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WorldCargo
MARCH 2005
news
1 mill TEU+ of new box
capacity for China?
If current plans come to fruition,
at least 1 mill TEU/year of new
dry freight container manufacturing
capacity will come on stream
in China over the next 12 months,
pushing total global capacity close
to 5 mill TEU/year.
Leading the way, as usual, are
China International Marine Containers
(CIMC) and Singamas,
which between them accounted
for 80 per cent of last year’s 2.6
mill TEU standard box output.
CIMC’s dry freight production
amounted to 1.52 mill TEU (58
per cent of total production),
while Singamas built 580,000
TEU (22 per cent).
First off the blocks this year
will be Phase II of CIMC’s
Shenzhen East plant in Yantian,
which is scheduled for start-up in
April with an annual capacity of
150,000 TEU, similar to the Phase
I facility. This will be followed in
May with the opening of CIMC’s
new Taicang plant near Suzhou,
with an initial capacity of 150,000
TEU/year, reportedly rising to
300,000 TEU in Phase II. The two
new facilities will boost CIMC’s
total annual dry freight production
capacity to over 2.3 mill TEU.
For its part, Singamas has confirmed
that it is building a new
plant in Huizhou, Guangdong
Province. Start-up is slated for the
end of this year with an annual
capacity of 250,000 TEU. The
company is also shifting its Tianjin
Pacific operation to a new location
and boosting capacity by
70,000 TEU/year in the process.
The move is scheduled to be completed
by the end of this year.
Combined with facility upgrades
at its existing plants during
the Chinese New Year holiday,
Singamas’ capacity this year will
be 850,000 TEU, rising to 1.1 mill
Global annual dry freight box building capacity could top 5 mill TEU this year
TEU when the Huizhou plant
comes on stream.
Huizhou, which is close to
Yantian, is also the location for a
new dry freight facility planned by
CXIC (Changzhou Xinhuachang
International Containers) to add to
its existing Changzhou and Ningbo
plants. Start-up is slated for the end
of this year at a reported capacity
of 200,000 TEU/year, boosting
CXIC’s capacity to 450,000 TEU.
Also in Guangdong, the new
Maersk Container Industri (MCI)
facility at Dongguan, on the site
of the former Dongguan Winco
plant, is scheduled to come on
stream in the first quarter of next
year with an initial annual capacity
of 100,000 TEU/year, rising to
200,000 TEU in a second phase.
It is understood that this plant will
build only 40ft high cubes.
Meanwhile the Dawang Container
Plant in Guangdong, one
of the oldest container facilities in
China, is scheduled to reopen next
month with a reported capacity
of around 60,000 TEU/year, while
former personnel from China’s
oldest plant, Kwangchow Shipyard
Container Factory (KSCF), which
was forced to close in 2003, are
said to be involved in the establishment
of a new facility at
Zhuhai, close to Macao. The latter
is being promoted by Civet
Investment, the original backer of
KSCF, and is scheduled to start operation
in the third quarter of this
year with an annual capacity of
100,000 TEU+.
Elsewhere, China Shipping is
getting in on the box building act
with a new dry freight factory in
Lianyungang in the north. Phase I,
with an annual capacity of 150,000
TEU, is slated to come on stream
in August. A second line with a
similar capacity is planned in Phase
II, and China Shipping is also reported
to be investigating additional
sites in Nansha (Guangdong) and
Jinzhou (Dalian).
Finally, unconfirmed reports
suggest that the Hai Lan Group,
which was responsible for forcing
the closure of the Suzhou Asia
(SACI) and Lianyungang Asia
(LACI) plants last year following
financial irregularities, has taken
over the LACI facility and plans
to reopen soon. Capacity would
be around 100,000 TEU/year.
Drastic
surgery
for CNC
As part of a three-year, €1.5 bill
restructuring programme for
SNCF Fret (see page 24 this issue),
its intermodal daughter
company CNC Transports is to
withdraw completely from the
“continental” sector (ie swap
bodies/inland containers) and
concentrate 100 per cent on
maritime container traffic.
The Board of CNC has concluded
that the cost of combined
transport rules out competing
with road transport on acceptable
terms and has finally decided to
throw in the towel.
This drastic step means the
suspension of services over nine
terminals, including large facilities
like Avignon, Perpignan and
Dourges. About 200 jobs, or one
third of the company’s payroll,
will disappear.
In the maritime sector, CNC
will offer terminal-to-terminal
rail services or a complete package
including local drayage under
the “Navitrucking” banner. Its
services will be concentrated entirely
on Le Havre and Marseilles
- to/from Bordeaux, Lyon, Strasbourg
and Gevrey in the former
case and to/from Toulouse, Bordeaux
and Lyon in the latter case.
Underlying rail services can also
be offered to shipping lines “buying”
their own trains (eg CMA-
CGM between Marseilles and
Antwerp).
In the second phase of the restructuring,
CNC could disappear
altogether. SNCF Fret is already
discussing the formation of
a new combined transport company
in which shipping lines
would be shareholders as well as
customers.
ZPMC launches
shuttle carrier
ZPMC has built a low height
straddle carrier and displayed it
to an audience of Chinese port
representatives. The company
plans a launch into the wider
market later this year.
In common with some other
“shuttle carriers,” the ZPMC
design is a low height one over
zero machine with four wheels
and, it is understood, a diesel electric
drive system. ZPMC says that
the maximum speed is 150 m/
min (9 km/h).
Although ZPMC has stayed
Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH)
has entered into agreements with
a consortium led by the Alexandria
Port Authority for the construction,
operation, and management
of two container terminals
at the ports of Alexandria and El
Dekheila in Egypt.
As part of the agreements, a
new joint venture company, Alexandria
International Container
Terminals (AICT), will be established
by HPH and the consortium
members to develop what
are currently general cargo terminals
into modern container
handling facilities.
Admiral Mohamed Youssef,
chairman of the Alexandria Port
Authority, said, “Due to Egypt’s
political and economic stability,
the Egyptian government’s policy
to attract foreign direct investment
by partnering with multinational
companies will contribute
to the growing economy of
Egypt. We have full confidence
that this partnership with HPH
will be a success. The terminals
will benefit from the transfer of
best terminal management expertise
and best practices.”
Commenting on the investment,
John Meredith, group managing
director of HPH said,
“HPH is pleased to see the Egyptian
government’s commitment
to the modernisation of port facilities,
which is timely with the
growing international maritime
trade. The terminals are well-positioned
to capture cargoes generated
from the hinterland. The
development will enhance the
role of Alexandria Port and El
Dekheila Port as the centre of
trade in the Mediterranean Sea.”
Has ZPMC developed its machine
with APMT’s Virginia plan in mind
out of the quay-to-yard transfer
vehicle market to date, it built an
AGV some years ago when it believed
that all equipment for the
Euromax project was to be
sourced from a single provider.
This latest move may have
been prompted by APMT’s development
at Virginia, which is
widely expected to incorporate
shuttle carriers and automated
stacking cranes.
HPH into Egypt
Once converted, the two terminals
will have a depth alongside
of 12m and quay lengths of
380m at Alexandria and 560m at
El Dekheila.
IN THIS ISSUE
NEWS
Cosmos back with HNN 2
Huge Hampton order 3
DPI wraps up CSXWT buy 7
Israel port reform 10
Patrick buys FCL 12
Stolt in Singapore move 14
Smith-Holland to Carrier 15
≥12,000 TEU too big? 16
PORT DEVELOPMENT
NAWC congestion 18
New York’s Ivory project 18
California greening 20
Panama investments 22
Nigeria privatisation 23
INTERMODAL
Chunnel woes 24
CARGO HANDLING
Big crane deliveries 25
Automating yard cranes 27
CONTAINER INDUSTRY
Lessors on price watch 30
Decal demand hits high 32
TANK CONTAINERS
China takes top spot 34

WorldCargo
news
Mafi books Göteborg...
While Kalmar last year booked
more TRX-252s for SECU handling
in Göteborg to take its fleet
of these units in the port to 11
(see WorldCargo News December
2004, pp18-19), the Swedish port
has now placed an order, through
BT Svenska, for five heavy duty
MT45 ro-ro tractors from Mafi in
Germany to handle the next phase
of the SECU project.
“Finally, after a long and winding
road, we were successful in
receiving this order,” says Mafi. It
is thought that competititon
would have come not only from
Kalmar, but also from Terberg,
through GTS. Terberg is, as previously
reported, providing the tractors
for the new SECU terminal
at Tilbury, using a hydraulicallyshiftable
cab to enable the units
to be switched between SECU
and normal ro-ro operations.
In accordance with Göteborg’s
well-established preference, Mafi
will supply the MT45s with an offset
cabin to allow the drivers to see
along the side of the 3.6m wide
SECUs when they push them.
Mafi has made a major breakthrough for SECU handling at the Port of Göteborg
The tractor is equipped with
the latest Cummins QSM 11 engine
with a 274kW, ZF 6 WG 260
gearbox and heavy duty Kessler
axles. The Eurohitch fifth wheel
has a 3.5in kingpin aperture.
The internal volume of the
ROPS cab provides plenty of
space for the port to install internal
equipment such as monitors,
communication radios, door
openers, etc, says Mafi, and the
swivel seat console is also of special
design to meet drivers’ demands.
Delivery is scheduled for
this summer.
...while Steveco
opts for Kalmar
Port of Kotka operator Steveco
Oy has ordered nine Kalamr
TRX-252 ro-ro tractors to handle
the 95 tonne SECUs which
will be loaded in the port under
phase one of StoraEnso’s NETSS
project, which extends the paper
shipper’s original Swedish SECU
(Stora “big box”) to its exports
from southern Finland.
The machines will be delivered
in June, one month before “live”
SECUs are stuffed and loaded to
Swedish Orient Line’s ro-ro ships
at Steveco’s Hietanen terminal for
shipment to the Göteborg hub,
where they will be transhipped to
Tilbury and Zeebrugge.
Kalmar has already delivered
these tractors to Göteborgs Hamn
AB and to the Sea-Ro Terminal
at the import terminal in
Zeebrugge. The 15 ton TRX-252
is equipped with an 11-litre, 246
kw engine and ZF 6WG-260 automatic
transmission. It has a
wheelbase of 3.6m, the fifth wheel
has a 3.5in kingpin aperture and
variable displacement hydraulics are
fitted as standard.
● Peinemann Kalmar CV (PK)
and Peinemann Kalmar Rental
BV (PKR) have been renamed
Kalmar Nederland and Kalmar
Rental respectively, following the
purchase by Kalmar of Peinemann
Group’s interest. Kalmar, which
previously owned one third of the
shares in PK but had no stake in
PKR, now owns both companies
outright. They continue to operate
from the same location at
Hoogvliet in the Port of Rotterdam.
Ad Kornet stays on as managing
diector and all the staff are
being retained.
Peinemann’s Seacom/RTS
joint venture with Catracom is not
affected in any way. Although most
of the heavy equipment rented out
by Kalmar Rental is made by
Kalmar, a number of customers
rent other marques, such as Hyster
and Linde big trucks and Terberg
terminal/ro-ro tractors. These will
continue to be available, to suit
customer preferences.
● Kalmar has opened a training
centre in Shekou, China, to provide
customers with professional
support to operate its range of port
equipment. The purpose-built facility
will provide hands-on training
from Kalmar’s international
engineers and training staff.
The 2000 m 2 centre, which
also houses Kalmar’s South China
office, will provide theoretical and
practical training for up to 40
trainees at a time. Equipment includes
replica control systems for
gantry cranes and DRD and DRF
reach stackers. Equipment simulators
will also to be installed.
CARGO HANDLING NEWS
Cosmos
back to
HNN
Belgian Software supplier Cosmos
is once again a 100 per centowned
subsidiary of Hesse-
Nordnatie (HNN), itself a subsidiary
of Singapore’s PSA International.
Little more than a year ago
it was announced that Cosmos
management, led by Dirk De
Mayer, had bought all HNN’s
shares in a deal said to make it
easier for Cosmos to market its
products worldwide.
Around a quarter of Cosmos’s
staff transferred to HNN to provide
IT services directly, meeting
PSA International’s requirement
that IT be kept “in house” as a
core function (see WorldCargo
News January 2004, p3)
It now transpires that HNN
and the former directors became
embroiled in a legal dispute over
the transfer of the shares and a
court recently ruled that they
should be transferred back to
HNN. In February the Cosmos
NV Board replaced the management
and appointed a new general
manager, Dirk Bontridder.
Bontridder has spent the last
month visiting customers and assuring
them that HNN and PSA
International have no intention of
shutting down Cosmos or making
it an IT department of PSA
International.
Cosmos, says Bontridder, now
has a strong shareholder with a
long term focus and customers are
relieved that a period of uncertainty
has been resolved.
Bontridder himself was previously
with McKinsey Management
Consultants, where he held various
roles in the IT sector.
Pirelli cables on
the market?
It is understood that Pirelli SpA,
the holding company for the
Pirelli group companies, has put
Pirelli Kabel und Systeme GmbH
up for sale. An announcement on
the successful buyer is said to be
imminent.
Hirschmann Electronics Group
has extended its load moment
indicator (LMI) range with
Maestro. The new system allows
smooth and cost-effective
modernisation of old PAT LMIs
fitted to telescopic cranes, says
Hirschmann. Retrofit involves
installing the central unit, console
and hydraulic pressure transducers.
The LMI memory chips from the
old system are inserted into the
central unit and the sensors are
calibrated through the console.
After testing, the crane is ready
for operation again after just half
a day. With Mastro, says
Hirschmann, no data are lost, the
crane does not have to be reset or
reprogrammed and usually the
length angle sensor, the A2B
switch and the electrical wiring
from the old LMI system can be
retained
The buyer is most likely an
investor or investment group with
no existing connections in the
cable industry and four companies
were shortlisted at the time
of writing.
Pirelli Cables claims a 10 per
cent share of the global cable market
but is a much larger figure in
the crane industry, where it is
reckoned to have over half the
market. Crane cables are part of
Pirelli’s “specials” line and are produced
at four of its 48 manufacturing
facilities.
Sources at Pirelli say that following
the sale the cable will have
to be rebranded as the name
Pirelli, for commercial reasons,
will stay with the tyres. This is
always difficult for an established
product at the component level
as users are often not aware what
brand of cable is on a particular
piece of equipment and its current
manufacturer.
Pirelli still gets, for example,
enquires for replacement Siemens
cable even though it took over
the energy cables division of Siemens
seven years ago. A new
brand is obviously a matter for the
new owner to determine but
leveraging the Weyenberg name
is a distinct possibility.
Weyenberg has now been in
the crane service business for 10
years and has an extensive network
throughout Asia supplying
and repairing Pirelli cables,
amongst other products.
2
March 2005

CARGO HANDLING NEWS
Cranes from
the Gulf
The International Management & Construction
Corporation (IMCC)-Abu
Dhabi Group has launched its own crane
trademark - Gulf Port Cranes (GPC).
IMCC is well known as a crane fabricator
having built over 160 ship-to-shore
and yard cranes at its facility in Abu Dhabi
over the last 11 years, particularly for Noell
Crane Systems.
Launching its own brand is a new step,
however, and the cranes will be designed,
fabricated and commissioned by IMCC
group company Gulf Piping Company
WLL. The latter is headed by Peter Hessey,
who was previously with Noell Crane
Systems and established Noell’s joint venture
facility in Xiamen when Noell was
part of the Preussag group.
The current state of price competition
in the crane market makes it difficult
for any new entrant but Hessey is
confident GPC can win orders with quality-build
designs. In the RTG market
GPC has firm orders for 27 machines and
plans to build 39 units this year. Marport
in Turkey (part of the Arkas Group) has
ordered 15 machines, with an option for
a further 10, for the central and western
terminals at its facility at Harita on the
western side of the Sea of Marama.
Marport has recently expanded its
central (“Main”) terminal to handle up
to 650,000 TEU/year and serve vessels
over 4000 TEU. Throughput last year
reached 315,673 TEU and GPC will install
six RTGs there. The rest of the RTGs
are for the new west terminal. In January
2003, Marport took over a ready-made
concrete facility at Soyak Port and converted
it into a container terminal where
it handled 146,336 TEU last year.
When the redevelopment project is
completed in 2006 the west terminal will
have a capacity of 650,000 TEU/year.
The RTGs are 16-wheelers (for lower
ground pressures) stacking 1 over 5 and
spanning 7+1.
The other 12 machines are going to
three different customers. Hutchison has
ordered four RTGs for its new terminal
in Gdynia, Poland. DPI has ordered four
machines for the Rajiv Ghandi Container
Terminal in Kochi, India and the first four
units are for the Port of Mauritius (see
also pp27-29).
CG Capital adds port finance
London-based intermodal equipment
leasing and finance specialist, CG Capital
Ltd, has extended its financing reach into
the ports market with the establishment
of a new division - CG Port Finance.
“It makes sense for us to move into
the ports sector. Firstly there are synergies
with some of our existing clients in the
container market and secondly, many of
the customers will be good new credits
looking for finance,” said Rob Hawking,
marketing director for CG Capital.
The new division will offer a variety
of financing options from long term, off
balance sheet operating leases to a full range
of finance leases on all types of port equipment
from small FLTs to big ticket items
such as ship-to-shore container cranes and
RTGs. Financing solutions for infrastructure
developments will also be available.
Heading up the new division as vice
president is Clive Sanderson, a well-know
figure in the container handling equipment
sector, who brings with him over 20 years
of experience in senior management roles
with leading equipment manufacturers including
Fantuzzi-Reggiane, Kalmar LMV
(UK) Ltd and US-based Taylor Machine
Works. He also worked in the construction
equipment sector for Volvo BM.
Formed last year by Hawking and
Jonathan Royals, both former executives
of Transamerica Finance Corporation
(TFC), CG Capital wrote leases on container
equipment valued at over US$120
mill in its first year of operation.
Earlier this year CG Capital joined
forces with London Asset Finance Ltd to
form CG Asset Finance, which is aimed
at providing finance for UK transactions
of less than £1 mill. The company also
operates a vendor finance programme for
tank lessor EXSIF under the CG Tank
Finance banner.
Clive Sanderson, a well-known figure in the
container handling business, has been named
vice president of CG Port Finance
WorldCargo
news
VPA orders
31 strads
The Board of Commissioners of the Virginia
Port Authority (VPA) has authorised
the VPA to enter into a contract with
Kalmar Industries for 31 straddle carriers -
30 for Norfolk International Terminal
(NIT) and one for Virginia Inland Port
(VIP) - its largest ever straddle order.
The VPA received three bids and negotiated
with all three bidders; two are
known to be Kalmar and Noell and the
third is thought to be Japan’s TCM. The
contract was awarded to Kalmar on the
basis of the best pricing and most reliable
service within the “total cost of ownership”
analysis required by the VPA (see
WorldCargo News January p20). A letter of
intent was signed in late December.
The contract price is €17,640,000
(US$23,192,118) for the 30 NIT machines
(€588,000 per machine) and
US$810,000 for the one machine for VIP.
The falling US dollar coupled with a rise
in purchase prices has hit US ports particularly
hard and the Commissioners
were advised that the price of straddles
had gone up 15 per cent between March
2004 and December 2004.
The purchase will be financed through
the VPA’s master lease programme with
Bank of America. Kalmar required payment
in Euros to eliminate the exchange
rate risk, but the VPA advised Commissioners
that fixing the rate had actually
saved it US$22,000 per machine. Bank
of America converted the borrowing in
US dollars to Euros and is, therefore, carrying
the exchange rate risk.
March 2005 3

WorldCargo
news
P&O post-Panamax in Oz
P&O Ports Australia inaugurated
its five-year, 15-unit terminal reequipment
programme when
ZPMC’s heavy lift vessel ZHEN HUA
5 arrived at Brisbane’s Fisherman
Islands last month to unload what
are claimed to be Australia’s first
post-Panamax ship-to-shore container
gantry cranes.
On this voyage the vessel delivered
three units - one each for
Brisbane, Port Botany and Melbourne’s
West Swanson Dock.
While the Brisbane unit is a replacement
for an existing crane
the Port Botany and Melbourne
cranes will take each facility’s
complement to seven.
P&OP says the cranes have
been built to its own specifications
with an outreach of 41.48m and
a height over ship’s rail of 35.5m.
Capacity under spreader is 40.6
tonnes, rail gauge is 25.3m, hoist
speed is 75 m/min loaded and 150
m/min empty and trolley speed is
210 m/min. Main electrical and
control features are from Siemens.
The company says another 12
units will follow, to provide, in
4
WorldCargo
news
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Entire contents © WCN Publishing 2005
The new crane for West Swanson Dock is seen arriving in Melbourne last
month. The boom had to be lowered to deck level to allow the ZHEN HUA 5 to
pass under the Westgate Bridge
total, three replacements and one
additional crane in Brisbane, two
replacements and two additional
units at Port Botany, two replacements
and three additionals in
Melbourne and one replacement
and one additional at Fremantle.
The first tranche of orders is
worth A$30 mill, with firm orders
for the remaining 12 units to follow
in due course, the company
says. The height and volume exchange
profiles of the 5,500 TEUclass
container ships expected in
Australia in increasing numbers
has been a bigger replacement issue
than the age of the cranes.
“The introduction of these
larger ships needs to be matched
by port investment in new and
larger cranes that will see a continuation
in improvements to terminal
productivity and overall efficiency
to the ultimate benefit of
importers and exports,” managing
director Tim Blood said. “Over the
past decade P&O Ports has invested
more than A$500 mill in
the four Australian capital-city
container ports, and we expect to
invest at least an equivalent
amount over the next decade, with
A$80 mill planned over the next
twelve months.”
While two cranes were delivered
fully assembled, Melbourne’s
unit had the main boom assembly
lowered to deck level in order
to pass beneath the port’s
Westgate Bridge.
Kalmar Industries reports record
sales of €886.6 mill in 2004, up
from €749.2 mill in 2003. Total
orders amounted to €1.0871 bill
(€834.9 mill in 2003) and the order
book at the end of 2004 stood
at €584.7 mill(€359.7 mill).
Kalmar’s parent Kone Corp
uses IFRS accounting standards
and 2003 figures have been restated
for comparison purposes.
The main difference is that major
projects, such as ship-toshore
cranes, are now accounted
for using the degree of completion
method whereas previously
the contract completed principle
was applied.
Operating profit improved
from €52 mill to €72 mill and
profit margin improved significantly
from 4.6 per cent in 2002
to 7.7 per cent in 2004. Kalmar
is the leading global supplier of
straddle carriers and terminal
tractors, with over 50 per cent
share in each market, and reach
stackers with over 40 per cent.
In its other key markets of quayside
gantry cranes, 5-50 tonne
lift trucks and RTGs/RMGs,
Kalmar claims the leading position
in Europe.
Kalmar’s president and CEO
Christer Granskog described last
year’s performance as a successful
outcome of the strategy to move
out of cutting, welding and manufacturing
structures and components
and focus on developing, assembling
and marketing end products
and services.The company recently
sold its last steel shop in Estonia
and has reduced its supply
centres from 24 to 12.
Kalmar estimates the total container
handling equipment market
is worth around €4 bill/year, with
EMEA accounting for 41 per cent,
Asia 38 per cent and the Americas
21 per cent. It is focusing much
harder on Asia where it currently
claims a 15 per cent market share.
Production at the existing facility
in Waigoquiao is limited to
terminal tractors and 150 units were
assembled there last year. The new
US$10 mill assembly plant in
Shanghai’s Lingang Industrial park
will increase capacity considerably
and will begin turning out RTGs
by the end of the year.
CARGO HANDLING/PORT NEWS
Record year for Kalmar
Service products now count
for 25 per cent of Kalmar’s total
sales and Granskog estimates the
service market is worth around
€2.5 bill/year. Most of this market,
he says, is held by customers’
own service operations and is
“only partly” open to external
suppliers. Granskog sees this
gradually changing, particularly in
mature economies.
The company is also looking
for growth by acquisition but
Granskog would not be drawn on
a particular target. Mobile cranes
and AGVs are the obvious gap in
the company’s line up .
● According to Kalmar, the size
of the medium and heavy FLT
market (>9 tonnes) was 2,396
units last year. Hyster led it with
697 orders followed by Kalmar
(404), Taylor (373), Linde (167),
Svetruck (126) and SMV (126).
Sales by all other manufacturers
were 534 units, or 22 per cent
of the market. Kalmar claims the
leading market position in Europe
and says the strongest growing
segments are stevedoring and
sawmills.
SCCT tops 41 moves/crane hour
After just four months of operation,
Suez Canal Container Terminal
(SCCT), operated by APM
Terminals in East Port Said, has
achieved an average productivity
of 41.03 moves/crane hour discharging
containers from MAERSK
NARVIK, the second of a series of
six 2500 TEU, less-than-Panamax
containerships being built by
HDW in Kiel.
A total of 1443 containers were
exchanged using an average of 2.85
cranes. The cranes are equipped
with twin spreaders and it is not
known how many twinlift cycles
were performed but, even so, it is
still a notable achievement. Drivers
were given months of training
prior to SSCT opening but they
are still on a “learning curve.”
“The growth in crane productivity
has been experienced
over the past two months,” remarked
Hany Aziz of SCCT’s
marketing team. “We expect it to
continue to rise with the more
‘hands-on’ experience that the
new SSCT staff are gaining.”
MAERSK NARVIK was temporarily
deployed by Maersk Sealand as
an extra loader to position empty
containers from Spain to Egypt, but
has now been introduced into a
US/Andean transatlantic service.
SCCT is due to take delivery
of two more giant cranes this August.
Built by ZPMC, they have
an outreach of 62.5m (22-wide),
an SWL under twinlift spreader
of 61 tonnes and lift heights above
and below rail of 40m and 18m.
Mercator
eyes ports
Mercator Lines, one of India’s
largest private sector shipping
companies, is planning to extend
its interests into port development
and operation.
Most Indian shipping companies
have shied away from building
and operating ports even
though there are many lucrative
opportunities in the sector.
Mercator, however, has decided to
seize the opportunity. “We have
submitted EoIs to the Gujarat
Maritime Board to develop two
minor ports at Maroli and Vansi
Borsi,” chairman H K Mittal said.
“We are keenly looking at developing
these ports.”
Maroli, in the state’s Valsad district,
will mainly handle coal,
clinker, cement, containers and
liquified natural gas (LNG), while
Vansi Borsi port in Navsari district
will handle petroleum, oil
products and chemicals.
Maroli is expected to cost Rs6
bill (US$137 mill), while the investment
in Vansi Borsi is estimated
at Rs3 bill (US$68.5 mill).
Both will be built on a build-ownoperate-transfer
(BOOT) basis.
Mercator is the third largest
private sector shipping company
in India and at present is only involved
in the liquid cargo segment.
Apart from the state-owned
Shipping Corporation of India
(SCI), it is the only shipping company
in the country which has
shown interest in building and
operating ports.
SCI has said it will bid for the
fourth container terminal at
Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNP)
when tenders are called for it later
this year.
March 2005

