newsWorldCargoJUNE 2005

IN THIS ISSUE

NEWSFantuzzi on the up? 2New Ram spreader 3OOIL back to Navis 5Suezmax for Bristol? 7APMT in Brazil move 10

PORT DEVELOPMENTSouthern Africa update 17Egypt’s ports growing 19Turkey’s private offerings 19

SHIPPINGMega-carriers push limits 21Coastal frustrations 23

CARGO HANDLINGTier 3/Stage IIIa coming 24New drives save money 25Siemens’ ECO-RTG 26Snag without hydraulics 27Consens unveiled 28Spreaders ride tandem? 29

REEFER INDUSTRYBig year for reefers 30TK’s Thai seminar 32

CONTAINER INDUSTRYNew floor alternatives 34COA mulls floor options 34

PSA Singapore Terminals (PSA)has awarded a contract for 80RTGs to Doosan Heavy Indus-tries & Construction of Korea forthe next five berths at the PasirPanjang Terminal extension. Thisis on top of the order for 42 ma-chines PSA placed with Doosanlast year, the first 12 of which weredelivered in April from Doosan’sfabrication facility in Indonesia.

The machines will be the samespecification as the previous units:16 wheels, stacking 1 over 5 con-tainers high and 6+1 wide, ACinverter drives, cable festoon forthe trolley power and hydraulicanti-sway. The contract price isS$160 mill, which works out ataround US$1.19 mill per RTG -19 per cent more than the US$1mill each PSA paid for the first 42machines last year.

Gottwald Port Technology hassigned a framework agreementwith P&O (UK) for the supply ofautomated stacking cranes (ASCs)for the new Antwerp GatewayTerminal at Deurganckdok, Ant-werp. The agreement requiresGottwald to supply, test and com-mission the first four ASCs for twostack modules by June 2006.

Further ASCs will then be de-livered under a tight schedule asmore stack modules come on line.The agreement is also designedto cover possible future projectsat other P&O terminals aroundthe world.

The scope of supplies andservices includes not only thehardware but also the completecontrol system software, includ-ing a module manager whichensures that two ASCs mountedon one set of rails do not collide.

After extensive wind channeltesting and simulations, the ASCshave been designed to withstandwind forces of up to 10 Beaufort

Following a prolonged and ex-tremely bitter power struggle forcontrol of Russia’s largest com-mercial seaport (see WorldCargoNews August 2004, p5),Investsberbank has acquired,through offshore daughters, a19.78 per cent stake in the Com-mercial Seaport of Novorossiysk(NMTP) from its main rival, DeloGroup, for around US$80 mill.

NMTP is the largest stevedoreat Novorossiysk, responsible foraround 75 per cent of its overallthroughput and last year handledover 70 mill tonnes, with a turno-ver of US$150 mill.

Investsberbank (formerly Rus-sian General Bank) and its partnercompany Uralsib (formerly Nikoil)already hold large blocks of sharesin the Novorossiysk grain exportterminal, Novoroslesexport, theonly timber port in Russia’s south,Importpischeprom responsible for14 per cent of the Black Sea oilhandling, Novorossiysk ShiprepairYard, the largest repairing facilityin southern Russia, Flot NMTP, thecountry’s largest tug boat company,etc. Delo Group exercised a virtualfreight forwarding monopolywithin NMTP, reportedly control-ling up to 70 per cent of the flowof metal and sugar via the port.

The equipment is part of PSA’splan to add 15 new berths at PasirPanjang Terminal by 2011. In a

The “uneasy peace” whichpreviously existed between Deloand rival stockholders was shat-tered when the Russian PropertyMinistry put up for sale its stakeof 20 per cent in the port. By theend of 2004, Uralsib andInvestsberbank held 26.76 percent and 18.92 per cent of NMTPstock respectively. At the begin-ning of May, they started buyingout minor stockholders in orderto increase their aggregate blockfrom 45.68 per cent to some 70-80 per cent after the sale of theProperty Ministry’s stake.

However, the port’s manage-ment backed by Delo and its part-ner Alfa Eco refused to leave thebusiness and tried to “preserve thebalance of shareholders.” Port di-rector Vladimir Kovbasyuk man-aged to consolidate Delo’s initialstake of just 6.98 per cent withthat of the port’s employees un-der an umbrella company andraised it to a total of 24 per cent.

Last month, however, Kov-basyuk was forced to step downafter tax evasion charges weremade against him and his subse-quent attempt to wrest back con-trol failed. He has been replacedby his former deputy director,Igor Vilinov.

without needing to cease opera-tion so that the terminal opera-tor can count on maximum avail-ability and safety.

The ASCs will stack 1 over 5and span 9-wide. Many of thedesign concepts and automationsystems involved were previouslytested for the original HNN au-tomated terminal planned forMSC at Deurganckdok.

In fact, some key HNN per-sonnel involved in that projectnow work for P&O Ports. It isworth speculating, therefore, thatAntwerp Gateway will opt forshuttle carriers of some kind forthe dray between apron and ASCs- perhaps 1 over 0s or 1 over chas-sis, rather than 1 over 1s, for lowercost and higher ground speeds.

Doosan books 80 RTG order Gottwald bagsAntwerp ASCs

Russian “war” over

statement PSA said, “Three of thenew berths will be ready in 2005,with another five in operation by

2006. The 15 new berths are ex-pected to boost PSA’s annual han-dling capacity in Singapore from20 mill TEU to 31 mill TEU.”

Grace Fu, CEO, South EastAsia and Japan, PSA International,added that volumes at PSA Sin-gapore Terminals registered dou-ble-digit increase in the first fourmonths of 2005 to reach a record7.12 mill TEU. PSA has fast-tracked its expansion plans to meetthe present and future needs ofcustomers. “Our focus this year isto bring on new capacity asquickly as possible, and to provideexcellent service to our custom-ers while handling increased con-tainer volumes. To date, PSA hascommitted some S$400 mill inport equipment for our newberths to better serve our custom-ers” she said.

The first 12 of the 122 RTG-16s PSA Singapore has now ordered fromDoosan for the Pasir Panjang Terminal extension were delivered in April

Gottwald has to deliver the ASCs toAntwerp Gateway on a tight scheduleas stack modules come on line

In a surprise move, HutchisonWhampoa Ltd (HWL) has an-nounced that it has agreed to sell20 per cent and 10 per cent effec-tive equity in Hongkong Interna-tional Terminals (HIT) andCOSCO-HIT respectively toPortCapital Ltd, an investmentholding company backed by rival

terminal operator PSA Interna-tional, for a cash consideration ofUS$925 mill.

Commenting on the transac-tion, HWL Group managing di-rector Canning Fok said, “Theterms of this transaction are fairand reasonable and are in the in-terests of the company and its

shareholders as a whole. We arehappy that this transaction willcreate a strong alliance in theGroup’s port operations, and willput us in a position to have strate-gic co-operation resulting in fur-ther value creation for all parties.”

“We are confident aboutHong Kong’s container terminal

business. The strategic alliance willmake HIT and COSCO-HITeven stronger players in this highlycompetitive market of containerterminal operations,” added JohnMeredith, group managing direc-tor of Hutchison Port HoldingsLtd (HPH).

The move means that PSAInternational has further strength-ened its foothold at Hong Kong’sKwai Chung containerport. Ear-lier this year, the company boughtNWS Holdings’ 31.4 per cent in-terest in Asia Container Terminals(ACT), which operates the two-berth CT8 West terminal at KwaiChung, as well as the entire sharecapital of an NWS subsidiary thatholds an indirect 22.9 per centinterest in ACT via a 33.34 percent interest in CSX World Ter-minals Hong Kong, which oper-ates the single-berth CT3. Thelatter is now majority owned byDubai Ports International (DPI).

PSA acquires HIT stake

June 20052

WorldCargonews CARGO HANDLING NEWS

Liebherr-Werk Nenzing (LWN)reports the sale of the first LRS645 reach stacker with a combi-attachment to Belgian UIRRoperator TRW, for use in Genk.The third LRS 645 to be deliv-ered to a Belgian customer sincethe novel reach stacker waslaunched last year, the unit has amovable cabin and an electronicfeature asking for a password be-fore start-up. The cabin is air-con-ditioned. A similar machine hasalso been ordered by BolognaGruin Italy, for leasing.

LWN has also secured its firstAfrican customer for the LRS 645,Empresa Portuaria do Lobito. Thisincludes several options, includingcameras on the spreader and forrear view, outreach indication withpre-selection of containers plus avertical and horizontal load path,a load indication system includ-ing self-levelling of the spreader,central greasing for the chassis,

First piggyback for Liebherr

boom and spreader and a modemfor tele-diagnosis.

Other new customers includeOR Schulze Holz- und Baustoff-recycling GmbH & Co in Berlin,the third customer in Germany.

The main “extras” are a data re-corder including flashcard, load in-dication, central greasing for chas-sis, jib and spreader as well as acamera on the spreader.

Two units have been ordered

by Hutchison Port Holdings’ newoperation in Poland, Gdynia Con-tainer Terminal. These will be fit-ted with front support pads to pro-vide enhanced second and thirdrow lifting capacity, along with adata recorder, load indication anda special spreader application tohandle 45ft containers.

LWN adds that the LRS 645is now fully-manufactured inNenzing as production of thecurved boom is no longer subcon-tracted but is being built in-house.The company is understood to beworking on a lighter duty versionof the machine to offer alongsidethe LRS 645 spec.● LWN has begun producingsome of its two biggest harbourmobile crane models, 400 and 500,at its new plant in Rostock, whichhas waterside access for shipmentof fully-erect cranes. It is not yetclear how much production willbe transferred from Nenzing, butthe Austrian plant is working atfull capacity and cannot be ex-panded as it is located between themountains and a main highway.

Mardas Marmara Deniz Islet-meciligi AS, the container termi-nal operator in the Mardas Portarea of the Ambarli Port Com-plex in Istanbul, Turkey, has placedan order with Kalmar for six E-One all-electric RTGs, togetherwith Smartrail and Remote Ma-chine Interface (RMI).

The 16-wheel RTGs will betaller than usual, able to stack 1over 6 high, and also have an out-size span able to accommodatenine rows plus the truck lane. Theywill be delivered and erected atMardas by the end of May 2006.

Mardas already operates sevenKalmar ro-ro tractors, threeContchamp reach stackers and anECH reach stacker. Last year theterminal saw its throughput rise20 per cent and, to optimise space,it is switching to RTGs from areach stacker operation.

Kalmar has reorganised recentlyand responsibility for RTGs hasbeen transferred from Finland toKalmar Industries BV in Holland,already the group’s (ex-Nelcon)division for ship-to-shore cranesand RMIs. Keijo Parviainen is nowvice president, marketing and sales,for a new Kalmar division, Intelli-gence and Automation (I&A). Thepresident of the division is JörmaTirkkonen, who previously ranKalmar’s global terminal tractorbusiness based in Ottawa, Kansas.

As Kalmar builds upprouction of tractors for theChina market in Shanghai, it hasalso started manufacturing me-dium (8-15 tonne) FLTs at Ot-

tawa - the US being the biggestsingle market for FLTs of this size.Also coming under the aegis ofA&I is Kalmar’s terminal devel-opment department, which is stillrun by Jari Pirhonen.

RMI is an A&I fleet manage-ment tool introduced by Kalmarlast year for remote monitoring,maintenance tasking and report-ing of handling equipment froma control room at a customer’s ter-minal via GSM, WLAN etc, or viaremote trubleshooting and sup-port from Kalmar experts over theInternet.

Existing applications includeRTGs, straddle carriers and reachstackers. With operations beingobserved from one place, the timespent on machine checks is greatlyreduced, providing a more effi-cient service. The system includesGPS satellite location.

A&I covers not only RMI andterminal simulation products andservices (terminal development),but also robotised straddle carri-ers (cf Patrick terminal at Fisher-man Islands, Brisbane), SmartRail,SmartPath and the automationsystems of automated stackingcranes.● It us understood that Turkey’sArkas group has exercised an op-tion for 10 more RTGs from AbuDhabi-based Gulf Port Cranes(see WorldCargo News March 2005p3), increasing its order to 25 ma-chines. All the RTGs are beingsupplied will all-electric Mara-thon yard crane spreaders fromBromma.

Kalmar has delivered the first ofthree DCE 100-45 E6 ECH masttrucks specifically designed for lift-ing two containers 1 on 1 tointermodal specialist BTS Kombi-waggon Service GmbH in Korn-westheim, near Stuttgart.

This latest delivery rounds offa successful year for Kalmar’s ECHdivision, which has seen sales ofthe DCE 100, launched just oneyear ago, “surpass all expectations”by exceeding 50 units, a numberof which were supplied with the1 on 1 sidelift frame.

According to Dan Pettersson,Kalmar’s product manager, heavymast trucks, the attraction of thenew machine is its dedicated ap-plication design. “The DCE100 ispersuading more and more cus-tomers that a machine purpose-built for double handling emptycontainers is ideal for theirlogistical needs and can help themincrease overall port equipmentproductivity and lower lifetimecosts,” he said.

Features of the DCE 100 in-clude a reinforced mast, a morepowerful drive axle and stream-lined electrical power and hy-draulics supplies. It has just onecable for electric supply and two

hoses for the hydraulics on theattachment. This enhances visibil-ity when, for example, the driverneeds to pick or place containershigh in the stack. The SWL of 10tonnes means that two emptyreefer containers can be safelyhandled.● Kalmar has won an order fromLibra Terminais for 13 x 45 tonneSWL ContChamp DRF reachstackers to be delivered to its con-tainer terminals in Santos and Riode Janeiro.

Five machines will be deliv-ered to Libra’s Terminal 37 andTerminal 35 in Santos this August,and the other eight units will bedelivered in two batches of four,in October and November, to re-place other brand rented machinesat both Santos and Libra’s Termi-nal 1 in Rio de Janeiro.

“We will capitalise on this re-cent success to strengthen furtherthe presence of our Generation Fheavy counterweight trucks inLatin Amer ica,” said PerRosengren, product manager,Kalmar reach stackers. Kalmar hasalso recently completed deliver-ies of the hi-spec ContChampDRF to operators in Mexico andVenezuela.

Patrick Stevedores has confirmeda warranty/service contract withKalmar for its fully robotised strad-dle carrier fleet at the FishermanIslands terminal in Brisbane.

The contract includes sched-uled warranty PM and servicing,service parts and daily and weeklychecks, including regular cleaningand inspection of optical sensors.It covers the 14 automated KalmarESC units delivered last year andthe four recently ordered auto-mated machines to be deliveredlater this year.

Patrick will also equip the strad-dle carriers with Kalmar’s Remote

Machine Interface (RMI) system.According to Raimo Ylivakeri,

president of Kalmar Services (for-merly Kalmar Solutions), the glo-bal equipment service market inports and terminals is wortharound €3 bill and Kalmar’s shareis some 27 per cent.

In relative terms, Kalmar Serv-ice’s share of overall Kalmar turno-ver has remained static in the pastfive years at 24-25 per cent, but inabsolute terms has risen from€120m/year to €220m/year in thesame period, due to both organicgrowth and strategic acquisitionsof service companies.

E-One for Mardas...

...ECHs double up...

...autostrad contract

The LRS 645 has now penetrated the piggyback combi-lift market

Sweden-based Timars has recentlyintroduced a new overheight at-tachment design, available in 20ftand 40ft fixed and 20-40-45ftstepless telescoping versions. SWLis 45 tonnes.

The DNV-certified UniversalOHA is fully automatic and op-erates completely mechanically,with a built-in safety interlocksystem to prevent locking whenthe frame has not been properlylanded or if any of the lowertwistlocks are prevented fromturning. Locking is automaticwhen the frame is correctly landedand the operator can check lock/unlock status with a clearly vis-

ible (reflective), revolving red andgreen indicator bar.

