Europe-Middle East/India Archives - The Loadstar

Carriers drop calls at Hamburg after congestion builds at CTA

Gavin van Marle — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 14:08:50 +0000

Congestion issues continue to plague Hamburg’s flagship automated Container Terminal Altenwerder (CTA), due to operator HHLA’s modernisation programme, forcing carriers to drop sailings into Germany’s largest port.
Jan Kolditz, director of IT and terminal development of HHLA, told The Loadstar on the sidelines of the recent World Ports Conference in Hamburg that CTA was replacing its entire fleet of ship-to-shore cranes.
“All 14 are being replaced as they have come to the ...

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Capture of MSC Aries will further drive up Indian export costs

Gavin van Marle — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 11:48:13 +0000

With heightened geopolitical tensions sparked by the Iran-Israel faceoff, Indian exporters are again staring at freight costs soaring even higher and new cargo flow disruptions, after recently enjoying some respite from the Red Sea shipping crisis.
The capture of the MSC Aries by Iranian forces last weekend has escalated what had already become a major, nagging supply chain concern for the industry.
The 14,000-teu vessel was reportedly on MSC’s India-Europe service Himalaya ...

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Sri Lanka’s Hambantota begins container operations with MSC

Gavin van Marle — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 11:45:50 +0000

Container transhipment flows out of Sri Lanka – historically concentrated at Colombo port – are set to diversify intra-country, after Hambantota International Port (HIP) began container operations.
Located some 250km south-east of Colombo, HIP – under the ownership of China Merchants Port Holdings (CMPort) – hosted a call from the 4,600 teu MSC Ingrid yesterday.
The vessel discharged some 500 teu, which sources said would be loaded on to the MSC Sky ...

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Far East-Middle East/India trade booms, as European exporters suffer

Gavin van Marle — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 13:56:50 +0000

Other than elongated transit times, Asia-Europe container supply chains may be so far largely unscathed by the Red Sea crisis and vessel diversions around the Cape of Good Hope – but for European exporters to the Middle East and Indian subcontinent, it has been a disaster.
Massively increased transit time and sky-rocketing freight rates on both headhaul and backhaul trades have led more and more Indian businesses to turn to Far ...

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Port of Colombo reaping ‘a bumper harvest’ from the Red Sea crisis

Gavin van Marle — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 13:29:02 +0000

Sri Lanka’s Colombo port seems to have had a “bumper volume harvest” from the Red Sea crisis, after vessel operators frantically adjusted port calls to minimise schedule disruptions from the longer transits around southern Africa.
Colombo is a busy intermediate point for container transhipment in South Asia, predominantly for Indian cargo.
“Colombo has been a great beneficiary of the transhipment flow realignment in West Asia,” a Colombo-based port veteran told The Loadstar.
And ...

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Tax waiver extension a welcome boost for Indian garment exporters

Gavin van Marle — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 12:32:42 +0000

Indian apparel and ready-made garment (RMG) exporters trying to weather the dual headwinds of depressed demand and Red Sea-linked transit disruptions, breathed a collective sigh of relief when New Delhi decided to extend a tax waiver scheme until March 2026.
The rebate programme – intended to boost the cost competitiveness of Indian goods in global markets – was scheduled to end this March.
“The continuation of the scheme for two years will ...

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Maersk/Hapag Gemini Cooperation takes liner industry by surprise

Mike Wackett — Wed, 17 Jan 2024 13:42:28 +0000

Ahead of the divorce from 2M Alliance partner MSC, Maersk has turned the head of THE Alliance lead line Hapag-Lloyd to form a new long-term operational collaboration.
The ‘Gemini Cooperation’ will start in February 2025.
The agreement represents a u-turn by Maersk, which had said its integrator strategy “did not fit” with vessel sharing, and will come as a shock to Hapag-Lloyd’s THEA partners, ONE, Yang Ming and HMM.
The break-up of the ...

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Carriers offered joining bonuses by Adani’s Kattupalli to win business from Chennai

Gavin van Marle — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 11:26:18 +0000

Market share losses suffered by Chennai’s container terminals on India’s east coast appears to be worsening as competitor Adani Group is understood to have been aggressively targeting carrier customers with “joining bonuses” for switching to its facilities.
The latest blow for Chennai – and arguably the biggest – comes from an impending port call change announced by the IEX (South India-Europe) service, which was the first direct connection from the Indian ...

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MSC-Zim alliance strengthens, with VSAs ‘across multiple trades’

Mike Wackett — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 12:20:21 +0000

The world’s largest container line, MSC, is joining in an alliance with tenth-ranked Zim across “multiple trades”, as both carriers prepare for life outside their cooperation with Maersk within the 2M Alliance.
The Israeli carrier said it had made “a new operational agreement with MSC, encompassing several trades”.
Zim explained: “The cooperation scope includes services connecting the Indian subcontinent with the east Mediterranean, the east Mediterranean with Northern Europe and services connecting ...

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Safeen Feeders and Saif Powertec to set sail on Bangladesh box trades

Gavin van Marle — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 13:34:27 +0000

While the fate of new entrants on liner shipping’s main east-west trades remains uncertain, due to the worsening freight rate environment, there are still opportunities for start-ups in niche trades.
This appears to be the thinking behind a recent deal between Abu Dhabi Ports shipping subsidiary Safeen Feeders and Bangladeshi firm Saif Powertec, which will see Safeen splash out $102m on three vessels for 15-year charters with Saif Powertec.
The vessels are ...

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