WorldCargo
news
Box volumes up 28 per cent
at China’s Top 10 box ports
Throughput at China’s 10 biggest
container ports rose 28.6 per cent
to 51.2 mill TEU last year, with
Shanghai retaining the top spot
with 14.56 mill TEU, up 39 per
cent over the 2003 figure.
Figures released by the Ministry
of Communications show that
Shenzhen remained second with
a throughput of 13.62 mill TEU,
up 28.2 per cent. The No3 spot
was retained by Qingdao, but
Ningbo overtook Tianjin to place
fourth.
The established pattern of
Shenzhen chasing Shanghai has
not changed, but the gap in their
throughputs widened to 940,000
TEUs last year, from 722,000 TEU
in 2003. The growth rate at
Shenzhen was lower than that of
Shanghai due in part to the 7.7
per cent increase in Hong Kong’s
throughput to 22.02 mill TEU on
the back of increased barge traffic
Box Throughput at China’s Top
10 Ports in 2004
Port TEU change
(mill) (%)
Shanghai 14.56 39.0
Shenzhen 13.62 28.2
Qingdao 5.14 21.3
Ningbo 4.06 44.5
Tianjin 3.81 26.5
Guangzhou 3.31 19.5
Xiamen 2.87 23.2
Dalian 2.22 32.4
Zhongshan 0.92 22.1
Fuzhou 0.71 18.6
Total 51.2 28.8
Source: Chinese Ministry of Communications
lured from the Pearl River Delta
with lower rates.
The services of liner operators
are concentrated in Shanghai,
which serves as the gateway to
eastern China, causing constant
congestion. As the port is located
Silport gets set
Located in eastern Estonia just 25
km from the Russian border, the
new, privately-owned Port of
Sillamäe (Silport) is touting itself
as a strategic EU gateway for Russia,
with quayside depths ranging
between 12m and 16m able to accommodate
Baltimax vessels.
The new port, owned by Estonian
and Russian investors, will
act solely as a private landlord and,
according to marketing manager
Anton Gans, four build and operate
lease deals have now been
signed covering terminals for light
and dark oil, liquid chemicals, LPG
and general cargo.
The Estonian-Russian company
behind the 20 hectare general
cargo facility is called simply
General Cargo Terminal (GTC)
and one of the investors is the
Russia-based rare and general
metals group Silmet, which has
already been handling rail cargo
for some time at the adjacent
Sillamäe free zone.
GTC will focus on containers,
at the Changjiang estuary, the
earth and sand flowing from upstream
has to be regularly dredged
to secure the necessary draft for
the larger vessels. Hence, ships can
only berth twice a day when the
tides are high. As a result, some of
the manufacturers who have set
up factories in Zhejiang province
have started sending export shipments
via Ningbo instead of
Shanghai.
The situation at Shanghai is
expected to improve with the
opening next year of Phase V of
the Waigaoqiao terminal and
Phase 1 of the new deepwater
Yangshan port.
Meanwhile, manufacturers
who have built plants in China’s
southern Guangdong province
continue to divert boxes to
Shenzhen to avoid the additional
US$300 cost per box of shipping
through Hong Kong.
ro-ro traffic, metals and forest products.
The facility is equipped with
three rail wagon (un)loading tracks.
Start-up of GTC and the first
phase of the other three terminals
is slated for the third quarter of
this year.
● Liepajas Osta LM, the largest
stevedoring company in Latvia’s
Port of Liepaja by virtue of its 1
mill tonne/year grain terminal, is
examining the possibility of building
a container and general cargo
facility. Currently there are 16 stevedores
operating in Liepaja. Of the
total 4.47 mill tonnes of cargo handled
last year, Liepajas Osta accounted
for 1.1 mill tonnes.
Maria Lee G Sumadchat, a supervisor in the terminal operations department
of International Container Terminal Services Inc (ICTSI)’s Manila
International Container Terminal (MICT), has become the first female
RTG operator in the Philippines after undergoing ICTSI’s port equipment
operators’ training (PEOT) programme. “They say that work in the port is
a man’s world. Not anymore,” said Sumadchat, who joined ICTSI in
2000 as a management trainee. “Any employee at ICTSI, regardless of rank,
nature of job and gender, can now operate any container handling equipment.”
Through the PEOT programme, an RTG operator can now train to operate
quay cranes, while office workers can learn how to operate reach stackers and
RTGs. “Specialisation will still be there, but with our training programme,
there is more value added as an employee has useful extra skills,” said
Francis Andrews, ICTSI’s senior vice president and MICT general manager.
ICTSI is working to get PEOT accepted as a certified training programme
by the Philippines’Technical Education and Skills Development Authority
Yuzhniy investments
The Ukrainian port of Yuzhniy
plans to invest US$26.5 mill in
building up its new multi-purpose
facility, following completion of
the 285m long, deepwater quay
last July. Already transit sheds totalling
20,000 m 3 have been
erected and a Liebherr harbour
mobile crane and a 40 tonne Condor
portal crane have been positioned
on the quay.
The port administration is
planning to buy a Liebherr harbour
mobile crane (probably a
LHM 150 as there are already two
LHM 150s in the port), more
Kranbau Eberswalde Condor and
Falcon portal cranes as well as
Kalmar straddle carriers.
In addition, the state-run seaport
association Ukrmorport will
assign funds for the acquisition of
a 36 tonne capacity domestic build
portal crane.
PORT NEWS
New berths
at Naples
A 3-year programme to enlarge
and deepen the Flavio Gioia pier
in the Port of Naples has been
completed, at a cost of €7.7 mill,
with the port authority (APN)
contributing €5.7 mill and the
concessionaire, Bucci group’s Terminal
Flavio Gioia (TFG) the balance
of €2 mill.
Depth alongside has been increased
from 9m to 12m and the
pier has been extended by 42m,
allowing two 300m long ships to
berth simultaneously, while TFG’s
total working area has been increased
to 4315 m 2 .
Container traffic handled by
TFG rose from 74,500 TEU in
2003 to 87,600 TEU last year and
the operator is forecasting a further
34 per cent rise this year, followed
by an even bigger increase in 2006.
Non-containerised general cargo
traffic has also risen, from 226,000
tonnes in 2003 to 318,000 tonnes
in 2004 and further increases are
expected this year and next.
TFG has just commissioned its
third harbour mobile crane, another
Gottwald HMK 300E, with
a maximum hook lift of 100
tonnes. As previously reported,
further investments are said to include
two ship-to-shore gantry
cranes, three RTGs and a new
container management system.
The Flavio Gioia expansion
represents another stage in APN’s
plans, following the completion
of CoNaTeCo’s Bausan pier extension
and modernisation
project last year. A major new terminal
at the Darsena Lavante is
slated to come on stream in 2008
for the port’s major customers,
MSC and Cosco.
6
March 2005

PORT NEWS
DPI wraps up CSXWT acquisition
Dubai Ports International (DPI) has completed
the acquisition of CSX World Terminals
(CSXWT), the international terminal
business of CSX Corporation, for a closing
cash consideration of US$1.142 bill (see
WorldCargo News December 2004, p6).
DPI already has extensive operations
in the Middle East (Jeddah and the home
terminals of Jebel Ali and Port Rashid),
Africa (Djibouti), Europe (Constantza,
Romania) and India (Visakhapatnam).
The CSXWT acquisition adds a strong
presence in Asia for the first time, including
CT3 and CT8 West in Hong Kong,
Tianjin and Yantai in China, as well as
operations in Australia, Germany, the Dominican
Republic and Venezuela. The
combined portfolio consists of interests
in 15 operational terminals in 13 locations
with a combined annual capacity in
excess of 24 mill TEU.
Importantly for the future development
and expansion of the network, DPI
has acquired CSXWT’s’s pipeline of development
projects, in particular, a 25 per
cent interest in and operating rights for
Pusan Newport in South Korea. The latter
9-berth facility with a capacity of 5.5
mill TEU/year is currently under development
and is expected to commence
operations in 2006.
To reflect the CSXWT acquisition
and to underline its new status as the
world’s sixth largest container terminal
operator, DPI is planning to change its
name to DPI Terminals.
* DPI has not exercised its pre-emption
right to increase its stake in Asia Container
Terminals (ACT), the operator of
CT8 West in Hong Kong. Through its
majority owned subsidiary CSXWT Terminal
8 Ltd, DPI had a pre-emption right
in respect of the 31.4 per cent
shareholding in ACT held by Sunmall Ltd,
an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of
NWS Holdings. After due consideration,
DPI decided that the pre-emption of the
31.4 per cent shareholding in ACT did
not meet its investment criteria.
The move has cleared the way for PSA
International to complete the purchase of
NWS Holdings’ Hong Kong port assets,
which include equity stakes in CT3 and
CT8 West in a deal worth HK$3 bill (see
WorldCargo News February 2005, p1).
Despite not exercising its pre-emption
right, DPI will remain the controlling
shareholder of ACT, with voting rights of
68.6 per cent. Through a subsidiary, DPI
will also retain a management agreement
to operate CT8 West. It also owns a controlling
66.7 per cent stake in CT3.
● As this issue was going to press, DPI
announced that it had been awarded a 30
year concession to develop and operate
the container terminal at the Port of
Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. The
agreement between the Fujairah Port
Authority and DPI also includes an option
to mutually extend the concession
by a further 20 years, potentially taking
the contract through to 2055. DPI’s total
projected investment in the terminal will
be in excess of US$155 mill, including
new superpost-Panamax ship-to-shore
gantry cranes and yard handling equipment
to lift annual capacity to an eventual
1.7 mill TEU.
Amongst the CSXWT interests acquired by
DPI is the new Caucedo terminal in the
Dominican Republic
WorldCargo
news
Shortlist for
Kandla bids
Kandla Port on India’s west coast, which
has been trying to find an operator to
build and operate container handling facilities
for more than three years, has finally
shortlisted three bidders.
ABG Heavy Industries, Afcon India and
Gammon India have been asked to submit
their final financial bids before the end of
this month. The three local companies were
the only ones left in the race after two others,
including construction major Larsen
& Toubro Ltd, were disqualified last year.
“This project will be awarded on the
basis of both minimum guaranteed
throughput and revenue sharing,” a
Kandla port official said. “If the operator
fails to handle the guaranteed throughput,
it will have to share the revenue to
match the gap.”
Just over three years ago, P&O Ports,
which currently operates three container
terminals in India, reached an agreement
with Kandla to develop container handling
facilities, but a disagreement over
the terms of concession agreement led
the company to withdraw its offer. Since
then, several container terminals have
come into operation on the country’s west
coast and it is unclear whether Kandla
Port’s traffic projections remain valid.
The port is offering berth Nos 11 and
12 for conversion into container terminals.
The new operator will be required to install
rail-mounted quay cranes at berth No
11 and start operations within eight months
of signing the concession agreement.
At berth No 12, which is still under
construction, the successful bidder will be
asked to start operations with at least two
ship-to-shore cranes within 24 months.
The port expects a traffic of 150,000
TEU in the first full year of operation
and 450,000 TEU in the fifth year. The
total project cost is estimated at Rs 2 bill
(US$45.7 mill).
March 2005 7

PORT NEWS
Wind of change at Ayr
Reflecting the UK’s growing need
for alternative sources of energy,
wind turbines are being imported
through Associated British Ports
(ABP)’s Port of Ayr for the first
time. As well as boosting sustainable
energy in the area, the importation
of the turbines will also
see the arrival of some of the biggest
ships ever to dock at the port.
The first project cargo involved
a total of 15 x 1.3MW
wind turbines destined for the
Artfield Fell wind farm in Dumfries
and Galloway. The second
project, expected in May, will provide
Hadyard Hill wind farm,
South Ayrshire, with 52 x 2.3MW
wind turbines. Scottish and Southern
Energy (SSE), one of the largest
energy companies in the UK,
manages both operations.
ABP is involved in renewableenergy
projects at a number of its
Wind turbines being unloaded at ABP’s Port of Ayr
ports. In conjunction with port
customer SLP Engineering, ABP’s
Port of Lowestoft was involved with
the Scroby Sands wind turbine
project. Over a two-month period
in 2004, the project saw 30 wind
turbines constructed and shipped
from the port’s outer harbour to
locations in the North Sea.
In addition, the largest shipment
of wind turbine blades ever exported
from the UK left Southampton
last July destined for The
Port of Napier in New Zealand.
WorldCargo
news
Mindanao box port gets going
Mindanao Container Terminal
(MCT) hopes to crank up commercial
operations with APL due
provisionally to call three times/
week. A similar deal is being negotiated
with Maersk-Sealand
for weekly calls by its inter-Asia
feeder vessels.
Port owner Phividec Industrial
Authority (PIA) has been
scrambling to get more commercial
shipping traffic since early
January, when the Court of Appeals
in Cagayan de Oro City
nullified a lower court injunction
that had virtually idled the US$80
mill facility. The five or six vessels
that called in January-February carried
only project cargoes for a 210-
MW coal-fired power plant being
constructed inside the Phividec industrial
estate.
Quarterly interest payments on
the ¥8.266 bill loan Japan extended
to build the terminal start in April.
PIA also needs to recover its own
investment in the facility (15 per
cent of total project cost), even
though it will soon grant a 20-
year management concession to
a private terminal operator.
Meanwhile, Oroport Cargohandling
Services Inc, which filed
the case against the PIA, remains
unfazed by the prospect of the
MCT siphoning off container
traffic from the nearby International
Port of Cagayan de Oro
(CDO). Oroport has just secured
a 10-year contract from the Philippine
Ports Authority to continue
as cargo handlers at CDO.
Green light for Chennai terminal
The Indian government has given
an “in principle” approval to build
a second box terminal at Chennai
in the south east of the country.
A second container facility at
the port is a longstanding demand
of port users, who have had to put
up with strikes and “go slow” tactics
at Chennai Container Terminal
(CTT), which is operated by
P&O Ports.
An official statement said the
second terminal will be developed
on a build-operate-transfer (BOT)
basis and is expected to cost around
Rs4.9 bill (US$112 mill). Chennai
Port Trust (ChPT) will contribute
about Rs1 bill towards the cost and
the private terminal operator is
expected to provide the rest.
The new terminal will have a
quay length of 826m, of which
At the mid-February resumption
of the high-stakes independent
inquiry into the proposed third
Port Botany container terminal
(see WorldCargo News December
2004, p24) established positions
were again upset when the New
South Wales Department of Infrastructure,
Planning and Natural
Resources (DIPNR) presented a
compromise plan.
The new design incorporates
aspects of Sydney Ports Corporation
(SPC)’s original scheme and
P&O Ports’ favoured alternative
and has received a muted response
from various parties. DIPNR’s socalled
Option 8 design allows for
entry by a third player, but also
provides for the P&OP-promoted
“balanced duopoly” to continue.
Option 8 still envisages four
out of five new berths in a 47 hectare
western extension into
Botany Bay from the present
Patrick terminal, on a smaller reclamation
than the 63 hectare SPC
proposal. The fifth berth would
instead be built at the head of
Brotherson Dock, on a 10.3 hectare
site to be reclaimed from
former Alcatel facilities. This berth
would be a staged development
and requires a separate Environmental
Impact Statement (EIS).
DIPNR said that that advantages
of Option 8 were:
● It allows for parity between the
existing stevedores, with four
berths each to maintain existing
duopoly competition, but allows
room for a third player.
● It puts two of the new berths
next to existing stevedoring operations,
increasing the chances of
them being developed sooner
rather than having to wait for a
third operator to appear.
● The mouth of the Penrhyn Estuary,
a major community concern,
would be left 70m wider
than before by the shorter western
extension.
● It allows for the SPC plan’s third
rail siding, easing concerns over
handling the critical 40 per cent
of throughput on rail through the
existing two terminal railheads.
DIPNR told Commissioner
Clelland that doing nothing and
allowing Port Botany’s target capacity
of 3.2 mill TEU to be met
on existing stevedoring sites is too
risky. However, it also stated for
the first time that no expansion
beyond that target will be allowed
without a further environmental
assessment – even though it expects
that figure to be exceeded.
SPC chief executive Greg Martin
said he was “very pleased” to
see DIPNR behind the expansion
of Port Botany and saw Option 8
as a workable alternative, albeit at a
higher cost. It would come at a net
cost of eight to 10 hectares of scarce
port land, would split the port site,
and would mean more realignment
of road and rail links.
Both stevedores have supported
land expansion, with
Patrick supporting the SPC proposal
but claiming its own capacity
can be expanded out to 2035.
P&OP and Patrick have both asserted
that the Corporation
grossly underestimates the box
handling capability of both the
existing and expanded facilities.
In his summing up, Martin attacked
the unspoken option of “doing
nothing,” which would rely
nearly 400m can be dredged to a
depth of 13.5m to allow fourth
generation vessels to be handled.
It is expected to handle 100,000
TEU in the second year of operation,
rising to 600,000 TEU in
the seventh year. P&O Ports’ terminal
at Chennai is currently handling
around 600,000 TEU a year.
Not surprisingly, P&O Ports is
far from happy with the latest development.
“What is the point in
having a second terminal in
Chennai when we have invested
over US$100 mill?” asked P&O
Ports director Jimmy Sarbh. “We
are not afraid of competition, but
we have a problem in evacuating
containers out of the port and this
problem would continue even if
the second terminal comes in.”
The government appears adamant,
however. “We need to increase
maritime assets everywhere
in the country,” said Shipping Secretary
DT Joseph. “I am not bothered
whether a private sector terminal
is making money or not. We
must increase assets. However, any
amount of additional assets created
will not cope with the way India
will grow in the next few years.
So, let us not put any obstruction
on creating additional capacities.”
Joseph said the country’s east
coast had a tremendous potential
and was good enough to support
the second terminal as well as a
container terminal planned by
nearby Ennore Port.
Container traffic at Chennai is
projected to grow by nearly 28 per
cent a year against earlier estimates
of 18 per cent a year, he said.
NSW proffers PB3T option
entirely on the stevedores’ “unproven”
claims of the extra capacity
they could create by new technology,
and which would in any
case still require further approvals.
“Disregard the campaign by the
stevedores,” Martin said. “Patrick
wants more space for automation,
and if Patrick gets an extra berth
then P&OP wants one too.”
March 2005 9

WorldCargo
news
New crane at Silloth
Quayside cargo operations at Associated
British Ports (ABP)’s Port
of Silloth have been boosted by
DA Harrison, the port’s licensed
stevedore, which has invested
some £250,000 in a new 80-
tonne Sumitomo mobile crane,
supplied through NRC Plant Ltd.
The hydraulic crawler crane, a
type SC800 (80 tonne capacity),
fitted with a fixed, high-mount
cab, is used for dry bulk, bagged
and baled cargoes - mainly grain,
fertilisers and woodpulp.
Fitted with a 24.4m boom and
rigged for grabbing, the crane can
handle a load of 10 tonnes (grab
and load) at 1m radius or 6 tonnes
at 20m radius. It was supplied with
a 3.75 m 3 Allied grab,.
10
The new crawler crane in action at
ABP’s Port of Silloth
DA Harrison has been stevedoring
at Silloth since 1978 and
has extensive covered storage facilities
for bagged and bulk cargoes
on and off the port estate.
The port is now catering for
vessels up to 3000 dwt depending
on the tide and ships in the
2000-2500 dwt range have become
increasingly common, remarked
D A Harrison’s operations
manager Richard Harrison.
The new crane, he added, “will
help us handle increased tonnages
through the port and demonstrates
our continuing commitment
to our customers’ needs.”
JNP deal
closed
AP Moller-Maersk Group subsidiary
APM Terminals (APMT)
and state-owned Container Corporation
of India (Concor), which
will together run the Rs10 bill
(US$229 mill) third container terminal
at Jawaharlal Nehru Port
(JNP) in India, have filed all the
necessary documents with the
port authority to indicate that financial
closure has been achieved.
The two-member consortium,
which has set up Gateway Terminals
India Pvt Ltd. to run the terminal,
said it had submitted documents
required for financial closure
within the stipulated period. The
JNP Trust will give the final green
light as soon as it has determined
that the papers are in order.
Gateway is hoping to start initial
operations by January or February
of next year. When fully
operational the third container
terminal, which is being created
by converting an unused bulk terminal,
will have an annual capacity
of 1.3 mill TEU. The other two
container terminals at JNP are run
by P&O Ports and JNPT.
APMT appears upbeat about
the future of container ports in
India and has already decided to
bid for the fourth container terminal
at JNP when tenders are
invited. It has also purchased the
bid documents for a proposed offshore
container terminal at
Mumbai which is only a few miles
from JNP (see WorldCargo News
February 2005, p15).
APMT is also effectively running
Pipavav port on the country’s
west coast and has recently
made moves to acquire a majority
interest in Gujarat Pipavav
Port Ltd.
Last month the Israeli government
pushed through its controversial
ports privatisation policy,
after a “last minute” agreement
was reached with labour unions
on employment conditions for
existing employees. The agreement,
valid for five years, allows
the reforms to proceed without
the crippling strikes that marked
earlier efforts to implement
change at Israeli ports.
The new legislation, enacted
last July, is aimed at creating a
more competitive environment
between the ports so that they
become more responsive to their
customers. There was some internal
resistance from within the Israel
Ports Authority (IPA) because
a key element of the changes is
the abolition of the IPA as the
ports’ landlord and operator and
its replacement by four government-owned
companies. IPA
ceased operations last month.
One new company, Israel
Ports Development and Assets
Company Ltd (IPDAC), has taken
over IPA’s landlordship of port
properties in Haifa, Ashdod and
Eilat and is responsible for developing
and leasing them for maritime
terminal and related distribution
and logistics activities. IPDAC
is also responsible for breakwaters,
access channels and water depths
within port basins and the common
maritime community trade
system, and is charged with monitoring
service levels provided by the
three port operating companies.
These are Ashdod Port Company
Ltd, Haifa Port Company Ltd
and Eilat Port Company Ltd, which
have been leased the existing facilities
in the respective ports for a
49-year period. Ownership of
cranes and ground handling equipment
has been transferred to them
and they are required to maintain
the port property and equipment.
IPDAC has also assumed responsibility
for developing the
Hayovel terminal in Ashdod and
the Hacarmel terminal in Haifa.
PORT NEWS
Israel port reform moves on
Offshore box terminal
makes progress
A proposed offshore container terminal
at Mumbai, which was
shunned by investors when India’s
Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) attempted
to sell the idea last year,
may finally become a reality, thanks
to the many incentives now being
offered by the port authority.
Encouraged by the response to
a second attempt to generate interest
in the project (see
WorldCargo News February 2005,
p15), the MbPT has again decided
to extend the deadline for submission
of Request for Qualification
(RFQ) documents, this time to
March 11. Officials said at least 24
companies had purchased the tender
documents so far and the
number may go up further.
The response is in sharp contrast
to MbPT’s first attempt to
float a tender when not a single
investor submitted a financial bid
even though several companies
Growing
in China
Hong Kong-based port operator
Cosco Pacific is buying stakes in
four Chinese container terminals
- at Nansha, Ningbo, Nanjing and
Tianjin - to benefit from the
country’s buoyant trade growth.
Chairman Wei Jiafu said the
company had signed letters of intent
with the four state-owned
port operators, although details of
capital expenditures are still to be
finalised. The company has earmarked
US$300 mill for terminal
acquisitions this year.
Under the agreements, Cosco
Pacific will get a 35-40 per cent
controlling stake in Phase II of
Guangzhou Nansha Port under
which six berths with an annual
handling capacity of 4.2 mill TEU
will become operational next year.
It is also taking 20 per cent
stakes in the five-berth Jingtang
Island Terminal at Ningbo and the
five-berth Longtan Terminal at
Nanjing, which is already operational,
and is acquiring a 30 per
cent interest in the four-berth
North Basin B Terminal at
Tianjin. The Tianjin and Ningbo
terminals are expected to begin
operations in 2007, by which
time Cosco Pacific will be the
world’s fifth-largest container terminal
operator.
had initially shown interest in the
project. The main problem was
that investors were not sure what
returns they could expect on their
investment, primarily because they
would end up competing against
container terminals at the nearby
Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNP).
JNP will soon have a third
container terminal that will be
operated by APM Terminals
(APMT) and its joint venture
partner, the state-owned Container
Corporation of India
(Concor). A fourth container terminal
will also soon be up for
grabs at JNP.
Ranged against such formidable
competition, MbPT apparently
had little choice but to offer
more incentives to attract investors
and it has done just that.
To make the proposition more attractive,
MbPT has offered
Mumbai’s existing 200,000 TEU/
Port of Cartagena, Colombia, operator
Sociedad Portuaria Regional
de Cartagena (SPRC) has
acquired its local rival Contecar
for a price understood to be
around US$24 mill. The move
will secure SPRC’s long-term
future, with the addition of another
1000m of quay and 70 hectares
of back-up area.
Contecar’s largest shareholder,
Colombia’s National Coffee Federation,
and minority partner,
Grupo TMM, have been trying
to sell the operation for the last
two years and concentrate on
their respective core businesses.
Both shareholders have approved
the sale and the Colombian
commerce and industry
watchdog has given its approval
for the deal. SPRC is expected
to start operating the terminal by
the end of April.
Located close to the entrance
of the Bay of Cartagena and in
the heart of the city’s industrial
area, the terminal will complement
SPRC’s existing facility,
which is subject to space constraints
due to its proximity to the
city’s historic centre.
Last year, Contecar handled
Once these major projects are
completed, they will be put out
to tender and it is assumed that
the three port operating companies
will be able to bid, not
least because the government
intends to sell up to 15 per cent
of its shares in them in five years,
followed by additional share sales
of up to 49 per cent in the 10
years after that. However, port
operating licenses are also being
awarded to several additional
cargo handling companies, including
Israel Shipyards and
companies operating facilities
handling various solid and liquid
bulk cargoes.
The 2004 legislation also
creates a new regulatory body,
the Shipping and Ports Authority,
which is part of the Transport
Ministry. This is charged
with ensuring that the companies
maintain a competitive climate
and operate their facilities
in a safe and efficient manner in
accordance with law.
year container terminal at Ballard
Pier to the successful bidder for
the offshore terminal. The successful
bidder will thus be able to
make money from Ballard Pier
while the offshore terminal is
under construction
The offshore terminal is expected
to cost Rs 10 bill (US$229
mill) and the first phase will include
building two berths with a capacity
of 800,000 TEU/year. The successful
bidder will also have the
right of first refusal for building and
operating the third offshore container
terminal with an annual capacity
of 400,000 TEU.
“We have assured the potential
bidders that the cost of deepening
of the channel to 15m at
berthside will not be their responsibility,”
an official said. “Further,
we are willing to offer CFS
space to the successful bidder if
they want to set up their own
CFS, apart from additional stacking
space.”
Among other concessions on
offer is the right for the successful
bidder to set his own tariffs and
collect stevedoring charges.
SPRC takes over
Cartagena rival
46,000 TEU operating with two
harbour mobile cranes. The terminal
is in need of additional
equipment, but SPRC is in the
process of receiving tenders for
two superpost-Panamax cranes
and eight RTGs.
Last year, SPRC added two
superpost-Panamax cranes and
four RTGs, all from Noell, taking
its capacity to 1.2 mill TEU/
year. In a bid to become a regional
transhipment hub on a par with
the likes of MIT, Panama or Kingston,
Jamaica, which both handle
in excess of 1 mill TEU/year, it
has invested US$37.4 mill in handling
equipment during the term
of its concession.
With congestion being felt in
Jamaica and Panama due to the
rapid growth in regional transhipment
volumes, Cartagena has become
increasingly popular as an
alternative with new services such
as CSAV’s WCSA-Europe line
increasing volumes at the port.
SPRC’s commercial manager
Giovanni Benedetti refused to
comment on the deal, but forecast
growth this year at its existing
facilities of 25 per cent on last
year’s volumes of 468,864 TEU.
March 2005