The frame is attached manuallyto the parent spreader using a sim-ple rod system. Customers to datefor the Universal OHA include CSteinweg in Hamburg, Ports ofStockholm AB, Intramar SA inMarseille and Seayard in Marseille’sPort Saint-Louis district.

Other recent business forTimars includes six C-Lift spread-ers for operation in Kuwait and aGravity Centrelizer unit forPetrolexport in Saint Petersburg.

New Timars overheight

Demand for the new overheight isrunning at high levels, says Timars

In the first five months of this yearnet sales of Fantuzzi Group roseby 15 per cent compared to thesame period last year and it looksas though it will surpass the €482mill level of 2003. Since last year’srestructuring, losses have beencut and net debt has fallen be-low €200 mill - still too high,concedes president LucianoFantuzzi, but he is confident thatthings are moving the right way.

There is still no news on newshareholders with fresh capital(see WorldCargo News April 2005,p1) but, failing an agreement onthis score, funds will be raised byselling the Reggio Emilia site.

Certainly the group wouldappear to be in a stronger posi-tion than a few months ago.Noell straddle carrier sales haveexceeded expectations and willreach an all-time record this year(at least 165 pieces). New ordersinclude another 16 ESWs to Ev-ergreen in Tacoma, following thedelivery of 34 units in Decem-ber. The latest machines will befitted with a new power trian andCreon, Noell’s new control sys-tem for mobile equipment.

APM Terminals ZeebruggeNV has just confirmed an orderfor 23 ESWs, while APM Termi-

nals Rotterdam BV has placed anorder for 12 more 4-high ESWs,to go with the 12 it received inFebruary this year.

Fantuzzi group’s CEOFrancesco Petilli reports that 95RTGs are slated for delivery thisyear (mostly by Noell China),with 16 more on order for deliv-ery next January. On anannualised basis, RTG output hasrisen by almost seven per cent.

In addition, Noell China isdelivering five ship-to-shorecontainer cranes this year - allto P&O Ports in India and Pa-kistan - and has an order in handfor six more for 2006-7 deliv-ery to MOT, Hong Kong.Reggiane delivered four ship-to-shore cranes to AP Triesteearlier this year and has bookedtwo for AP Napoli and two foranother Italian customer (be-lieved to be VTE Genova) fordelivery next year.

Reggiane also has an orderfrom Kramer Container Depotfor two barge/feeder ship-to-shore cranes for delivery nextyear. In addition, says Petilli,Reggiane has already bookedfirm orders this year for 18 har-bour mobile cranes, and ordersfor another six are at hand.

Buoyant Fantuzzi

CARGO HANDLING NEWS

June 2005 3

WorldCargonews

Ram Spreaders is launching an all-elec-tric twin 20 spreader series, Ram 3900,starting with the Ram 3910, a separat-ing centre design with an SWL of 2 x32.5 tonne or, in single mode, 50 tonne.The prototype Ram 3910 will be builtin Singapore and will start testing on acrane (probably also in Singapore) earlynext year.

The fact that Ram has announcedthe development ahead of proving oreven production indicates its confi-dence in the design. According to ex-ecutive director Robert Mills, it isstructurally the same as the successful2910 CenterSpread model introducedin 2001, but with electric motors andgearbox and a new chain drive insteadof the hydraulics.

Everything else is the same, includingthe centre spread adjustment of 1600mm,and the crane driver will not notice anydifference, says Mills. He adds that the3910 was the logical place to start the all-electric quay crane spreader range as the2910 is already such a big contributor toRam’s overall sales.

Ram successfully introduced its all-electric yard crane spreaders, the Ram3000 series, about two years ago. All-elec-tric spreaders, says the company, are lighter,easier to maintain, have longer serviceintervals, lower downtimes and are moreenvironment-friendly than traditionalelectro-hydraulic spreaders, as energy useis lower (no need to run the electric

motors continuously) and the risk of hy-draulic oil spillages is eliminated.

More than 20 per cent of Ram’s RTGspreader sales are now all-electric types,with fixed gather guides.

In practice, ensuring that the flipperson the 3900 have sufficient torque andbackdrive has not proved a problem andthe extra cost is more than offset by sav-ings in other areas. The mass and shape ofthe flippers and the way they are con-nected to the gable ends are unchanged.The 3910 weighs almost 500kg less thanthe comparable 2910, by eliminating thehydraulic power unit, valves, etc.

Ram is believed to be the second

spreader maker in recent times to intro-duce an all-electric quay crane sprader.The first, Bubenzer, is understood to havefive units in the field today.

Ram Spreaders is a major arm of NSLEngineering Pte Ltd, part of NatSteelgroup. The NSL rubric was adopted bythe group’s operating dvisions followingthe sale of its steel producing interestslast year.● Ram reports a new order from the Portof Charleston for three more type 1320ECH lift truck 20-40ft sidelift spreaders,follwing successful trials with one 1320,which the port is also taking over, to re-place existing sidepicks on a number ofits ECH mast trucks. SWL of the 1320 is8 tonne and the port has specified RamLoadLite LE indicator lamps and on-board solid state control.

UK-based OxLoc Ltd has entered intoa commercial arrangement with Wave-trend of the US to integrate its stand-alone GPS tracking technology withWavetrend active tags and receivers. Aspreviously reported in WorldCargo NewsMarch 2003, p34) OxLoc provides its As-set Alert Solution for monitoring the lo-cation of intermodal assets which haveno access to a power source.

It is claimed that customers can usethese devices, powered by only two Dcell batteries, for operating periods ofup to 3 years, reporting informationtwice per day.

According to Wavetrend, the hard-

ware for most conventional telematicssolutions reporting position and condi-tion require access to an “always on”power source, which is usually not ap-propriate for intermodal assets such astrailers, containers, chassis or rail cars, aswell as mobile handling plant.

OxLoc solved the problem througha power management solution, allowingthe unit to run from primary D cell bat-teries. Through the new partnership withWavetrend, a derivative of this system willsoon be available to gather consignmentinformation from tagged goods insidecontainers and trailers using Wavetrend’sproven active tag technology.

Wavetrend/OxLoc team upNew Ram spreader

KCI Konecranes reports its first com-mercial order for two RMGs of a newdesign. Roadways Container LogisticsLtd (RCL), part of P&O Nedlloyd, hasordered the two machines for its newBIFT (Birmingham Intermodal FreightTerminal) at Birch Coppice in the Eng-lish Midlands. The 40 tonne SWL RMGswill span 28m and be able to lift 1 over 3x 9ft 6in high. The order is understoodto be worth around €4 mill.

“The schedule for the new BIFT ischallenging for us,” said Phil Clinton,RCL’s terminal engineering manager.“We want our new terminal to operatewith the highest technology cranes avail-able in the market.”

Rail access to RCL’s new BIFT is viaa privately-owned branch line fromKingsbury Junction and the company hasbeen negotiating long-term access rightsto the main line.

It is hoped that BIFT will be readyby April next year. The RMGs will spanfour 320m long tracks and two road lanes.RCL will also be in the market for threestraddle carriers for BIFT as it has goodexperience of straddle carriers in otherterminals (Leeds, Coatbridge, Barkingand Manchester).

“KCI Konecranes has had great suc-cess with its range of RTGs and todaythere is also a growing demand forRMGs, which created the need for a newconstruction,” commented Ilpo Hakala,director, harbour and shipyard cranes.

The new design lends itself easily tofull automation, adds Konecranes, not leastthrough the superior load control achievedby its active load control system for swayprevention and fine positioning, which alsoimproves cycle times, safety and machin-ery lifetime, resulting in the lowest lifetimecosts. A rotating trolley is fitted to ensureefficient transfer of containers between rail-cars and road vehicles.

All features are electromechanical,with no hydraulics involved. To maxim-ise uptime in operations, the RMGs areequipped with a remote diagnostic sys-tem enabling operators and service tech-nicians to analyse productivity and PMrequirements.

First newKCI RMGsfor BIFT

June 20054

WorldCargonews CARGO HANDLING

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WorldCargoVOLUME 12 NUMBER 6 • ISSN 1355-0551

Gottwald Port Technology haslaunched a new E-AGV serieswith diesel-electric drive as an al-ternative to its proven diesel-hy-draulic AGVs. The first 11 unitsof the new design will be suppliedto HHLA’s Container TerminalAltenwerder (CTA) in Hamburg.

Gottwald AGVs have nowbeen on the market for more than15 years and more than 300 unitsare in operation or on order. Thenew diesel-electric E-AGVs areclaimed to offer reduced fuelconsumption, reduced mainte-nance requirements, greater avail-ability, enhanced performanceand environmental benefits,thanks to significantly reducedsound output levels and dieselconsumption.

Gottwald is already renownedfor its diesel-electric drive in itsharbour mobile cranes, says DrMathias Dobner, the company’schief technical officer. “Now thatwe have incorporated this know-how into the AGVs, operators canchoose between two types of AGVaccording to their individual re-quirements.”

CTA currently operates a fleetof 53 AGVs with diesel-hydraulicdrive, complete with navigationand management system. Its 11new E-AGVs (type CT 60-E) willbe supplied in two stages. The firstunit, a pilot for pre-qualificationtesting, will be delivered nextJanuary with the the balance duein April.

The CT 60-E can carry one20ft, 40ft or 45ft or 2 x 20fts. SWLis 40 tonne for single containersand 60 tonne for 2 x 20ft. Refu-

elling is automatic - carried outby means of a robot refuelling ve-hicle. Both axles are steered inde-pendently of each other for ma-noeuvrability.

Thanks to the elimination ofsome hydraulics, the E-AGVs arefitted with a smaller hydraulic oiltank in favour of a larger diesel-tank. This, plus the fact that thediesel-electric drive entails lowerdiesel consumption, leads to fewerfuelling intervals, which furtherboosts productivity.

New Gottwald E-drive AGV...

Gottwald has received orders forfour harbour mobile cranes fromIndian operators: two HMK 330EG four-rope grab cranes will goto Gujarat Adani Port Ltd (GAPL)in Mundra; and two HMK 300 Esto DPI Terminals (DPI) for theRajiv Gandhi Container Terminal(RGCT) in Kochi to be operatedby India Gateway Terminal.

GAPL’s cranes will be used tohandle coal and scrap and will gointo operation in September on the

existing berths and subsequentlyalso on two new bulk cargo berthscurrently under construction.Mundra was the first Indian portable to berth Capesize colliers andGAPL already operates two 4-ropegrab cranes from Gottwald, eachcapable of handling up to 800 tph,while elsewhere in the port twoHMK 280 E are in service withP&O Ports’ Mundra InternationalContainer Terminal (MICT).

The two HMK 300Es for

RGCT are due to enter servicethis month. Last year DPI orderedtwo HMK 300Es for its operationin Constantza. while DPA orderedtwo for Port Rashid.

In total, Gottwald has reportedorders for 37 cranes in the first halfof this year, including eight 4-ropegrab cranes. The list includes onelarge rail portal-mounted variant,HSK 330 EG, for ChesapeakeBulk Handling in Sparrows Point,Maryland. Gottwald has also dis-closed the destination of two HSK330 EGs ordered towards the endof last year - Alvita Stevedoringin Sevastopol.

CTA’s AGV operations appear to be highly successful

...HMCs for India

To boost productivity and reducecosts, Salerno Container Terminal(SCT) is introducing short multi-trailer train sets (MTS) fromHoucon Cargo Systems for itsyard/quay drayage operation.

Initially, SCT will deploy twoMTS-2s, with the first trailer con-nected to the tractor fifth wheelin the normal way and the sec-ond connected to the first bydrawbar. In the second phase, an-other five MTS-2 will be acquiredor, more ambitiously, SCT willswitch to five MTS-3s.

Tests have indicated that MTS-3s can work in the confined spacesof SCT. The lead trailer is still con-nected by kingpin to the tractorfifth wheel and SCT’s existing fleetof CVS tractors is apparently pow-erful enough to deal with the extratrailing loads, particularly as SCTis now handling a much highernumber of 40fts than previously(now 50 per cent of moves).

SCT is not switching suppli-ers as it uses Houcon single trail-ers today. The new MTS trailerswill have bigger gather guides toassist spotting by the Gottwaldmobile crane operators. SCT op-erates five Gottwalds and manag-ing director Franz Jol contendsthat dr ivers using the oneequipped with a Smits spreaderusually find it easier to spot 20ftson the trailers.

SCT has now taken full con-trol of the former Cargo Services(Bucci) terminal, to cater for moretraffic. Because the port is nowISPS-accredited, it has been ableto introduce a fully-fledged con-tainer truck gate and can thus per-form housekeeping more effec-tively during non-open hours.

Norway’s TTS Marine ASA is set-ting up a new division, TTS Portsand Material Handling, separat-ing out this function from theships’ equipment work of TTSShips Equipment AB. Some keystaff from the latter company willtransfer to the new division,which will commence operationslater this year.

Areas of competence cover drycargo handling, marine cranes andports and materials handling. Oneof the areas of expertise is ro-rocassette handling, using the Liftecdesigns and know-how whichwere acquired when TTS boughtLiftec Products Oy AB in Finland(see WorldCargo News January2005, p1).

The new division will spear-head TTS’s involvement inprojects such as automated cassettetranslifters, as demonstated in theEU’s Integration project, auto-matic trailer trestles, IPSI lashings,fast automatic loading of contain-ers into ro-ro ships using cassette“trains,” etc.

Staff from TTS Handling Sys-tems in Drøbak, Norway, where theprototype FastShip (un)loadinginstallation was built, and Liftecin Tampere will also be transferredto the new division, while a newsales company will be set up inGothenburg under the name ofTTS Port Equipment AB. Thiswill be headed by Lennar tSvensson, while the new divisionas a whole will be headed up byGöran Johansson.

TTS setsup portsdivision

Italy-based CVS Ferrari has se-cured a £6 mill contract fromBritish intermodal operatorFreightliner Ltd (FL) to replace itsentire fleet of mobile containerhandling plant at various inlandrailheads and the Maritime rail-head at Southampton Docks.

The new fleet comprises ninemodel F378.5 reach stackers and10 x F18EC dedicated ECH masttrucks, along with eight FYT2204x2 yard tractors for in-railheadground transfer work. “This is thelatest phase of our investment pro-gramme to ensure we provide re-liable and efficient services,” saidPeter Maybury, managing direc-tor of FL Intermodal.

FL will dispose of the existingplant in accordance with agree-ments with the existing suppliers.Up to now FL has sourced han-dling equipment for differentrailheads from a mix of suppliers,including CVS (eg Cardiff, Bir-mingham).

The new contract rationalisesthe supplier base to just one and,says FL, is underwritten by a de-

manding availability level and re-placement parts agreement. Un-der the contract the maintenancework will be undertaken byCVS’s UK distributor Shad ForkTruck Ltd.

This is the largest single con-tract signed by CVS in Europe andprojects it as a leading supplier ofcontainer handling plant in theUK. Deliveries are due to com-mence shortly.

According to FL, eight suppli-ers responded to its RFP. Of thebidders, only Kalmar and CVScould offer all the equipment sup-plied from their own production.● CVS has supplied its first reachstacker in Belgium, a model F258,to Antwerp Tank Repair, part ofVan Loon group. The machine wassupplied through CVS’s local part-ner, Jan De Wacker NV IndustrialEquipment.

The F258 is a dedicated ECHmachine with an SWL of 12tonne and stacking 6-high in thefirst row. The 20-40 telescopicspreader is provided with -95 and+195 degree rotation.

