Category Archives: Shipping

Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbanand Sonowal has announced forming of a Special Purpose vehicle (SPV) for development of a Multimodal Logistics Park (MMLP) at VOC Port in Chennai. The MMLP to be developed through Public Private Partnership with the SPV providing land and connectivity and the actual MMLP infrastructure to be developed by a private developer. He said, all the three stake holders viz, Chennai Port Authority, TIDCO and NHAI will be equity partners in the proposed SVP. The Minister informed that equity contribution/investment of the Chennai Port is the cost of the land amounting to Rs 167 crore, NHAI/NHIDCL contribution is Rs l30 crore and that of State govt. through TIDCO is Rs 50 crore. Speaking at the virtual MoU signing in, Sonowal said, V.O. Chidambaranar Port, the economic engine of South Tamilnadu, has proposed for setting up of Multimodal Logistics Park due to its advantages such as excellent Rail-road connectivity, proximity to Main Sea Route, all weather operational conditions, and geographic position to link Eastern coast with the Western coast. The Multimodal Logistics Park would facilitate infrastructure for enabling seamless multimodal freight transfer, and specialized storage solutions, such as cold storage, warehouses equipped with mechanized material handling and intermodal transfer terminals for containers, bulk and break-bulk cargo. Further, the MMLP would be offering value-added services such as Customs clearance, bonded storage yards, quarantine zones, testing facilities, warehousing management services, post-manufacturing activities such as kitting and final assembly, grading, sorting, labelling, packaging etc.

APM Terminals Pipavav has achieved a new milestone of loading 100th LPG rake within 10 months of operations through LPG Rake handling facility established jointly with Aegis Logistics Ltd. Since the rake handling capacity became operational in January 2021, the Port has provided a dedicated DFC compliant rail line for safer and faster evacuation of LPG there by reducing dependency on road movement. It is noteworthy that APM Terminals Pipavav is one of the few ports in India that has LPG rail siding within the port that can accommodate placement of full rake that carries approx. 1200 MT of LPG cargo which is equivalent to 66 Gas Tankers on road. The major importers of LPG are Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited. Commenting on the breakthrough accomplishment, Jakob Friis Sorenson, MD, APM Terminals Pipavav said, “It is our endeavour to serve our customers in spirit of collaboration. Evacuating hundredth LPG rake in such a short span of time is testimony of our operational excellence. The technology advancement enables automatic rake handling reducing manual intervention thereby improving cargo turnaround time. With robust LPG demand envisaged, we believe that faster evacuation of LPG through rail route would provide a quick and an environment-friendly alternative for the Companies importing LPG.”

The largest container port in the UK is taking steps to address increasing cargo congestion but may begin turning incoming ships away if the problem persists. The Port of Felixstowe, which handles nearly 40% of all containers sent to and from the UK, is facing a massive backlog of ships as the site approaches its busiest time of year: the holiday season.The average shipping container that arrives at the port is currently spending more than nine days – two times the average “dwell time” of 2020 – sitting at Felixstowe. The logjam is in part, due to a shortage of drivers to operate heavy goods vehicles, known as HGV drivers, the outlet reported. The port’s management is reportedly working to ease the traffic but could restrict access to incoming vessels if the situation continues to deteriorate.

Union Minister of Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal urged the heads of Export Promotion Councils (EPCs) to identify and name exporters whose products fail to meet international standards and are often rejected due to inferior quality. The Minister said the EPCs have not identified specific exporters hurting the reputation of ‘Made in India’ products in the world markets despite repeated reminders. “Quality will define the future of our exports,” he quipped. Goyal also asked EPC heads to take steps to increase exports to $450-$500 billion next year. Ahead of the finalisation of the new Foreign Trade Policy, Goyal, in a mid-term review meeting with EPCs, said India’s exports of $197 billion in the first half of FY2021-22, was on the “right track”. “Our exporters have made all of us Indians proud today,” said Goyal, setting the bar higher “if we can aim to scale $450-$500 billion exports next year,” according to a statement from the Ministry of Commerce & Industry.

The global shipping crisis that is causing deepening shortages and shutdowns in Britain’s shops and factories will last for as long as nine months, as giant vessels carrying Christmas goods start to queue in the English Channel to unload in Europe’s congested ports. A body representing British ports said that it expects the congestion affecting deliveries to millions of retailers and businesses to persist potentially until next summer as the shipping industry struggles with challenges from container shortages to a lack of lorry drivers to move cargo once it reaches quaysides. One major shipping line told that the delays, which are forcing vessels to anchor in clusters in the English Channel and North Sea, will have a knock-on effect for supplies of consumer goods and manufacturing components in the coming weeks and months – with a risk that up to 20 per cent of goods ordered for peak Christmas demand will not reach retailers in time.