PORT NEWS
Sean Kelly (above), currently deputy
managing director of Hong Kong container
terminal operator Modern Terminals Ltd
(MTL), has been named as the company’s
new managing director and CEO with
effect from April 1. He will succeed Erik
Bøgh Christensen, who is stepping down
after eight years. Kelly, formerly a senior
executive with American President Lines
(APL), has been with MTL for five and a
half years. During a transition period until
September 2005, Christensen will
continue to act as a senior director of MTL,
supporting the board and management on
a full time basis on special projects, including
terminal developments in mainland China
ARH in move
for Auckland
Auckland Regional Holdings (ARH) has
launched a takeover bid for the 20 per
cent of Ports of Auckland Ltd (POAL) it
does not already hold. At NZ$8, its offer
price is almost 25 per cent higher than
the market value of POAL shares the day
before the offer was announced.
ARH is a special statutory body set
up to manage a pool of formerly state
and local body assets and generate returns
that can be put back into transport and
other public works. It has to find NZ$750
mill over the next 10 years to develop
Auckland’s antiquated infrastructure and
sees the port as a key revenue earner.
ARH Chair, Judith Basset, said ARH
had no plans to seek a greater role in the
management of POAL, but the deal
would be good for the Auckland region.
“Under ARH’s 100 per cent ownership,
all POAL land will remain in public ownership
and this will assist in the integrated
development of the total waterfront area
for port operations and public use. As a
shareholder, ARH can focus on the evolution
of land use not used for ongoing
port operations for the benefit of the
Auckland region” she said.
Return to full public ownership was
never contemplated by the architects of
NZ’s port reform, who intended local
authorities to sell their shares after ports
were corporatised in the 1980s to pay off
the debts of the previous port companies.
Instead local authorities took advantage
of labour market reforms to usher in new
work practices and turn loss-making ports
into profitable businesses.
Shoreham
investing
The UK Port of Shoreham is investing
some £1.5 mill in new handling equipment
as part of its 2005 investment programme.
The centrepiece is a new
Sennebogen 870 M Special hydraulic
mobile crane, worth around £1 mill, to
handle various bulk materials, timber, steel
and general cargoes. The 870 M is the
biggest crane in Sennebogen’s “green
line” range, with a 300 kW engine and a
reach of 25m.
“Machines with hydraulic technology
rather than conventional rope cranes are
the best for ports of our size when it
comes to improving the efficiency and
safety of cargo handling,” remarked Alan
Motterham, general manager of Sussex
Port Forwarding. The 870 M is slated for
delivery this summer.
Also on order are 12 Hyster H5.5 XM
diesel FLTs, worth around £0.5 mill, to
replace existing machines. These are due
for delivery in May.
Waves in the Sea of Azov
Ukraine’s Transport and Communications
Ministry wants to build a new port on
the Kerch-Yenikale navigation canal.
which connects the Sea of Azov with the
Black Sea.
National export and Russian transit
flows are forecast to increase dramatically
in the next few years in the easternmost
part of the Crimea. The new port would
be constructed in modular fashion to enable
new terminals to be added as required.
Including an offshore terminal for
large ships, it will eventually be able to
cater for up to 2 mill tonnes/year of liquid
cargoes (LNG, gasoline, chemicals,
molasses and seed oils), 1 mill tonne/year
of grain, various other dry bulk such as
sand and gravels, coal, scrap metal, slag and
fertilisers, as well as boasting a 250,000
TEU/year container terminal.
Meanwhile, a new 400m quay is nearing
completion in the Russian Azov Port
of Rostov-na-Dony, under phase 1 of the
project to create the port’s fourth cargo
handling complex. On completion, this
facility will provide 1200m of quay
with depths of 5-6m alongside suitable
for river-sea vessels of up to 5000 dwt.
The port’s existing three cargo areas provide
a total of quay length of 2000m with
an average depth of 4m alongside.
The US$14 mill cost of phase 1 is
being financed by the port from its own
reserves. Rostov-based research and design
institute Promstroyniiproekt has estimated
the total cost of the fourth complex
at US$38 mill, at 2002 prices. Capacity
on build-out is put at 4.4 mill
tonnes/year, mainly metal products and
dry bulk cargoes.
Rostov is located on the proposed
European water transport “circle” - Neva-
Volga-Don-Azov Sea-Black Sea-Danube-Main-Rhine-North
Sea-Baltic Sea.
Still in the Russian Azov Sea area,
WorldCargo
news
Kuban Inland Navigation Company
(Kinco), part of Azov-Don Shipping, is
planning to build a new multi-purpose
terminal in the port of Temriuk, slated to
open next year, with a capacity, on final
build-out, of 2 mill tonnes.year.
In the first phase, there will be two
berths catering for vessels up to 10,000
dwt along a 370m long quay. Initially
Kinco planned to build a 50,000 tonne
grain silo but it now seems that priority
will be gven to fertilisers.
Kinco is set to invest US$3.7 mill in
the 3-phase, US$12-16 mill project, with
the balance coming from Azov-Don and
public funds. Kinco says that the federal
government has agreed to support new
dredging works at the harbour entrance
which, once complete, would enable the
port to cater for 15-20,000 dwt ships.
March 2005 11

WorldCargo
news
Interporti united
A new association, Unione
Interporti Reuniti (UIR), has been
created to stimulate traffic flows
between Italy’s inland, rail-connected
cargo storage and distribution
terminals, known as interporti.
Based on law 240/90, the terminals
are supposed to form the
backbone of an intermodal logistic
structure for domestic and import/export
traffic flows in Italy and
reduce reliance on road transport.
They were set up in two phases,
post-1990 and post-1995, which
gave rise to the formation of two
different associations, Assinterporti
and Federinterporti, which diluted
their impact.
UIR’s president, Rodolfo de
Dominicis (a former boss of
Ansaldo Trasporti, vice president of
Ansaldo Breda and a director of
Trevi, the Italian TGV consortium),
wants to see it develop transparent
UIR president Rodolfo de Dominicis
and neutral web-based systems to
match demand with supply of services
and provide real-time tracking
and tracing for cargo owners and
transport intermediaries.
De Domenicis already has a
project for IT solutions, SIS Web.
This is to be created specifically for
the two new interporti, Catania and
Termini Imerese (Palermo). They
have not yet started operations and
are grouped together under the SIS
umbrella, for which De Domenicis
was already responsible.
The Italian government has allocated
€10 mill/year for the next
three years to the interporti to promote
modal shift in relation to ISO
containers, swap bodies and conventional
wagons (crossdocking in
rail-connected warehousing) and,
says de Dominicis, this should be
the springboard to make the
interporti network a reality.
By common consensus, only
three interporti today work together
systematically - Padova, Bologna
and Verona. With 17 interporti as
members, UIR already represents
a substantial volume of cargo movements
and has more clout than its
two predecessors to get things
moving. An important northwest
“slice” of interporti, made up of
Torino, Novara and Vado (Savona),
has not yet joined UIR, however.
German car maker Porsche AG is
to increase its use of rail transport
for shipments of finished vehicles.
“We are investing in ways of intensifying
our cooperation with
the railways,” said company chairman
Dr Wendelin Wiedeking. “In
view of growing cargo volumes
our industry is being asked to
transport more goods by rail
wherever possible.”
Porsche opened a rail terminal
at Kornwestheim, near its plant
in Zuffenhausen (Stuttgart) in
2001 and since then all 911 and
Boxster models built there for
overseas markets (including the
UK) have been moved by rail to
the Port of Emden.
On the return leg the railcars
are used for Boxster import cars
from Finland. Cars manufactured
INLAND/INTERMODAL NEWS
More Porsches to go by rail
Porsche is to increase the use of rail for finished car shipments
in Leipzig (mainly the Cayenne)
are also transported by rail to
Emden for export.
“Our cooperation with
Deutsche Bahn works like clockwork,”
said Jürgen Wels, Porsche’s
logistics manager. “The trains are
always on time and the damage
quota is minimal.” He added that
Porsche has already moved 100,000
cars by rail, equivalent to 6000 truck
loads and 3.6 mill road kms.
Patrick in FCL expansion
Patrick Corp has entered into an
agreement to buy leading independent
Australian road and rail
freight forwarder FCL Interstate
Transport Services in a move that
has sparked speculation about
other changes in the sector.
FCL, with annual revenues of
A$170 mill, is particularly strong
in regional Australia, where its has
established a number of terminals.
It is a major customer of the
Patrick/Toll rail joint venture, Pacific
National (PN), and recently
established a depot in Darwin.
The purchase, which is yet to
be finalised since no price has been
agreed, takes Patrick into domestic
national/interstate freight operations
for the first time and will
put it into direct competition with
Toll. This development has led
analysts, primed by rumours of a
major acquisition by Toll, to suggest
that Patrick may be about to
sell out of PN.
Observers say that PN is dominated
by Toll and the relationship
between PN and Patrick is “less
than fully harmonious.” Last year
PN abruptly abandoned port/rail
shuttles and intrastate intermodal
services in New South Wales -
both later taken over by Patrick -
and this year has acquired its own,
company-liveried locos and
equipment to service intermodal
contracts in South Australia.
There is also speculation that
Patrick is behind Southern
Shorthaul Railroad, a previously
unknown operator that stepped
in to fill the gap caused by the
collapse of Great Northern early
last year and now operates in Victoria
and NSW with its own and
leased equipment.
FCL founder and managing
director Bill Gibbins said he was
“bowing to inevitable commercial
pressure” to consolidate the
transport and logistics industry to
fewer players by supporting a
friendly takeover that will best fit
the company’s assets, people, and
future growth. “At present, Patrick
has no substantial interstate road
or rail involvement and is looking
to expand its presence in our area
of specialty,” Gibbins said.
Melbourne-headquartered
FCL was founded in 1974 and has
maintained a steady 30 per cent
market share in interstate freight.
It owns 3,500 containers, 400
trailers and 20 large FLTs. It has
invested heavily in developing the
Parkes Hub in central NSW but
has so far failed to get a major
client to commit to the concept
of an inland national transport
terminal.
FresGo gets fruity
Seabrex Rotterdam BV, part of
Ebrex Holding, and Kloosterboer
Vlissingen VOF, a member of the
Kloosterboer Group, have joined
forces to form FresGo BV, a new
company specialising in fruit and
vegetable logistics.
Both Seabrex and Kloosterboer
are already well established
in the fruit and vegetable logistics
sector. Seabrex currently handles
over 1 mill pallets of fruit per annum
from reefer ships and containers
in the port of Rotterdam,
while Kloosterboer handles
250,000 pallets per annum in
Vlissingen.
FresGo has been formed to
maximise the advantages of both
ports as fruit and vegetable handling
centres by establishing new
logistical systems for the perishables
industry. Initially, the new company’s
focus will be on the handling
of fruit imports from Chile.
The new company is based at
the Seabrex offices in Rotterdam
Fruitport. Managing director is
Herman. de Knijf, who is also a
director of Seabrex.
Chemical shipper BASF has opened its second intermodal terminal (KVT
2) within its own grounds in Ludwigshafen. The facility, managed and
operated for BASF by Kombi-Terminal Ludwigshafen GmbH, represents
a total investment of €19 mill and took just 10 months to build and
equip with a widespan RMG spanning three tracks and four truck lanes.
KVT 2 has an annual capacity of 120,000 intermodal loading units
(ILUs), expected to be mainly ISO containers. The terminal is open to
other shippers and forwarders. but BASF’s own traffic is expected to absorb
half of the capacity. As well as block trains to Spain, Rotterdam, Zeebrugge,
Wels and Vienna, KVT 2 hosts CMA-CGM’s new Rail-Link service to
Germany from Marseille (see last month’s WorldCargo News, p16).
Throughput at the first facility (KVT 1), which opened in 2000, reached
170,000 ILUs last year, counting chassis as well as swap bodies and
containers
12
March 2005

WorldCargo
news
Stolt shifts Singapore
tank service depot
Stolt-Nielsen Transportation
Group (SNTG) has relocated its
tank container service depot in
Singapore from the Jurong
Town area on the mainland to
a new, dedicated facility built on
Jurong Island where Singapore
has centred its petrochemical
industry in recent years.
The new complex is a joint
venture with the Poh Tiong
Choon chemical logistics operation.
SNTG has invested
US$5.8 mill in the equipment
necessary to repair,
remanufacture and clean tank
containers at the Stolt Container
Terminal facility, while
Poh Tiong Choon has provided
US$4.7 mill for the facility’s infrastructure.
The 20,000 m2 depot has
the capacity to clean 40 tank
containers a day and to refurbish
and remanufacture up to
300 tanks per annum. It is located
adjacent to a chemical logistics
complex operated by Poh
Tiong Choon. This latter facility
was completed in 2002 at a
cost of US$18 mill.
The arrangement enables
tanks to be cleaned at the Stolt
Container Terminal, for example,
while product discharged
from Stolt tanks can be loaded
into drums at the chemical logistics
complex next door. Poh
Tiong Choon itself is considering
building a second chemical
logistics centre on Jurong Island.
The Singapore government
has been encouraging companies
already active in chemical
production and logistics in the
country to relocate to the
Jurong Island complex in recent
14
years. Jurong Island has been
created by reclaiming land from
the sea and filling in the space
between seven small islands
situated to the south of Singapore
and linking it by bridge to
Singapore. The complex is already
home to a significant
number of new chemical facilities,
although further reclamation
and development work will
continue for several years more.
Facilities on the main island of
Singapore that previously handled
dangerous goods are being
closed as companies either
relocate or cease operations.
The steep increases in the
price of stainless steel, and hence
the cost of newbuild tanks, over
the past 12 months have
strengthened the attractiveness
of the remanufacturing option.
Stolt already remanufactures
tanks at its Skelmersdale, UK,
facility, as well as at a number
of third party facilities worldwide.
● SNTG has established a new
joint venture in China with
Shanghai Kingman Container
Service Co Ltd. The new company,
to be called Shanghai
Stolt-Kingman Tank Containers
Transportation Ltd
(SSKTCTL), will provide integrated,
multimodal tank container
services to China’s bulk
liquid chemical and food industries.
The new company will
offer an array of services and
support functions to meet the
growing demands of the Chinese
tank container market for
the carriage of foodstuffs,
chemicals and numerous other
bulk liquids.
Hoyer expands Dormagen
Hoyer of Hamburg has extended
the storage and transhipment facilities
for hazardous goods at its
logistics centre in the Dormagen
chemical park in Germany. The
complex, one of the largest such
sites in the Hoyer Group, is now
able to accommodate up to 300
loaded 20ft tanks in the yard and
8,900 tonnes of hazardous goods
in its warehouses.
The extension brings to a conclusion
construction work at the
logistics centre, which Hoyer
opened in 2002 when the first
phase of the project was commissioned.
The outside storage area for
containers features several steel-reinforced
concrete aprons, lined up
next to each other. The storage area
is divided by fireproof walls and is
able to handle tank containers laden
with products which need to be
maintained at holding temperatures
of up to 120degC. Each of the individual
lots in the storage area is
equipped with connections for hot
water, oil and steam heating of the
containers.
Hoyer has been given permission
to store goods classified as
dangerous, including flammable
liquids, at the site, as well as materials
listed as a group or single item
in Amendment I of the German
ordinance governing the storage
of hazardous goods, and goods
classified in the country’s Water
Resources Management Law
(WHG).
Additional services maintained
by Hoyer at Dormagen include
fully automatic drum filling, silo
logistics and repair of intermediate
bulk containers (IBCs), trucks
and tank containers. There is a rail
siding adjacent to the storage area.
Another key service available at
Dormagen is the tank cleaning de-
The area available at Dormagen for the storage of tank and other containers
laden with dangerous goods has been doubled
pot, where the internal cleaning of
road tankers, tank containers and
IBCs can be undertaken in five
covered bays. The facility is licensed
to clean after the carriage of a wide
range of dangerous goods and is in
compliance with Germany’s strict
environmental standards governing
clean air and water.
TANK/CONTAINER INDUSTRY NEWS
All the facilities on the
Dormagen premises are open for
use by regional customers in the
chemical, mineral oil, food and gas
industries, while other third party
forwarding companies are also able
to make use of all technical service
facilities onsite, including the
tank cleaning bays.
SCT Grasps the nettle
Salerno Container Terminal
(SCT), part of the Italian Gallozzi
Group, is in the process of implementing
Refrigerated Transport
Electronics Inc (RTE)’s Graspnet
reefer container monitoring system
at the Port of Salerno.
The Graspnet system will
monitor all ISO 10368-compliant
reefer containers connected to the
terminal’s power cable system via
modem, allowing one operator at
a centrally located computer to
monitor the entire terminal.
Graspnet records all required
data in a detailed log and a complete
history for each reefer is
available. Container location, temperature
parameters and other information
can be transferred to
terminal databases, which in the
case of SCT means Copas/Cosmos
CTCS.
TACOM
prototypes
completed
Following a successful bid last year
by Sea Box Inc, of East Riverton,
NJ, to supply the US Department
of Defense with 138,000 containers
over the next five years, production
work has now been completed
on an initial order to deliver
15 prototype units. including
one type of Quadcon, two
types of Tricons and five configurations
of 20ft ISO container.
This initial US$314,000 order
represents the first part of a
US$431 mill contract awarded to
Sea Box in November 2004 by
TACOM - the US Army Tank-
Automotive and Armaments
Command. The containers will be
manufactured in Turkey by Med
Union Containers and will be fitted
with some US components.
Delivery is scheduled for completion
by 18 November 2009.
Sea Box, which specialises in
new design modification and
manufacture of ISO containers for
commercial and military applications,
was one of six bidders for
the TACOM contract, solicited via
the Internet in March 2004. With
annual sales of US$21.5 mill in
2004, the company will now increase
its turnover to more than
US$90 mill per year.
The system allows two-way
communication of data between
the operator and the container
units, allowing supervision of temperatures,
uploading/downloading
and printing of trip records, defrost
control, setpoint changes, PTIs etc
to be carried out remotely.
Currently, around 200 reefer
units can be connected to SCT
power supplies, which is sufficient
for current operations, but the
number of reefer plugs will be
increased in line with demand.
There is no limit to the number
of units that can be monitored by
the Graspnet system.
Following implementation,
which is expected to take around
two months, customers will be
able to access reefer data direct
from the SCT database via the
company’s E-terminal website.
York adds RefTest
New IICL
manual
The Institute of International
Container Lessors (IICL)’s has
published a new, pocket-sized edition
of the IICL-5 container inspection
manual (Guide for Container
Equipment Inspection, 5th
Edition), which was originally
published in 1996.
The new version of IICL-5 has
been upgraded with a completely
new section on cleaning and includes
all of the photographs currently
included in the IICL Cleaning
Guide.
The IICL is currently in the
process of pocket-sizing all existing
manuals, with the Guide for
Container Chassis Inspection
scheduled for release this Spring.
This revision will include tables,
which address maintenance schedules
currently denoted in the
Manual for Container Chassis
Maintenance.
Copies of the new IICL-5
manual can be purchased for
US$50.00 via IICL’s online store
at www.iicl.org/shoptest.asp
● IICL president, Henry F White
Jr. has announced the award winners
of the 2004 Container and
Chassis Inspector’s Examinations.
The awards are given to the
candidate(s) achieving the highest
score in the exams held the
previous autumn. PV Sathisa
Baboo, principal surveyor and
CEO of Services Integrated of India,
received the Container Award,
while Bryan Scott Crook, who is
employed by Chiquita North
America in Freeport, Texas, as a
reefer technician and mechanic,
and Gary Mendez, a maintenance
and repair employee at International
Transportation Service Inc.
(ITS) in Long Beach, California,
shared the Chassis Award. Among
more than 700 container candidates
worldwide, Baboo achieved
a near perfect score of 99 per cent,
while Crook and Mendez
outscored nearly 100 chassis candidates
by achieving a top score
of 97 per cent.
York’s new RefTest offers a simple
means of confirming that powerline
modems in reefer containers are
communicating correctly
With close to 50 per cent of the
world’s reefer container fleet now
equipped with a powerline modem
to facilitate remote monitoring
and control according to the
ISO 10368 standard, the need to
ensure trouble-free communication
between each individual
modem and the system’s central
control unit is paramount.
Until now, there has been no
easy way to test an individual
modem mounted in a reefer container,
but that is about to change.
with the planned launch next
month by York Marine of RefTest,
a handy, easy-to-use tool for testing
powerline modems.
Housed in a robust, waterproof
enclosure with a large graphical
display, RefTest comes ready for
installation as a plug-and-play solution.
The unit connects directly
to any standard reefer container
power outlet and, when connected,
automatically begins to
search for any containers equipped
with a powerline modem.
By selecting a specific container
ID, the user can prompt
RefTest to test and confirm the
communication with the relevant
container. The test verifies that the
modem is operating properly in
the container and that communication
has been established.
RefTest is suitable for use with
all current ISO 10368-compliant
remote monitoring systems, including
RTE’s Graspnet and York’s
own Refcon system, which has
been installed in more than 1,100
vessels and terminals worldwide.
“We believe that a quick modem
test should be part of every
standard PTI, just like any other
reefer component. So far, modem
testing has called for a complete
remote monitoring system that
was already in place - but that was
before RefTest,” said York Marine
product manager Robert
Svensson.
Potential users of RefTest are
reefer container service centres,
PTI areas and reefer container
manufacturers. York claims that the
added security and operational
benefits that RefTest can provide,
plus the unit’s ease of use, will
make it an indispensible tool for
engineers servicing remote monitoring
systems.
March 2005

CONTAINER INDUSTRY NEWS
P&O Nedlloyd/Trans-Rak
in car carrying alliance
P&O Nedlloyd Logistics has formed a
strategic alliance with Trans-Rak International,
a specialist in the design and
manufacture of car racking systems, to
offer a radical new supply chain solution
for the optimised delivery of finished vehicles
in containers.
The new arrangement enables P&O
Nedlloyd to offer car makers within the
high value, build-to-order sector the opportunity
to ship up to five vehicles within
a standard 40ft high cube container in any
major trade lane worldwide.
The Trans-Rak vehicle transport system
is permanently installed into a 40ft
high cube container. When required for
car carrying duties, the Trans-Rak frame,
which is supported by legs that fit into
the container’s sidewall corrugations, is
lowered into position using a standard
power drill. Once the vehicles are in position,
the frame is secured to the support
legs using two rear chains and two ratchet
winches at the front. The loading time
for four vehicles is around 20 minutes.
When not in use carrying cars, the
Trans-Rak frame is wound up into the roof
space, again using a power drill, leaving the
container free to carry general cargo.
The solution is supported by P&O
Nedlloyd’ sophisticated supply chain
management systems, providing end-toend
visibility and milestone management
of finished vehicles throughout an extended
multimodal supply chain - from
factory to showroom.
Though the concept of carrying cars
Carrier bags
Smith-Holland
Reefer machinery manufacturer Carrier
Transicold has acquired Dutch reefer container
service specialist Smith-Holland.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“As the world leader in the container
refrigeration business, Carrier Transicold
is committed to providing the best possible
service network for its customers. The
acquisition of Smith-Holland provides us
with the opportunity to provide a broader
range of customer solutions in Europe,”
said Scott Pallotta, Carrier Transicold’s director
of marketing.
Founded in 1970, Smith-Holland operates
the largest reefer service centre in
the Netherlands at Spijkenisse near Rotterdam.
It also offers mobile repair and
PTI services to shipping lines and leasing
companies throughout the Port of Rotterdam
area, as well as a parts distribution
service for leading reefer machinery
brands and a repair service for electronic
controllers.
Prior to the acquisition last month,
Smith-Holland held service agency and
parts distribution agreements with all four
of the leading reefer container machinery
manufacturers - Carrier, Thermo
King, Daikin Industries and Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries (MHI). But while
Daikin and MHI would appear to be remaining
“on board,” a spokesman for
Thermo King said the company had decided
to terminate its agreement with
Smith-Holland and had “made other arrangements”
in the Netherlands
The move for Smith-Holland follows
Carrier’s signing of a joint venture agreement
with Tianjin Ocean Shipping Co
and Tianchang Marine Service Engineering
Company in February this year to
acquire the assets and business of Tianjin
Yuanchang International Reefer Container
Service (TYI), which operates similar
services in Tianjin, China.
Smith-Holland, which will continue
to operate as an independent Carrier authorised
service dealer under the Smith-
Holland name and under the direction
of the existing management team, and the
renamed Tianjin Yuanchang Reefer Container
Service (TYR) join Harbor Reefer
Service in Oakland, California, which
Carrier acquired in 2000, as owned components
of the company’s worldwide
service network.
in containers is not new, this is believed to
be the first time that a major shipping line
has formed such an alliance with a racking
equipment manufacturer. According to
Trans-Rak, one German car manufacturer
has stated that it will not, in future, wax,
cover or otherwise protect its vehicles for
transport. It is looking to the logistics operator
to provide “covered transport,”
which brings containers to the fore.
The benefits to automotive manufacturers
are clear, says Peter Ward, director
Europe, for P&O Nedlloyd Logistics.
“Container shipping is significantly faster
than traditional ro-ro, which means that
manufacturers can get finished vehicles
to market more quickly. The fact that they
are containerised also dramatically reduces
potential for damage either by exposure
to the elements in transit, or due to the
number of individual driver movements
necessary to move vehicles by ro-ro.
“Frequency and speed of service
means reduced lead times and shorter
delivery cycles...this solution echoes the
just-in-time principles applied to the
inbound supply chain and will enable
manufacturers in future to deliver to a
demand-driven supply chain,” Ward said.
Permanently installed, the Trans-Rak system
allows up to five cars to be carried in a standard
40ft high cube container
WorldCargo
news
March 2005 15