FL drives Ferrari Houconfor SCT

CARGO HANDLING

June 2005 5

WorldCargonews

Orient Overseas International Limited(OOIL) subsidiary Terminal Systems Inc(TSI) is abandoning development of itsown in-house terminal operating system(TOS), JSTEPs, and has signed a deal withNavis to implement the latter’s off-the-shelf solutions across five North Ameri-can terminals.

The announcement comes as a sur-prise as TSI has spent about five yearsdeveloping JSTEPS in Canada and at onestage said OOIL planned to implementit at other terminals around the world,including Kaohsiung.

TSI has used Navis products since1991 but also developed its own legacysystems for some aspects of terminal op-erations, such as the yard managementsystem at its Vanterm terminal and bothyard and vessel planning systems atDeltaport. Some time ago TSI began de-veloping JSTEPS in a Java environmentand in 2001 replaced Navis’s SPARCSwith JSTEPS at Vanterm.

TSI’s experience was mentioned in aUN report on EDI-based trade and trans-port operations where the cost of devel-oping the vessel planning aspect ofJSTEPS was given as US$750,000, com-pared to US$600,000-US$1.3 mill plusan ongoing 20 per cent annual mainte-nance fee for a SPARCS licence.

It now seems, however, that TSI’s ex-perience with in-house development hasnot been favourable and it has not beenable to develop systems as required. In astatement Colin Donaldson, terminalmanager at Deltaport, said as well as of-fering a complete system to help manageincreasing volumes, “Navis solutions willprovide some relief and immediate vis-ibility to critical data so that we can makeimmediate and smarter decisions.”

Explaining the decision in more de-tail, Peter Miedema, TSI’s vice presidentIT, told WorldCargo News that it neededto replace legacy systems sooner than itthought. “Given the growth in the vol-umes at TSI and the status of the currentlegacy systems, TSI needs to replace thesesystems earlier than anticipated. The busi-ness needs of the other terminals in theOOIL group also require new IT systemssooner rather than later. Although thedevelopment of JSTEPS was well on itsway, it became obvious that it would taketoo much time to complete this new sys-tem on time for all terminals..

“As the Implementation of a proventhird party terminal operating system atall terminals could be realised earlier thanfinishing the development and implemen-tation of JSTEPS, the OOIL terminalgroup decided to stop the JSTEPS de-velopment project,” Miedema said.

Navis will now implement its softwareacross all OOIL’s five North Americanterminals - Deltaport and Vanterm in Van-couver, Global in New Jersey, Long BeachContainer Terminals and New York Con-tainer Terminal on Staten Island. Deltaportwill be the first to implement the Navissoftware which includes SPARCS, Ex-press and WebAccess. As most ofDeltaport’s volume is handled via on-dock rail it will also implement SPARCSrail planning module.

Finland-based Savcor One recently se-cured major orders for its RTG“AutoSteering” system from APM Ter-minals North America, in connectionwith its new fleet of Konecranes RTGsat Elizabeth, NJ, and Pier 400, Los Ange-les. Initially, 11 RTGs are being fitted.Commissioning of the units in Elizabethhas been completed, to be followed bythe Pier 400 units this August.

Savcor One’s system utilises two inde-pendent, redundant DGPS receivers andantennas on opposite sides of the gantry“We strongly believe in the dual receiver/antenna approach,” says Kari Rintanen, thecompany’s VP Technology. “It gives us moreprecise heading data than is possible in sin-

gle receiver systems and compensates forthe loss of satellite lock in GPS shadowareas close to the quayside cranes.

“It enables us to perform intelligentinternal diagnostics, comparing the signalquality from two independent sources, andit also gives the system basic redundancyin case of component failures...it is wellworth the extra cost.” A dual frequencyreceiver with a nominal accuracy of ±20mm is used for auto-steering applications.

Savcor One also claims to be the onlyvendor able to offer a DGPS containerpositioning system (Modulaire C-PIS) ableto cover all types of container handlingunits, including top picks, ECHs and yard

tractors. This is especially important in RTGsites, where auxiliary machinery is used tostack containers or where the operatorwants to control the yard tractor move-ments and productivity in more detail.

In fact, the Modulaire C-PIS installedat SSA Marine’s Manzanillo InternationalTerminal (MIT) in Colón, Panama, is tobe fitted in another 15 Taylor ECH andladen-handling mast trucks. It is alreadyinstalled in 18 RTGs and 14 ECHs andladen-handlers at MIT.

Modulaire C-PIS features a multi-sen-sor position detection module withDGPS as well as vehicle-mounted sen-sors and an active GUI with seamless in-

tegration to MIT’s Tideworks Mainsailyard planning suite. The C-PIS for MITalso a uses a built-in 2.4 GHz SpreadSpectrum radio data network formessaging between the Tideworks soft-ware and C-PIS.

The C-PIS system combines DGPSpositioning data with input from thedead-reckoning sensors, aimed at provid-ing accurate and reliable position fixeseven in areas where DGPS signals areblocked by quayside cranes, ships, build-ing, container stacks and so on.

The C-PIS application in smaller con-tainer handling units relies heavily onSavcor’s proprietary RAT system (reac-quisition accelerator technology). Thecompany explains that this is an enhancedDGPS navigation algorithm which sig-nificantly speeds up satellite re-locking

after the DGPS antenna emerges from aGPS shadow area.

When twistlocks are engaged or re-leased - in a correct or incorrect slot - C-PIS automatically relays the position ofthe container to the Tideworks TOS da-tabase, practically eliminating “lost” con-tainers. No manual data input is required.

“The expanding installations at MITdemonstrate the strength of our fleet con-trol concept, that all machinery that han-dles containers must be covered by a po-sition detection system,” says Savcor Onegroup’s CEO Markus Korhonen. “Onlyin this way can the operator reap the fullbenefits of a DGPS system.” Korhonenadds that the company is setting up itsfirst subsidiary overseas, Savcor One Inc,based in in Dallas, Texas, to serve custom-ers in North and Central America.

New orders for Savcor One

OOIL backto Navis

June 20056

WorldCargonews CARGO HANDLING NEWS

Bromma claims that terminaloperators can expect mainte-nance cost savings in the regionof US$2600 per spreader peryear by using its Marathon all-electric yard crane spreaders in-stead of hydraulic spreaders. Thisis the result, it says, of the sig-nificantly longer service inter-vals and shorter service timewhich have resulted from elimi-nating all the hydraulics.

According to the company,on a monthly basis the labourcost of a service comes toUS$120/spreader with a Mara-thon, compared to US$240 witha hydraulic spreader (ie twice theman hours). In addition the hy-draulic spreader will typicallyrequire US$100 more in mate-rials than the electric spreader,so in total it costs US$220 moreper service on a monthly equiva-lent basis.

The figures are based onfeedback from the growing listof Marathon customers. Orders/deliveries to date include 70 forDubai Ports Authority, 59 twin20 units for PNC Busan, 44 forGulf Port Cranes (of which 25are for RTGs for Arkas in Tur-key), 20 for Noell China (reShekou), 22 for the Port ofFelixstowe, 18 for Hyundai-Samho HI, 17 for P&O PortsCanada for its Noell ChinaRTGs for Vancouver, and 11separating centre twin 20s forSCCT Port Said.

Bromma also reports increas-ing uptake of its SCS2 quay

crane spreader diagnostics andmonitoring system, not just inassocation with new spreaderorders but aso as retrofits. For ex-ample, APL is retroffting SCS2nodes to 12 cranes and 16spreaders in one of its US facili-ties, and there have been two bigspreader retrofits in Hong Kong(20 for HIT and nine for MTL)as well as one for APM inAlgeciras (10 spreaders). Thereare now more than 2500 SCS2spreader nodes in service glo-bally, says Bromma.

Finally, Bromma has comeup with “STS 45 Light,” a lighterversion of its STS 45 separatingcentre twin 20 ship-to-shorecrane spreader. At 11.1 tonne,STS Light weighs 1.6 tonne lessthan the regular STS 45.

Its SWL in twin 20 mode is 2x 25 tonne instead of 2 x 32.5tonne, but the weight savingbrings twin 20 handling capabil-ity to cranes which do not haveenough capacity for regular STS45 operations. In Bromma’s esti-mation, the 1.6 tonne weight re-duction also results in an energysaving equivalent to €17,500 overa 50,000 hour spreader lifetime.

The STS 45 is the mostpopular of Bromma’s ship-to-shore crane spreaders. Last year’ssales included 56 for delivery toterminals in China, 24 to PNCBusan and 23 to PSA-HNNAntwerp. Key orders so far thisyear include eight for Lianyun-gang and nine for a Port of LongBeach operator.

The Port of Rauma has speci-fied another Smits spreader with±5deg transversal adjustment aswell as horizontal adjustment, tobe matched to a new HMK 300E harbour mobile crane it hasordered from Gottwald.

Rauma’s container traffic isgrowing and this year the portexpects to handle 130,000 TEU.Many of these are handled byRauma’s Gottwald harbour mo-bile crane on/off the weather-decks of sideport ro-ros whilero-ro (un)loading is carried outsimultaneously and, as previouslyreported (see WorldCargo NewsFebruary 2004, p32), the trans-versal adjustment feature enablesthe spreader to be adjusted to thesame angle as the deck when theship lists.

The spreader from VDL Smits

Mitsubishi Heavy Industr ies(MHI)’s Hiroshima MachineryWorks has launched an onlineprocurement system in order toextend “our inquiry activities tonew potential suppliers” of ship-to-shore crane and RTG compo-nents.

Pirelli & Co SpA has announcedthe sale of its energy and telecomscables and systems business toGoldman Sachs Capital Partners.The net sale price is €1.2 bill andthe transaction is still subject tovarious regulatory approvals.

Pirelli Cables claims a 10 percent share of the global cable mar-ket but is a much larger figure inthe port crane industry where itis reckoned to have over half themarket. Crane cables, marketedmainly through Pirelli Cables and

Alimak has delivered SE rack andpinion drive lifts with frequencycontrol for 18 container cranes be-ing built by ZPMC for PusanNewport Company. The liftingheight of the type SE 450 FC lifts(ie 450 kg payload) is around 46m.Travel speed is 0.8 m/sec.

Underscoring Alimak’s strongpresence in the container crane liftfield, the company has also wonorders for 30 SE-L lifts fromKalmar for the new cranes it isdelivering in Antwerp (PSA-HNN and P&O Ports) and Rot-

Systems GmbH, are part of Pirelli’s“specials” line and are producedat four manufacturing facilities.

Pirelli’s cable and energy busi-ness, previously acquired from Sie-mens, had sales of €3208 mill in2004, with an operating income(EBIT) of more than €110 mill.

According to the official state-ment, Goldman Sachs fully sup-ports the existing managementteam and itends to work with itto “continue to grow and developthe business.”

terdam (one crane for Interforest).The orders comprise 24 SE

300 L lifts with vertical travels of33m and 39m and six SE 450 Lswith a travel height of 36m.

Available with SWLs of 300,400 and 450kg, the SE-L rangefeatures a choice of control sys-tems - single-automatic or semi-automatic. Sweden-based Alimakis part of the Alimak Hek group(previously known as Intervectgroup), which is jointly owned by3i plc (UK) and Ratos AB (Swe-den).

At the time of writing com-ponents being sought for quaycranes included drives, sheaves,brakes, cables, festoons, cable reels,cabs and machinery houses. List-ings can be found at http://www.mhi.co.jp/hmw/stst/crane/index_pr.html

Pirelli cables sold

Alimak on a high

MHI tenders online

Bromma highlightsMarathon savings

Spreader Systems in the Nether-lands is designated CH 6600 TAFT (ie fixed twin 20 spreader withhorizontal and traversal adjust-ment). According to Smits, whenRauma received the first 2 x 25tonne spreader of this type lastyear, it was the first twin liftspreader ever supplied in Finlandand enabled the port to increasethe number of container movesper hour by 30 per cent.

A case study on the spreaderas a tool for boosting harbourmobile crane productivity waspresented by Rauma’s port di-rector Hannu Asumalahti at theTerminal Operations Confer-ence (TOC) in Antwerp earlierthis month.

Second Smitsfor Rauma

The transversal adjustment featureis a big help when the ships list

CARGO HANDLING/PORT NEWS

June 2005 7

WorldCargonews

Tilbury-based Interforest Terminal Lon-don, part of SCA Transforest, has extendedthe flexibility of its FLT fleet with a Kaupmulti-pallet handler with telescopic forkssupplied by B&B Attachments.

Up to now Interforest Terminals hasused Kaup double pallet handlers with1500mm long forks, enabling operatorsto handle two to four pallets on the forksfrom one side of the vehicle and thenload single pallets, placed at the end ofthe forks from the other. However, theyrequire frequent change of trucks andblades to accommodate the variety andsizes of pallets. In addition, operatorsfound that pallets, stacked behind the loadbeing handled, were at risk of damagefrom the blades.

The answer, says B&B, came with theintroduction of Kaup’s T429 range ofmulti-pallet handlers with telescopic forks,allowing the operator to adjust the forklength from 1000mm to 1500mm andany position in between. They can nowcarry pallets back against the fork uprightinstead of at the fork tips, which saves time

Multi-pallet handler from Kaup

The Kaup T429 attachment provides drivers with more options, says B&B

and money and reduces truck usage.Launched last year, the T429 comes

with sideshift and two hydraulic functions.It is capable of handling one or two pal-

lets side-by-side or two or four pallets twoin a row and side-by-side. It is availablein six options to handle pallets weighingfrom 2500 up to 4600kg.

The UK Port of Bristol wants to build anew deespea container terminal capableof handling ships up to 12,000 TEU. The100-acre facility at Avonmouth would of-fer 1200m of linear quay with 16m depthalongside on every tide and an approachchannel at 15m below chart datum.

The driver for this initiative, says theport’s owner and operator, the privately-owned Bristol Port Company (BPC), isthe shortage of deepsea containerportcapacity in the UK and the fact that mostof the existing and prospective new ca-pacity is located in the south east of Eng-land, where congestion is endemic andset to get worse.

BPC’s chairman Terence Mordauntstated that a number of leading shippinglines have encouraged the company toproceed with this project, particularly af-ter ABP’s Dibden Bay project was finallyrefused planning permission.

Assuming BPC obtains the necessaryHarbour Revision Order and construc-tion work began shortly thereafter, thefirst phase of the new facility could be inoperation by 2008. It is costed at £300mill, including all dredging and civil con-struction work, up to 10 x 67m outreachcranes, other superstructures and operat-ing systems. Mordaunt says that BPC willproceed only on the basis of carriers com-mitting to use the facility.

According to the BPC, Bristol is theclosest port to the UK population as awhole, with a population of 37 mill and45 mill living within 250 and 300km re-spectively, compared to 32 and 37 millwithin these distances from Southampton,the next closest port. Similarly, Bristol isalso closer to most container origin/desti-nation points than London, Southampton,

Felixstowe or Liverpool. BPC believes thatthis gateway attraction will justify the de-viation from Finisterre for a ship en routeto, say, Rotterdam or Antwerp.

The port has excellent motorway ac-cess and the existing rail link intoAvonmouth, already used for coal, cars andsome container traffic, would serve as anear-dock intermodal railhead for thenew deepwater terminal, although capac-ity and high cube clearance issues still haveto be clarified with Network Rail.

Feeder ing to Ireland or Br itish“outports” is also a distinct possibility,since the existing shortsea lo-lo terminalat Avonmouth is close by and could befed from the new terminal with a simplein-port terminal tractor dray.

Although some environmental objec-tion are anticipated, BPC is hoping thatthese will not be a major obstacle giventhe nature of the Bristol Channel, and ithas been working closely with EnglishNature to address environmental issuesarising from the development.

Since it took over the then loss-mak-ing port from the local authority in 1991,BPC has acquired a reputation for “pick-ing winners,” and has built up a portfolioof cargo trades where it can compete suc-cessfully (eg new cars, coal, agri-bulks,shortsea containers). To date the companyhas invested £179 mill in developing andenhancing facilities and services and itsjoint venture partners such as RWE (ex-NPower) a further £162 mill.

