US-built box crane - WorldCargo News Online

PORT NEWS
MSC to hub at Beirut
In what the Lebanon Daily Star says is
the first deal of its kind in the country,
MSC is to use the Port of Beirut as a
regional transhipment hub, feeding traffic
from the Far East for Turkey, Syria,
Egypt and other East Med destinations,
instead of using Marsaxxlok or Piraeus
for this purpose and cutting days off the
overall transport time - as much as 20
days (from 35 to 15), MSC’s regional
manager MSC Kheirallah al-Zein is
quoted.
“It is the first time that an international
shipping company has chosen Beirut
as a hub port,” said Elie Zakhour,
president of the International Chamber
of Navigation in Beirut. “This will definitely
increase the revenues of the port,
create opportunities for employment and
boost the Lebanese economy as a whole.”
The port handled 390,000 containers
last year, but the new agreement is
expected to increase this year’s figure to
450,000 containers, which Zakhour says
is close to installed capacitty.
As previously reported, the container
terminal is now run by Beirut Container
Terminal Consortium, made up of USbased
International Maritime Associates,
Mersey Docks & Harbour Company
from the UK and International Port
Management Beirut SAL.
BCTC recently “went live” with the
SPARCS operating system from Navis.
The fourth gantry crane from ZPMC is
slated for delivery this December and a
fifth has now been ordered for delivery
in October 2006. But the extra volume
presented by MSC surely still poses a capacity
problem.
Zakhour has called on the Lebanese
government to extend the 600m wharf
to 1900m, in order to be able to increase
annual capacity to 1,250,000 containers.
“The government should start acting
now as the expansion of capacity needs
two to three years to complete.”
He also claimed that “many other
companies have approached us for transhipment,
but we had to decline as we
lack the required capacity.” Ships in the
6-7000 TEU range cost US$90,000/day
to operate and operators are looking to
avoid delays caused by strong traffic
growth in the main Mediterranean transhipment
ports.
Traffic actually slowed down considerably
in Beirut after 14 February this
year when a former Prime Minister,
Rafik Hariri, was assassinated.
Singapore’s PSA International has offered
to buy the 10 per cent stake that conglomerate
China Resources Enterprise
(CRE) owns in Hongkong International
Terminals (HIT), informed sources said.
The stake has been valued at HK$1.6
bill (US$205 mill) by Deutsche Bank
analysts. Officials at CRE and PSA declined
to comment.
State-owned PSA already owns 20
per cent of HIT and 10 per cent of
COSCO-HIT, which it bought earlier
this year for US$925 mill from
Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH)’s
parent company, Hutchison Whampoa
(see WorldCargo News June 2005, p1).
HIT, the largest operator at Hong
Kong’s Kwai Chung container port, operates
12 berths and accounted for more than
half the port’s 13.4 mill TEU throughput
last year.
If successful, the purchase would be
PSA’s third acquisition in Hong Kong this
year. In February, it bought a 33.34 per cent
share in the one-berth Container Terminal
3 and an effective 54 per cent interest
in Asia Container Terminals (ACT), which
owns two berths at CT8-West.
Singapore has felt competitive pressure
from the new Port of Tanjung Pelepas in
WorldCargo
news
PSA seeks to raise HIT stake
neighboring Malaysia, which has lured
two of PSA’s largest customers - Maersk
Sealand and Evergreen Marine. PSA
hopes to regain lost business by increasing
its presence in China and capturing
some of the country’s booming external
trade shipments.
The company is currently engaged
in talks to partly finance the expansion
of Qingdao port, China’s third largest
container port, and is also among more
than 20 terminal operators bidding for a
stake in the second phase of Shanghai’s
new deepwater container port at
Yangshan islands.
Liverpool
in control
The safety and security of shipping moving
in and out of the River Mersey and
its approaches is to be enhanced by a
major upgrade and extension of the Vessel
Traffic Service (VTS) control system
at the UK Port of Liverpool.
The Mersey Docks and Harbour
Company has signed a new contract with
system suppliers NORCONTROL IT
Ltd of Bristol – the third deal since the
firm first provided a VTS control system
in 1986.
Installation of the latest equipment,
which will include a new main port radar
system in Liverpool, an upgrade of
the complementary radar system at Point
Lynas, Anglesey, and an additional radar
sensor for better coverage of the Eastham
and Garston Channels, will start in November.
The system is expected to become
operational in January next year.
Renewal of the hardware and software
for the VTS system will introduce
an vessel Automatic Identification System
providing a comprehensive range of
information onscreen about each ship as
soon as it enters the area of the Irish Sea
covered from the Mersey.
“This substantial further investment
will enhance safety, efficiency and security
of all shipping in the Mersey area,”
said Mersey harbour master, Captain
Steve Gallimore. “The new system will
give Port Control, which provides information
to all shipping in the sector,
with much clearer and uncluttered onscreen
images, allowing the operators to
respond and interact more effectively. It
also gives Mersey Docks a leading edge
system which can accommodate any future
advancements in technology or
changes in user requirements.”
NORCONTROL, which won the
contract in the face of international competition,
will provide a full technical
maintenance response to the demands of
a sophisticated system designed to maintain
effective cover even when key elements
are out of action.
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September 2005 7