WorldCargo
news
≥12,000 TEU too big?
Unless reliable automatic lashing
systems are developed, (un)lashing
will probably account for 15 per
cent of total port dwell time of
12,000 TEU ships “of the future,”
Capt Heinrich Goller, managing
director of Container Terminal
Altenwerder (CTA) in Hamburg,
has warned.
Addressing executives from
more than 70 shipping line executives
at Germanischer Lloyd (GL)’s
Sixth Container Forum in Hamburg,
Goller argued that “open”
vessels with high-build cell guides
- as pioneered several years ago by
Nedlloyd with some 3000 TEU
ships - are not practical for 12,000
TEU “Suezmax” ships, because
parabolic load paths are ruled out
and cycle times would be too high,
even allowing for faster hoist and
trolley speed.
Goller also appealed to his audience
to pay more attention to
draft restrictions in ports. To reinforce
this, he produced evidence
to show that ports can handle
wide-bodied ships more easily
than deep ones (crane operator
“parallax” problems, sway control
with long rope pendula, etc).
The discussion arose after GL’s
technical director, ship design,
Lutz Müller had outlined a new
12,770 TEU containership design.
This has an loa of 382m, a breadth
of 54.2m (stacking 21-wide) and
a design depth of 13.5m with a
scantling draught of 15m.
Müller pointed that, as
Samskip takes GNSL
Germanischer Lloyd has a concept for an almost 13,000 TEU containership
but has some reservations about vessels of this size
underdeck stowage of containers
is limited to nine tiers, on a 12,000
TEU ship 60 per cent of the containers
must be loaded on deck.
Lashing systems also have to meet
new challenges to ensure safe
stowage in rough seas (radial forces
at the upper corners, etc).
In a wide-ranging discussion,
Müller singled out potential problems
with the torsional stiffness of
Icelandic shipping line Samskip is
acquiring full control of Geest
North Sea Line (GNSL) in a deal
that, it says, will create Europe’s largest
intra-European intermodal/
shortsea container shipping network.
Including charter vessels, the
combined operation will deploy a
fleet of more than 20 ships ranging
from 200 TEU to over 900 TEU.
It is estimated that Samskip’s
turnover will rise from €250 mill
(in 2003) to €500 mill, of which
the intra-European shortsea division
represents around €300 mill
or 60 per cent.
The joint company’s network
of shortsea services encompasses the
Baltic Sea, the North Sea, Ireland
and the Iberian peninsula while,
over Rotterdam, trimodal road, rail
and inland waterway links provide
coverage to south to Italy and eastwards
to Austria, Slovakia and the
Czech Republic.
“Since the mid-1990s,” commented
Samskip’s chairman
Ólafur Ólafsson, “Samskip has reduced
its dependency on simple
port-to-port shipping and widened
its geographical coverage. We
recognised a need to expand our
coverage in the highly competitive
North Sea arena where
intermodal links to inland destinations
such as central and southern
Germany, Italy and Austria are
key.”
GNSL, he continued, is comfortably
the leading player in this
market and has a track record of
successful innovation (eg 45ft
palletwide dry vans and reefers
and, most recently, the 45ft
curtainsider.
the hull as a result of new welding
methods. The GL design also
takes into consideration IMO’s
new fuel tank location requirements
which come into force in
August 2007.
GL’s forum may be particularly
apposite as Bremen’s port senator
Peter Gloystein has stated that from
next year onwards Bremerhaven
would be visited by 12,000 TEU.
Indeed, according to Dynaliners, 11
new ships now construction for
Maersk Sealand in Ødense are
12,000 TEU Suezmaxes stacking
20-wide on deck and requiring a
draft of 15-15.5m.
The 8000 TEU ships now
“flooding” transpacific trades stack
17-wide. Seaspan’s (officially) 9600
TEU newbuildings with Samsung
and K-Line’s >8000 TEU
newbuildings with IHI are the first
to break that mould by stacking
18-wide (45.6m beam).
P&O Nedlloyd is the latest to
join the 8000 TEU club with the
naming in Rotterdam of P&O
NEDLLOYD MONDRIAAN, the first of
11 8450 TEU ships to be phased
in during the next two years, after
her maiden sailing from Japan.
The 335m long, 42.80m wide
(17-across) ships have a draught
of 14m.
The deal is expected to be
completed this month. The current
board of directors of GNSL
will assume responsibility for the
combined shortsea shipping operations
of Samskip and GNSL
under the chairmanship of
Samskip’s president Àsbjörn
Gíslason who takes over from
Jacob van Geest, one of three
brothers who have owned GNSL
up to now.
Wout Pronk continues as managing
director, Gerard de Groot
as commercial director, John
Oprel as finance director and Paul
Swaak as operations director.
SHIPPING NEWS
Cool 45ft service
MacAndrews, part of CMA-
CGM, has successfully completed
first phase trials shipping fresh produce
to Northern Europe from
Spain in 45ft high cube, palletwide
reefer containers.
The trials included shipments
of lettuce, broccoli, onions, citrus
and deciduous fruits and, says
MacAndrews, confirmed the successful
outturn quality of the products,
compared to transpyrennean
reefer trucking.
The containers were trucked to
Bilbao, from where MacAndrews
This month sees the start up of a
new ro-ro service between San
Diego and four Hawaii ports -
Honolulu, Kahului, Hilo and
Nawiliwili. The operator, PHTL
Pasha Hawaii Transport Lines (the
third shipping line in Hawaii-
Continental US trade after
Matson Navigation and Horizon
Lines), is a joint venture of California-based
Pasha Group and
Strong Vessel Operators, the
Stamford, Conn-based daughter
company of Dutch shipping
group Van Ommeren.
PHTL was set up in 2000 but
the project was delayed by the
bankruptcy of the yard building
the ro-ro ship, Halter Marine in
Pascagoula, Miss. The US$70 mill,
3000-unit JEAN ANNE, completed
last year by VT Halter Marine (part
of Vision Technologies Systems),
is the first pure car/truck carrier
to be deployed in Hawaii trades.
The 579ft long vessel has 10
decks including three hoistable car
deck and and cater for outsize cargoes
as well as cars and trucks. Clear
height of the roll trailer decks is
operates four sailings per week.
Mark Copsey, Iberian trade
manager for MacAndrews, remarked,
“We are now concentrating
on convincing category managers
within the fresh produce sector
to transfer a proportion of their
truck movements to our seaborne
solutions before we make a significant
investment in a dedicated
pool of 45ft reefers.
The development is the result
of more than two years of study
in cooperation with Bristol Port
Company.
New Hawaii ro-ro
16.7ft and their volumetric capacity
is 120,000 ft 2 , while load capacity
of the stern ramp is 100 tons.
Some 200,000 vehicles are
trucked to and from Hawaii each
year. The base load for PHTL will
be Chrysler traffic won from
Matson, expected to come to
20,000 vehicles during 2005
(mainly new Jeeps and Dodge vehicles).
Pasha has been handling import/export
automobiles in San
Diego since 1990 and throughput
at its BNSF rail-served facility,
which now occupies 137 acres with
350,000 ft 2 for PDI activities, is
around 300,000 vehicles/year.
Meanwhile, Matson Navigation
has just ordered two more
containerships from Kvaerner
Philadelphia Shipyards Inc for a
new USWC-Hawaii-Guam-
China service, with Long Beach
as the only continental US port.
The contract is worth US$290
mill and the first 2500 TEU vessel
should be delivered next June
followed by a 2600 TEU ship in
June 2007.
16
March 2005

SHIPPING NEWS
Green ro-ro vessel
Wallenius Wilhelmsen (WWL) has designed
a concept car and ro-ro
carrier with “zero emissions” capability
and no ballast water. The ES Orcelle concept
(ES stands for environmentally
sound) will be unveiled in the Nordic
Pavilion at next month’s World Expo 2005
in Aichi, Japan.
WWL assembled a multidisciplinary
team of naval architects, environmental
experts and industrial designers under the
guidance of naval architect, Per
Brinchmann, to work on what it heralds
as its radical and visionary design for a
car carrier of the future. A scale model of
the ship has now been constructed and,
as noted, can be seen at the World Expo.
The ES Orcelle concept vessel
produces no emissions into either the air
or sea. It can use renewable energy
sources, including the sun, wind and waves
as well as fuel cell technology, to meet all
propulsion and onboard power requirements.
Solar energy is harnessed through
photovoltaic panels in the vessel’s three
sails, which also help propel the vessel
using wind power. These sails are manufactured
using special lightweight composite
materials.
Wave power is utilised through a series
of 12 fins, which will be able to transform
wave energy into hydrogen, electricity
or mechanical energy. The fins
double as propulsion units, driven either
by wave energy or other renewable energy
sources onboard, while propulsive
power will also be provided by two variable-speed
electric propulsion pods.
Around half the energy requirement
will be produced by fuel cells, the developing
new technology which combines
hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity
for use in the pods and the fins
and for other uses onboard. The only byproducts
from this process are water vapour
and heat.
Lena Blomqvist, WWL’s vice president,
environment, explains that cargo carrying
capacity has also been optimised. The
design could carry some 10,000 cars, or
up to 50 per cent more than some of today’s
deepsea car carriers, while having
a similar weight in tonnage terms. This
efficiency has been achieved through the
use of lightweight materials, including
aluminium and thermoplastic composites,
and by eliminating the need for ballast
water tanks.
Ballast water is recognised as a major
environmental threat to the world’s oceans
and WWL proposes to eliminate the need
or it completely by using an innovative
pentamaran hull, featuring a long and slender
main hull and four supporting sponsons,
as well as with the pod-type electric propulsion
that dispenses with the traditional
stern propeller and rudder arrangement.
The company has no immediate plans
to build a prototype of ES Orcelle. However,
it will work with others to develop
the technologies embodied within the
concept design, so that they do become
practical options for car carrier
newbuildings within the next 20 years.
● From the end of this month Eukor Car
Carriers, (the WWL and Hyundai Motors
joint venture), is switching calls from
Göteborg to Wallhamn, which will henceforth
handle deepsea calls and transhipment
calls for Scandinavia distribution.
The agreement of Eukor and Grimaldi
Naples to take over all ro-ro and general
cargo operation at the Port of Wallhamm,
some 50 kms north of Göteborg, was
announced last summer (see WorldCargo
News July 2004, p9).
DFDS Tor Line has reached agreement
in principle to take over the transport
operation of Swedish paper shipper
Korsnäs AB from its mill in Gävle to
the UK and Belgium. Assuming the deal
goes ahead, handover is expected later
this year.
Korsnäs, which exports about
450,000 tonnes/year, mainly for customers
in Holland and Belgium, currently
charters three Finnish-owned ro-ros to
provide a weekly service, BIRKA EXPORTER,
BIRKA TRANSPORTER and BIRKA SHIPPER,
which DFDS is expected to take over.
By outsourcing its requirements to
WorldCargo
news
DFDS’ Körsnas deal
DFDS, Körsnas hopes to reduce costs
as DFDS’s service network provides
more opportunities to obtain northbound
backhaul cargo for third parties.
Deliveries will continue to be made
to Verbrugge Terminals in Terneuzen (a
new port of call for DFDS), where shipments
are cut to size, repackaged and delivered
to customers throughout Benelux
by Verbrugge. As for UK deliveries (about
150,000 tonnes/year), DFDS is examining
the possibility of shipping the paper
by rail to Göteborg, where the cargo can
be bundled into DFDS Tor Line’s existing
SteelBridge or AngloBridge services.
DCL establishes
hazchem team
Global NVOCC Direct Container Line
(DCL) has established a new department
solely dedicated to enforcing compliance
with the Department of Transportation
(DOT)’s regulations for hazardous material
shipments and the International Maritime
Dangerous Goods (IMDG) Code.
“Both our company and our customers
rely on how successful we are with
getting correct information and ensuring
all shipments are marked and labelled.
One hazardous shipment in a container
affects everyone, which means that if
someone in the chain gets the information
wrong, the ripple effect can impact
others in the chain,” explained Greg Scott,
Chicago traffic and warehouse manager.
The Hazardous Materials Department,
which is taking on responsibility that was
previously spread over all DCL customer
service offices in the US, has authority to
hold freight based on the accuracy of information
provided in the Hazardous Declaration
form and Master Bill of Lading.
Customers can send the documents directly
to the department via a centralised fax
number or centralised email address. The
team then divides the documents according
to shipping destination and prioritises
bookings according to the most recent cutoff
date. The latter is determined by when
the company must declare hazardous shipments
with the steamship line.
The new department is also important
for customers with non-hazardous
shipments. Eric Fischer, who was brought
in to head the team as hazardous materials
manager, emphasised that the team will
ensure hazardous and non-hazardous
shipments alike will not be rolled due to
problems with compliance. An important
step for the success of the department, he
added, will be helping to educate customers
on the current rules outlined by DOT
and the IMDG Code.
March 2005 17

WorldCargo
news
NAWC congestion could well get worse
The sudden influx of ≥8000 TEU ships in transpacific trades (OOCL NINGBO
shown) has added to landside congestion and made the extra ship capacity ineffective.
Shipowners think “big ships” but do they see the big picture?
Most North American West
Coast (NAWC) container
ports broke traffic records in
2004 and remain under sustained
pressure. Congestion is
expected to continue through
this year, despite the efforts of
ports, terminal operators,
railroads and trucking firms.
Shipping lines have been introducing
bigger ships, with one
Cosco Pacific rotation already
composed purely of 8000 TEU
vessels, but land-based infrastructure
cannot keep up. Ports have
largely filled out their remaining
open spaces with new marine terminals
and only a few, such as
Tacoma and Long Beach, still have
limited expansion space available.
No new terminals are currently
being built, although some
existing ones are being modified
or expanded to increase capacity.
Instead, emphasis is being placed
on increasing railcar throughput
and modifying highway interchanges
and port road networks
to speed the landside flow. And
more non-container traffic is being
shifted to secondary ports to
allow further container expansion
at the main gateways.
BC blues
After saying for years that it was
not getting enough container traffic
the Port of Vancouver, BC finally
got more than it could swallow
and TSI Terminal Systems Inc,
operator of the port’s largest container
facility, Deltaport, declared
force majeure. Faced with a backlog
of more than 5000 import containers
for onward movement to
midwest destinations, TSI complained
that CN was not providing
enough cars and this had led
to terminal “gridlock.”
CN had its own problems,due
to severe winter weather in the
east and a surge in bulk traffic.
Westshore Terminals, which shares
Roberts Bank with Deltaport, was
trying to export over 21 mt of
coal, all brought in by rail, while
its neighbour was pushing
550,000 TEU through a terminal
designed for 500,000 TEU, nearly
all moved out by rail.
Heavy snow in northern
Ontario had delayed trains and
forced CN to route traffic to a
more southerly corridor, but
this longer route added 18 hours
to total transit time between
Vancouver and central Canada.
Track share deal
To improve car movement within
the greater Vancouver area, CN
and CP agreed to some track sharing.
This will also aid Fraser River
Port, on Vancouver’s southern
fringe. Container traffic here grew
to 320,000 TEU last year and the
port has had to order more cranes.
Vancouver Port Authority
plans a number of new container
terminals by 2020, at a cost of
C$1.4 bill, with a second Deltaport
facility to come on line by
2008. In the picture, too, is the
Port of Prince Rupert in northern
BC, where a 400,000 TEU/
year facility, to be operated by
Maher Terminals, awaits funding.
The next step at the Port of
Seattle, which handled a record
1.8 mill TEU last year (+ 20 per
cent on 2003), will be a US$20
mill upgrade of T-25, allowing
Matson to shift its SSAT-managed
operation back there from T-18.
SSAT will move several 50ft
gauge cranes to T-25, probably
from Los Angeles, while the port
will upgrade the crane rails.
SSAT will also add four more
cranes from ZPMC to T-18 by
the end of 2006, along with extra
yard equipment. Meanwhile, the
port has budgeted for a possible
berth extension at APL’s T-5, and
BNSF will expand its intermodal
yard, located just south of the port.
Like southern California,
Seattle is seeing more longshore
hiring and the ILWU will add
more than 200 new members to
the roll by the end of the year.
Port CEO Mic Dinsmore says
Seattle should be able to handle
at least 3 mill TEU/year once new
employees are in post and current
programmes are completed.
Move the furniture
The Port of Tacoma is shifting
major customers between facilities.
Taiwan’s Evergreen has
PORT DEVELOPMENT
opened its new 171-acre Pierce
County Terminal at the head of
the Blair Waterway. Built at a cost
of US$210 mill, with Evergreen
providing its own cranes and
landside equipment, the 2-berth
complex is backed by a 12-track
intermodal yard capable of accommodating
72 double-stack cars.
It its current configuration, the
facility can handle 840,000 TEU/
year. However, recent port land acquisitions
will allow it to be expanded
to 237 acres and incorporate
a third berth and a larger IY.
Evergreen’s former facility at
T-3/4 on the Blair Waterway is
being expanded to 93 acres and
taken over by ITS for K-Line
which, in turn, is shifting from T-
7D on the Sitcum Waterway.
Moving into T-7D site is Taiwan’s
Yang Ming, which in December
signed a long-term lease
- its first agreement for a dedicated,
single-user facility in the
US. The agreement is for 12 years
plus five on option and the 54-
acre site can be expanded to 76
acres once demolition of an adjacent
former bulk storage facility
is completed later this year.
Like Seattle, Tacoma handled
a record 1.8 mill TEU in 2004 but
the various “house moves” are expected
to boost this figure to over
2 mill TEU this year.
On the Columbia River the
Port of Portland was hard hit by
the departure to two of its three
major container lines last year,
Tinkling the Ivories
Jim Devine, the former Sea-Land
executive who now runs New
York Container Terminal
(NYCT) on Staten Island for Orient
Overseas (International) Ltd
(OOIL), says that negotiations are
underway with the New York/
New Jersey port authority regarding
a new single berth, high density,
38-acre facility on the 124-
acre Port Ivory site adjacent to
NYCT’s existing Howland Hook
Marine Terminal operation.
Port Ivory, formerly owned by
Proctor & Gamble, was acquired
by the port in 2001. According to
Devine it is the only land in the
bistate harbour contiguous to an
existing terminal that is available
for development.
If built - and it has an estimated
engineering and construction
time of less than 600 days - the
new terminal would make use of
four 22-wide container cranes
backed by 16 RMGs. The plans
may allow for automated stacking
and waterside feed operation, with
remote control at the landside end
to (un)load road trucks.
One potential roadblock is a
request by environmentalists to a
US Federal Judge to halt all dredging
in the Newark Bay area until
a plan is in place to dispose of
toxin-laden spoils. However, the
US Army Corps of Engineers has
countered this request by stating
that it has met all requirements in
the project. Devine said the filing
was “unfortunate” but he fully expects
the 41ft deep channel to be
completed to the terminal by the
end of this year.
OOIL, which also operates the
90-acre, 2-berth Global Terminal
in New Jersey, has invested more
than US$40 mill in the 187-acre,
3-berth NYCT facility. Following
USL’s demise this had lain vacant
for several years and was brought
back into life in 1995-6 as
Howland Hook Marine Terminal,
Inc, now renamed NYCT.
New Liebherr cranes
Six old cranes have been modernised
and four new 50m outreach
(18-wide) Liebherr cranes have
now been delivered. These 50m
outreach (18-wide), 100ft gauge
cranes have an SWL of 75LT under
hook, 65LT under expandable
twin spreader and 50LT under single
spreader (see WorldCargo News,
May 2003, p3 and July 2003,
pp16-17 for full “spec”).
The wharf has been lengthened
to 3000ft and the port authority
has pledged US$350 mill
to deepen the channel leading to
the terminal from 35.5ft (10.82m)
to 41ft , to create an intermodal
rail yard on the Port Ivory site and
rebuild rail infrastructure linking
Staten Island to the transcontinental
yards of the class 1 railroads
serving the port.
NYCT’s new lease at Port
Ivory includes 212,500 ft 2 of warehousing
space, bringing its total
warehousing to 475,000 ft 2 , including
80,000 ft 2 of refrigerated/
deep frozen storage space. No
other marine facility in the port
can boast such a vast amount of
covered storage space, says Devine.
NYCT is currently used by 13
carriers, including the Grand Alliance
and New World Alliance.
Traffic last year came to 260,000
moves (421,000 TEU). ❏
The new terminal would be designed for high throughput on a small “footprint”
18
March 2005

PORT DEVELOPMENT
WorldCargo
news
Extreme winter weather caused havoc for CN
Rail and the Port of Vancouver, BC
leaving only Hanjin to continue service.
Ironically, 2004 was also a record year for
the port (12.58 mt), largely because of a
36 per cent increase in steel shipments.
Container traffic fell to 274,609 TEU.
Portland is to buy a third post-
Panamax container crane, which will be
provided by China’s ZPMC at a cost of
US$8.2 mill, including US$0.65 mill
worth of parts. As reported in last month’s
WorldCargo News (p4), this price is about
35 per cent lower than the offer from
Hyundai Samho, the successor to
Hyundai HI which provided T-6 with its
two post-Panamax cranes in the early
1990s. The new 18-wide crane will be
delivered in summer 2006.
Noting that most NAWC ports work
container ships with at least three post-
Panamax cranes, the port’s executive director
Bill Wyatt said the additional crane
was “critical” to Portland’s ability to remain
a competitive container port.
The Oregon port is hoping its additional
lift capacity, combined with the
recently launched deepening programme
of the Columbia River navigation channel
to 43ft, will lure back container lines.
To aid in this quest, a number of rail improvements
are to be made this year, while
a new highway overpass, to be completed
this summer, should reduce truck congestion.
If new lines do come, Portland is
ready to buy three more post-Panamax
cranes and lengthen the T-6 quay by 600ft
to support two post-Panamax ships.
Oak shoots up
Oakland handled a record 2 mill TEU in
2004 (+ 6.24 per cent on 2003) and port
director Jerry Bridges anticipates more
growth this year. Two more giant cranes
from ZPMC were delivered by ZHEN HUA
1 early this month. The landed cost of the
cranes was ≈ US$7 mill each and they
have been installed at Berth 32, which is
being prepared for an as yet unnamed customer
after being cleared of former
Matson gear. Standing 379ft high (boom
raised) and with a 23-wide outreach, the
Demolition of a former bulk import facility will allow Tacoma to expand T-7D for Yang Ming
Moves in the Gulf
The state of Texas is to grant US$5.2 mill
to the Port of Corpus Christi to enhance
its military cargo capability. Rail improvements
and repairs will allow military cargo
throughput to double and can also cater
for commercial cargoes.
The Gulf Coast ports of Corpus
Christi and Beaumont are the busiest of
the 19 US seaports designated by US-
DOD and US-MARAD as strategic military
deployment seaports, handling 40 per
cent of all military equipment shipped to
Iraq. Beaumont has been the busier of the
two in this respect (25 per cent share).
Corpus Christi’s new rail capacity is
concentrated on the south side of the ship
channel. On the north side, the port has
another rail project under construction
to serve the near-dock ICTF which
would be developed as part of its proposed
La Quinta Gateway scheme.
As previously reported (WorldCargo
News, January 2005, p18), ICTSI has a 6-
month “exclusion” agreement to carry
out its own evaluation of this project. The
north side rail line will also open up about
1000 acres of land abutting a 45ft-deep
channel which could be the future expansion
of La Quinta.
Green fuel grant
US-EPA has granted US$150,000 towards
the clean diesel project of the Port of Houston
Authority (PHA). As previously reported,
the port is converting RTGs and
terminal tractors to run on Lubrizol fuel,
with support from the Texas Commission
on Environmental Quality.
PHA has, meanwhile, reached an
agreement with another Texas port, Victoria,
to encourage container barge traffic
as an alternative to trucking on Highway
59. Located 125 miles south of Houston
on the main route to Mexico (over
Brownsville), Victoria is a port by virtue
of the 35-mile long canal to the coast
completed in 1968. In 2002, a 7-year programme
to upgrade the canal to correspond
to the GIWW parameters of 12ft
depth and 125ft width was completed.
More cranes
Finally, PHA is planning to extend the
phase 1A Bayport quay by 330ft to 1990ft
to allow two 300m long container ships
to berth simultaneously. The port already
has four superpost-Panamax cranes on
order from ZPMC for phase 1A, slated
to open in June next year. It is likely that
two more cranes will now be ordered, to
ensure there are three cranes per berth.
On the Florida side of the Gulf, Tampa
Port Authority (TPA) has bought three
second-hand low profile Paceco
Portainers for its new Hooker’s Point terminal,
to support its growing container
traffic (see page 25 for more information).
TPA has also agreed to buy a 41-acre
parcel from Trans-Continental Marine
(TCM) for US$15 mill. The site is located
just off a deep water channel and
close to major rail (CSX) and road links.
TCM’s owner George Lorton applied to
the city to rezone the site for housing (900
low-rise “condos”), but TPA wants to safeguard
the land. One possible use is ship
repair, with Lorton’s International Ship
Repair & Marine Services as tenant!
March 2005 19