Suezmax terminal for Bristol?

Artist’s impression of the new terminal built out from the existing foreshore at Avonmouth

Ingersoll-Rand Maritime Solutions hasinstalled an Internet-based ID-verificationand credentialing card-management sys-tem at the Port of Antwerp. When fullydeployed, it is estimated that the systemwill validate and record credentials formore than 20,000 dockworkers, truckdrivers and other employees and visitorsrequiring access to the port.

The system uses electronic andbiometric technologies based on softwareand hardware components from Ingersoll-Rand subsidiary Interflex Datasystems,which has also designed an open-archi-tecture database and supporting techno-logical infrastructure through which theport’s 71 private terminals may access anduse the card management system to se-cure their individual access points. Theprivate terminals will have real-time ac-cess to data about all personnel cleared todo business with the port.

Each of the 20,000 electronic identi-

fication cards used in the Atwerp systemis equipped with radio frequency identi-fication (RFID) technology, allowingcards to be read at up to 10cm distance,facilitating fast movement through accesspoints. The cards may be used withInterflex and other RFID readers.

The system stores information aboutemployee certifications, work experienceand access restrictions, as well as biometricidentifiers. The hand geometry of eachcard recipient will be prerecorded on eachcredentialing card for use at terminalsemploying Recognition Systems Inc(RSI) biometric hand readers.

The Interflex card management sys-tem is built on the latest web technolo-gies and utilises a powerful work-flowengine coupled with full web-based in-teraction, enabling the complexcredentialing process to be carried outquickly and efficiently across terminalsand other systems.

The Massachusetts state attorney generalhas uncovered a scam whereby Bostonlongshoremen have been registering theirchildren as ILA members and gettingthem paid for a few hours a year. Thisenabled children to accrue seniority and,if and when they started work as alongshoreman, to be paid at a signifi-cantly higher rate.

In one reported case a newly-hired21 year old was found to have 19 yearsseniority, boosting his starting pay fromUS$16 to US$28 an hour.

Attorney General Thomas Reilly haslaunched a grand jury investigation intothe alleged fraud, which he described inthe New York Times as part of the cultureof the waterfront and an “unsophisticatedplan” to ensure jobs were kept withinfamilies.

Antwerp card check Stevedoresin diapers

PORT NEWS

June 2005 9

WorldCargonews

As forecast in the last issue ofWorldCargo News (p34), Amster-dam’s Ceres Paragon terminal,owned 50 per cent by NYK and50 per cent by Chris Kritikos(through CNK Trust), has finallysecured regular business from theGrand Alliance (GA).

NYK has been pressing for thissince it bought into the facility inSeptember 2002, but despite thegrowing congestion in Rotter-dam, P&O Nedlloyd refused tocountenance it. Apart from ahandful of “trial calls” by variousshipping lines, the innovative ter-minal with its indented dock fordouble-sided ship working hasbeen idle since it opened in 2001.

It is not clear why NYK hasfinally made a “breakthrough,” butP&ONL is expected to quit thealliance if the takeover by MaerskSealand goes through. It is under-stood that P&ONL is not involvedin the Amsterdam calls.

The existing Loop A (Japan-Europe) service by NYK’s 6000TEU vessels will call Amsterdameastbound as well as Rotterdam,

Ceres finally under way

while the new F loop from Chinawill call Amsterdam but not Rot-terdam. The two weekly calls areexpected to generate over 220,000TEU on an annualised basis.

As also previously reported,although it was originally NYKthat insisted that Kritikos retaineda 50 per cent stake in the termi-nal to the end of 2006, the linetook its case to wrest control fromhim to the courts. However, the

Court of Justice of Amsterdam hasruled that it cannot force Kritikosto sell his shares by threatening tomake the company bankrupt

Earlier this year, Kritikos wasapparently able to block the pro-posed sale of the terminal toHutchison Port Holdings’ ECT onthe ground that the price offeredwas “too low.” Even with the GAcalls secured, Ceres Paragon is stillworking well below capacity.

Two GA strings will call at the Amsterdam facility, including the new ‘F’ loop

Cosco Pacific is paying Yuan168.22 mill (US$20 mill) for a 20per cent stake in a container ter-minal at the Yangtze River Deltaport of Nanjing.

Under the agreement signedlast month, Cosco Pacific willmanage and operate Phase I ofNanjing Longtan Terminal (NLT),which is already operational.Other shareholders in the Yuan820mill joint venture are state-ownedNanjing Port Authority and itssubsidiary Nanjing Port Co,Shanghai Port Container Co andits subsidiary Shanghai Port Con-tainer (Macau) Co.

NLT has five berths with totalquay length of 910m and a depthalongside of 12m, a 930,000 m2

container yard and 208,000 m2

depot Annual handling capacity is1 mill TEU.

Cosco Pacific has also signedletters of intent to take a 20 percent stake in the five-berthJingtang Island Terminal (JIT) atNingbo port and a 30 per centinterest in the four-berth NorthBasin B Terminal at Tianjin. Bothare expected to begin operationsin 2007.

JIT, spread over 1.7 mill m2

with a quay length of 2,000m and

water depth of up to 15m, willhave an annual handling capacityof 3.5 mill TEU. Ningbo PortGroup will have 45 per cent stakein the terminal, Ning Xing Hold-ings 25 per cent and ZhoushanYongzhou Container Terminal 10per cent.

The quay length of NorthBasin B Terminal in Tianjin is1,100m with a depth alongside of15.5m, which is being increasedto 18m. Its handling capacity willbe 2.1 mill TEU/year. Tianjin PortGroup will hold a 40 per centstake and APM Terminals of Den-mark 30 per cent.● Cosco Pacific deputy managingdirector Kelvin Wong expects itssix-berth Nansha container termi-nal in Guangzhou, south China, tobreak even in 2007 after openingin July next year. The annual han-dling capacity of the terminal willbe I mill TEU in the first full yearof operation and 1.5 mill TEU inthe second, gradually increasing to4.2 mill TEU, he said. The onlydeepwater port in Guangzhou,Nansha’s four-berh multipurposefirst phase opened in September lastyear but has operated at only 25per cent capacity in the first fourmonths of this year.

The Port of Tacoma’s first con-tainer crane, a 1970-built Peiner,which cost US$1.2 mill whennew, has been dismantled andhauled away as scrap metal fromTerminal 7, which is being ex-panded to cater for its new tenantYang Ming Line. Also dismantledwas the adjacent Mitsui grab craneof the same vintage.

The demolition and clearancewere carried out by InternationalRigging of Alameda, California,taking down both cranes forUS$506,652 and retaining the re-sulting scrap to sell on the openmarket.

The Peiner crane was designedto handle bulk and general car-goes as well as containers asTacoma “hedged its bets” aboutthe container business. It was fit-ted with a rotating trolley to han-dle athwartship stow containers.

Always known as “Big Red”even when repainted blue, the crane

was, in theory, one of the first post-Panamaxes as it could reach justover 14 containers across.

The Mitsui crane spent 30years retrieving alumina fromships with a 25 yd3 clamshellbucket. The ore was delivered into

an elaborate system designed tobe moved by conveyor to theport’s two alumina domes, whichwere demolished earlier this yearto free up space at Terminal 7,which will be known as Olym-pic Container Terminal. Kaisershut down its aluminum smelterin 2000 and the port purchasedthe 96-acre site in 2003.

Goodbye to ‘’Big Red”

“Big Red” (repainted blue) has been demolished after over 30 years of service

Cosco Pacific investsin Yangtze terminal

The government of Yemen haschosen DPI Terminals as the pre-ferred bidder for a 30-year con-cession to develop and managethe Aden and Ma’alla containerterminals at Aden.

DPI plans to invest US$370mill during the life of the con-cession in new equipment, infra-structure and management sys-tems to increase annual capacityto 3.5 mill TEU.

Aden Container Terminal,completed in March 1999 byYeminvest, a joint venture led bySingapore port operator PSA In-ternational, has two 350m berthswith a depth of 16m alongside. Ithandled 282,387 TEU last year.

In 2003, the governmentended the contract with the jointventure at the request of PSA,transferring Yeminvest’s assets atthe terminal and the free tradezone to the government.

If DPI finalises the contract,the first phase expansion projectto add one berth, increasing thequay to 1,100m, and install sevennew superpost-Panamax gantrycranes at the terminal, will becompleted in 2008, increasing an-nual capacity to 1.7 mill TEU.

DPI winsin Aden

June 200510

WorldCargonews PORT NEWS

APM Terminals (APMT) hastaken a 50 per cent stake in theTeconvi (Terminal de Conteineresdo Vale do Itajai) container termi-nal at the Brazil’s Itajai port.Cattalini Terminais MarítimosLtda is the other partner.

Teconvi operates at both theport’s concession area and publicberths on a total available berthlength of 740m. Containers arehandled by two harbour mobilecranes and ships’ own gear. A thirdharbour mobile is due for deliv-ery in August.

AMPT chief executive officerKim Fejfer said Teconvi is under-going an expansion programme,which will increase annual handlingcapacity to 1 mill TEU. The plansinclude construction of a new berthequipped with gantry cranes, rein-forcement of the existing quay andexpansion of the yard area.

APMT takes stake inBrazil box terminal

The southern Brazilian porthandles a large volume of refriger-ated exports, a sector in whichAPMT affiliate Maersk Sealand isa major player. Container through-put was 564,012 TEU last year, withTeconvi accounting for more than90 per cent of the total.

APMT already has a stake inthe Port of Pecem’s container ter-minal in north eastern Brazil, op-erated by Ceará Terminal Opera-tions (CTO), where throughputrose 24 per cent to 83,384 TEUlast year as Pecem became one ofthe main export ports for frozenfruit from the Vale do Sao Fran-cisco region.● Brazil’s container terminals look-ing to expand capacity to cope withthe country’s export boom havereceived a boost from the govern-ment, which has extended tax ex-emptions for two more years on

port equipment, including cranesand reach stackers.

Several terminals, includingSantos Brasil, Tecondi andRodrimar in Santos, and Teconviin Itajai, are taking advantage ofthe elimination of various importtaxes which can add up to 40 percent to the cost of importedequipment.

Annual handling capacity at Teconviis to be expanded to 1 mill TEU

Following the rejection of aspectsof its key environmental effectsstudy (EES) into deepening thePort Phillip Bay shipping chan-nels (see WorldCargo News May2005, p37) the Port of MelbourneCorporation (PoMC) has decidedto take up one of the review pan-el’s major recommendations byimplementing a trial dredgingprogramme.

The PoMC is seeking all rel-evant government approvals forthe trial, which, it says, will helpresolve some key risks and un-certainties in the project. Trialdredging is a logical way forwardto prove that the proposed tech-nology can safely and effectivelydeepen the entrance to the bayand will contribute to a betterunderstanding of resultant turbid-ity, it said.

If approvals are granted underthe Environment Effects Act andthe Coastal Management Act, anine-week tr ial, utilising the1998-built, 6,885 dwt QUEEN OF

THE NETHERLANDS, will take placeduring winter and early spring.It will include The Heads, thesouth and the north of the bayand will be subject to strict envi-ronmental controls and be inde-pendently monitored at all stages.

According to local press re-ports, the trial could cost in ex-cess of A$30 mill.● The PoMC will introduce a newwharfage charge on empty inter-national containers with effectfrom July 1. The Corporation hasset the charge at A$8, down fromthe originally-proposed A$10, butit has still attracted the anger ofshipping companies over whatthey see as “a tax on fresh air.”However, the PoMC says emptiesare just as much users of port in-frastructure as full containers.

Under the new schedule,wharfage charges on full contain-ers will increase by 3.5 per centfrom A$31.40 to A$32.50. Ton-nage charges for vessels will againremain unchanged for anotheryear, staying at 2003/04 levels.This is the first schedule for Mel-bourne port to be compiled un-der the Essential Services Com-mission’s new price monitoringframework.

Melbournedredgingon trialSingapore’s PSA International

has signed up to take a 30 percent stake in a joint venture thatwill build a six-berth containerterminal at Tianjin, the largestport in north China.

State-owned Tianjin PortGroup (TPG) will take 50 percent and an unnamed company20 per cent in the Yuan5.3 bill(US$640 mill) terminal, whichwill have an annual handlingcapacity of 3 mill TEU. Its2,200m quay will have a draftof 15m.

This will be PSA’s second in-vestment in Tianjin and fifth inChina, where it also has stakesin terminals at Dalian, Fuzhouand Guangzhou. In Decemberlast year, it teamed up with Ori-ent Overseas Container Line,P&O Nedlloyd and TPG to ex-pand a container terminal on thewestern reaches of Bohai Bay inTianjin (see WorldCargo NewsJanuary 2005, p4). TPG has a 40per cent stake and the three for-eign companies 20 per cent eachin that project, which will addthree or four berths.

If Maersk Sealand’s bid totake over P&O Nedlloyd suc-

ceeds, the latter’s stake will betransferred to APM Terminals,the ports division of the APMoller-Maersk Group.

Dubai Ports International(DPI) is currently the only for-eign operator at Tianjin after ac-quiring the worldwide port net-work of CSX World Terminalsearlier this year. It has a stake inthe four-berth CSX Orient(Tianjin) Container Terminals, ajoint venture with TPG.

China’s fifth largest containerport, Tianjin is locked in a battlewith Dalian, where PSA investedin 1996, and Qingdao, whereP&O Ports has a stake, to be-come the dominant box hub innorth China.

Throughput at Tianjin rose23 per cent to more than 1.43mill TEU in the first fourmonths of this year, with Aprilvolumes totalling 410,380 TEU,topping the 400,000 TEU markfor the first time.

The port handled 3.82 millTEU last year and TPG expectsthroughput to increase to 4.25mill TEU this year, rising to 6.5mill TEU in 2007 and 10 millTEU in 2010.

Five fully-erect, superpost-Panamax ship-to-shore cranes built by ZPMCin China for the Eurogate Container Terminal recently arrived at the Portof Hamburg on board the ZHEN HUA 8 after an eight week voyage fromShanghai. The cranes will be moved onto Berth 1 at Eurogate, wheremodernisation work lasting eighteen months is nearing completion. Thequay wall was extended forward by 35m and depth alongside increased to16.2m, allowing the berth to handle the next generation of containerships.Once Berth 1 is completed, similar modernisation work will begin on Berths2 and 3. By 2010 the Hamburg Eurogate terminal expects to be handlingmore than 4 mill TEU/year

PSA signs for secondTianjin box terminal

The Port of Tuticorin in southIndia is planning to invite globaltenders for the operation of a sec-ond container terminal. PSA-SICAL Terminals Ltd, a joint ven-ture between PSA International ofSingapore and SICAL of India,which runs the port’s existing boxterminal, will be allowed to bidfor the second facility,

Although it is against the statedpolicy of the government, the In-dian Shipping Ministry has givenits approval for PSA-SICAL to bidbecause it is stated in the latter’sconcession agreement for the firstterminal that it will be allowed tobid for a second terminal at the portif the port authority decides to con-vert berth No 8 into a containerterminal. Tuticorin Port Trust(TPT) had asked the ShippingMinistry to clarify PSA-SICAL’sposition in view of the agreementbetween the Port Trust and the jointventure company.

TPT has now decided to con-

vert berth No 8 into a containerterminal and the tender for it isexpected to be published shortly.The facility, which will be opera-tional as a container terminal bythe end of 2006, is being offeredfor 30 years on a build-operateand transfer (BOT) basis. It is ex-pected to cost Rs 1.5 bill(US$34.5 mill) and will have adraft of 10.7m and a capacity tohandle 450,000 TEU/year.

