...

Intermarine said it had taken delivery of the first in a series of multipurpose, heavy-lift ships. Industrial Freedom is the first of four “F Class” ships the company is having built in China. The 14,1000-deadweight-ton ships each have two 400-metric-ton cranes, combinable for 800-ton lifts, and one 80-ton standard crane. The have a "house forward" design to give greater flexibili...

Talks between Evergreen and Korea's STX shipyard for 12 vessels have reportedly fallen through, but the company is continuing with plans to order 20 ships from Korea's Samsung and Taiwan's CSBC. An article in the Japanese shipping newspaper Kaiji Press on Monday featured an exclusive interview with Evergreen Group Chairman Y.F. Chang, who said the company would soon sign an order for 10 8...

Container line Hapag-Lloyd has joined a Far East/Australia service operated by ANL, China Shipping and OOCL, according to American Shipper affiliate ComPair Data. Hapag-Lloyd has become a slot buyer on the AANA service, which has a rotation of Yokohama, Osaka, Busan, Shanghai, Ningbo, Hong Kong, Kaohsiung, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Yokohama. The service is operated with five ves...

Danaos Corp. said Monday it took delivery of two ships earlier this month, boosting its fleet to 49 ships. The ships will be chartered to France's CMA CGM and Taiwan's Yang Ming, both existing Danaos customers. The CMA CGM Racine, built at Sungdong Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, and the YM Maturity, built at Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction Co., have carrying capacities of 6...

Hapag-Lloyd will add a vessel to its Mediterranean Gulf (MGX) service in September, according to a release Monday from the Port of New Orleans, one of the ports the service calls. The service, which Hapag-Lloyd runs in concert with CSAV, operates with six vessels averaging 3,323 TEUs, according to American Shipper affiliate ComPair Data. In September, the service will go to seven vessels....

Mediterranean Shipping Co. said Monday it is raising rates on all shipments from Southeast Asia to Australia beginning Oct. 1. The increase, $300 per container, applies to container moving from ports in Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia to all Australian ports. ...

COSCO Pacific, which has interests in some 21 terminals in China and around the world, said it had revenue of $222.7 million in the first half of 2010, 40 percent more than in the same 2009 period. Throughput at those terminals was 22.4 million TEUs, 18.7 percent more than in the same 2009 period. The company pointed to a forecast by China's Ministry of Transport that China’s containe...