WorldCargo
news
cranes are among the largest on
the NAWC range.
Like Portland, Oakland has
been granted additional dredging
funds, although the work at
Oakland will see a deeper interim
depth of 46ft established by the
end of this summer, after which
digging will proceed to 50ft starting
in the autumn. In an effort to
capture more agricultural export
business Oakland is studying the
establishment of an intermodal
distribution and consolidation
centre in Shafter, Ca, near the
southern end of the San Joaquin
valley. The centre would be linked
to the port by a dedicated shorthaul
railway and would be used
to detour export traffic away from
the highly congested LA basin.
With the angels
Container traffic has been so
heavy at Los Angeles that little
thought is being given to any potential
drain-away traffic, such as
might be taken by the Shafter facility.
Several agricultural shippers
have already moved away from the
San Pedro Bay ports to Port
Hueneme to the north or San Diego
to the south.
20
Congestion was such during
the last half of 2004 that 127 vessels,
including 116 container ships,
were diverted from Los Angeles/
Long Beach to other ports. Nevertheless,
both San Pedro Bay
gateways set new container handling
records, as did the US$2 bill
Alameda Corridor, where traffic
was up 20 per cent to an average
of 50 trains/day.
As reported in last month’s
WorldCargo News (p17), a further
boost could come if BNSF goes
ahead with a new near-dock
ICTF about five miles north of
the port and with direct rail access
to the corridor. Meanwhile,
UP may expand the original neardock
ICTF, located about four
miles from the port on Sepulveda
Boulevard, to handle up to 1.6 mill
containers/year. There are still bottlenecks
hindering movement of
containers by rail, but BNSF reported
that its on-dock rail moves
were up 71 per cent last year. UP
reported a rise of 63 per cent.
Long hops
The Port of Long Beach, which
also set a new container handling
record of 5.78 mill TEU last year
Renewed interest in US-Canada
Great Lakes ferry services is being
driven by the “usual suspects”
- growing bilateral trade, highway
congestion, driver shortages, border
delays and a desire to mitigate
the environmental impact of road
traffic. In addition, being international,
the services are outwith the
scope of the Jones Act, so vessel
costs are much lower.
In 2003 US-MARAD and
Transport Canada signed an agreement
to co-operate on developing
container/ro-ro shortsea links
on the Great Lakes and coastwise.
The US federal administration has
stated that it is economically
unfeasible to expand highway and
rail infrastructure to meet future
demand, although it is not prepared
to budge on the Jones Act.
Holland-based Wagenborg was
recently selected from a list of
seven bidders to manage and operate
a new ro-pax ferry service
across Lake Erie between Cleveland,
Ohio and Port Stanley, Ontario,
a distance of 63 n/m.
“Our research shows a combined
passenger and freight service
will enhance the ferry’s longevity
and profitability,” said Sterling
E Glover, chairman of the
Cleveland-Cuyahoga County
port authority (CC).
Wagenborg plans to start up in
2006 with two conventional speed
vessels. Its annual target is 250,000
passengers, 42,000 cars and 25,000
trucks, as identified in CC’s US$1
mill ferry feasibility study.
CC will build a ro-ro terminal
and lease it to Wagenborg. The
plans at Port Stanley are less clear,
as Transport Canada wants to auction
off this loss-making port and
locals have expressed fears that it
will end up in the hands of
Wagenborg or US owners.
Port dues paid by Wagenborg
would go a long way to covering
the annual revenue losses of the
port. Previous attempts to set up
a Port Stanley ferry service to the
US failed, but there is consensus
that Wagenborg “has done its
homework.”
Another Erie tale
In another Lake Erie move, Great
Lakes/Seaway self-unloader specialist
Seaway Marine Transport
PORT DEVELOPMENT
California greening drive
NAWC ports have faced a threeway
drain on capital for several
years. But now terminal construction
has slowed as port funds are
redirected to security demands
and the mounting burden of environmental
regulations.
A new outline plan to cut air
pollution at Los Angeles and Long
Beach was approved early this
moth by a task force of the ports,
(+ 24 per cent on 2003), has been
working with transport companies
to improve traffic flow. Shifting
away from new terminal construction,
one of the port’s biggest
projects this year will be the creation
of a new interchange to get
truck traffic in and out of the port
quicker. The US$34 mill interchange
will be followed by a similar
project in Los Angeles.
Two more ZPMC cranes have
been delivered to SSA Marine’s
Pacific Container Terminal (PCT)
on Pier J. The arrivals give PCT a
total of 13 ZPMC cranes.
The latest two units are 21-
wide and thus easily capable of
handling the (17-wide) ≥ 8000
TEU container ships being introduced
into transpacific service.
Such has been the influx of these
“leviathan” ships that Long Beach
hosted no less than four of them
simultaneously in early January.
Long Beach currently has only
one new “green field” container
terminal under consideration. The
draft EIR for his 160-acre facility
on Pier S is not expected to be
submitted until next year.
Night PierPass
Both San Pedro Bay ports hope
that the new ‘PierPass’ programme,
designed by the not-for-profit
West Coast Marine Terminal Operators
(WCMTO) association,
will shift some daylight truck traffic
to nights and weekends.
Introduction has been delayed
but WCMTO is now projecting
a June start-up for PierPass, under
which a fee of US$20/ TEU will
be levied on all trucks carrying
loaded containers through the marine
terminal gates during regular
weekday working hours. The fees
will be used to offset the cost of
off-hour gates, including staffing.
Dallas-based Affiliated Computer
Services, Inc is developing the billing
and accounting software. ❏
With development dominated by
air quality issues, light and noise
nuisance, all eyes will soon be on
a “model” terminal in Los Angeles
shipping lines, railroads and air
regulatory agencies. This should
lead to more ‘cold-ironing’ for
berthed vessels, low sulphur fuel
for ships and trains and subsidised
alternative fuels for trucks and
cargo handling equipment.
More Lowenthal laws
State senator Alan Lowenthal (D-
Long Beach) has introduced five
more bills in California’s legislature
aimed at further reducing
pollution at both ports.
His Senate Bill (SB) 764 would
cap port pollution at current levels
and SB 760 would impose a
US$20 fee on each container arriving
at the ports, with half going
to pay for transport infrastructure
improvements and half going
for environmental mitigation.
A third bill, SB 761, would
amend the previous “Lowenthal
law” aimed at eliminating truck
queues at port gates by encouraging
the use of truck appointment
systems (PierPass writ large).
SB 762 would create a port
congestion and environmental
quality district, similar to the existing
South Coast Air Quality
District (SCAQD), which watches
over pollution from stationary
sources in southern California.
Finally, SB 763 would require
ports to give priority to ships
burning fuel with no more than
0.2 per cent sulphur content.
Seven point plan
Meanwhile, the Pacific Merchant
Shipping Association (PMSA),
which represents shipping lines
and terminal operators along the
coast, had asked port authorities
in California to embrace a sevenpoint
plan in the hopes of forestalling
increasing political pressure
to mandate forced restrictions regarding
noise and air pollution.
The plan proposes a system of
incentives to encourage use of
cleaner burning fuels in vessel auxiliary
engines, the use of ultra-low
sulplur fuels in container handing
machinery, accelerated replacement
of older, higher emission
equipment and vehicles, and a
drive to have the US government
sign up to IMO’s Annex VI to reduce
air pollution from vessels.
Clean burn
Ports and terminal operators have
been investing in more clean-burn
equipment. Long Beach Container
Terminal (LBCT), for example,
is close to converting all
60 of its diesel-powered yard
equipment units to a newly developed,
clean-burning, oxygenated
diesel fuel, O2Diesel. This is
expected to cut PM by 20 per cent
and NOx by 1.6 per cent.
LBCT has also installed diesel
oxidation catalysts to its yard tractors,
top handlers, ECHs and
RTGs. By themselves, the exhaust
catalysts reduce PM emissions by
25 per cent. Later this year, LBCT
will be testing the use of LNG as
a fuel alternative for its equipment.
To date, the Port of Long
Cargo handling equipment in
Californian ports is in for major
overhaul or replacement as emissions
rules get tougher
Beach and the California Air Resources
Board have provided more
than US$2 mill to pay for nearly
600 diesel oxidation catalysts. The
port has also established an incentive
fund to help terminal operators
convert to the use of emulsified
diesel fuels as well as to help
defray the higher cost of the fuel.
The Long Beach Board of
Harbor Commissioners has urged
the US Senate to ratify an international
agreement that would
Ro-ro on the Lakes
says it plans to launch a freight
ferry service between Nanticoke,
Ontario and Erie, Pennsylvania, a
distance of about 35 n/m. Gross
time for sailing, including unloading
and reloading in both ports, is
said to be about four hours.
Erie-West Pennsylvania Port
Authority has been pursuing the
idea since 2003 and will use part
of a 17.6-ha facility in Erie for the
ro-ro terminal. The project has reportedly
been backed by
steelmaker Stelco. It is hoped to
start up the service in 2006.
At the end of last year Hamilton
Port Authority (HPA) on Lake
Ontario unveiled plans to develop,
in conjunction with MarineLink,
a dedicated freight ferry link with
the Port of Oswego, New York, at
the eastern end of the lake, a distance
of around 143 n/m.
Two ro-ros would be needed
to provide an overnight sailing in
each direction. MarineLink envisages
the service catering for 90-
100 unaccompanied trailers, with
staging and (un)loading carried
out by fifth wheel terminal tractors
in the usual way. The prospective
operator is again Seaway Marine
Transport.
MarineLink and HPA are also
working on a project to develop a
twice/week lo-lo barge service
between Hamilton and Montreal,
which would be able to operate
for nine months of the year. Even
more ambitiously, a fluvio-maritime
service is projected between
Halifax and Hamilton, also limited
to the Seaway season.
One assumption appears to be
that expensive lo-lo cranes need
to be avoided in Hamilton, suggesting
perhaps large reach stackers
with a negative lift feature, as
deployed in several inland river/
canal ports in Europe and at Baton
Rouge in Louisiana. ❏
● Columbia Coastal Transport
(CCT) has started a fixed day,
weekly container barge service
between Baltimore and Philadelphia
with the 450 TEU capacity
barge COLUMBIA CHARLESTON. The
base traffic is provided by Hamburg
Süd. “Shortage of truck
power is forcing steamship companies
to look for water options
to move their cargo,” said CCT’s
president Bruce Fenimore.
March 2005

PORT DEVELOPMENT
WorldCargo
news
significantly reduce harmful air emissions
from ocean-going vessels and has endorsed
passage of an amendment to the
International Convention on the Prevention
of Pollution from Ships.
“The Port of Long Beach cannot
mandate international air quality standards
for ships, but we can make our view
known to those who can,” said commission
president John R. Calhoun.
At the neighboring Port of Los Angeles,
where cold iron berthing has already
been established at the China Shipping
terminal, commissioners have approved
a US$810,000 reimbursement to
NYK Line as an incentive to use shoresupplied
electrical power.
Port officials say cold iron berthing by
NYK will save several tonnes of NOx
and PM emissions per vessel per year.
Cold iron berthing is also one of the key
elements of a new facility to be erected
on the former Matson Navigation terminal
at berths 206-209.
Aerial shot of what, it is hoped, will become a
“model” for green terminal operations
The 50ft gauge cranes, three of which
were transferred to the site by the port,
will eventually be replaced by six 100ft
gauge post-Panamax cranes. Although the
Matson site has no on-dock rail, P&ONL
said it will consider investing in an ondock
rail yard if a long-term lease can be
obtained following the five-year trial period.
Until then the company will maximise
rail usage by moving containers to
the UP-operated ICTF at Hobart, located
about five miles distant from the port.
To cut down on pollution from the
shuttle drayage trucks involved, P&ONL
will install exhaust scrubbers at the terminal’s
gates and will create a special waiting
zone for trucks to reduce idling time.
It also plans to use paperless entry and
institute a truck appointment system.
Additional emissions-reduction measures
at the terminal are expected to include
the use of solar panels to reduce
reliance on fossil fuels for electrical generation,
installation of Energy Star equipment
to reduce electric consumption, and
the installation of low-level, non-obtrusive
exterior lighting in yard areas.
P&ONL expects to handle an average
of 23,800 TEU/month at its new
green facility, which should be in operation
by June 2006.The terminal will be
operated for it under contract by Pasha
Stevedoring and Terminals. This arm of
the Pasha Group is the third-largest independent
terminal operator on the
USWC range and well known for its
Omni-Terminal at Los Angeles, where
breakbulk and containers are handled.
Pasha’s own proposal for the 206/209
site had been a ship-to-rail steel
transloading operation with additional
container-handling capabilities. Other
proposals for a dedicated container terminal
came from Evergreen, LBCT/
OOCL and NYK’s Yusen Terminals. ❏
Model looks
All eyes will soon be on P&O Nedlloyd
(P&ONL) as it assumes responsibility for
this termnial next year. Last December
Los Angeles Harbor Commissioners
voted 5-0 to begin final negotiations with
P&ONL concerning transformation of
the 86-acre facility into a cutting-edge
“green” terminal, using new operating
techniques and new equipment.
The vote, which saw P&ONL defeat
four other contenders, came after more
than two years of stalled talks and political
in-fighting during which the carrier
became so suspicious of “favoritism” on
the part of the Los Angeles City’s mayor’s
office that it filed a petition in court alleging
“irregularities.” However, after the
favourable vote was in, P&ONL executives
expressed satisfaction with the outcome
and withdrew the petition.
Since then, the company has expressed
its willingness to work with the port and
city to turn the 2-berth complex into a
“model” for green operations and, at the
same time, assist port engineers in designing
an alternative maritime power (AMP)
programme (ie cold iron berthing) that
will create an “industry standard.”
Under the terms of the 5-year lease,
during which P&ONL is expected to pay
the port around US$57 mill, AMP usage
will be phased in on an agreed percentage
basis each year. Having carried out its
own research into AMP, P&ONL feels it
will easily exceed these requirements
within the first two years of operation.
Single cable feed
P&ONL has already developed a single
cable system that eliminates the need for
a barge handling multiple cables, such as
is used at Los Angeles’ first AMP berth at
the China Shipping facility.
To meet port requirements early,
P&ONL plans to retrofit five of its existing
3000 TEU vessels with AMP equipment
over a nine-month period. This will
be accomplished while the ships are still
in operation, thus requiring no out-ofservice
time. The modified vessels will
then be phased into a Pacific rotation calling
at Los Angeles, which should give
P&ONL 100 per cent AMP usage by the
end of the second lease year.
Additionally, PONL will provide new
terminal tractors and other vehicles that
will be electrically driven or capable of
running on alternative fuels. The company
is currently undertaking feasibility
studies with vehicle suppliers covering
the use of LPG, LNG and CNG as fuel.
RTGs off the mains?
Depending upon the final environmental
impact report (EIR) and build-out plan
for the facility, which is being drawn up
by Oakland-based JWD, electrically-powered
RTGs may eventually be used but
first-phase operation will most likely
employ a combination of tractor/trailer
sets and alternative fuel reach stackers to
support the terminal’s four existing 50ft
gauge ship-to-shore cranes.
The wheeled fleet will total 28 yard
tractors, six RTGs, six reach stackers, five
ECH mast trucks and two general purpose
mast trucks. At least 75 per cent of
the machinery will run on LNG or CNG,
or be electrically-powered. The remaining
25 per cent will use emulsified fuel in
combination with catalytic converters.
March 2005 21

WorldCargo
news
PORT DEVELOPMENT
Panamanian operators commit to new investment
Major new investments are being
made by container terminal operators
in Panama on both sides of the
canal, as demand for all-water services
to the USEC and regional transhipment
increases.
Next month Evergreen is set to open
a third berth at its Colón container terminal,
heralding the arrival of new services
on its Asia-USEC run. The quay has
been extended by 370m and five new
superpost-Panamax cranes (18-wide deck
stow) from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
are being added to the terminal as part of
its US$75 mill phase II expansion, under
which annual capacity is set to increase
from 500,000 TEU to 800,000 TEU by
the end of this year.
Double in third phase
In addition, phase III of the terminal’s expansion
has been secured following an
agreement with the government of
Panama that allocates Evergreen more
area for development. The deal, which will
see the company increase its payments to
national coffers with a “one off” payment
of US$26.7 mill and an increase in the
unit charge from US$6/TEU to US$9/
HPH’s Panama Ports Comany is to acquire
more cranes for Balboa (right) and Cristobal
TEU, enables it practically to double terminal
size from 62-ha to 116-ha. Such
expansion, it is estimated, will allow the
terminal to handle up to 1.6 mill TEU/
year and would cost around US$300 mill.
In response to the additional capacity
already provided, Cosco Container Line
has announced that is to start calling every
two weeks and its 4400 TEU vessels used
on the Asia-USEC all-water route will
start calling next month. And Cosco is in
talks with Evergreen to conclude a slotsharing
agreement that would allow it to
enter the Caribbean transhipment market
linked to its east-west services.
As previously reported (WorldCargo
News, January 2005, p18), Evergreen is also
said to be one of the operators interested
in developing a terminal on the Pacific
side of the Canal at a new megapuerto being
touted by the government.
MIT push
Close by Colón, SSA Marine’s Manzanillo
International Terminal (MIT Panama) has
ordered six scranes from ZPMC as well
as 12 RTGs. Three of the cranes will have
a reach of 16 rows across while another
three will be built to handle future vessels
up to 22 rows across.
The cranes form part of the plans by
what is currently the largest single container
terminal in Latin America to double
its existing capacity to 3.2 mill TEU/
year in the next five years, with more than
US$200 mill of investment.
MIT has concluded a deal with the
government that will free up a further 31-
ha of land for future development. In return
for the additional land and muchneeded
berth space, MIT will make extra
payments to the government on the same
basis as Colón Container Terminal, as
described above.
Carlos Urriola, MIT’s general manager,
said the six new cranes were the first
part of the company’s expansion with
options secured for a further 10 cranes all
of which would be built to reach 22 rows
across. Expansion is set to add 1300m of
extra quay in the next three to five years,
added Urriola.
The size of the cranes reflects MIT’s
belief that Panama will forge ahead with
expansion of the canal. “We are pretty
consistent. Since we began all the cranes
have been post-Panamax. Ten years ago
we believed in this and now we are confirming
it,” said Urriola.
Panamax 2: 10,500 TEU?
It is understood that the third set of locks
in the Panama Canal are likely to be built
to accommodate vessels of up to 10,500
TEU. Such ships can be built within a
framework of an 18-wide deck stow (cf
Seaspan newbuildings). Suezmax ships
(12,000 TEU) would measure 400m loa
by 50m beam and stack 20-wide. The
18,000 TEU Malaccamax ship would also
also be 400m long but with a beam of
60m and it would stack 24-wide.
Meanwhile, Hutchison Port Holdings
is to order 10 more cranes for its operations
in Panama as part of a spend of
US$300 mill at its terminals on both sides
of the canal. Alejandro Kouruklis, general
manager of Panama Ports Company
(PPC), the group’s Panamanian subsidiary,
said the company was looking to acquire
four post-Panamax cranes and three
Panamax cranes for its Cristobal operation,
while it was also ordering three more
Panamax cranes for its terminal in Balboa.
The post-Panamax cranes in Cristobal
are set to cover 16 rows across and will
be located on two new berths to be developed
at the terminal. Throughput at
Cristobal is less than 90,000 TEU/year at
present, operating with old finger piers
and two Panamax gantry cranes.
The development of a modern continuous
quay capable of handling two of
the largest Panamax vessels ( > 4000 TEU)
is a top priority for PPC as it seeks to
intensify competition on the Atlantic side
of the Canal. In Balboa, PPC is extending
its feeder berth to accommodate two
Panamax vessels. The contract for the extension
has already been signed. The expansion
will cost US$100 mill and take
the company’s total investment in the port
to more than US$400 mill. ❏
22
March 2005

PORT DEVELOPMENT
The introduction of private sector
management in the Nigerian
port sector is reaching a critical
phase. The country’s trade union
movement has long opposed the
implementation of the port landlord
model because of expected
job losses. Yet progress is now being
made on two fronts: the first
tenders have been launched to
manage existing Nigerian Ports
Authority (NPA) facilities, while
new ports are set to be developed
by foreign companies.
As reported in last month’s
WorldCargo News (p14), bids for
three concessions to manage separate
parts of the port of Apapa have
been considered and A P Møller
group (APM) has emerged as the
preferred bidder for the 25-year
container terminal concession.
In a high profile bid opening,
broadcast live on Nigerian TV and
radio to demonstrate the government’s
intent about privatisation,
APM’s offer was adjudged the best,
with ICTSI as “first reserve.” Bids
fro Hutchsion Ports, International
Terminal and Logistics Operators
and PSA International were adjudged
too low and rejected.
The bid winner for both
breakbulk terminals (C and D)
was ENL Consortium (in which
Dublin Port Company has a stake).
However, ENL will have to forfeit
one or the other to the losing
bidder, Michelle Nigeria/Goldstar
Line, as the ground rules for Apapa
forbid any bidder from wining
more than one concession.
Raising a storm
The container terminal award ran
into a storm of controversy, with
accusations that the Bureau of
Public Enterprises (BPE), the government
agency in charge of the
privatisation drive, was replacing
a public monopoly with a private
one. Maersk Sealand and
Safmarine already account for 25
and six per cent respectively of
container traffic at Apapa.
In addition, APM Terminals is
the main shareholder in West Africa
Container Terminal (WACT)
in the Port of Onne on Nigeria’s
Bonny River.
Warnings have been sounded
that other shipping companies
would desert Apapa, which in turn
would only reinforce APM’s stranglehold
on Nigeria’s foreign trade.
The deal has been compared
with the troubled Abidjan concession
to SDV Bolloré in Côte
d’Ivoire and contrasted with what
is widely regarded as the most successful
port privatisation in Africa
to date - Dar-es-Salaam, run first
by ICTSI and now by Hutchison,
both neutral providers without ties
to any shipping lines.
However, BPE is undeterred
by the chorus of opposition. Earlier,
its director general Dr Julius
Bala (since replaced by Irene
Chigbue) had revealed that 22
companies have expressed an interest
in bidding for the contracts
to manage terminals A and B at
Port Harcourt. A pre-bid conference
on the contracts was held last
month. Interested companies and
consortia include Portcon International,
Ocean & Ports Services,
WACT and Bua International.
Grimaldi gets BOOT
The government has drawn up
plans for the construction of several
new facilities. In February, the
NPA announced that it had
awarded Grimaldi a 25-year concession
for a new ro-ro terminal
in Lagos on a BOOT basis. It is
expected to cost US$25 mill to
build. A large proportion of actual
construction work is to be
carried out by the Travi Foundation,
which is based in Nigeria.
WorldCargo
news
Nigeria on the brink of major ports privatisation?
The Nigerian government has put an end to
speculation that the country’s seaports would
“escape” the cold wind of privatisation, but the Apapa
box terminal award has already proved controversial
Construction is expected to
begin within two months and
should be completed by the end
of 2006. Abiye Sekibo, the federal
minister of transport, commented:
“this is the first time a private
company will be wholly building
a port terminal in Nigeria.”
Plans have also been drawn up
for a new deep water port in
Badagry to help provide new capacity
around Lagos in addition
to existing facilities at Apapa and
Tin Can Island. The National Association
of Government Approved
Freight Forwarders has
campaigned for a new port to be
built on the site for several years
and it appears that here, too, a
BOOT contract will be favoured.
The government is keen to develop
one of the country’s ports
as a regional hub port for containers
and bulk traffic and Badagry
could fulfil this role given its deep
water access.
New ports opposed
Some trade bodies, such as the
Association of Nigerian Licensed
Customs Agents (ANCLA), oppose
the new port plans on the
grounds that investment needs to
be concentrated at the country’s
existing facilities. ANCLA fears
that private operators would prefer
to build and manage new ports,
which will not be operational for
years to come, thereby diverting
investment away from NPA ports.
The national chairman of
ANCLA, Ernest Elochukwu,
commented: “One can observe
that the existing ports are not being
fully utilised. Hence, it will
look a bit awkward that money is
being put into constructing new
ports when the existing ones
could easily be upgraded.”
Tariffs changed
Meanwhile, in preparation for the
introduction of greater competition
and private sector management,
various port charges are being
changed. The Nigerian Shippers
Council (NSC) has received
complaints that container charges
have increased by up to 50 per
cent over the past year.
Alraine and Transcap Nigeria
are among the companies reported
to have greatly increased
their rates. At the same time, the
NPA has cut the charges imposed
on shipping lines by 30 per cent
at Calabar and Warri in order to
divert traffic from Lagos.
NPA’s assistant general manager,
corporate affairs, Christopher
Borha, says that both ports are
underused, even by traders based
in the locality. He added that importers
and exporters based in the
east of the country would switch
to Warri and Calabar because of
the lower charges.
The government has a policy
of encouraging traders to use the
port closest to them and increasing
port capacity in regions with
the greatest commercial activity. A
strategy like the current round of
cutting charges at relatively unpopular
ports has been tried in the
past, although with little success.
Legal aspects
Despite its determination to proceed
with reform, the government
has been plagued by a series of
legislative and regulatory problems.
A number of bills have had
to be passed in order to permit
transfer of port management into
the hands of private companies.
Most recently, the process of
transforming the NPA into the
Nigerian Port Commission
(NPC) has taken longer than
planned because of the number of
legislative changes required. The
NPC is to act as the port sector
regulator, once private operators
begin to take control.
Jobs on the line
The government has also finally
admitted the likely scale of NPA
job losses and NPA workers’ representatives
have set down their
demands regarding employees laid
off as a result of the concession
process. While each new port operator
will probably employ new
staff, Sekibo has conceded that up
to 10,000 of the NPA’s 12,000
employees could lose their jobs.
The trade unions have refused to
back down on redundancy payments,
arguing that all staff should
receive large enough payments to
set up their own small businesses.
A presidential task force has
been set up to investigate the financial
terms of redundancy but
the government looks certain to
improve its redundancy offer.
Although some jobs may be
lost in the short term, the government
insists that a more efficient
sector will encourage trade,
increase the importance of the
port sector and eventually lead to
more employment.
Apapa container terminal has been conceded to A P Møller group after an open
tender. Opponents of the deal say it should have gone to a “neutral” operator
Late, but real
In any event, the upshot is that,
after years of delay, the port landlord
model finally looks like being
introduced in Nigeria. The
government hopes that private
sector operators will improve efficiency
and management methods
and at the same time encourage
competition
However, it is likely that some
ports on offer will prove to be far
more attractive than others. The
most contested contracts will
probably be those for the Lagos
ports, which account for over 70
per cent of all Nigerian imports
and exports, and possibly the oil
ports close to the Niger Delta.
After years of stagnation, private
operators can hardly fail to
improve efficiency at Nigeria’s key
ports. The spur to privatisation can
only be quickened by the fact that
the port sector is to be scrutinised
by Nigeria’s Independent Corrupt
Practices Commission (ICPC).
Nigeria is regularly ranked
botton in surveys of corrupt countries
and the ICPC is charged with
changing the perception and the
reality. Nigeria’s Institue of Chartered
Accountants has also called
on the port sector to improve its
accounting procedures. ❏
March 2005 23