The successful bidder will beasked to furnish a minimum guar-anteed throughput from the firstyear of operation.

The existing terminal atTuticorin has a quay length of340m, which limits the numberof vessels it can receive. In the yearto last March, it handled 307,000TEU registering a growth of 21per cent over the previous year.

If container traffic continues togrow at 20 per cent annually, theTPT will consider converting berthNo 9 into a container facility.

Tuticorin doubles up

The Port of Los Angeles hasagreed to pay China ShippingContainer Line more than US$22mill in a legal settlement stemmingfrom the port’s failure to open anew terminal on time.

The port will also have to paythe Shanghai-based company upto US$7.2 mill in additional pen-alties if it fails to complete twoexpansions of the Berth 100 ter-minal on schedule.

The project was delayed formore than a year because of envi-ronmental mitigation measures that

had to be taken after a lawsuit wasfiled by community and environ-mental groups, alleging that theport did not complete required en-vironmental studies before givingthe US$47 mill terminal projectpermission to proceed.

China Shipping originallyplanned to start using the termi-nal in November 2002. Howevera US court halted construction inOctober 2002 following the en-vironmentalists’ intervention.

The port sought in 2003 toaddress concerns over diesel andother emissions by agreeing topay US$60 mill for environmen-tal projects.

In May 2004, it opened oneberth as a “green” berth whereChina Shipping vessels would useshoreside electricity instead of die-sel while docked.

Under the May 25 settlement,the port will pay China ShippingUS$10 mill for loss of revenue

and other expenses associatedwith the delay and for expensesresulting from new environmen-tal requirements. The port willalso grant the company US$12.2mill in rent credits.

In addition to purchasing en-vironment-friendly yard equip-ment as a term of the amendedstipulated judgment in the lawsuit,China Shipping has agreed to ves-sel retrofits that have enabled itsships to plug into electrical powerwhile at berth.

Since mid-2004, China Ship-ping has operated under a non-exclusive berth assignment as aninterim agreement with the portuntil the settlement of its claim fordamages could be reached.

Permit No. 999 grants ChinaShipping use of Berths 97-109 foroperation as a container terminalfor a 25-year period, with the pos-sibility of three five-year extensions.

As both a tenant and shippingline calling at the Port of Los An-geles, China Shipping paid theport combined wharfage and rentin excess of US$18 mill last year.

The North Carolina State PortsAuthority (NSCPA) has set a July8 deadline for the receipt of bidsfor engineering design services forthe construction of a marine ter-minal on Radio Island, adjacent tothe Port of Morehead City. Thelocation is claimed to be one of thepremier undeveloped deepwaterport sites on the US east coast.

The NCSPA owns about 250acres on Radio Island, of whichan area of 150 acres is suitable fordevelopment. An EnvironmentalImpact Study (EIS) on the prop-

erty, approved in 2001, calls forconstruction of a marine termi-nal with 2,000ft of wharf, ware-house space, and paved, open stor-age. The EIS also specifies dredg-ing to br ing the 45ft-deepMorehead City navigational chan-nel to the face of Radio Island.

Preliminary estimates put thetotal cost of the Radio Island de-velopment at a minimum of US$65mill. Design services up for bid in-clude civil, structural, environmen-tal and electrical engineering for allnecessary site improvements shown

in the approved EIS. The designeralso will be responsible for any EISupdates that may be required,project impact mitigation and ob-taining all necessary environmen-tal development permits.

The Radio Island develop-ment project is an integral com-ponent of the NCSPA’s US$254mill expansion plan, which alsoincludes a new 250,000 ft2 ware-house at the Port of MoreheadCity and substantial improvementsto the container terminal at thePort of Wilmington.

NCSPA switches Radio on

LA legal settlement

June 200512

WorldCargonews PORT NEWS

Shanghai authorities have drafteda list of port operators and ship-ping companies that will be in-vited to invest in the second phaseof the city’s new container portat Yangshan islands this year.

The list includes Hong Kong-based Hutchison Port Holdings(HPH), Cosco Pacific and Mod-ern Terminals (MTL), which hasteamed up with China ShippingGroup to bid for the project, aswell as APM Terminals, P&OPorts and Singapore’s PSA Inter-national.

Gu Gang, a director of Shang-hai Tongsheng Investment Group,which is building the port, saidthe list had been whittled downfrom more than 20 companiesthat had expressed interest in the

Shanghai names theYangshan contenders

four-berth second phase, whichis expected to cost about Yuan5bill (US$604 mill), excluding theland cost.

He said the Shanghai govern-ment wanted to bring in a con-sortium of international investorsand that winners would probablybe chosen through negotiationrather than bidding. “We arelooking for the largest shippingcompanies and port operators be-cause the port itself is going tobe very big,’’ he said.

“The best is for companies toform a consortium since thenumber of berths under construc-tion is still limited and we cannotsatisfy everybody,’’ he added.

The Yangshan complex is thebiggest port project in China, and

probably the world, with aplanned investment of aroundYuan100 bill to build 52 berths

After a 47-day voyage from the Port of Tianjin, China, two new superpost-Panamax ship-to-shore container cranes arrived semi-erect this month at thePort of Savannah on board DOCK EXPRESS 10. Built by KCI Konecranes,they are among the largest ship-to-shore cranes in the world, each with alength of 465ft, height of 374ft with boom raised, weight of 1,369 tons,and are capable of handling 22 containers across and six containers high ondeck. Lift capacity is 72 tons under the spreader and 95 tons under cargobeam. The cranes will be the first cargo unloaded at the Garden City Terminal’snew Container Berth 8 (CB-8), which is more than 50 per cent completeand on schedule for Phase 1 completion by January 2006. When completeCB-8 will increase capacity at the Port of Savannah by 20 per cent, addingmore than 9,800ft feet of continuous dock

After months of politicalgrandstanding by members of hisgovernment and sections of fed-eral bureaucracy, Australian PrimeMinister John Howard has con-cluded that there is not “quite thecrisis that some people, for a vari-ety of reasons, would like us tobelieve” in Australian ports.

A Howard-appointed task-force into claimed export bottle-necks has found there is no majorinfrastructure crisis, although it hasmade a series of recommendationsabout streamlining pricing, regu-lation and planning approvalsprocesses.

The taskforce was establishedto identify any bottlenecks of aphysical or regulatory kind in theoperation of Australia’s infrastruc-ture, which may impede the fullrealisation of export opportunities.

Its report concluded that whilesome parts of the nation’s infra-structure face immediate capacityconstraints, actions already in trainshould help resolve these. How-ever, it does suggest that there aresome underlying weaknesses thatmust be addressed if the problemsare not to become widespread andto prevent future bottlenecks de-veloping.

The report notes that thegreatest impediment to the de-velopment of necessary infra-structure is the way in which thecurrent economic regulatoryframework is structured and ad-ministered. The fragmented na-ture of regulation, the extent ofpowers vested in regulators andthe scope for inconsistency cre-ate uncertainty and increase thelevel of risk for infrastructure in-vestment. The taskforce has rec-ommended changes to improvethe level of regulation required,the clarity of regulatory objectivesand the consistency and timeli-ness of regulatory decisions.

In particular, it has recom-mended that in the first instance,issues to do with export-orientedinfrastructure be resolved by com-mercial negotiation between theinfrastructure provider and users.Where regulation is warranted,light-handed regulation (for ex-ample, price monitoring) shouldbe applied by the relevant regula-tor. Where this demonstrably failsand stronger regulation is needed,the test applied by regulatorsshould be simplified to allow forfaster processes and time limitsshould be imposed.

and a bridge connecting the portto the mainland.

Shanghai International PortGroup (SIPG) and its subsidiaryShanghai Port Container Co arethe only investors in the five-berth first phase, which will starttrial operations by the end of thisyear. The first phase will have anannual handling capacity of 2.5mill TEU and the second phase 2mill TEU.

Shanghai’s Mayor Han Zhenghas announced that the 32.5 kmlong, 31.5m wide East China SeaBr idge linking the city withYangshan will open to traffic inNovember. The two ends of thebridge, connecting Luchao porton the Shanghai coast and SmallYangshan island in Hangzhou Baywere joined on May 25.

International investors arekeen to get in at Yangshan asShanghai has become the world’sthird-busiest container port andis poised to overtake Hong Kongand Singapore.

Tasmania’s reformed port systemis to operate from headquartersin Devonport on the centralnorth coast. State Cabinet hadpreviously determined that thenew Tasmanian Ports Corpora-tion (TPC - see Worldcargo NewsFebruary 2005, p15) would bebased in northern Tasmania, butDevonport has now been se-lected as the best strategic andgeographic location central toTasmania’s principal freight portsof Burnie, Devonport and BellBay/Launceston.

The boards of the four portshave endorsed the need forchange and are in agreementwith the government’s approachin establishing a new merged en-

The government of India’s east-ern state of Or issa hasshortlisted all five companieswhich put in requests for quali-fication to convert Gopalpur, aminor and seasonal port, into anall-weather f acility (seeWorldCargo News November2004, p11.

“We expect to finalise thematter by the end of July,” saidRaja Lakshmi, the state’s Prin-cipal Secretary for Commerceand Transport. She said a pre-bid meeting had been held onApril 29 and all five parties -BHP Billiton of Australia,Integrax of Malaysia and India’sLarsen & Toubro, InfrastructureLeasing & Financial Services

and Orissa Stevedores - hadshown interest. The bid docu-ment and the concession agree-ment will be ready by August.

Rail India Technical Eco-nomic Services (RITES) is theofficial consultant to the Orissagovernment for the Gopalpurproject and it has asked for a fewmore weeks to submit a reporton the viability of the project.

Gopalpur is operational onlyfrom October to March and itwill be the new operator’s job toturn it into an all-weather port.It currently handles minerals, fer-tilisers and food grains, but its in-come is minimal.

The port is being offered onlease initially for a period of 30

years, which could be extendedby another 20 years through amutual agreement between thestate government and the de-veloper. The project is being of-fered on build-own-operate-share-transfer (BOOST) basis.The bidders will be asked toquote the percentage of thegross revenue they will sharewith the government and thewinner is likely to be the com-pany which offers the highestrevenue share.

Orissa is keen to developGopalpur as it has only one ma-jor port - Paradip. Another mi-nor port, Dhamra, is being de-veloped by Tata Steel and Larsen& Toubro.

The south Indian state of Kerala’sPorts Department has once againextended the deadline for the sub-mission of bids for the develop-ment of the proposed Vizhinjaminternational container tranship-ment terminal, this time from June8 to July 30.

S Vijaykumar, CEO of

Vizhinjam International SeaportsLtd and adviser to the Kerala gov-ernment’s Ports Department, saidthe deadline had been extendedat the request of some of the pro-spective bidders. The state govern-ment also felt that extending thedeadline would help attract morebids. The investors felt they neededmore time to evaluate the projectbecause there were several com-plexities involved in it, he said.

Last December, the deadlineexpired for Vizhinjam without asingle bidder submitting a finan-cial bid. Prospective bidders then

said they wanted more conces-sions, which were given in thetender floated subsequently.

One problem is that Vallar-padam, another potential tran-shipment hub, which is being de-veloped by Dubai Ports Interna-tional (DPI) near Kochi, is just200 km away, although Vijay-kumar claims that this develop-ment does not diminish the im-portance of Vizhinjam.

The project, which is beingoffered on build-operate-share-transfer (BOST) basis, involvesbuilding two mainline and fourfeeder berths in the first phase,with a quay length of 1.4 km. Thefinal phase will have four mainlineand nine feeder berths with aquay length of 3.5 km. Theproject cost is estimated at Rs18bill (US$412 mill).

Oz ports are not aproblem after all

The East China Sea bridge linkingYangshan with the mainland will beopened to traffic in November

New Tasmanianports HQ chosen

tity. Current chief executives willbe invited to apply for positionsas heads of four new divisions,while the new TPC CEO posi-tion will be advertised shortly.The intention is to have the newCorporation fully operational bythe end of the year.

The TPC is expected to de-liver a range of benefits to Tas-mania, including improved stra-tegic use of port infrastructure,enhanced economic growth andemployment opportunities anda greater ability to respond to theneeds of Tasmania’s exporters,the government says.

The TPC will be registeredunder the Commonwealth Cor-porations Act 2001 from 1 July.

Auckland Regional Holdings(ARH) is having difficulty ac-quiring the 10 per cent of sharesin Ports of Auckland Ltd (POAL)needed to reach 90 per cent own-ership and trigger a compulsorytakeover of the remaining shares.

Earlier this year, ARH sur-prised the market with an offer ofNZ$8 per share for the 20 per centof POAL that it does not alreadyown. That offer has now been ex-tended three times and ARH hasacceptances taking it to 86 percent, but three key institutionalshareholders are holding out

POAL has not been perform-ing well in its core business re-cently - container volumes actu-ally fell last year and Tauranga istipped to win dairy g iantFonterra’s business which wouldcost Auckland 20 per cent of itscontainer business. However, theport company owns a large in-dustrial waterfront property tothe west of the container termi-nals and the ARH has the abilityto get the land rezoned for resi-dential development, whichcould potentially double its value.

Aucklandtakeoverstalled

Gopalpur shortlists bidders

Vizhinjam extendsdeadline - again

PORT NEWS

June 2005 13

WorldCargonews

Boskalis International has won a contractto deepen the Port of Buenos Aires’ SouthCanal, which links the main access chan-nel with the Exolgán container terminal.The work, which will take four monthsto complete, will result in the access chan-nel having 9.75m of available draughtacross 85-100m.

BA’s long-standing dredging problemscame to a head recently when HamburgSüd’s 5552 TEU newbuilding MONTE

ROSA was forced to scrap her maiden callat Exolgán in Dock Sud due to depthproblems and instead docked at the TRPterminal in Porto Nuevo. The containersexchanged then had to be trucked to andfrom Exolgán.

Hamburg Süd and P&ONL are reshap-ing their ECSA-Europe joint service withthe introduction of new tonnage and BAis the only non-Brazilian port of call in thenewly-styled Brazil Express service.

The MONTE ROSA is easily the biggestcontainership to call at BA and the inci-dent led to speculation that the portwould be dropped, with Rio Grande doSul in Brazil becoming the turnaroundport. The carriers denied this but coucheda clear threat to quit the port in diplo-matic language.

Last year there was another embarrass-ing incident when the Coast Guard sud-denly and inexplicably revoked a permitfor another Exolgán customer, CP Ships,to introduce calls at Murchison’s Termi-nal Zaraté facility (see WorldCargo NewsDecember 2004, p11).

Following an international tender organ-ised for the government of Madagascarby the International Finance Corporation(see WorldCargo News October 2004, p3),Manila-based ICTSI has been selected totake over the management of the coun-try’s leading port, Toamasina.

According to the IFC, the private sec-tor arm of the World Bank, ICTSI wasselected through a competitive and trans-parent bidding process from a group ofprequalified bidders, including AP MøllerFinance, Hutchison Port Holdings and aconsortium formed by Malta Freeport,CMA CGM and Bolloré.

The winning bid was selected on the

basis of ICTSI’s offer of the highest roy-alty fee per 20ft container handled. ICTSIwill be granted a 20-year concession forthe operation, management, financing, re-habilitation, and development of the con-tainer terminal on a PPP basis.

Toamasina currently accounts for over90 per cent of all container traffic in Mada-gascar, handling 104,000 TEU last year. Theconcession documents specify the obliga-tions and risks that will be shared betweenthe private operator and the newly-estab-lished landlord port authority (SGPAT).

During the life of the concession, it isestimated that over US$300 mill will bemobilised from the operations of the con-

tainer terminal in the form of concessionfees, royalties, and investments.