V.O. Chidambaranar Port, offers a maximum draft of 14.20 Mts. to accommodate bulk carriers upto 95,000 DWT and Container vessels upto LOA of 300 metres. The Port’s two container terminals, with the capacity to handle 1.17 Million TEUs of Containers are well supported by 17 Container Freight Stations & one ICD. The terminals facilitate daily connectivity to Colombo and reaching further to the Far East, through its weekly mainline services. It is the fastest growing Port in Tamil Nadu, is growing hand in hand, along with the growth of Indian economy. This has resulted in a significant rise in the volume of freight moved by road. In VOC Port, 76 % of cargo is transited by road, 20% by conveyor, and 2% by pipeline and rail. More than 3000 trucks ply through the Port road connectivity everyday to transit the EXIM cargo, that are seamlessly connected to Tirunelveli and beyond in the South, and Madurai to cater to the northern hinterland, through NH138 and NH38. The 595 Km. long East Coast Road also connects Chennai. The Port is well connected to the Indian Railway network through the Meelavittan – Madurai broad-gauge line. This enables faster and effective cargo transfer to Dindigul, Karur, Bengaluru, Coimbatore and Chennai regions.

FedEx Express will invests more than SAR 1.5 billion in Saudi Arabia over the next 10 years to meet the country’s growing international shipping demands. This investment will reaffirm the company’s commitment to the country’s non-oil economic growth, in line with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 goals, and the ‘National Industrial Development and Logistics Program’ which seeks to increase non-oil exports to more than SAR 1 trillion (approximately US $266 billion). Under Saudi Vision 2030, the country is committed to increasing its total air cargo capacity. With many years of experience, specialized services, and advanced technology solutions, FedEx is said to support the trade requirements of the healthcare, e-commerce, technology, energy, aerospace, automotive, and petrochemical sectors. FedEx Express has been facilitating trade in Saudi Arabia since 1994, offering international solutions and connectivity through local service providers, most recently through SAB Express.

Global supply chain continues to face disruptions as China, has been facing challenges ranging from power crunch to slowdown in its manufacturing sector. The worst ever power outage crisis in China forces most manufacturing units to operate only two or three days a week. The country has been facing acute power shortage since summer and several of its provinces have witnessed sudden blackouts recently. The sudden power shortage crises in the country are attributed to a rise in demand, weather conditions and measures to cut the use of fossil fuels. Besides this Evergrande, a prominent real estate firm in China, has recently experienced debt crunch, and consequently lead to disturbance in global financial markets. These developments will have consequences on the world economy given the heavy import dependency on China.

ICRA ratings expects the overall volumes at Indian ports to continue witnessing improvement and the same in FY2022 is likely to surpass FY2020 (pre-Covid) volumes. The optimism is based on the performance of the sector in 5m FY2022 wherein all segments except fertilisers have witnessed healthy Y-o-Y growth. The overall cargo volumes are largely stable in 5M FY2022 in comparison to similar period in FY2020 and are driven by healthy growth in containers, iron ore and other miscellaneous segments. The positive growth can also be attributed to the base effect since the same period during last fiscal (FY2021) was most severely impacted by the pandemic-related lockdown. The exceptions to volume growth (apart from fertilisers) are POL and coal volumes which have remained subdued. POL and thermal coal segments had remained subdued in FY2021 too due to demand contraction and while there has been a Y-o-Y improvement in 5m FY2022, the volumes remain lower compared to FY2020 levels.

Global logistics company DP World operated International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT) at Vallarpadam Cochin unveiled a solar power plant with production capacity of 1122 MW (megawatts)/per annum. The plant was inaugurated by P. Rajeeve, Honourable Minister for Industries, Law and Coir, Government of Kerala, and Hibi Eden, Member of Parliament (Ernakulam), Kerala. The plant is set up across 3.4 acres of land with an investment of over INR 3.7 crore. It has a peak production capacity of 830 kilowatt-hours. The solar plant will help reduce 905 tonnes/per annum of CO2 emissions which is equivalent to CO2 absorbed by approximately 41,580 trees in a year. The plant will produce over 12% of the terminal’s total annual power consumption. DP World is committed to sustainable practices across all its facilities and is undertaking several measures to achieve Carbon footprint reduction targets in a time-bound manner. This solar plant is part of the many planned milestones towards DP World achieving Carbon Neutrality across all facilities in India by 2030.