WorldCargo
news
Shedding light in a dark place
A new report from the UK’s
House of Lords highlights the
problems and shortcomings
of Channel tunnel through rail
freight services*
Only 2mt passed through the
tunnel last year, just three per cent
of all cross-channel freight. “It’s
running disastrously below capacity,”
declared Lord Woolmer of
Leeds, chairman of the Lords’ European
Union sub-committee B
which carried out the enquiry.
Graham Smith, planning director
of EWS, gave evidence that
there is capacity for more than 6
mta. Lord Berkeley, chairman of
the UK Rail Freight Group
(RFG), said that in a proper competitive
environment the tunnel
could probably handle 20 mta!
According to the pre-tunnel forecasts,
by now it should be 11 mta.
Since it opened in 1994, there
have been paths for 35 freight train
pairs/day between the tunnel and
London on conventional tracks,
but only 6-7 are being used.
When the tunnel opened, the
national railways of Britain, France
* Liberalising Rail Freight Movement
in the EU, report with evidence.
Available on www.parliament.uk
Hard copies cost £20 (HL Paper 52,
ISBN 010 400626 9), available from
The Stationery Office Ltd)
and Belgium were obliged to provide
revenue protection to
Eurotunnel by buying half the
tunnel’s capacity, irrespective of
traffic levels, through the minimum
usage charge (MUC). The
“top up” element of the MUC
was supposed to reduce as traffic
increased. It has stayed high because
traffic has stagnated.
Grabbed the lot
Furthermore, because of the unseemly
haste with which BR was
privatised, EWS was able to force
the British Railways Board to
agree to fund the top-up part of
the MUC as part of the deal to
take over Railfreight Distribution.
So EWS pays Eurotunnel only for
what trains it runs but a “newcomer”
would have to pay the tolls
in full.. This makes it impossible
for anyone else to enter the market
on the British side. The toll
works out 2-3 times more costly
per swap body or container than
using a ferry or Le Shuttle.
On the French side the situation
is even worse in that, in an
effort to cut losses, SNCF Fret appears
to have been passing the full
cost of access onto the customer.
This explains why, in essence, only
some longer distance services
(Spain and Italy) survive.
Last year, for example, ICF
stopped using the tunnel and
switched to Zeebrugge as the railhead
for its British o/d traffic. This
was always limited and never grew
in line with expectations when
ICF set up ACI in 1994.
As it happens, EWS’s funding
arrangements expire at the end of
next month, so on the face of it
from May onwards it will have to
find an extra £25 mill/year to use
the tunnel. Clearly the traffic cannot
bear this and the subsidy will
almost certainly have to be extended
to the end of 2006, when
the MUC regime expires.
But at that point Eurotunnel
itself will be faced with losing
£60-70 mill/year from the
through rail passenger and freight
services operated by Eurostar,
EWS and SNCF Fret. This could
signal its complete collapse.
Of course Eurotunel is in a
precarious position anyway because
it faces maturing debt. At the
time of writing (mid-March),
there are indications that it will
seek debt “waivers” to try and secure
its long-term future.
Plumb loco
Another restraint on through rail
traffic is that EWS, Eurostar and
SNCF control all the approved
locos (class 92s), so any new entrants
would be forced to buy traction
from their competitors.
Class 92s are very expensive to
buy, operate and maintain and
“probably nobody now could afford
to buy them and hope to
operate a competitive service,” said
Freightliner’s director of strategy
Bob Goundry. He explained that
because of the safety requirements
of the tunnel, the class 92s have
100 per cent redundancy, to power
themselves out of the way in the
event of breakdown.
In Goundry’s opinion the
safety rules are largely an “emotional
response to being under the
sea in a tunnel,” as opposed to
being in a long rail tunnel under
a mountain, as in Switzerland or
Italy, for example, where the rules
are less stringent, even though they
have no emergency bore.
There is a difficulty here, however.
Transalpine rail tunnels have
been in service for 80-100 years.
To use a construction analogy, you
do not apply outmoded earthquake
standards to new buildings.
Nevertheless, the Lords recommend
that the British and
French governments consider licensing
other types of locomotive
for use in the tunnel. The class 66
diesel loco is popular in Great
Britain with EWS, Freightliner
and GBRf. It is relatively inexpensive
to buy (around €1.8 mill) and
has a reputation for reliability and
relatively low maintenance costs.
It is not, however, approved for use
in France, or in several other countries
on the continent where electric
traction is preferred.
Transfesa’s president Emilio Fernández:
“Without reforms in France, rail freight
will be dead within just a few years”
RFG chairman Lord Berkeley: “The UK
is cut off from the Continent by France”
Invisible walls
Access conditions and prices are
not the only reasons why, as Lord
Berkeley put it to his fellow peers,
“we feel cut off from the rest of
Europe by France,” where the
political will to open up the network
has been lacking.
RFF, the French track authority,
admitted as much in its written
evidence. The opening of the rail
freight market, it reported, “is
...hindered by concrete and operational
obstacles...self-interested national
behaviour remains dominant
in the [European] rail industry.”
But there are signs of change
in France. Four newcomers now
have operating licenses -
Eurotunnel’s Europorte 2,
Connex Rail Cargo, EWS and,
most recently, Rail-Link, owned
by CMA-CGM. (Rail-Link is
buying traction in France from
SNCF Fret and cutting out the
middle man, CNC - see last
month’s WorldCargo News, p16).
Europorte 2 is also understood
to have been awarded its safety
certificate. In France, an international
operating license and safety
certificate are valid only in relation
to particular traffic flows on
specific routes, so there is no general
freedom to bid for contracts.
Clearly there are opportunities
to frustrate new entrants, but
EWS’s Smith observed that the
process of becoming a licensed
operator in the UK was not simple
either, “so perhaps one should
not be too critical of [France].”
An optimisitc Smith expressed
the view that the French government
now realises that it will have
to accept open access, if only to
allow railway services in France to
become more efficient.
But even if SNCF is instructed
to surrender its traction monopoly,
will the rail unions accept change?
In his oral evidence, Klaus Meyer,
the (then) secretary-general of the
European Rail Freight Association
(the post is now occupied by
Monika Heiming) cited the reluctance
of Connex, as a French
company, to be the first new traction
provider to kill a cheminot lying
on the tracks!
The EU has just given the
“green light” to the 3-year, €1.5 bill
recapitalisation plan for SNCF Fret,
with the French government injecting
€800 mill and SNCF the
rest. A condition is that 18 per cent
of SNCF Fret’s paths be ceded to
new operators, but two key unions,
CGT and Sud Rail, have rejected
this (see also page 1 news).
The inflexiblity, restrictive
practices and industrial relations
problems of French Railways were
attacked byseveral other key witnesses.
“It is almost easier to tell
you when we do not have a problem
in France with industrial action
than when we do,” said Bill
Gurmin, Ford Europe’s director of
material planning and logsitcs. But
he added that rail strikes in Spain
have also caused major problems.
Death knell
Emilio Fernández, president of
INTERMODALISM
Transfesa, Ford’s service provider
on the Spain-Britain route, remarked
that competition for
SNCF Fret as a traction provider
was absolutely vital, otherwise “rail
will be dead in a few years.”
Transfesa, he said, operates 20
regular trains a day which, “when
they cross France become 120
trains...a train has to change driver
six times and the loco four times”
because of the regional management
structure of SNCF and the
reluctance of unions to change.
This has knock-on effects on
reliability because if the train
arrvies late it loses its allotted path
to the next “stop,” as the priority
is given to passenger services.
The frequent driver changes
contrast with the single driver
used for long-distance road transport
in Europe. But if it is wrong
for truck drivers to drive 2500-
3000 kms because “their quality
of life is poor,” why is it right for
train drivers to drive long distances
and not go home at night?
In any event, Fernández stated
that Transfesa has to provide service
to Ford by any means of transport
to guarantee quality and its
recourse to all-road transport and
even air freight has risen as rail
quality has gone down. Ford, he
added, wants to run mixed trains
of finished autos and components,
but SNCF still will not allow this
because of the tariff differences.
Heal thyself!
But not all blame attaches to
France. Environmental Freight
Services, which operates 600 swap
bodies and flat racks mainly between
the UK and Italy via the
tunnel, had plenty to say about
inflexibility and restrictive practices
on the Continent, but it also
believes that the intermodal terminals
at Hams Hall and Daventry
are too small to be cost-effective.
EFS says a large hub is needed
in the centre of England, on the
scale of, say, Dourges (Lille). It also
bemoaned the loss of the 3t advantage
that combi-transport used
to have (44t all-up) and the effects
of the migrants’ crisis. ❏
WCML upgrade
Work has begun to double to
four the tracks between Rugby
and Stafford on the key West
Coast Main Line (WCML).
According to EWS, the project
will help enable the number
of freight trains on the line to
be increased by 70 per cent.
The WCML, says EWS, is
used by 40 per cent of all British
freight trains for at least part
of their run - domestic, portrelated
and Channel tunnel
traffic. EWS itself operates 500
trains/day on the line, equivalent
to 20,000 lorry trips. ❏
Dunkirk and the tunnel
Deepsea containers are not part
of the Channel tunnel freight mix,
but this could change if price and
access issues get sorted. An idea
which has been around for some
time (WorldCargo News, January
2001, p27), is to move ISO containers
through the tunnel from
Dunkirk. This ties in with the
notion of Dunkirk, with its deep
water, easy access from the sea lane,
social peace and ample space, as a
deepsea hub for Britain.
Dunkirk offers three ways to
Britain: lo-lo feeders would follow
the mothership; ro-ro; and rail
through the tunnel to Daventry.
Unfortunately the conventional
lines through Kent are not cleared
for 9ft 6in high cubes without recourse
to special wagons.
The British loading gauge has
always been a barrier to Channel
tunnel usage. In his oral evidence
to the House of Lords, Graham
Smith said that EWS wants to use
the CTRL (when phase 2 is completed)
to move high cube swap
bodies and wagons as far as the
freight sidings at Ripple Lane,
Barking, just north of the Thames.
From there it wants access to
points north and the major freight
centres in West London.
The operating licence of
Eurotunnel’s Europorte 2 in
France covers a route cleared by
RFF for high cube freight from
Mouscron on the Franco-Belgian
border to Calais. Eurotunnel has
dropped its FIRST (Folkestone
intermodal terminal) project but,
as noted, high cube freight could
be moved on the completed
CTRL as far as East London north
of the Thames. ❏
24
March 2005

HEAVY LIFT
Bigger cranes, bigger transport problems
The sheer size of container cranes
makes transporting them fully-erect
more complex and calls for even
more ingenious engineering solutions.
The problem is a function of
higher boom clearance, superpost-
Panamax outreach and wider rail
span required for greater stability.
The only gantry crane dimension
which has not been significantly increased
is width over bumpers, to allow the maximum
number of cranes to work a ship.
Thus it is still possible to transport the
latest generation container cranes in the
original mode, fore and aft, pioneered by
Dock Express (now DockWise). This has
the advantage that less stress is imposed
on the boom during transit as it is subject
only to pitch motion, although the
boom of the second crane may have to
be raised slightly to clear the forward unit.
This method, although faster when
“forklift” loading/discharge is employed
using the Dockwise Dock-type ships with
US coastwise
Two 50ft gauge Hitachi container cranes
have been sold by the Port of Seattle to
Hutchison Ports Holdings (HPH).
Everett, Washington-based Norsar will
transport the cranes by barge and and install
them at Ensenada, in Mexico’s Pacific
Coast Baja California province.
Currently there are two cranes at the
single-berth facility which were sourced
second-hand from Los Angeles and transported
by barge by Bickerton several years
ago. However, the quay wall is being extended
and more back-up land is being
added. Other container crane moves executed
by Bickerton in the region include
two cranes from Seattle to Colón in
Panama and two container cranes from
Los Angeles to Olympia.
The Port of Tampa (TPA) on Florida’s
Gulf Coast has announced that it is
buying three low profile Paceco
Portainers from APM Terminals (APMT)
for installation at phase 1 of its new Hooker’s
Point Container Terminal, which is
operated by SSA Terminals and rail-served
by CSX.
The 100ft gauge, Panamax cranes will
be moved by East Coast Cranes & Electrical
Contracting (EEC) from APMT’s
Port Newark, New Jersey facility and are
expected to be delivered in June this year.
The total cost, including purchase price,
modification, delivery and installation of
the cranes by ECC, as well new substations
on the dock, is put at US$7.3 mill.
The purchase of three sister cranes
brings inherent advantages to miminise
costs and maximise efficiency as parts are
interchangeable and maintenance schedules
are the same, said TPA’s special
projects manager Margaret Norquist.
ECC has previously barged cranes
from the ports of Charleston and Kingston,
Jamaica to the Port of Wilmington
(NC) and last year was awarded a 4-year
crane maintenance contract by APMT
covering terminals in six US states
(WorldCargo News, September 2004, p4)
It has also erected new cranes and RTGs.
for APMT in various US ports as well as
the four new Liebherr cranes at OOIL’s
NYCT, Howland Hook facility. ❏
These low profile, Panamax cranes in Newark
are headed for the Port of Tampa
Detail of ZPMC’s dedicated, self-driven jack
bogie transfer equipment
their extended aft sponsons, can today
normally accommodate just two cranes.
With multiple crane orders now being
placed in batches of three or more, it is a
less than optimum transport solution.
ZPMC quickly realised that
athwartship stow enables more cranes to
be carried on each voyage. It has developed
a highly professional and efficient
operation to cope with the size and mass
of latest generation container cranes in
an inclusive package which can, space
permitting, include RTGs/RMGs as well.
Lift on, roll off
Originally, ZPMC employed a 1600
tonne capacity floating crane, of its own
design and construction, to lift fully-erect
cranes onto the ship deck as there was
insufficient depth alongside to allow the
ships it employs to ballast down to quay
height for the cranes to be rolled on.
Its new Shanghai plant has a longer
quay designed specifically to allow the
vessels to be loaded alongside. Lifting
cranes onboard still appears the favoured
option, as less time is required alongside.
But it is now possible to load more than
one ship simultaneously, as the assembled
cranes can be lifted aboard or rolled on
over the quay.
Crane discharge is, however, more crucial
as it is undertaken away from the
Chinese manufacturing base with its large
WorldCargo
news
resources of both manpower and equipment
and in the full view of the client.
Additionally, for a working terminal, there
is considerable pressure to achieve a fast
discharge to minimise disruption to normal
operations.
Dedicated carrier
With larger cranes, sea fastenings and
structural support during the voyage
come under closer scrutiny, mainly due
to the greater weight and length of the
boom, when the crane is carried in the
athwartship position, over the ship’s side.
ZPMC, as a dedicated crane carrier, has
invested in significant engineering and
standardised structural systems to counter
this problem. Dockwise similarly has
considerable investment in back room engineering
staff but as a general purpose
March 2005 25

WorldCargo
news
HEAVY LIFT
Early this month two cranes were delivered by ZHEN HUA 1 to the jointly
managed COSCO-SSA Terminal on Pier J at the Port of Long Beach...
heavy lift carrier serving a wide
range of clients, it cannot justify
investment in dedicated crane fastening,
support and skidding systems
as this business represents
only a small share of its activities.
It is with high profile moves
of massive structures such as BP’s
59,500-ton semi-submersible
THUNDER HORSE platform, from
Korea to Corpus Christi, USA,
where DockWise has no peers.
This module measures 155.95m
long, with a beam of 113.88m and
a height of 132.10m!
Own bogies
ZPMC has developed its own
crane discharge system, which can
also be employed for load-out
operations at the new plant,
whereby the bogies do not have
to be turned when the crane is
placed over the quayside rails and
instead can be kept in their normal
operating position.
This is a more expensive solution
than installing conventional
temporary rails and employing a
static jacking system, as each ship
has to be equipped with a complete
set of the specially designed
system. But it has the advantage
that the bogies will not extend
over the ship’s side as crane rail
gauge dimensions increase.
The system features a special
self-jacking bogie which operates
on its own rail. One of these
wheeled jacking systems is placed
under the centre section of a crane
bogie, requiring eight in total and
four sets of temporary rails and
bridging pieces. When positioned,
the jacks are activated using a selfcontained
hydraulic power pack.
The crane bogies are then lifted
clear, allowing the jacks to be
chocked. This prevent any loss of
hydraulic presksure which could
lead to a dangerous situation.
Although wheel loads are relatively
high at around 75 tonnes
for a 1200 tonne crane, this factor
is taken into consideration when
laying the temporary rails and
bridging connection. Once the
crane is lifted clear, it is pulled
along the rails until it is in position
above the quayside rails and
then lowered onto them. As the
transport bogies are less tall than
the main crane bogies, they can
then be rolled free.
Brace yourself
Wherever possible, ZPMC has
standardised on sea fastening and
crane support. The main problem,
which is exacerbated with an
athwartship stow, is that of the
boom support. As ZPMC tends to
supply twin girder boom designs,
it has been possible to standardise
on a substantial support bracing
welded between the underside of
the boom and the portal frame.
However, for specific circumstances,
this may not always be
sufficient as the larger this boom
support becomes, so too does the
mass outside the ship’s hull and
higher stress levels are imposed in
the crane’s main frame.
For some ultra-long booms,
ZPMC has developed a novel
strengthening system used in conjunction
with the under-boom
support comprising a horizontal
support beam fitted to the upper
boom above the trolley rails.
As this alone will not provide
...the ship then sailed north to Oakland and is seen here clearing the Golden
Gate (above) and Oakland Bay bridges. In the semi-collapsed transport position,
the two cranes had an overall height of 210ft, 31ft less than their normal
position with boom upright, to ensure clearance. The crew anchored the ship
outside the Golden Gate bridge for 2-3 days to fold down the apexes and then
wait for the right weather and tidal conditions. Landed cost of the 1500 ton
cranes at Oakland’s Berth 32 is US$7 mill each. Four RTGs were also delivered
adequate strengthening, a vertical
stanchion is mounted in the centre
of the beam which is fitted
with strengthening ties to either
end of the beam. This provides a
stiffer support and stops the boom
from flexing.
Stiffening up
This solution had to be employed
early this month when ZHEN HUA
1 delivered four giant cranes and
four RTGs to California ports.
Two cranes for Long Beach were
delivered first and rolled off using
the in-house, jacking bogies, but
the two cranes for Oakland also
had to be lowered to clear the
Golden Gate and Bay bridges.
Conventional practice would
normally require the complete
boom and machinery house to be
lowered between the portal legs
and then jacked up into position
on arrival. However, this configuration
would have complicated the
prior discharge of the two Long
Beach cranes and it was decided
to transport all four cranes in the
normal position.
After the Long Beach discharge,
the ship sailed north and,
on arrival outside San Francisco
Bay, anchored off to await the right
tidal conditions and enable the
crew to carry out the required
lowering work. The A-frames,
which were pinned, were swung
forward through a special temporary
reeving system. The A-frame
stays are specially designed to slide
forward to allow the structure to
be winched back in position once
the crane was alongside. As the A-
frame in its semi-lowered position
cannot support the boom, which
would only be propped up by the
temporary under-boom strengthening
structure, it was necessary
to employ the tensioned beam
above the twin boom.
The photographs above also
show what appears to be a tangle
of ropes hanging from the boom.
But this was only temporary when
the A-frame was dropped as the
wires cannot be tensioned, and
was acceptable for the short transits
under the bridges.
The height of the cranes, using
this novel system was reduced
from 241ft to 210ft, which allowed
the ship to clear the Golden Gate
Bridge with a 15ft clearance with
the ship also ballasted to its absolute
minimum freeboard. The Bay
Bridge was even tighter with only
6ft clearance. The A-frames were
then winched back into position
and the cranes discharged, again
with the mobile self-jacking bogies
and rails. ❏
Umm Qasr deliveries
Liebherr Werk Nenzing’s contract
last summer from the Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA) to
deliver two LHM 400 harbour
mobile cranes to Umm Qasr was
obviously difficult because of the
dangerous conditions in Iraq.
The cranes could not be delivered
directly for safety and insurance
reasons but only with an
intermediate stop in Ras-Al-
Khaimah. Here the semi-erect
cranes were transloaded onto a
samll barge in a delicate ro-ro
operation organised by Liebherr
and its local agent Naran General
Trading. The jibs and some smaller
parts were transported separately.
Naran’s contacts and local
knowledge also proved invaluable
in helping Liebherr’s service engineers
erect and commission the
cranes in Umm Qasr at such a difficult
time. The two cranes,
equipped with twinlift spreaders
and the Cycoptronic sway control
system, have given invaluable
service and been extensively used,
says Liebherr. In the week designated
for training before the official
handover to the CPA, 17
barges were unloaded. ❏
26
March 2005

CARGO HANDLING
Automated thoughts about yard cranes
S
everal manufacturers have reported
increased interest in RMGs recently,
both for “greenfield” developments
and from straddle carrier terminals under
capacity constraints. APM Terminals,
for example, is thought to be close to closing
a deal for automated RMGs for its
new facility in Hampton Roads, Virginia.
They will be used with shuttle carriers.
In Australia, Patrick Stevedores last
year ordered five RMGs from Man Takraf
for the combined gate and rail interface
at its Botany terminal; its long term plan
for the CY includes RMGs and shuttle
carriers. P&O Ports is considering RMGs
for Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
Automation is driving much of the
interest in RMGs. Improvements in components
such as lasers and other sensors
have made it easier and cheaper to automate
and control remotely. Automation
requires more capital investment initially
but the time required to begin achieving
cost savings has reduced considerably.
Gwangyang plan
Korea Container Terminal Authority
(KCTA) still plans to automate the second
stage of the third phase planned for
Gwangyang and a 5-year terminal design
and equipment development phase has
been completed. The design has changed
greatly over that period and its latest incarnation
is based on CTA Hamburg and
no longer on ECT Rotterdam.
KCTA’s port automation team manager,
Young-Man Park, states that the yard
system for a 3-berth terminal requires 42
ASCs and 63 AGVs. The equipment and
IT systems cost (including nine quay
cranes) is calculated at US$250 mill compared
to US$180 mill for an RTG yard
operation. Running costs are calculated
at US$55 mill/year for the automated facility
compared to US$68 mill for a
manned operation, a difference of US$13
mill. An automated system, says Park, “is
[thus] superior to a conventional terminal
after five years of operation.”
Of course existing terminals do not
have the option to move to automation
in a single step but the greater use of automated
cranes has more terminals thinking
about a migration path and, therefore,
considering RMGs.
Sceptical
But not everyone is convinced and Modern
Terminals Ltd (MTL) in Hong Kong
is taking out its older Hitachi RMGs and
their rails at berth five and replacing them
with RTGs. MTL’s retiring managing director
Erik Bøgh Christensen explains
that the current RMGs stack only 4-high
and the company wants 6-high stacking.
This could easily be achieved with new
RMGs. The main reason for changing to
RTGs is to have the flexibility to move
equipment between stacks.
MTL considered automation but
Christensen says the major concern was
the apparent inability of automated yards
to match the productivity of a manned
operation. Current contracts require 120-
130 moves per ship hour and the yard
equipment must be able to support this.
It is often assumed that RTGs are
unsuitable for automation but this is not
necessarily the case. Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries is involved in a project to install
automated RTGs at a new terminal
in Nagoya being developed by Tobishima
Container Berth Company (TCB).
As previously reported (WorldCargo
News, March 2004, p30), TCB has ordered
12 fully automated RTGs for the first of
two new berths on the south side of
Tobishima Pier. All the machines will be
fitted with cabs and tested with AGVs in
a restricted area before TCB makes a decision
whether to proceed with automation
across the whole yard. The first berths
are scheduled to open this December.
Fast forward
Of course the “RTG versus RMG” debate
is as old as containerisation but it
can be “fast-forwarded” 40 years by taking
into account the size and speeds of
modern machines and, as noted, developments
in automation. A good summary
of the “pros and cons” is the guide (page
28) from TM GE Automation Systems
LLC, the company set up by GE and
Toshiba Mitsubishi Electric Industrial
Systems Corporation (TMEIC), itself a
joint venture of Toshiba Corporation and
Mitsubishi Electric.
Rubber costs
The parameters and comments are fairly
straightfroward, although some invite a
more detailed look. Take tyre costs, for
example. David Stocker, TM GE’s technology
leader, crane automation systems,
says he has heard of “rubber costing as
much as 40 per cent of the recurring, nonlabour
costs in RTG terminals, or even
more than diesel fuel.”
This is based on 8-wheel RTG designs
and Stocker concedes that RTG-16
designs may result in less tyre wear due
to contra-rotation when turning and the
lower procurement costs of standard tyre
sizes. But he thinks that the tyre cost will
still be significant.
Similarly, TM GE has not had much
feedback from operators who use RTGs
which dispense altogether with hydraulics.
Kalmar’s E-One design is new this
year but the Konecranes’ RTG-16 has
been around for more than 10 years and
has been particularly successful in North
and Central America.
In one known case, Oslo, RTGs are
powered off the mains through a flexible
cable instead of the onboard diesel gen
set. TM GE considers that maintenance
costs for the power delivery system could
be as high as those of a diesel shop.
The electrical power supply probably
does not require continuous maintenance
and should, therefore, have a low general
operational cost. However, the cost of failures
would tend to be more catastrophic
to the operation than in the case of the
diesels, says Stocker.
Perhaps TM GE’s most controversial
comment is the one about driver train-
Bogie section from Kalmar’s new E-One RTG
WorldCargo
news
March 2005 27