In structuring this transaction, IFCbenefited from the donor support of theUK government’s DevCo arm, the DutchMinistry of Foreign Affairs and the Swed-ish International Development Agency, aswell as support from the Private Infra-structure Development Group’s (PIDG)Technical Assistance Fund.

ICTSI wins Madagascar deal

ICTSI’s first move at Toamasina will be todevelop and properly equip a clearly definedcontainer handling area at the rear of the twoberths, C2 and C3, currently employed forcontainer handling

The West Java administration in Indone-sia will build an international port as partof a US$16 bill infrastructure spendingplan to boost exports. West Java governorDanny Setiawan said the new port wouldbe located near the town of Cikalong fac-ing the Indian Ocean.

Brussels-based consultant PA Asia hasassisted the administration in planning thefacility and private investors will be in-vited to participate in the project, detailsof which are expected to be released laterthis year.

The port is expected to boost tradewith Australia in coal and other minerals,textiles, handicrafts and other goods

“By developing Cikalong port, theunderdeveloped southern region of WestJava could be opened up for further de-velopment,” PA Asia director RioPraaning Prawira Adiningrat said.

As part of its efforts to modernise its fa-cilities, India’s Mumbai Port plans to pri-vatise four of its bulk terminals at IndiraDocks.

Officials said the board of MumbaiPort Trust (MbPT) had already endorsedthe proposal and tenders will be issuedshortly. “The idea is to mechanise opera-tions at the terminals, which have beenlosing traffic in the last few years,” a portofficial said. “With mechanisation, the portexpects to achieve better efficiency anddouble its bulk traffic.”

Mumbai handled around 1 mill tonsof bulk traffic in the year to last March31, but this was only half the volume ithandled three years earlier.

The port also plans to reconstruct har-bour wall berths so that it is able to re-ceive larger vessels. At present it can onlyreceive vessels of up to 35,000 dwt.

BA awardsdredgingcontract

Mumbai inbulk move

West Javathinks big

June 200514

WorldCargonews INLAND/INTERMODAL NEWS

The first rail track has been laid in a A$29 mill upgrade of freight facilitiesat Fremantle’s North Quay, a key part of a strategy, which includes theKewdale Freight Terminal, to take 320,000 containers off local roads eachyear. The Western Australian Government and its agencies, includingFremantle Ports, the Public Transport Authority and Main Roads, areproviding A$19.5 mill towards the project, while the Commonwealth iscontributing A$9.5 mill in AusLink funding. The state’s Freight NetworkReview in 2002 set a target of 30 per cent of containers moved by rail toand from the port within 10 years. Last financial year numbers increasedfrom 3 per cent to 7 per cent without any infrastructure improvements. Theupgrade includes 3.2 km of new track, a new access road and rail bridge,realignment of Port Beach Road and new truck-weighing facilities. Theproject is scheduled for completion in late December

Last year Intercontainer-Interfrigo(ICF), the pan-European inter-modal rail operator, decided to cutseveral shuttle services on WesternEuropean routes, which have failedto fulfil the required profitabilitycriteria, namely those linking Bel-gium with Italy, Spain and France.

The services were introducedonly last winter as part of a newsystem aimed at reducing costs. Afurther 40 jobs are going at ICF’sBasle headquarters as a result ofthe downsizing.

According to ICF the trendwith traffic on north-south routesfrom Belgium to France, Spain,Italy and vice versa has been nega-tive because of “persistent poorquality traction standards, exter-nal economic influences and sharpprice hikes that it was impossibleto pass on to the market.”

Details of the service cuts wereannounced as ICF released theresults of its 2004 financial year. Itcarried a total of 702,800 TEU in2004 as against 734,000 TEU in2003 (-4.3 per cent) over a meandistance of 1167 km (+1.5 percent). Turnover amounted to €261mill (-5.6 per cent) and the yearclosed with a net loss of €8.6 mill.

Some 80 per cent of traffic washandled by ICF with it its owndedicated wagon fleet. At 31 De-cember 2004 the fleet consistedof 4684 vehicles as opposed to4903 the previous year.

In traffic between German sea-ports, Rotterdam and Switzerland,and to and from countries in cen-tral and south east Europe, dou-ble figure growth rates were re-corded in many cases. In thesemarkets ICF has launched newproducts or stepped up the fre-quency of existing trains.

Still toughfor ICF

The forced closure of the Fréjusroad tunnel for several monthsdue to an accident on 4 June hasled to a surge of interest in theModalohr service, which hasbeen in experimental phase be-tween France and Italy (Lyon-Turin) since the end of 2003.

These heavily subsidisedservices have been technicallysuccessful and have proved safe,although hardly commercial asthey are limited by structuregauge to tank trailers and eventhen only a small part of the tanktrailer market has used them.Still, the graph is upwards. 1200trailers used the service in Marchthis year, for example, comparedto 540 in March 2004, and theGB1 gauge clearance work inthe Mont Cenis tunnel is duefor completion next year.

Capacity of the existing shut-tle service between Aiton andOrbassano is 600 trailers/weekbut Modalohr’s presidentPhilippe Mangeard thinks thiscould be doubled with a fewsimple steps: laying on a fifth

night hours service; increasing theshare of trailers carried as opposedto accompanied HGVs; increasingtrain length from 11 to 14 plat-forms; and adding more serviceson Saturdays and Sundays. He cal-culates that in these ways capacitycould be increased to 1300 trail-ers/week .

This is still a drop in the oceancompared to the 4000 HGVs/daywhich cross between France andItaly via Mont Blanc and, until re-cently, Fréjus. But finally the pennyhas dropped. This level of roadtransport is simply unsustainable.

Modalohr is now working ona north/south service conceptbetween south west France/Spainand Benelux, linking Perpignanand Bettembourg on a route withGB1 clearance. Looking furtherahead, three more French termi-nals could be added by 2008, inLyon, Dijon and Miramas, butmeanwhile services could use ex-isting terminals. To be profitablethe rail haul needs to be at least1000 km.

A working group made up of

Caisse des Dépots et Consigna-tions, Autoroute du Sud de laFrance, Egis and Modalohr isdue to wrap up its work on thefeasibility of the Perpignan-Bettembourg service shortly.Provisionally, the price needs tobe set at €0.80-0.85/rail km,which compares favourablywith trucking (€.0.90-1.05/km). This price should providea sufficient gross margin assum-ing a 90 per cent utilisation rate.

The Port of Marseille is alsointerested in the idea of aModalohr platform within itsro-ro terminal to offer seam-less, unaccompanied ro-ro-railservices for trailers crossing be-tween North Africa/EasternMed and Paris.

All these schemes are out-with the ambit of the RouteRoulante 2006 project (TLF,SNCF Fret and RFF), which,of course could create furtheropportunities. And, outsideFrance, work on a possible Vi-enna-Regensburg service is atan advanced stage.

The true condition of New Zea-land’s now state-owned rail net-work is proving a stumbling blockto negotiating track access chargeswith new rail operator Toll.

After Toll purchased Tranz Railin 2003 the government agreedto buy back the network forNZ$1 and invest NZ$200 millbringing it back up to scratch be-fore agreeing access charges torecover on-going maintenance.

Toll and OnTrack, the govern-ment entity managing and main-taining the track, have been un-able to reach agreement over ac-cess charges after it emerged thetrack was in a much worse condi-tion than thought. Finance Min-

ister Michael Cullen recently tolda Parliamentary Committee thatwhat the government thought wasa “very bad situation” is more ac-curately described as “an appall-ing situation.”

Cullen accepted that the gov-ernment would need to investmore than the NZ$200 mill non-recoverable capital agreed in theinitial agreement, but it is notknown how much more is re-quired. Although negotiations onthe initial sale agreement weredifficult and strained, Cullen saidToll had demonstrated its commit-ment to improving rail service andwas open to the idea of renegoti-ating the initial access agreement.

New Zealand railnetwork “appalling”

Fréjus boosts Modalohr

Just weeks after announcing itsplans for a nationwide network ofintermodal terminals (seeWorldCargo News May 2005, p22),P&O Ports Australia (POPA) haslaunched its own dedicated raillink between Melbourne and Ad-elaide, replacing shared slots onPacific National’s daily service.

The new shuttle is operatingsix times weekly in each direction,with haulage and equipment pro-vided by the Australian RailroadGroup. Terminals will be at P&OTransAustralia’s West Swanson fa-cility and Kerry Logistics atGillman in Adelaide, but exten-sion to the new Somerton termi-nal in Melbourne is likely soon.

POPA says the new servicewill create a significant capacityincrease between Melbourne andAdelaide with space also availablefor Melbourne cargo movingnorth to Darwin.

Meanwhile, Toll Holdings hasopened its new Townsville rail ter-minal to handle cargo for part-owned Pacific National’s newNorth Queensland narrow gaugeservices, which have replacedthose of previous incumbentQueensland Rail. The A$20 millrail facility was completed in 12months and will be followed by anew distribution warehouse forToll forwarding subsidiary QRX,train maintenance facilities andfurther improvements at the ter-minal to take the investment pastA$30 mill.

Since March, Pacific Nationalhas been operating rail servicesbetween Brisbane and Cairns andintermodal freight services atMackay, Merinda, Townsville andInnisfail, as well as Tennyson inBrisbane and Woree in Cairns.● Agreements have been signedfor the Victorian government’sparticipation in the Federal gov-ernment’s AusLink programme,releasing A$1.5 bill in land trans-port project funding. Included isthe upgrade of the line betweenthe Dynon intermodal precinctand the port of Melbourne andthe standardisation of the secondtrack between Melbourne andAlbury/Wodonga on the NewSouth Wales border.

Jade of New Zealand is develop-ing a new Consolidated PlanningTool (CPT) for English Welsh andScottish Railways (EWS) that willsimplify and standardise its currenttrain planning process. After Jadesuccessfully developed an Elec-tronic Customer Ordering System(ECOS) for EWS’ coal business,the company decided to extendaspects of the planning module toother business areas including steel,aggregates and intermodal railmaintenance.

CPT is an advanced planningsystem that will cover more of theback office functions in the cur-rent planning process. Jade’s DaveFidal explains that EWS plans upto 1000 trains per day and mustcoordinate bookings madethrough ECOS and other systemswith Network Rail, which man-ages track access and maintenance.EWS previously had separategroups dealing with track posses-sion and customer orders but thesehave now been combined.

Linking CPT with NetworkRail’s track information systemmakes possession informationavailable much earlier on in theplanning process and Fidal says

EWS is starting to see a fall inthe number of declined requestsfor access. CPT has also enabledEWS to improve the speed of theplanning process and managewith less staff.

Like all Jade’s applications,CPT is written in its proprietaryobject programming language,Jade, and runs off a full object-ori-ented database. At EWS’ head of-fice in Doncaster, CPT is deployedover a CITRIX application de-ployment infrastructure whereasEWS yards have access throughthin client terminals.

As well as a planning tool, CPTis a real-time monitoring and con-trol system that, through GPSunits mounted on trains, will en-able EWS customers to trackcargo at the train level. This serv-ice is currently available to coalcustomers and will be extendedto other cargo from August.

Looking ahead, CPT providesthe basis for EWS to take trackingto wagon and consignment leveland the necessary ‘input hooks’were built into CPS when it waswritten. This is a much wider de-velopment as EWS has around 100rail yards dotted around the UK.

The Australian Rail Track Corpo-ration (ARTC) plans to telescopethe timetable for crucial EastCoast rail upgrades by enteringinto strategic partnerships withservice and equipment suppliers.

CEO David Marchant re-cently briefed potential alliancepartners in Sydney on its repair,renovation and rebuilding pro-gramme on the north-south cor-ridor and now believes it can becompleted in four, rather than five,years. By improving transit time,reliability, capacity and yield(above and below rail), rail hopesto grow its market share consid-erably within the next four years.

Marchant claims transit timewill be reduced from 13 hours 30minutes for 1500m super freight-ers to 10 hours 40 minutes fromMelbourne to Sydney. Mel-bourne–Brisbane transit times at1500m will be reduced from thepresent 35 hours, 46 minutes to

26 hours, 10 minutes, while Syd-ney–Brisbane transit times for su-per freighters will reduce from thepresent 19 hours, 22 minutes to15 hours, 30 minutes.

All of these transit times arebased on projected 2015 trainnumbers; in advance of achievingthese numbers, the transit timeswill be even better, ARTC says,while capacity will be significantlyenhanced to enable the reliablemovement of ten full lengthsuperfreighters each way betweenSydney and Melbourne and nineeach way between Sydney andBrisbane 365 days of the year.

This compares with the cur-rent numbers of four to fivesuperfreighters on each corridor,with some of these restricted toless than 1500m. The transit timeand capacity enhancements arepremised on an increase in vol-ume on the North-South corri-dor of over 119 per cent.

POPA inshuttlelaunch...

EWS plans in Jade

...ARTC speedsup rail timetable

INTERMODAL/TANK CONTAINER NEWS

June 2005 15

WorldCargonews

All Flexitank Solutions (AFS) has openeda new flexitank service centre in Le Ha-vre to augment its existing Antwerp fa-cility. The expansion comes at a time ofrapid growth in the global flexitank mar-ket. Seppe van Nuffelen, manager of theAntwerp depot, reports that the businesshandled by AFS has doubled over the pastthree years.

Established five years ago, AFS pro-vides third-party fitting and technical as-sistance services for those engaged inmoving non-hazardous bulk liquids inflexitanks. The company’s flexitank fit-ting package encompasses the fitting ofinsulation, heater pads and the flexitanksthemselves within freight containers, aswell as the provision of steel bulkheads.This is backed up by container trucking,

storage and flexitank lifting in/out op-tions.

The technical assistance on offer fromAFS includes on-site loading and unload-ing, flexitank disposal and recycling anda 24-hour per day emergency responseservice covering cargo transfers and theprovision of new equipment

Although all the basic AFS services areon offer from the Antwerp and Le Havrecentres, the mobility of the equipmentmeans that the company can provide as-sistance across France and the Beneluxregion and into neighbouring countriessuch as Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK.

Cyril Monet is responsible for the

operation of the new Le Havre depot andthe business is already well-establishedafter only a few months in operation.Monet reports that the flexitank trafficpatterns in Le Havre are similar to thosein Antwerp, although Le Havre does notimport as much bagged wine from South-ern Hemisphere vinyards as does Antwerp.That said, industrial oils such as trans-former oils feature as export cargoes inboth ports, and other common flexitankcargoes are latex, white oils, wine, min-eral water, vinegar, fruit juice and glucose.

AFS flexitank centre in Le Havre

AFS staff handle the cross pumping of cargobetween flexitanks

With effect from July 1 2005, Singaporewill track road vehicles carrying hazard-ous materials in bulk quantities on its ter-ritory. The new requirement covers allroad vehicles carrying more than 3 tonnesof flammable materials, such as petroleumor acetylene, or more than 1 tonne oftoxic chemicals.

Although the primary road vehiclesimpacted by the legislation will be roadtankers and tank containers carrying bulkliquids and gases, trucks/containers trans-porting substantial quantities of packageddangerous goods will also be covered. Suchvehicles will be required to be fitted witha global positioning system (GPS) moni-toring device when operating on the coun-try’s roads to enable the authorities to tracktheir location in real time.

Vehicles registered in other countrieswill need to have the tracking device in-stalled at a border checkpoint when en-tering Singapore.

The vehicles covered by the new regu-lations will only be allowed to travel alongapproved routes, away from highly popu-lated areas, in daylight hours. Any vehicledeviating from the pre-approved routesor times will set off an alarm in the track-ing system, triggering the vehicle’s hornand hazard lights.

Singapore totrack hazchem

The Permanent Court of Arbitration inthe Hague has ruled that that the Dutchcannot unilaterally vary the historic lineof route of the “Iron Rhine” while itcrosses Dutch territory, as the originalTreaty of 1839 which governed this Bel-gian-German rail link (Antwerp-Mönchengladbach) is still in force.