WorldCargo
news
CARGO HANDLING
ing being even more important
with RTGs than RMGs. This does
not mean that automated long
travel steering systems do not
work, but questions whether they
are worth the extra investment.
New retro thinking
The most spectacular example of
this “new retro” thinking today is
PSA. It is not only reverting to a
manned RTG operation for Pasir
Panjang phase II, but has also rejected
all automation sub-systems
such as automated gantry stering
and electronic sway control.
Its philosophy is to get the
driver to do the work; otherwise
it pays not only him but also for
the price and maintenance of the
automation systems. Not everyone
thinks like this, of course - indeed,
PSA’s local arch rival, PTP
Tanjung Pelepas, has just completed
the retrofit of Kalmar’s
Smartrail automated long travel
steering and container position
determination system to all its
RTGs (none of which were furnished
by Kalmar itself). Similarly,
Dubai Ports Authority had
SmartRail (retro-)fitted to all
RTGs at Jebel Ali, while
Konecranes has used the Savcor
system in several installations.
However, PSA’s “pragmatism”
may well influence o0ther ports’
thinking. Either automate completely
(and PSA tried it Pasir
Panjang phase 1) or not at all.
Stocker himself asks rhetorically:
how often do you actually
see semi-automation systems in
use on manned cranes? “We have
supplied full electronic sway control
on every dockside GE and
TMGE crane control system for
years, but I would be surprised if
even a handful were actually operating
with it switched on.”
In his view, the prudent way
to invest in advanced technology
is to go for unmanned cranes. As
it transpires, for some time TMGE
Comparison of RTGs and RMGs for container yards
Operational issues RTG RMG Comment
Suitability for automation √ RMGs are a much easier platform for automation
Cycle time √ > 20 moves/hour is typical for RMGs
Yard capacity √ Up to 50 % more with RMG due to higher stacking
Flexibility √ Easy to move RTGs within yard or even to other yards
Crane speeds √ Especially faster gantry speeds for RMG
Stack height √ RMGs more efficient in equivalent operations
Crane stability √ RMGs are more stable platforms, allowing for more
accurate and faster stacking
Process variability √ RMG structure provides for less process variation
(especially in an automated yard)
Infrastructure requirements
Ground preparation √ RMGs require a rail system and are generally more
sensitive to ground settling
Small available yard area √ RMGs are especially suited to long, thin yard areas
Large available yard area √ Large areas favour RTGs with lower stacking
(eg 1 over 4)
Power system √ RMGs require electrical distribution system
Network connection √ Relatively difficult to make network connection to RTGs
Human factors
Safety √ Easier to contain RMG motions in designated area
Driver training √ RTGs must have well-trained, diligent drivers for safety
Operating costs
Tyres √ Rubber is a major operating cost for RTGs
Power system √ RMG electrical system is more efficient than RTG diesel
Environmental impact
Air quality √ RMGs use clean electrical power, versus RTG’s diesel
Noise √ RMGs run more quietly than RTGs
Maintenance costs
General maintenance √ RTGs more prone to break down (complex hydraulics)
Elec. maintenance costs √ RMGs require more electrical expertise
Diesel maintenance costs √ RTGs require skilled diesel mechanics
Source: TM GE Automation Systems LLC
has been negotiating a major
RMG automation retrofit project.
The contract is understood to be
close to finalisation.
Busy times
Orders for RTGs are still “flying
high.” Kalmar has notched up a
big order for its new E-one electric
RTG design which also aids
its strategy of expanding its presence
in Asia. Gateway Terminals
India Pvt Ltd (GTI), the joint venture
of A P Møller and Container
Corporation of India, has ordered
29 E-One RTGs for its new terminal
at Nhava Sheva, Mumbai.
The first 12 will be delivered
to the terminal in early 2006 with
the remaining 17 due to arrive
mid-year. Some machines will be
assembled at Kalmar’s new facility
in Shanghai, where some parts
of the structures will also be fabricated.
GTI has specified
Smartrail automated steering and
automatic container position determination
for all of the 50t
SWL, 7 + 1/1 over 5 machines.
RTGs which dispense with
hydraulics are not new but Kalmar
is trying to broaden their appeal
with its E-One design which it
can produce at a very competitive
price. It is understood that its
tender for the GTI project came
in lower than ZPMC’s.
In Valparaíso, Terminal Pacífico
Sur (TPS) is taking delivery of two
ZPMC quay cranes later this year
and considered ZPMC RTGs that
could be delivered at the same
time. However, in the event it
opted for two E-Ones (World-
Cargo News, February 2004, p3).
TPS’s general manager
Alejandro Bärthold says that the
deal clincher for TPS was the E-
One’s competitive maintenance
features, including its service interval
of up to 1000 hours for both
the crane and the engine, which,
said Kalmar in a statement “is unmatched
by all other brands.”
In the US, OOIL’s Global
Terminals in New Jersey has ordered
its first E-Ones. The two 6
+ 1/1 over 5s, slated for delivery
this September, will take Global’s
fleet of Kalmar RTGs to 10 units.
Kalmar has also reported new
orders for “conventional” RTGs
in China. China National Technical
Import & Export Corp
(CNITEC) has ordered three 6 +
1/1 over 5s for delivery this August
to Shanghai Yangshan
Deepwater Port. Cosco’s
Yangzhou Yuanyang International
Ports Co on the Yangtze River has
ordered two similar size machines
for delivery this September.
Key reference
CNTIEC is a large state-owned
corporation specialising in project
management and tendering for
large infrastructure projects. It has
managed phases I to V at
Waigaoqiao and is responsible for
tendering for Phase I and II of the
Shanghai Yangshan Deepwater
Port Project (Phase I/Phase II).
The Kalmar RTGs are for a
logistics facility and not the main
container terminal but they still
represent an opportunity for
Kalmar to establish a relationship
with CNITEC.
Competing on price with
ZPMC is problematic for a foreign
player but Ken Loh, Kalmar’s
president, Asian operations says
that “it no longer just comes down
to the lowest price in China. Each
port has sophisticated buyers who
have years of experience in operating
container terminals,. They
know the problems that can arise
if they buy equipment without a
comprehensive service package.”
Kalmar’s new assembly plant in
Shanghai’s Lingang Industrial Park
is at the foot of the bridge to
Yangshan and is intended to begin
manufacturing equipment to
serve major port developments in
China, such as the new Yang Shan
facility and across the wider Asia
region by the end of the year.
West coast boost
KCI Konecranes’ success in the
US with its electric RTG-16 is
continuing and it has just picked
up its first order from a port operation
on the US west coast, in
the shape of seven 50t SWL, 6 +
1/1 over 5 machines for the Pier
400, Los Angeles terminal of APM
Terminals (APMT).
APMT is Konecranes’ biggest
customer for RTGs, with a total
of 34 machines in operation in
Elizabeth (NJ), Norfolk (Va) and
Houston (Tx). Other leading US
customers include the ports of
Baltimore, Savannah, Charleston
and Houston. Konecranes’ breakthrough
on the USWC range
came last year, when BNSF ordered
two RTG-16s for its Hobart,
Los Angeles intermodal yard.
Fully-supported by Konecranes’
service team, APMT’s latest
machines will include sway
prevention and fine positioning
features. Ever since it launched the
RTG design in 1994, Konecranes
has claimed that elminating the
hydraulics and utilising its own ac
drive system significantly reduces
maintenance costs and improves
reliability. The design is now in its
“third generation,” with a claimed
uptime, as a share of available
hours, of 99.75 per cent.
Gulf opening
As reported in the news (p3), new
entrant Gulf Port Cranes (GPC),
Abu Dhabi has notched up important
orders. The units for
Gdynia (Hutchsion) and Cochin
were built by GPC for stock to
ensure short lead times. Those for
Mauritius were won on a tender.
GPC’s director Peter Hessey
explains that GPC has financing
in place to build 12 RTGs/year
without firm contracts. This approach
is particularly advantageous
to global terminal operators as
they are often awarded operating
rights at existing facilities in need
of investment urgently (eg
Hutchsion in Gdynia). Offering a
short delivery time is often more
appealing than other options such
as leasing, relocating machines
from other terminals or trying to
find second-hand units.
The frame of the off-the-shelf
machines is a 6 + 1/1 over 5
RTG-8 - the most common in the
market. Standard SWL is 40t but
the portal structure is designed to
lift 50t under FEM standards. If
twinlift is required then the drives,
motors, gen-set, etc are upgraded
accordingly. Specifying components
for an off-the-shelf machine
can be problematical, but Hessey
says that GPC avoids difficulties
by staying with reputable, high
quality suppliers that operators
know and trust.
Engines are from Caterpillar,
gearboxes from Flender, brakes
28
March 2005

CARGO HANDLING
WorldCargo
news
Liebherr RTG at DFT Dublin and (below)
two RMGs have now been commissioned for
O’Connor group in Widnes, England (this
photograph from Freightliner)
mise trolley width. The gearbox has to
absorb the full weight of the hoist, instead
of ≈ 50 per cent with straight falls
and is thus more expensive. Liebherr considers,
however, that an operator will pay
the premium for the extra efficiency. The
cost is also offset by the lack of need for
electronic anti-sway systems and their associated
maintenance costs.
Certain parts of the market have accepted
this argument and Liebherr reports
a strong, but selective interest. Liebherr
has not positioned itself in the volume
sector. Its mainstream products are shipto-shore
cranes and RTG sales tend to
be very much a result of previous gantry
crane orders by the same operator.
The Ireland-based company currently
has 10 RTGs on order, of which five are
destined for Montreal - three for Cast and
two for Termont. Gulftainer is taking two
more units and one more is going to
Dublin Ferry Terminals, which originally
started its RTG operation with Kalmar
machines. Two have been ordered by ABP
Connect for Immingham - Liebherr’s first
RTG order in the UK (although two
cantilevered RMGs were recently commissioned
at O’Connor Group’s Widnes
intermodal railhead). ABP’s RTGs are 8-
wheelers with ac drives and have a 7 +
1/1 over 5 configuration. All these RTG
operators have, or will have, Liebherr shipto-shore
cranes.
Green machines
It practically goes without saying that the
most prolific RTG supplier is ZPMC,
which currently lists more than 250 machines
for delivery in calendar 2005, of
some 75 are for customers outside China
(including Hong Kong SAR).
But ZPMC does not wish to be known
just as a “volume supplier.” It has started
offering its new Green RTG design which,
as previously reported, is based on a supercapacitor
as an accumulator connected to
the electrical unit, eliminating black smoke
from the diesel generator and providing
regenerative energy to achieve a claimed
11-13 per cent fuel saving.
This could be a big selling point on
the USWC port range, where air quality
is at the very top of the environmental
agenda. Sound output from the
diesel engine is also said to be reduced
by up to 4-5 dB. The price premium
for the green RTG is around 10 per
cent compared to ZPMC’s conventional
RTG design. ❏
Konecranes RTG in Houston. The latest order
“stateside” has come from major customer APM
Terminals for Pier 400, Los Angeles - a
breakthrough on the NAWC ports range
from Bubenzer, alternators from Leroy
Somer or Stamford and the all-electric
spreader from Bromma. Igus or
Cavtoec cable carriers are fitted instead
of a conventional festoon. Some “nonintelligent”
components are sourced
from China, including sheaves and the
E-house structure.
Along with its off-the-shelf strategy
GPC is looking to utilise the considerable
production capacity at Abu Dhabi
to respond to tenders for larger projects.
It bid on the GTI project for 29 RTGs
that, as noted, was won by Kalmar, and
was shortlisted along with ZPMC.
Abu Dhabi is well located to serve the
Gulf and sub-continent. Sometimes a
shorter shipping route offers an advantage
over China’s low fabrication costs, as
a relatively small percentage of the value
of an RTG is in the steel structure.
Incremental progress
Although Kalmar is marketing its all-electric
RTG as a hi-tech breakthrough, the
technology employed is widely available
on the open market. Replacing the chain
drive to the outer wheels (a feature
adopted from its straddle carrier designs)
with a shaft drive was a natural development,
while the use of an all-electric
spreader with fixed gather guides is open
to any RTG manufacturer.
Liebherr, for example, offers this
spreader (from Bromma) as an option.
While Liebherr does not (yet?) offer electric
steering, its hydraulic cylinder steering
is employed only for changing rows,
where the wheels have to rotate 90 deg.
Gantry orientation - ie steering during
long travel operations - is carried out,
as with the Kalmar system, through differential
speed control of the opposite
drive motors. This is fully automatic if a
DGPS control system is fitted. If an operator
does not specify this, driver-controlled
dynamic steering is fitted, whereby
the driver controls long travel through a
joystick controller. This is also available
for a DGPS-steered RTG as back-up.
Stiff reeving
Liebherr claims a 30-35 per cent improvement
in handling cycles, following comparisons
it made with similar size, abeit
marginally older, RTGs from another supplier
operating in a Middle East terminal.
This increase in efficiency, which the
company claims can add 2-3 moves/hour,
is due to a very stiff reeving arrangement
which dampens sway to the point where
it is practically non-existent.
The reeving system does not employ
any auxiliary control, such as PLC-controlled
tugger winches or hydraulic cylinders,
but relies on a traditional, sound
engineering approach of spacing the
spreader wires as far apart as possible while
still allowing an 8ft spread at the point of
entry into the stack.
This is achieved by four pairs of rope
running back to a single, 8-compartment
hoist drum driven through a planetary
gearbox. The planetary gearbox is specified
as it reduces the overall dimensions
of the gearbox and drum length to mini-
March 2005 29

WorldCargo
news
CONTAINER INDUSTRY
Box prices cast shadow over leasing boom
he boom in the container
While most things in the leasing company garden are
leasing sector is now in
T its third year and there is rosy, rising box prices remain a concern
little on the horizon to suggest
that it will not continue through
2005 and beyond.
World trade is estimated to have
increased by close to 9 per cent last
year and a similar rate is predicted
for the current year. With a vast
amount of new containership tonnage
slated to enter service this year
and next and the Chinese economy
continuing to race ahead, all the
signs are positive for a continuation
of the strong level of demand
for leased equipment seen since the
upturn started in mid-2002.
While the pick-up in the post-
Chinese New Year period has admittedly
been slower this year than
last, with the result that around
600,000 TEU of new inventory
is currently sitting on the ground
in China, divided roughly equally
between shipping lines and leasing
companies, most lessors are
confident that April and May will
see most of this equipment on the
move. Textainer president John
Maccarone sums up the mood: “At
a local level, every customer we
have spoken to is bullish and optimistic.
By the end of April we
will start digging into stocks.”
More of the same?
Box lessors took delivery of a
record 1.3 mill TEU of new containers
last year, comprising 1.245
mill TEU of standard dry freight
equipment and 55,000 TEU of
specials, up by 18 per cent on the
1.1 mill TEU built a year earlier.
Going into 2005, most lessors
were anticipating building to a
similar level this year and, all things
being equal, they would probably
do so. The continuing rise in new
box prices, driven in part by ongoing
increases in the price of corten
steel, however, is beginning to
worry the leasing sector to the extent
that several players are having
second thoughts about the volume
they will buy this year.
Triton Container International,
for example, built over 280,000
TEU of dry freight equipment in
2004 but, depending on the movement
of container prices, now anticipates
a production closer to
200,000 TEU this year.
Similarly, Capital Lease, after a
relatively quiet year in 2004, was
looking to build 200,000 TEU this
year but has scaled that projection
back to 120-130,000 TEU. “What
we would like to do is not necessarily
what we will do,” said Capital
chairman Ian Karan. “The market
will decide.”
Not surprisingly, the industry is
wary of being caught in the same
trap that it was in 2001/2002, when
Table 1: Current fleets of major leasing companies (rounded TEU)
Leasing company Total fleet Dry freight* Other type**
Jan 2005
Triton Container 1,390,000 1,340,000 50,000
Textainer Group 1,155.000 1,155,000 -
GE SeaCo 990,000 805,000 185,000
Florens 915,000 880,000 35,000
TAL International 900,000 845,000 55,000
Interpool*** 810,000 790,000 20,000
CAI 590,000 590,000 -
Capital Lease 462,000 460,000 2,000
Cronos Containers 425,000 400,000 25,000
Gateway Container 320,000 320,000 -
Gold Container 260,000 260,000 -
UES 220,000 215,000 5,000
Carlisle Leasing 108,000 - 108,000
Amficon 100,000 100,000 -
Waterfront Cont 95,000 95,000 -
Grand View Dev 85,000 85,000 -
Blue Sky Intermodal 25,000 25,000 -
Other 450,000 205,000 245,000
Total 9,300,000 8,570,000 730,000
*Dry freight standard, high cube and special. **Reefer, tank, flatrack,
palletwide and domestic. ***includes units on finance lease
Table 2: Major leasing companies’ 2004 purchases (rounded TEU)
Leasing company Total Dry freight* Other type**
Triton Container 290,000 282,000 8,000
Florens 170,000 168,000 2,000
Textainer Group 150,000 150,000 -
GE SeaCo 125,000 108,000 17,000
TAL International 95,000 93,000 2,000
UES 75,000 75,000 -
CAI 65,000 65,000 -
Cronos Container 55,000 50,000 5,000
Gold Container 50,000 50,000 -
Capital Lease 45,000 43,000 2,000
Grand View Dev 30,000 30,000 -
Gateway Container 30,000 30,000 -
Blue Sky Intermodal 25,000 25,000 -
Interpool*** 25,000 25,000 -
Carlisle Leasing 13,000 - 13,000
Amficon 10,000 10,000 -
Waterfront Cont 5,000 5,000 -
Other 42,000 36,000 6,000
Total 1,300,000 1,245,000 55,000
Replacement 560,000 520,000 40,000
Addition 740,000 725,000 15,000
*Dry freight standard, high cube and special. **Reefer, tank, flatrack,
palletwide and domestic. ***includes units on finance lease
Doubts surface over
future of GE SeaCo
Ongoing rumours that all may not
be well in the marriage between
GE Capital Corporation and Sea
Containers have been substantiated
after Sea Containers president
Jim Sherwood revealed that the
two parties are in discussion about
the future of the 50:50 GE SeaCo
joint venture.
So divided are the two partners,
it appears, that GE SeaCo,
which was formed in 1997 to
operate the combined fleets of Sea
Containers and the former
Genstar Container Corporation,
could be put up for sale unless the
differences can be resolved.
Speaking in a conference call
and live webcast to discuss Sea
Containers’ 2004 results, Sherwood
said that GE had served a
numbver of legal documents on
Sea Containers in relation to the
dispute. “We are in daily contact
to try to resolve our differences
but I do not rule out litigation,”
he said.
“We have a difference of opinion
with GE Capital as to how
the [GE SeaCo] business is to be
managed and carried forward,”
Sherwood said. “They have forced
on the company some steps,
which we think are wrong and
which are going to reduce profitability
of the business. They are
insisting on certain changes being
made to the business, which we
think will be destructive.
“Essentially the issue is that GE
is trying to coerce Sea Containers
into bearing more overhead
expense of the joint venture,”
Sherwood said. He indicated that
the amount of costs that GE
wishes to transfer from GE SeaCo
to Sea Containers was substantial.
Noting that GE SeaCo’s overhead
costs had increased substantially
over the past 18 months as
sterling has strengthened against
the dollar, Sherwood said, “We feel
that the fact the pound has
strengthened against the dollar
should not be held against us, but
they are holding it against us and
are raising a number of issues relating
to the costs of the company.”
He acknowledged, however,
that the issue had to be addressed
and said the company was considering
moving some of its activities
to a location in the Far East
“where we could perform a
number of these tasks on a much
less costly basis than in London.”
In response to a direct question
as to whether a third party
might be sought to take over the
GE SeaCo operation, Sherwood
said, “You are absolutely correct,
this is the direction the dispute is
likely to take.”
Tt was a great disappointment,
Sherwood said, that a dispute
should break out over the operation
of GE SeaCo “which has had
such a successful run - and here
we are in a bull market for containers.”
Sherwood said he did not
know what GE’s intentions were,
but if the company were sold,
both GE and Sea Containers
would receive an enormous profit
as the value of the business is far
in excess of the equity that is invested
in it.
Sherwood also criticised GE
for its policy of aggressively selling
containers from the pool fleet
- that managed by GE SeaCo but
owned individually by GE and Sea
Containers. He said these containers
could be leased out very profitably
by the joint venture and GE
was, therefore, depriving Sea Containers
of a share of those revenues.
“They have that right as does Sea
Containers,” he said, “but it’s a friction
between us.
“Obviously they are trying to
force a reduction in overhead so
they can sell their shares at a higher
price - that’s what it’s all about,”
Sherwood concluded. ❏
30
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CONTAINER INDUSTRY
WorldCargo
news
new container prices nosedived to
US$1200 or less per standard 20ft dry
freight box, making a nonsense of book
values and making remarketing of existing
units difficult in the extreme.
Increased margins
This time around, however, there is little
question of box prices falling dramatically,
even if steel prices were to fall back to previous
levels. Chinese manufacturers have
used steel price increases and uncertainty
over supply to push up their margins considerably
and as long as demand continues
at the current level, they are unlikely to
cede those gains.
Rather the question is will prices rise
further? In the fourth quarter of last year,
the ex-works price in China of a 20ft container
of average leasing company specification
was hovering around the
US$2000 mark, compared with under
US$1400 in the fourth quarter of 2003.
During the year, the price of corten steel
rose from US$370/tonne to US$600/
tonne, adding around US$390 to the
material cost, while apitong plywood rose
from US$450/m 3 to US$600/m 3 , adding
a further US$55. Much of the rest of the
increase went straight on to the manufacturers’
bottom line.
Depending on location, quotes for April
2005 production are currently running at
around US$2275-2320. In the interim, the
price of corten steel has risen to US$680-
720/tonne, adding a further US$200 to the
base price, while the plywood price is unchanged.
The rest of this year’s price hike
can be attributed to minor increases in
other material costs, increases in overhead
costs (particularly power supplies) - and
more on the manufacturers’ bottom line.
The world’s largest box builder. China
International Marine Containers (CIMC)
estimates that its net profit in the first quarter
of this year will rise 400 per cent year
on year to US$22.32 mill on a production
of around 360,000 TEU. That comes on
top of a 250 per cent increase in net profit
in 2004. “Our margins for the first quarter
have not been much affected by the rise in
steel prices thanks to soaring container
prices and abundant orders,” a spokesman
told the Shanghai Securities News.
Ominously, a spokesperson for CIMC
told WorldCargo News that “uncertainties
exist which may lead to further price increases
in the rest of the year.”
“We are certainly concerned about
where prices are going,” said Brian Sondey,
president of TAL International, which is
looking to build up to 130,000 TEU this
year. “We are controlling the situation by
not going too long and limiting our uncommitted
orders to 20-25,000 TEU.”
Textainer agrees. The company ordered
54,000 TEU for delivery through April and
is now looking to place “a large order” for
production in May. “We are waiting to see
the response of the manufacturers,”
Maccarone said. “There are indications that
some of the smaller manufacturers will offer
more competitive prices.”
Extra capacity
If there is a glimmer of light at the end of
this particular tunnel, it may come not so
much in the form of a miraculous drop in
steel prices or an unwanted dip in demand
that would encourage manufacturers to cut
more competitive deals, but rather in the
shape of a substantial slice of new box building
capacity.
As reported on page 1 of this issue,
over 1 mill TEU/year of new dry freight
production capacity is scheduled to come
on stream in China over the next 12
months, pushing total annual capacity up
to the 5 mill TEU mark, which is around
twice last year’s actual production figure.
The manufacturers will want to fill
those lines as quickly as possible, which
may, in itself, be sufficient to put downward
pressure on prices.
And it would only take a small reduction
in demand, and a small fall in steel
prices, to accelerate that process further.
The leasing industry lives in hope that
this will be the case. ❏
TAL back into chassis
Following its takeover late last year by
The Jordan Company/Klesch & Co (see
WorldCargo News December 2004, p1),
TAL International has announced that
it is re-entering the chassis leasing business
in the US.
The company withdrew from the
container chassis market in 2000 when
previous owner, Dutch insurer Aegon,
sold Transamerica Leasing’s North
American intermodal division to
Interpool in a US$675 mill deal.
Interpool subsequently sold the
intermodal trailer and US domestic
container components of this fleet to
TIP Intermodal Services, retaining the
chassis fleet for its Trac Lease operation.
But with Xtra Intermodal selling its
chassis fleet to Flexi-Van last year, leaving
only two major players in the market,
TAL International has identified a
new opportunity and acted accordingly.
“We are talking to manufacturers in the
US and China and anticipate placing
initial orders soon,” said TAL International
president Brian Sondey.
Jordan Ayers, former president of
Xtra Intermodal, has been recruited by
TAL to head up the new operation. ❏
Younger in
the hot seat
Peter J Younger has been named president
and chief operating officer of the
Cronos Group with effect from March
31, 2005.
Currently chief operating and financial
officer, Younger, who has been
employed by Cronos since 1987, will
assume responsibility for the company’s
container operations, lease marketing,
business development and information
technology. A member of
the company’s board of directors, he
will continue to report directly to
Dennis J Tietz, chairman of the board
and chief executive officer.
Replacing Younger as chief financial
officer and a senior vice president
of the company is Frank P Vaughan,
who has been with Cronos since 1991
and has served as vice president of finance
since 1999.
Reflecting the current boom in
the container leasing business, Cronos
has reported net income of US$8.9
mill for the year ended December 31,
2004, compared with US$4.2 mill for
2003. Gross lease revenue increased by
US$14.6 mill when compared with
2003, driven by strong growth in global
container trade volumes and an 8
per cent increase in the size of the
company’s owned and managed container
fleets. Utilisation of the combined
fleet increased from 89 per cent
at the beginning of 2004 to 94 per
cent by the year end.
During 2004, Cronos invested
US$122 mill in new container equipment,
representing 55,000 TEU for its
owned and managed fleets. ❏
March 2005 31