The Court also ruled the Dutch mustpay half of the cost of a tunnel under theMeninweg nature reserve (Roermond).The tunnel would account for the lion’sshare of the €500-600 mill estimated forreopening the railway for freight.

Alrthough the Belgians have beenpressing the Iron Rhine case for 10 years,the priority for SNCB now is the secondrail tunnel under the Scheldt and the sec-ond rail access for Antwerp, to supportthe new Deurganckdok and (in future)the possible Seftingedok.● The Dutch government has been forcedby Parliament to withdraw its decision toconcede the management of the BetuweLine for the first five years of its existenceto ProRail (see WorldCargo News April2005, p17).

As a result, TowRail, the private Dutchrail freight group and other interestedparties such as Siemens and Volker Wesselsare “back in the picture,” although thereis still concern that in practice the opera-tion of the line, due to open in 2007, willbe dominated by Railion companies.TowRail is seeking co-operation with anAustralian investment company, Babcock& Brown.

Ruling onIron Rhine

June 200516

WorldCargonews TANK/CONTAINER INDUSTRY NEWS

Princeton University and InSitech Inc havesigned a licensing agreement for InSitechto commercialise an anti-terrorism devicedeveloped by the US Department of En-ergy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory(PPPL). It is claimed that the miniature in-tegrated nuclear detection system(MINDS) could be used in seaports to scanmoving vehicles for specific nuclear signa-tures associated with materials employedin radiological weapons.

The prototype MINDS was designedby a PPPL research team led by CharlesGentile and InSitech now has certainrights to the commercial development,manufacture, use and sale of the product.

Timothy N Teen, CEO of InSitech (anot-for-profit organisation based atPicatinny Arsenal, NJ), said that MINDScan detect X-rays, soft gammas, gammas,and neutrons. It identifies gamma emittingradionuclides in real-time at levels slightlyabove background and in radiologicallynoisy environments. Radionuclides can berecognised and distinguished since each hasa distinctive energy signature.

MINDS compares the energy spec-trum of the detected radionuclide withthe spectra of particular radiological ma-terials, such as cobalt or caesium that couldbe used to make a “dirty” bomb.

According to Roger Adams, directorof operations of MINDCo at PicatinnyArsenal, MINDS can also detect fissilematerials such as U-233, U-235, Pu-238,Pu-239 and Pu-241.

This claim may well be put to the testas the US government has set up a newtesting facility in Nevada, dubbed “Rad-NucCTEC,” where all equipment ven-dors will be required to verify their claims.

Having spent millions of federal taxdollars on anti-terrorism systems andequipment such as radiation portal moni-tors for seaports and airports that haveproved unreliable and ineffective (see lastmonth’s WorldCargo News, p3), the De-partment of Homeland Security (DHS)has now set up a new office, the Domes-tic Nuclear Detection Office, which is un-derstood to have “serious” Departmentof Defense involvement.

Varian Medical Systems, which supplieshigh energy X-ray linear accelerators toa number of cargo screening equipmentmanufacturers, including L-3 Communi-cations, BIR Inc and Aracor, has launcheda new type of accelerator, the VarianLinatron K9.

“This technology has the capacity totake us beyond what you can convention-ally see with X-rays, making it possibleto identify special nuclear materials as wellas view container contents,” said LesterBoeh, vice president for Varian’s Security& Inspection Products business.

The Linatron K9 is claimed to be thefirst “interdigitated” dual-energy accelera-tor designed specifically for cargo screen-ing. It emits X-rays in a pattern that alter-nates between two energy levels more than400 times per second. By analysing the X-rays that emerge when a container isscanned, Linatron K9-equipped systems cangenerate information about high-densityobjects and nuclear materials.

“The high-energy X-rays from theLinatron K9 can penetrate 17in of solidsteel to generate fast, high-resolution im-ages,” Boeh commented. “We believe itcan screen a fully-loaded container fasterthan any other non-intrusive inspectionsystem available in the world.”

The intellectual property behind thenew K9 technology is an extension of thetechnology in Varian’s proven high-energyLinatron accelerator. Varian’s Security &Inspection Products business has deliveredover 100 high-energy Linatron X-rayaccelerators for cargo inspection to morethan 35 locations worldwide.

ExxonMobil has introduced an improvedsystem for dispensing and transportinggrease, utilising a special pallet-mounted,multi-layered flexible intermediate bulkcontainer (FIBC) capable of holding over800 kg of product.

Termed the Grease One-Way Logis-tics and Distribution (GOLD) system, theFIBC is able to accommodate the equiva-lent of nearly five typical drumloads ofgrease.

According to ExxonMobil, theGOLD system is configured in such away as to prevent contaminants, such asair and water, from finding their way intothe container. Placed on top of an easy-

to-manoeuvre transport pallet and stack-ing frame, the GOLD container func-tions much like a tube of toothpaste,gradually collapsing as grease is dis-charged through the automated dispens-ing unit.

When the grease reservoir within thebag is used up, the FIBC can easily bedisposed of, thereby eliminating the costand effort of dealing with returnabledrums or rigid IBCs.

“Today, the majority of companiesrely on heavy steel drums, steel or plas-tic rigid IBCs or permanent bulk tanksto handle, store and transport grease,” re-ports Michael Dionisio, grease adviser,

ExxonMobil Lubricants & Specialties.“With our new GOLD system and

the benefits of its multi-layered FIBC,maintenance managers can eliminate thecosts and time needed to handle andtransport drums or bulk tanks. Such rigidunits often occupy significant areas ofvaluable floor space and complicate in-ventory management.”

ExxonMobil’s GOLD system hasachieved an ISO 9001/2000 quality as-surance certification.

ExxonMobil goes for GOLD

The ExxonMobil GOLD FIBC draws downlike tube of toothpaste, ensuring the greasecontents remain contaminant-free

Anti-nukeMINDS...

...Varian upsthe pace

SOUTHERN AFRICA: PORT DEVELOPMENT

June 2005 17

WorldCargonews

South African Port Operations(SAPO) has announced that it iscontent with improved efficiencyat the nation’s ports and that it willnow focus on increasing capacity.The shipping sector had longcomplained about slow turna-round times at South Africa’s maincontainer terminals but the gov-ernment and SAPO are express-ing confidence that the situationhas been greatly improved.

Expansion is now the order ofthe day and investment is to beconcentrated on three main ports:the existing container terminals atDurban and Cape Town, plus thenew port of Ngqura, near PortElizabeth.

It is difficult to exaggerate thedisheartening impact of the cargodelays that persistently plaguedDurban and Cape Town until rela-tively recently. The extent of thecongestion problems at Durban isrevealed by the fact that the porthandled more containers than itsofficial capacity in 2004 with arecord 1,548,000 TEU passingthrough the container terminalduring the course of the year.

Surcharges liftedDelays of several days at Durbanresulted in the imposition of aUS$100 congestion surcharge oneach container by several shippinglines two years ago, includingMSC (which accounts for 38 percent of the throughput), DAL,Safmarine and Maersk Sealand.

However, claims that the situ-ation had been turned aroundwere backed up by the removal ofthe charges at the start of May.Calculated over the previous twomonths, by May the average delayat Durban had fallen to well be-low the 16 hour level and thecranes were said to be averaging19 moves/hour. However, SAPO’sInterim Advisory Board, whichwas set up to tackle congestion,will continue to seek out effi-ciency improvements.

The delays were largely theresult of the failure of port capac-ity to cope with rising demand inthe decade since the end of Apart-heid, but SAPO now hopes to winsome breathing space through astep jump in capacity. Once thereis a modest gap between demandand supply, SAPO executive man-ager Mervin Chetty says that hisorganisation will attempt to addnew capacity in line with the risein imports and exports.

In addition, some investmentis to be made in improving con-tainer handling equipment acrossthe country, which should bothcontinue the improvement in ef-ficiency and boost capacity.

New capacityAround a third of the R5 bill portinvestment on offer is to be spenton constructing a second con-tainer terminal at Durban. Theport already handles around twothirds of South Africa’s containertraffic, making it the most impor-tant container port on the conti-nent, a position which should be

reinforced through adding the600,000 TEU/year capacity sec-ond terminal.

The entrance to Durban har-bour is also to be widened, but astring of improvements have al-ready been made. Three R60 millsuperpost-Panamax Liebherrcranes were purchased for Dur-ban from Contship Italia SpA lastNovember and the terminal nowhas 19 ship-to-shore containercranes. Rail links with the porthave been improved and the ac-cess road has been widened tothree lanes.

Bigger CapeIn contrast with Durban, CapeTown container terminal was op-erating at well below capacity untilthe second half of last year. Now,however, the port is handling upto 50,000 TEU/month and its560,000 TEU/year capacity is tobe expanded at a cost of R610mill. The terminal can currentlyhandle 2000 refrigerated contain-ers at a time but this is to be in-creased over the next 18 months.

Maria Ramos, CEO of statetransport umbrella body Transnet,said: “These projects are consist-ent with our strategic vision ofreducing the cost of doing busi-ness in South Africa.” However,objections from local propertyowners mean that an environmen-tal impact assessment must be car-ried out before the terminal itselfcan be widened.

New portThe development of the new portof Ngqura at the Coega IndustrialDevelopment Zone is likely todivert attention from Port Eliza-beth, as the two facilities are likelyto be managed on a joint basis.Although Coega has so far strug-gled to attract the anchor tenantsthat are considered necessary forthe project’s overall success, thereare indications that Canadian alu-minium producer Alcan and sev-eral other investors will soon com-mit themselves to the scheme.

Moreover, a great deal of timeand money has already been in-vested in Ngqura and the port’stwo container berths will be de-veloped with or without new in-vestors. Despite reports that talksbetween Transnet and P&ONedlloyd had broken down, themanaging director of P&ONedlloyd Southern Africa, BertMuys, has announced that hiscompany could be interested intaking a wider stake in the project,encompassing the rail link to theport as well as the container ter-minal itself.

Spare capacityThese three key developmentsaside, SAPO and the NationalPorts Authority (NPA) hope thatmore traders will make use of ex-

cess capacity at the country’s othercontainer facilities at East London,Port Elizabeth and Richards Bay.East London in particular has beensingled out to play a more impor-tant role in the country’s port sec-tor. East London is expected tohandle up to 80,000 TEU nextyear, compared to just 30,000TEU/year 4-5 years ago..

A total of R857 mill is beingspent on improving facilities at theport, including some work on thecontainer terminal, but SAPO isinvestigating the possibility ofbuilding a second container ter-minal at the site.

The existing terminal has thecapacity to handle 100,000 TEU/year but the government is con-sidering the construction of a largenew terminal that could processup to 850,000 TEU/year. How-ever, such a facility would have tobe built closer to the sea in orderto accommodate larger vessels andthis would require expansion ofthe harbour.

Regional outlookBeyond South Africa, the NPAports are facing more competitionwithin the Southern African De-velopment Community (SADC)region from container facilities atthe revitalised Mozambican portsof Beira, Nacala and Maputo.

Private sector consortia led byforeign companies have taken overthe management of all three portsand Maputo in particular has be-gun to win some business fromDurban. Mozambique’s ports havetraditionally served a wide area ofSouthern Afr ica, includingSwaziland, Zimbabwe and Malawiand rail links with the landlockedcountries of the interior have beenredeveloped.

Several major exportersaround Johannesburg have threat-ened to switch their trade toMaputo if extended delays re-emerge at Durban. British firmAfrican Cargo Services alreadyships most of its containers, whichare bound for East Asia, out ofDar-es-Salaam rather than SouthAfrican ports because of both de-lays and lower costs in Tanzania.

On the west coast, the

Namibian Port Authority is alsoexpanding container handling ca-pacity at the former South Afri-can port of Walvis Bay. The WalvisBay Corr idor project waslaunched to attract business fromthe countries to the east and theport is likely to become an increas-ingly important outlet for SADCtrade over the decade to come.

The South African govern-

New priorities in Southern AfricaBuoyed by improvements atDurban, SAPO, the NPA and thegovernment have an upbeat outlook

The South African government does not see ports such as Maputo (below) orWalvis Bay as a threat and wants to encourage more regional co-operation

Will Ngqura (Coega) soon have ananchor tenant to spark development?

June 200518

WorldCargonews SOUTHERN AFRICA: PORT DEVELOPMENT

ment is eager to promote greater eco-nomic integration across the region andis unlikely to dissuade domestic manu-facturers from making use of Maputo’sfacilities.

Even welcome itFor its part, while SAPO is keen to pro-vide greater container capacity withinSouth Africa, the organisation must wel-come the extra capacity provided by portsin other SADC member states, such asMaputo and Dar-es-Salaam, which canact as a safety valve for South Africa’s ownport sector.

However, even once their redevelop-ment is complete, ports such as Maputoand Walvis Bay will not have the capacityof Durban and so are unlikely to be per-ceived as any real threat.

Rather than trying to compete withneighbouring states on tariffs, the SouthAfrican government has decided to in-crease investment in rail and other asso-ciated infrastructure that can help the portsector run more smoothly.

For instance, Transnet has been giventhe task of transferring a greater propor-tion of South African freight onto the railnetwork. At present, the lion’s share of allfreight, including container traffic on thekey Durban to Johannesburg route, istransported by road.

Fixed term deals?The government is also concernedabout how to proceed with the reformof the country’s port sector. Pretoriastill hopes to offer fixed term conces-sions to manage most facilities at the

NPA ports, including the container ter-minals, although it seems likely that theNPA will retain control of those portfacilities that are not deemed profit-able enough by the private sector.

Foreign and domestic companies orconsortia will be able to bid but must in-clude participation by black empower-ment enterprises. The Durban and CapeTown container terminals are likely to beof most interest to potential bidders.

Tariff policiesIt is difficult to predict what will hap-pen to container handling tariffs if andwhen concessions are awarded, al-though Transnet increased the tariffs atNPA ports by just 5.7 per cent this year,reflecting lower inflation in South Af-rica over the past 12 months.

Following up its recent black em-powerment deal with Holgoun(last month’s WorldCargo News,p20), South African shipping andlogistics firm Grindrod has madetwo strategic purchases in an ef-fort to expand its operations.

The company followed up thepurchase of a 50 per cent stake inPort Elizabeth-based Sheltam Lo-comotive & Rail Services with ac-quisition of the commodity tradingand shipping operations of US-based Seaboard Corporation. Pur-chase price has not been disclosedin either case, but Grindrod esti-mates that the Seaboard purchasewill double its turnover to aroundR6 bill (US$900 mill).

A new Grindrod subsidiary, At-las Trading & Shipping, is being setup to take over Seaboard’s opera-tions, which primarily focus onexporting South American prod-ucts to Africa. Grindrod’s manag-ing director Ivan Clark commented:“This acquisition is the beginningof the development of a commod-ity trading arm within the Grindrodstable and...will complement cur-rent shipping operations, particu-larly Island View Shipping and thelogistics division.” Sheltam has arange of interests, ranging fromservicing offshore marine powerplants through operating a fleet offreight locomotives to air charteroperations.

Clark revealed that Grindrod’srising profits had enabled it to em-bark on this expansion drive. Thedouble purchase comes afterGrindrod revealed a 129 per centrise in profits last year to R549 mill,on the back of a 52 per cent in-crease in revenues to R3 bill.

Laurence Stuart-Hill, Grindrod’slandfreight director, pointed to afurther advantage of the expansionprogramme. “The acquisition of a50 per cent stake in Sheltam pro-vides Grindrod with a goodopportunity...to progress any railprivatisation and concession op-portunities in Southern Africa. Railbusiness goes hand in hand withGrindrod’s strategy of owning thecomplete supply chain.”