WorldCargo
news
CONTAINER INDUSTRY
Container decal demand hits new high
The global requirement for container
livery sets, including vinyl
and paint mask types, increased by
almost 20 per cent during 2004,
as more than 1.8 mill were supplied
for newbuild applications
alone. This compares with over 1.5
mill sets supplied for new box production
in 2003, which was up by
more than 30 per cent on the 1.15
mill delivered in 2002.
The current outlook suggests
another big year for decal sales in
2005, as total output is expected
to be at least as high as in 2004.
Most suppliers of vinyl film and
paint mark stencil kits are currently
busy, with orders booked
into the second/third quarters.
Decal suppliers have also benefited
from higher selling prices,
although these have risen at nowhere
near as fast a rate as that
experienced by container manufacturers
or producers of Corten
steel or plywood flooring. The
precursor materials used in vinyl
decal manufacture have all increased
in cost in recent months,
The increased container production of the past two
years has strongly revived the fortunes of the decal
manufacturing sector
but the variance in the price
charged per finished decal set remains
as great as ever. Some buyers
are still paying as little as US$15
for the most “minimal” vinyl decal,
while other are being charged
over US$100 for highly graphic,
coloured designs.
However, the cost difference
between cast and polymeric
calendered films has narrowed. A
cast vinyl film of average specification
is currently priced at a little
over US$5 per m 2 , with the
calendered alternative costing
roughly 30 per cent less. One reason
for the recent reduction in the
price of cast film is its predominant
manufacture in North America,
which has benefited from an increasingly
weak dollar exchange
rate. Meanwhile, the paint mark
decal continues to provide a
cheaper option still, typically saving
up to two thirds on the price
of its vinyl equivalent. The use of
paint/stencilling rarely incurs a cost
of more than US$50 for the most
complex 40ft application.
Selective use
But though most container buyers
and producers have now evaluated
the paint mask alternative in
some form or another, its use is
still confined to a relatively select
number of (albeit influential) customers.
These are headed by
Maersk Sealand, which has long
been the single largest user. Other
companies to have switched, either
partially or fully, to a paint
mask system are Capital Lease,
Hamburg Süd, Sino-Kor, CMA-
CGM, K-Line, GE SeaCo and
Regional Container Lines.
It is reckoned that up to 20 per cent of all new boxes now have painted decals
Although the precise figure is
hard to quantify, it is estimated that
at least 15-20 per cent of all new
containers today are being stencilled
as opposed to carrying a
more traditional vinyl decal. This
compares with just a few per cent
in the mid 1990s following the
commercial launch of the system
in South Korea.
The paint mask system has
been enhanced over the past three
years as box builders have become
more familiar with the intricacies
of the process and the labour intensive
(and often time consuming)
unrolling/fastening of the
paper stencil templates has been
increasingly automated.
The pioneer of this automation
is Dado Corp of South Korea,
which created its ADAM (Automatic
Decal Application Machine)
three years ago and has
since supplied it to many container
factories across China.
The ADAM device was trialled
initially at the Maersk Container
Industri (MCI) reefer factory at
Qingdao and has since been installed
permanently. Machinery of
this type is to be similarly integrated
into the new (40ft) dry freight plant
currently under construction by
MCI at the former Dongguan
Winco site in southern China.
Big savings
Maersk Sealand, the biggest user
of the paint mask system, reckons
it saves around US$100 per 40ft
box by specifying paint markings
and refutes any suggestion that
their performance and longevity
are inferior to that offered by vinyl
markings.
Proponents of the paint mask
system claim that problems of premature
fading and discoloration,
which admittedly blighted some of
the earliest painted decals, have little
relevance to later applications.
Although the decal paint is rarely
baked on, as recommended by paint
suppliers, the use of improved formulations
and application techniques
has resulted in better curing
and much less risk of any significant
long-term degradation.
Moreover, it is pointed out that
because the decal is painted on, it
can easily be “refreshed” later in
life by retouching and for only a
fraction of the cost associated with
replacing a damaged vinyl decal.
Growing availability
Stencil kits are now available from
some firms more traditionally associated
with screen printing vinyl
decals, which is further indication
of the way the paint-on process has
gained in popularity. One such supplier
is Ocean Shine Decal Industries
(OSDI), which has been a
leading producer of vinyl decals
since 1995 and introduced a paint
mask version in 2002.
Sales of the latter have since
grown rapidly, with the number
of box production lines using its
stencil system almost doubling in
the past two years. It has, to date,
supplied around 20 in China, operating
at 11 separate factories,
including those operated by
CIMC (China International Marine
Containers), Singamas, Jindo
Corp, Hyundai Mobis and TYC
Group. Another important customer
is Brigantine Services,
which is owned by AP Moller and
carries out refurbishment work.
OSDI further claims to have
sold stencil kits direct to many
major container buyers. It provides
two basic types of paint mask, made
either from solvent resistant paper
or vinyl. The removable paper version
is designed for the simplest
application, on side walls featuring
a lazy (shallow) type of corrugation,
whereas the more flexible vinyl
stencil is better suited for placing
over deeper corrugations or
more intricate structures, as well as
being better adapted for use on special
containers such as tanks.
Other established makers of vinyl
decals, including New Century
Decal (Shenzhen), and the relative
newcomer, Shenzhen Graphictech
Decal Co, similarly now offer paint
mask stencils of their own.
The increased mainstream
manufacture of container stencils
has brought inevitable pressure to
bear on the original Korean developers/suppliers
of the system.
Although Dado remains one of
the largest producers and is still at
the forefront of research, one of
its main Korean rivals, AD&ADD,
has recently switched its emphasis
to serve other (non-container)
industries, while another, Jung
Eun Trading, is no longer as active
in the container sector as in
past years. Both have lost out to
growing Chinese competition.
AD&ADD launched its container
stencil system in 2001, but
was persuaded two years later to relocate
its production base from Korea
to southern China and commence
the manufacturing of application
machinery (of the ADAM
type). Jung Eun Trading was another
pioneer of the process and
supplied many thousands of paint
mask sets in the 1990s to Hapag-
Lloyd and other early users.
Still on top
Despite the inroads made by the
paint alternative, however, the vinyl
decal still rules supreme, although
the number of participants
involved either in producing precursor
film or completed decal sets
has declined significantly.
The vast majority of vinyl film,
whether of cast or calendered type,
is now provided by four established
names - Arlon-MII, Avery
Dennison, 3M Group and
MACtac, while finished sets now
come primarily from six screen
printing companies, all of which
are based in China.
Several of these Chinese suppliers
have enlarged their operations
and acquired extra facilities
in the past two years in order to
keep pace with demand. By contrast,
there is now virtually no production
of container decals anywhere
outside China, following
the withdrawal of manufacturers
in Europe, South East Asia and
more latterly South Korea from
the sector.
As mentioned earlier, OSDI is
one of the largest suppliers and sold
over 400,000 vinyl sets in 2004. Its
main rival, NCD (Shenzhen), produced
a comparable number, having
previously doubled its output
of container decal sets between
2001 and 2003. Production for the
latter year was reported to have
exceeded 550,000 in TEU terms,
and compared with a total of
320,000 TEU in 2002 and
275,000TEU in 2001. Vinyl decals
equivalent to almost 4 mill TEU
have been supplied by NCD
(Shenzhen) in the 15 years since its
original start-up in 1990 and it has,
to date, supplied more than 20 box
factories and depots across China.
Shanghai Pudong New Area
New Century Decal Co was origi-
32
March 2005

CONTAINER INDUSTRY
WorldCargo
news
nally an offshoot from NCD (Shenzhen),
but has now traded autonomously for more
than five years. Its factory solely concentrates
on the printing of vinyl container
decals and, although smaller in capacity than
NCD (Shenzhen), has expanded significantly
in size in recent years.
Another longstanding producer is
Jiang Yin Long Chang Plastics Chemical
Co (JYLC), which is also located in central
China. This too is of more limited
size but has been in production for more
than a decade and remains an important
independent supplier.
Meanwhile, Yangzhou Tonghui Asia
Marking Co (YTAM) was founded
around a decade ago as a subsidiary of
Yangzhou Tongyun Container Co (TYC).
It has recently received a boost following
the management takeover last year of the
nearby TYC box building plant by CIMC.
Output from this factory has since been
expanded and capacity doubled to over
80,000TEU/year and has resulted in an
increased demand for decals from YTAM,
which is still dedicated to supplying the
TYC operation.
Shenzhen Graphictech is the most
recent entry into the container decal
market, but despite claiming some highprofile
accounts and good working relations
with several box manufacturers, including
Singamas, the company has experienced
difficulties in achieving volume
sales, mainly because of the strength of
local competition.
China, over which it would have little
control. It has also been influenced by the
past experiences of some rivals, which
have been caught out when offshore subsidiaries
in China (and elsewhere) have
supplied cheaper films of inferior grade
and subsequently had them rejected by
screen printers or their container producing/buying
customers.
Evergreen is one Arlon-MII’s biggest
customers and alone expects to purchase
over 100,000 decal sets for its new box
production in 2005. Other important
customers are MSC and CMA-CGM.
Despite the longstanding popularity of its
72A Series, which has traditionally been
made from “non-cast” materials, the majority
of current Arlon-MII sales concern
cast film and the company has recently
added a new highly formable product,
Series 6000 EF, to its range of cast films
suited for container application.
Cast vinyl is in demand again, according
to Arlon-MII, because it is now more
competitively priced than ever, especially
in US dollar terms. However, the company
confirms that the price of all film is
still heavily undercut when sold for container
application, although this is partially
offset by the large quantities produced annually
and very high concentration of sales
made to just a small handful of specialised
screen print companies in China.
Coming back
It was the combination of high demand
and a competitive dollar exchange that
prompted 3M to restart its manufacture
and sale of container decal film. This follows
a gap of several years, when the company
reined in its involvement and
switched to other more profitable sectors.
Prior to this, 3M had long been one of
the largest suppliers of container decal film
and leading producer of cast materials. It
is reported to be selling generic products
into China for use in container decal
manufacture, some of which is being
sourced from Taiwan.
The other supplier to have benefited
from the recent surge in business is
MACtac, of Belgium, which similarly reports
a record sale of film for container
end-use during the past year despite being
impacted by the increasingly adverse
Euro/dollar exchange rate.
MACtac forms part of the Bemis
Group, which is the largest US manufacturer
of flexible packaging materials, and
has long offered its MACal range of
calendered films, including the
hardwearing 9800pro. It also produces a
vinyl mask for paint-on decal application.
The company has more recently enhanced
its Asian sales operation by appointing
a new sales manager for the main regional
office in Singapore. This coordinates
the delivery of MACTac products into the
all-important Chinese market by way of a
local office in Shanghai. However, MACtac
has no immediate plans to relocate any of
its production out of Belgium.
Although container decal film remains
an important activity and provides steady
business, it still accounts for a relatively small
proportion of MACTac’s overall sales. Even
so, the company provides an estimated 10
per cent of all film used in the production
of container decals and retains an important
presence. ❏
Heading east
The manufacture of precursor vinyl film is
still a global operation, although this too is
inexorably shifting into China. Avery
Dennison (AD) set up a wholly-owned
subsidiary in China in 2003, close to Shanghai,
which is dedicated to producing/distributing
vinyl film for local container decal
production. The factory has been run
on a fully autonomous basis since late 2004
and now has its own Chinese management
and fully trained workforce.
The Chinese plant offers the full range
of calendered (Fasson 900) and cast (Avery
XL1000) container films, together with
the usual standard warranties. Although
the majority of film sheet, inks and adhesives
are imported into China, there has
been some limited sourcing of local materials
as and when available. As such, the
Chinese factory is currently concerned
with assembling, finishing and distributing
the company’s products, rather than
large-scale manufacture.
The establishment of a separate Chinese
operation has brought some cost savings,
although it was the need to enhance
distribution and interact more effectively
with the local screen print and box building
industries that provided the main
impetus for its development. The presence
of a local factory has already brought
a big logistical advantage for AD, when
compared to rivals distributing from overseas
locations, as production/delivery lead
times have been cut and resulted in a faster
stock turnaround.
Prior to its move into China, AD was
already established as one of the largest suppliers
of container decal films. It was enlarged
several years back through a merger
of the European Fasson Group, which specialised
in manufacturing calendered products,
into US-based Avery Dennison Group,
a mainstream producer of cast films.
Similar tale
A similar tale is told for its principal rival,
US-based Arlon-MII, which achieves a
comparable annual sale of films for container
end-use. Arlon had long been producing
high-quality cast films, but expanded
into the container sector with its
takeover of MII (formerly Meyercord Co)
in 1999.
MII is one of the best known manufacturers
of container decal materials, offering
its 72A Series made from high-tensile
polyvinyl chloride films and featuring
acrylic-based pressure sensitive adhesive.
MII also provides its own top clear sheet
and range of engineering-grade inks for
printing. Its proven decaling system has now
been in production for over 25 years.
Arlon-MII meets over a third of the
annual demand for container decal materials,
but has yet to consider relocating
any production outside of the US. The
company has been dissuaded by the fear
of counterfeit production starting up in
March 2005 33

WorldCargo
news
TANK CONTAINERS
China takes top slot in tank builder league
he past year has been one
of mixed fortunes for tank
T container manufacturers.
During the past year China has emerged as the world’s leading manufacturer
of tank containers while only one builder remains in South
Africa and further consolidation has taken place in Europe
On the one hand, the rapid escalation
in the price of stainless steel
in the first half of 2004 was of such
a magnitude that it effectively
dampened the underlying surge in
demand for new tanks.
On the other hand, even high
material costs could not suppress
the need for additional equipment
for too long and during the second
half of the year tank builders
worldwide reported more and
more orders for new tanks. The
fact that manufacturers are quoting
newbuilding prices of
US$26,000 for a standard tank,
compared to US$14,000 two years
ago, has not deterred the market.
The requirement for growing
volumes of tank container shipments
to and from Asia, most notably
China and India, is helping
to drive the demand for new
equipment. China is a particularly
strong market and the recent commissioning
of new worldscale petrochemical
plants in the country
is supporting expanding domestic
movements of tanks as well as
international traffic.
League leaders
China has also emerged, in a very
short space of time, as a leading
manufacturer of tanks. Numerically,
China International Marine Containers
(CIMC) is already the most
prolific tank manufacturer in the
world and the country’s second
producer, Zhongshan Zhonghua
Tank Containers (ZZTC), is also
now emerging as a player to be
reckoned with.
Meanwhile, competition from
China and a strengthening South
African rand have brought to a
close Consani’s participation in
tank construction. The Cape
Town-based Murray & Roberts
affiliate was the world’s largest producer
of tank containers for many
years and the decision to liquidate
the company caught many in the
industry by surprise. However, after
attempts to find a buyer or joint
venture partner to continue operations
proved unsuccessful,
Murray & Roberts felt that a
tough decision was required. The
inability of Consani to provide a
Up, up and away: CIMC will have a tank production capacity of 10,000 units
per annum by the middle of this year
robust business model for sustainable
profitability, in the face of increasing
competition from China,
proved to be the death knell for
the company.
The extent to which tank
manufacturing continues to be
susceptible to the vagaries of the
global market is given by the fact
that in 1999 there were six tank
builders in South Africa. Today,
only Welfit Oddy remains.
A look at the table of tank
manufacturers worldwide also
shows that, in terms of numbers
of tanks, European companies in
aggregate in 2004 produced only
about half of the number coming
out of China. Two decades ago
virtually all the world’s tanks were
manufactured in Europe.
CIMC on a roll
The entry of CIMC, the world’s
largest producer of freight containers,
onto the world tank container
manufacturing stage has
been impressive by any standard.
Over the past year, the company
has consolidated its relatively recent
appearance in the tank market
with further significant investments,
which will extend annual
production capacity at its Nantong
plant to 10,000 units. This volume
had been targeted but in the company’s
initial development plan
production was not due to reach
this level until 2007.
The new production capacity
will come on stream in June 2005.
The latest investments at the
CIMC plant include a new automatic
pickling and passivation
process and a new dished end
manufacturing facility featuring
an advanced method of hydraulic
pressing. The capacity of this latter
piece of equipment is 15,000
sets of dished ends per year, which
will not only meet the requirements
of the CIMC tank container
manufacturing operation,
but also provide road tanker and
static storage tank manufacturers
with the dished ends they need.
In addition, Nantong-CIMC
has invested in a comprehensive
range of material testing facilities
to help the company to check on
the physical properties and chemical
compositions of the various
steel components utilised in the
manufacture of tank containers.
This facility enables CIMC to vet
the capabilities of new material
suppliers in a controlled fashion.
Although the new production
capacity is coming on stream
sooner than originally envisaged,
CIMC is proceeding to build output
levels in line with market
Output from ZZTC now includes electrically heated tanks
needs. As it is, the company has
emerged within the space of a few
short years to become the world’s
largest tank container manufacturer.
The company plans to build
on 2004 output levels, of around
4,000 tanks, to reach 6,000 units
in 2005.
In addition to boosting output
volumes, CIMC has been
working with UBH International,
the UK company from which it
licenses its tank designs, to extend
the range of tank types available
to its customers. CIMC now also
has the ability to manufacture
tanks for the carriage of peroxides
and isocyanates, as well as highcapacity
tanks with capacities up
to 26,000 litres.
ZZTC gathers pace
Like CIMC, ZZTC has only
emerged on the world tank manufacturing
stage in recent years.
However, the build-up in tank
production at the ZZTC factory
in the Pearl River Delta has been
more modest than that of CIMC.
The company has built 300
tank containers since the first units
were commissioned in March
2003. ZZTC devoted the first year
of operations to the learning process,
developing its production line,
training staff, putting quality assurance
systems in place and building
relationships with customers.
As a result of these preparations,
ZZTC has been recognised as a significant
supplier of tank containers
to the food, chemical and related
industries since the beginning of
2004. By making ongoing improvements
to the production
processes at the factory, the company
is now able to construct up
to 600 tank containers per annum.
ZZTC manufactures tanks
under licence to Yorkshire Marine
Containers Ltd (YMCL), a subsidiary
of Sea Containers. Technical
assistance has been provided by
Sea Containers and UK-based
Seagull Technology. The licence
covers both lightweight frame and
beam tanks based on the established
“Spider” tank, which itself
can be traced back to the same
roots as the UBH International
designs licensed by CIMC.
Initial production at ZZTC
was focused on basic, standard
units, but now the company is also
manufacturing electrically-heated
tanks. In addition, new designs
have been introduced, including
a 26,000 litre ISO standard frame
UN T11 unit, a wide body, cellfriendly
UN T11 tank and 25,000
litre, baffle tanks.
ZZTC has recently delivered
the first batch of 26,000 litre ISO
units to a customer in Holland,
while batches of 26,000 litre, cellfriendly
and electrically heated
tanks are in production. Following
completion of these orders, the
company will commence the
manufacture of a series of 25,000-
litre baffle tanks.
ZZTC points out that, while
the majority of its output continues
to comprise standard units,
production of special tanks is now
up to 5 per cent of total output.
This percentage will increase in
the months ahead as further new
designs, currently on the drawing
board, are developed. The company
is also installing new SAF
machinery this year to speed the
welding of main seams and, thus,
further streamline production.
Oddy flies the flag
Port Elizabeth-based Welfit Oddy,
part of the Burg Group, has been
a strong performer in recent years
and shows no sign of the malaise
that has affected other South African
tank container builders.
34
March 2005

TANK CONTAINERS
WorldCargo
news
In fact, just the opposite. The
company is negotiating to take on
a number of staff and specialist
equipment from Consani. In addition,
it has secured some significant
orders in recent months from
existing customers, notably contracts
to build a total of 3600 tanks
from two European operators.
Although these two orders are
spread over a two-year period, the
scheduling of the delivery of these
tanks at regular intervals, plus
those for other customers, has necessitated
an increase in production
capacity at the Port Elizabeth
plant. Steps have been taken
to boost rated capacity from 14
to 20 units a day.
Alpha emerges
As indicated earlier, the story of
tank manufacture in Europe in
recent years has, in general, been
one of shrinkage and consolidation,
as the volume production of
standard tanks has moved to
lower-cost countries such as
South Africa and China. Even
European manufacturers of special
tank containers have had to
streamline their production lines
in response to growing competition
and a dwindling demand for
new tanks in the early part of this
decade.
Against such a background,
the emergence of Alpha Tanks Ltd
as a new player in Europe is a notable
event. The company was unveiled
in September 2004 by
Eugene McGinnity and Fergal
Cleary, two former senior managers
of Containers & Pressure
Vessels Ltd (CPV).
CPV had closed down in
March 2002 after over 30 years
of tank container production at
its Clones factory in Ireland. The
entire CPV operation was sold to
Aughey Screens Ltd, a manufacturer
of quarrying and screening
equipment, which wanted to use
some of the factory space at
Clones to expand its production
of quarrying and screening
equipment.
McGinnity, and Cleary saw
potential in the assets of CPV for
a re-entry into the tank container
market with a streamlined, quality-focused
and customer-orientated
enterprise dedicated to the
specialist tanks with which CPV
had had success over the years.
Production began in November
2004 and three 26,000 litre
ISO units were built for the Danish
chemical company Cheminova
and a 31,000 litre swap tank
for an Irish customer.
Orders have since been secured
to build a further seven
27,000 litre units for Cheminova.
Five of these tanks are to be fitted
with specialised heating systems
to be supplied by Loebbe
GmbH of Germany. Ultimately,
Alpha Tanks aims to build around
200 tanks per year with a
workforce of 40.
The company offers the complete
portfolio of designs successfully
marketed and produced by
CPV prior to its closure.
Van Hool output up
In terms of annual output, Van
Hool of Belgium is the leading
tank producer in Europe by a
wide margin. Like all other European
manufacturers, Van Hool
has had to focus on the construction
of specials, following the realisation
in the 1990s that the
manufacture of standard tanks in
the region was an uncompetitive
activity that could not be sustained.
Over the past decade the distinctive
range of Van Hool swap
and gas tanks, as well as aluminium
tanks for bulk powders,
has become familiar to customers
worldwide.
With the recent resurgent demand
for new tanks, 2004 turned
out to be a busy year for the Van
Hool tank production lines. Output
for the year reached 1,600
units, up from 1,300 tanks the
previous year. The company also
introduced new developments in
gas tank design during the year
and extended its production facilities
for its special tanks as part
of an ongoing investment programme.
As examples of output in
2004, Van Hool delivered several
series of 20ft ISO tanks with different
types of linings, several series
of 30ft and 40ft tanks for the
carriage of LPG and swap tanks
able to transport products at high
temperatures.
Specials specialist
Like Welfit Oddy a member of
the Burg Group, WEW of
Weitefeld in Germany built about
300 tank containers in 2004, each
one a “special” designed and built
to cater for the particular carriage
requirements of a dedicated cargo
or range of cargoes.
“We continue to develop new
designs for tanks together with
our customers,” states Jan
Gerhard-de Vries, WEW marketing
director. “This activity reinforces
our claim to be a manufacturer
who can tailor the design
of ISO and swap tank containers
to align fully with customer
requirements, no matter
what type of tank is being discussed.”
As an example of WEW’s expertise
in the specials field, in
2004 the company developed a
new design for a tank container
earmarked for the transport and
storage of rocket fuel. Once the
required design approval was secured,
the first such tank was built
and put into service.
UBHI adds designs
UBH International of Burscough
in Lancashire, UK, is another European
tank manufacturer that is
now 100 per cent focused on the
production of specials although,
as mentioned earlier, the company
has an outlet for its standard
design tanks through its global
alliance with Chinese manufacturer
CIMC.
The UBHI licence agreement
with CIMC covers both the Universal
Standard Tank, a full-frame
unit based on the UBHI collar
tank design, and the Universal
Beam Tank, a lightweight beam
tank design to which many thousands
of tanks have already been
manufactured in Europe.
In the UK, swap, baffled and
compartmented tanks are major
product lines for UBHI and, more
recently, the output of lined, electrically
heated, reefer and mini
tanks has been on the increase.
UBHI has achieved an annual
production of 550-600 tanks at
the Burscough plant over the past
few years.
The company has recently
added designs for cryogenic tanks
for the transport of the industrial
gases - nitrogen, oxygen and argon
- in liquefied form to its
stock of options. The tank design,
which utilises the so-called ultralight
UBH Universal Beam type
of frame, successfully completed
its impact testing at Tergnier in
2004. Thus, the traditional hallmarks
of this design, ie resilience
in service, low tare weight and
ease of repair, are now available
to the cryogenic sector.
M1’s CO 2
record
Another tank manufacturer well
known for the manufacture of
cryogenic tanks for the carriage
of liquefied natural gas (LNG)
and industrial gases at low temperatures
is M1 Engineering
(M1E) of Bradford in the UK.
Amongst recent output is a
tank container for the transport
of carbon dioxide (CO 2
), which
is able to carry up to 24,000 kg
of product at a working pressure
of 22 bar. “This unit is able to
carry 4 tonnes more product, or
20 per cent more payload, than
other standard 20ft ISO containers
on the market,” states Jason
Gill, M1E’s sales director.
The CO 2
tank is constructed
of 9 per cent nickel and highstrength
carbon steel. The use of
this material along with an improved
vacuum insulation technique
and the optimisation of the
space within the 20ft frame has
enabled the increased payload
benefits to be realised. M1E explains
that the insulation system
also brings improved holding
times during transport and a reduced
risk of impact damage
compared with polyurethane insulation.
Heat on at EbroTank
At the other end of the scale, a
company that has carved out a
niche in the manufacture of special
tanks able to transport liquids
at high temperatures is EbroTank
of Zaragoza in Spain. After a slow
start to the year, production
picked up at EbroTank to the extent
that the company recorded
135 tank deliveries in 2004, only
slightly down on the 150 built in
2003
“The surge in the price of
stainless steel early in the year resulted
in a noticeable reduction
in the number of new orders we
received during the first half of
2004,” reports Jon Echegaray,
managing director of EbroTank.
“At the same time, we received
an increased number of requests
from our customers for the repair
and remanufacture of tanks,
as they sought to keep older, existing
equipment in service and
thus avoid or delay the purchase
of new tanks.
“As a result, our repair and rebuild
work compensated for the
downturn in requirements for
new equipment. Then, demand
for new tanks recovered and we
had a very busy second half in
2004,” Echegaray said.
The EbroTank design portfolio
continues to be augmented,
particularly in the company’s specialist
field of high-temperature
tanks.
The most recent design addition
is a 30ft unit whose tank supports,
thermal insulation, spill
boxes, etc have been completely
reconfigured in order to further
reduce heat transmission. New
EbroTank units built to this design
entered into service between
December 2004 and February
2005 and are serving regions
where ambient temperatures of
-15degC and even lower are often
experienced.
Echegaray points out that the
units were able to deliver the
product with a temperature loss
of only 22degC during the transit
time of 10 days, without intermediate
heating.
Apart from the improvements
in thermal performance, these
tanks are fitted with an innovative
electrical heating system for
the bottom discharge valves and
a collapsible handrail that can be
lifted from the floor using a pneumatic
system.
Magyar builds up
In 2004 Magyar SA of Dijon in
France continued to supply its
wide customer base throughout
Europe with an extensive range
of transport equipment for the
carriage of bulk liquids, from tank
containers and swap tanks to road
tankers and rail tank wagons.
“With continued expansion of
the manufacturing facilities at our
headquarters in Burgundy, Magyar
is looking forward to a fruitful performance
in the tank container
sector in 2005/2006,” says Martin
Laverty, tank container product
manager for the company.
In 2004 Magyar produced
foodgrade tanks, electrically
heated tanks for the transport of
products at temperatures up to
200degC, tanks with baffles and
multi-compartment tanks. New
prototypes were also developed
aimed at allowing the company to
make further inroads in the swap
and tank container markets. ❏
March 2005 35