Following on from its plans tooffer port concessions, the SouthAfrican government has begun toconsider the possibility of offeringprivate sector companies the op-portunity to manage the country’srailways. Grindrod also recentlypurchased a 72 per cent stake inAfrican Portland Industrial, whichcontrols the Maputo and WalvisBay coal terminals. ❏

Grindrod’sdouble buy

The composition of the South Af-rican port sector after concessions re-mains uncertain. For example, the gov-ernment is considering making theNPA independent of Transnet, al-though the latter is certain to retainsome role in the industry as the gov-ernment is committed to integratedport and rail service provision.

Whatever happens, one thing seemscertain: much greater container capacitywill be required across the region as awhole. South Africa’s trade with the restof the world has grown rapidly since itsrapprochement with the internationalcommunity and container traffic has risenby around nine per cent annually overthe past ten years.

The main decision for all those con-cerned is whether to continue expand-

ing capacity at Durban and Cape Town,or to make the most of the country’sother, less developed port facilities. Itis a debate that is unlikely to be settledfor some time to come. ❏

Sheltam’s rail interests include a number ofcoal haulage contracts

EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN/RED SEA: PORT DEVELOPMENT

June 2005 19

WorldCargonews

Marport has reached two milestones this year - it handled the biggest ship yet tocall any Turkish port, the 6750 TEU MSC LUISA, and its 3,000,000 TEU

TCDD has for a long time beenon the list of major Turkish stateeconomic enterprises (known asKITs) which are planned to beprivatised, but the railways ratherthan the seaports seem to be themain priority., although someformer TDI ports have been soldoff (eg Trabzon, Rize and Hopa).

Pr ivatisation of the sevenTCDD ports is still on the agenda,but there are no recent develop-ments. TCDD is the biggestmoney-losing KIT, and aims toearn up to US$500M/year byleasing out more than 900 trainstations to the private sector.

Success storyPressure on TCDD ports has beeneased by the very success of Tur-key’s private container and ro-roport operators. One of the primeexamples is Marport, which isnow handling about 25 per centof Turkish lo-lo container traffic.Throughput at its three terminalsin Istanbul’s Ambarli port complexdoubled between 2001 and 2004to reach 770,000 TEU last year.The number of ship calls madeannually has actually fallen, as theterminals handle bigger shipsmaking more moves per call.

Arkas’ port operations atAmbarli started up in 1996 asLimar Kumport. Since last Augustthis has been known as MarportEast Terminal and some 308,000TEU were handled at the facilitylast year last year. Marport MainTerminal was set up in 2001 whenthe group acquired Armaport. Theterminal handled 316,000 TEUlast year and its annual capacity hasbeen increased 650,000 TEU/year

In 2003 the Soyak Ready-made Concrete wharves were ac-quired and renamed Marport WestTerminal.Together the three ter-minals have an installed capacityof around 1.15 mill TEU/year butthis is being further increased withongoing modernisation and ex-tension of Marport West.

From a low base of 35,000TEU in 2003, traffic at MarportWest increased to 146,000 TEUlast year and the area is being ex-tended from 13.5-ha to 37.4-ha

to increase capacity to more than600,000 TEU/year on completionof the works by mid-2006.

Marport claims to have beenthe first Turkish port operator toinstall Navis terminal operatingsoftware and Marport West is be-ing fully-integrated into its ITnetwork which includes NavisExpress and Sparcs modules.

This year Marport has reachedsome new milestones. In Febru-ary it handled its 6000th ship calland the ship in question was thebiggest yet to berth at any Turkishport - the 6750 TEU capacity MSC

LUISA. The company also handledits 3 millionth TEU this year, anMSC container.

More cranes comingUp to now Marport has reliedmainly on harbour mobile cranesfor ship work, but last year threecranes from Noell China were in-stalled at Marport Main, with 10RTGs in the yard. On order noware 15 RTGs from Gulf PortCranes in Abu Dhabi, of whichnine will be installed at MarportWest and six at Marport Main.

TCDD ports handled 1.66mill TEU last year, of which al-most half was at Izmir. Through-put at Mersin grew almost 14 percent to 532,000 TEU and the re-covery at Haydarpasa continued,with throughput up almost 30 percent at 317,000 TEU.

For the first five months of thisyear, TCDD is reporting a com-bined port throughput of 704,000TEU, led by Izmir (314,00 TEU),Mersin (249,000 TEU) andHaydarpasa (140,000 TEU).

A good share of the through-put is actually in the hands of pri-vate operators. Two years agoArkas group reached importantagreements with TCDD enablingit to deploy harbour mobile cranesin Izmir and Mersin on ships itrepresents through it liner shipagency side. These cranes are op-erated by another Arkas daughtercompany, Limar Port & Ship Op-erators SA. Limar is understood tohave handled almost 380,000 TEUat Izmir last year and almost157,000 TEU at Mersin. ❏

Private sectorscores in Turkey

During the 1990s, Egypt’sports were operating at almostmaximum capacity and thegovernment faced a starkchoice: build new ones or rap-idly increase capacity at ex-isting facilities at Alexandria/El Dikheila, Damietta, PortSaid, Safaga and Suez.

As part of its ambitious plansto open up new areas of the coun-try for industrial and residentialdevelopment, the governmentlargely opted for the former pathand the new ports of Sokhna andPort Said East have become thecentrepiece of its policy.

An ambitious constructionprogramme was embarked uponat the same time as the govern-ment made a subtle change toeconomic policy.

Different approachUntil relatively recently, Cairoplanned to follow the standardIMF “medicine” of transferringcontrol of infrastructure fromstate-owned organisations to theprivate sector.

Although it has lifted the state’smonopoly on providing port serv-ices, it has opted to revitalise theexisting ports through a combi-

nation of public and private sec-tor investment.

Pearl of the MedSuez Canal Container Terminal(SCCT), located at the new PortSaid East port at the northern endof the Suez Canal, is one of thebiggest port developments in theMediterranean. The project is partof a much broader plan to developthe Gulf of Suez region and a 150square km parcel of land aroundthe port has been set aside for in-dustrial development.

Businesses able to make themost of Egypt’s gas reserves, suchas petrochemical plants and en-ergy-intensive industries, are par-ticularly encouraged to set upbusiness in the area.

A consortium including A PMøller subsidiary Maersk, ECTInternational and public and pri-vate sector Egyptian interests wasawarded a 30 year contract to buildand operate the Port Said East fa-cility. Construction work onSCCT’s container, liquid cargoand general cargo terminals be-gan in 2002 and the port finallycommenced operations last Oc-tober - two months after APM hadincreased its stake to 60 per centby buying out ECT’s stake.

As elsewhere in the country, acombination of public and privatemoney is funding the port devel-opment and the government is fi-nancing the associated road andrail links.

SCCT currently has fourberths along 1200m of quay, witha depth of 16.5m alongside whichcan be increased to 17.5m. Cur-rently it is equipped with fiveNoell superpost-Panamax gantrycranes, to be joined by two simi-lar size cranes from ZPMC thisAugust. Up to five more cranescould be added within 2-3 years.

Transfer from westTraffic includes containers fromthe Far East transhipped for des-tinations in the Eastern Med/Black Sea. Previously MaerskSealand “hubbed” off MCT GioiaTauro but can knock up to threedays off transit time by usingSCCT as the transhipment port.

The Eastern Med/Black Sea isthe fastest-growing region forcontainer traffic in the Mediter-ranean and the fact that SCCTmeans no deviation from Far East-Europe trades via Gibraltar makes

it an attractive proposition for allshipping lines.

Enter SokhnaAt the opposite end of the SuezCanal, the new port of Sokhnafulfils a similar role at the heart ofthe Suez Special Economic Zone(SSEZ), a huge area of industrialand residential development to theeast of Cairo. In 1999, Sokhna PortDevelopment Company (SPDC)was awarded a 25 year concessionto construct and operate the port,

the first phase of which has beenoperational since 2002.

Phase One has now been com-pleted and, says a spokesperson forthe port, attracted a number ofinvestors eager to use the port astheir operational hub for Europe,the Middle East and Asia. “Devel-opment of the port,” he added,“will continue beyond 2020, basedon the original master plan.

“In the wider region, Sokhnafits as a nodal centre with a per-fect location, with no deviation,in one of the busiest trade lanesin the world. The port is also ca-pable of handling almost any kindof cargo and offers most of the

ancillary services that relate to theshipping industry.”

SPDC is mainly owned byECHCO, a joint venture of OCIand the CEO/president of SPDC,Al Sharif, while AIG recently tooka 15 per cent stake in the venture.The US$500 mill required to de-velop the first phase was providedby the government and SPDC.

Both Port Said and Sokhna arebeing developed, at least in part,to encourage export-orientatedbusinesses to set up in the area. The9000-ha Suez Special EconomicZone (SSEZ) at Sokhna is dividedinto four areas, each of which isbeing developed by a joint ven-

Mixing the new and the old in Egypt

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EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN/RED SEA/BLACK SEA: PORT DEVELOPMENT

ture between Egyptian and for-eign companies.

Power, water and transport in-frastructure in is place even be-fore tenants have signed up forland. In line with regulations at allother special economic zones inthe country, companies operatingwithin the SSEZ have been givena 10-year tax holiday.

Within the special economiczone, there is a bio-diesel plant,which will produce vehicle fuelfrom vegetable oil, and a metha-nol refinery, while Australian firmMagnesium International is devel-oping a magnesium refinery andTate & Lyle a sugar refinery. Look-ing ahead, an aircraft engine re-pair facility and oil refinery areplanned, contributing to the US$2

bill of foreign direct investment(FDI) that has already been com-mitted to the scheme.

One basin readyAt the port itself, one basin hasalready been completed, whilefurther phases based around threeadditional basins will be developedas and when demand increases.SPDC hopes to complete the sec-ond and third basins by around2010, so that additional container,dry bulk and general cargo ter-minals could be in place withinfive years. If all goes to plan andthe subsequent phases are devel-oped as forecast, there will be over12 kms of berthing by 2020 and100 trains a day will serve the port.

The port handled 245,000

TEU of container cargo last year,more than double the 104,000TEU forecast in the original plan.The agri-bulk terminal is up andrunning, while construction workon the liquid bulk terminal is on-going. SPDC is budgeting for athroughput of 20 mt this year andforecasting 45 mta by 2010 and90 mta by 2020 - the latter to in-clude > 4 mill TEU of container-ised traffic and 1 mt of breakbulkgeneral cargo, along with 30 mtof liquid bulk, 10 mt of agri-bulkand 10 mt of other dry bulks.

The International FinanceCorporation, part of the WorldBank, has provided a US$20 millloan to SPDC. Francisco Tourr-eilles, director of the IFC’s infra-structure department, says: “Thisproject will have a significant de-velopment impact for Egypt, notonly through the provision of ef-ficient port services, but also bytransforming Egypt’s port sectorthrough the introduction of pri-vate competition.”

However, to add one word ofcaution, Sokhna is obviouslyhighly dependent on the contin-ued growth of the Egyptianeconomy and on sustained gov-ernment support. Successive ad-ministrations in Cairo have sup-ported the concept of expanding

The first regular container bargeservice on the lower Danube hasbegun with Bulgarian River Ship-ping Company running twice/month between Constantza andBelgrade, using an 80 TEU barge.Frequency should increase whenBudapest is called, following a dealbetween Mahart Freeport Buda-pest and GEN Shipping.

Last year inland traffic movingbetween the Romanian ports ofConstantza, Midia and Mangaliaand the hinterland rose by 18 percent to 11.5 mt. To sustain thisgrowth and improve navigationalconditions for inland waterwayvessels, the Constantza port au-thority (MPA) is developing a newbarge terminal for around €24.6M(US$32M), with a new 2200mlong dedicated barge mooringdedicated quay and a new basinto hold pusher barges and tugs.

As previously reported (World-Cargo News, November 2004, p13),the EBRD is providing the MPAwith an 8-year soft loan of €16Mtowards the barge terminal project.

According to the MPA, this is thefirst loan in Romania’s transportsector without a state guarantee.

The MPA reports that overallcontainer traffic reached almost387,000 TEU last year, almostdoubling the 2004 volume of204,000 TEU. The new containerterminal financed and equippedfrom Japan came on line in 2003and Dubai Ports International(DPI) was awarded an 18-yearcontract to run it, taking over con-trol of the facility in April last year.DPI says it will build up capacityahead of demand. Already the ter-minal has been augmented withtwo HMK 300E Gottwald har-bour mobile cranes.

Constantza is well-placed toact as a regional hub for the BlackSea region, by reason of its size,water depth and potential gatewayrôle for central/south east Europeat the head of the Pan-EuropeanDanube corridors (VII -waterway,IV - road and rail). This traffic flowwould also attract discretionarytranshipment containers. ❏

Constantza barge service

the inhabited proportion of thecountry from the current 4 percent of the land that comprises theNile Valley and thin coastal stripincluding Alexandria. However, ifthe economy was to suffer overthe next few years, the expensiveand ambitious plans for the SSEZcould be reined in.

The private sector is provid-ing much of the investment re-quired to develop the port andassociated industrial developmentsbut government participation infunding the nuts and bolts of thescheme - from transmission linksto roads and sewerage pipes - isvital to the success of the project.

Sokhna’s big advantage is thatit is a greenfield site with plentyof room for development, butmost established ports, such as Al-exandria, are hemmed in by thesurrounding city. Sokhna is alsosaid to be the first Egyptian portto provide fully automated cus-toms clearance.

Alexandria dealIn March this year, in an effort toregenerate Alexandria, which con-tinues to handle more cargo thanany other Egyptian port, the gov-ernment awarded Alexandria In-ternational Container Terminals(AICT) a contract to convert the

Alexandria and El Dikheila gen-eral cargo terminals into containerterminals and then manage them.

Under the terms of the con-tract, AICT is required to mod-ernise facilities at the two ports.New quays lengths of 380m atAlexandr ia and 560m at ElDikheila will be put in place witha depth alongside of 12m at bothlocations, while AICT must alsotackle the problem of El Dikheila’sinsufficient breakwater.

As previously reported (World-Cargo News, March 2005, p1),AICT is owned by a consortiumof Hutchison Port Holdings(HPH) and Egyptian and Saudiinterests. HPH’s group managingdirector John Meredith said thatAICT will enhance the role of Al-exandria and El Dikheila ports asthe “centre of trade in the Medi-terranean Sea. HPH’s global net-work will be further strengthenedwith our presence in the region.”

Damietta FeederChanges are also underway atDamietta. Last month Damietta

Gottwald Port Technology recently delivered its very first mobile harbourcrane to Bulgaria, a top-selling 100t capacity HMK 300 E to the fast-growing Port of Varna. The crane will be used mainly to handle containers inthe port’s Varna West facility The inauguration was attended by, amongothers, Nikolay Vassilev, Bulgaria’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister ofTransport and Communications (first left), Danail Papazov, executive directorof Port of Varna plc (third from right) and Peter Klein, head of marketing atGottwald (second from right)

A P Møller group has a 60 per cent stake in the Port Said East facility

Feeder Terminal Company Com-pany (DFTC) was set up to offercontainer handling services mainly,as its name implies, to feeder shipsand barges in Damietta. The com-pany expects to begin operationsin the first quarter of next year.

DFTC is a public/private con-sortium of Damietta Port Author-ity, Egytrans, Mahoney Shipping& Marine Services, LATT Trad-ing & Shipping Co and EgyptianFeeder Services Co.

During the first phase, saysshareholder representative Eng.Mohamed Hassan Abdel Kader,DFTC will operate quays 5 and 6which together are 400m inlength and have a draft alongsideof 12m, as well as some 40,000m2 of the CY.

Earlier this year a new man-agement information system basedon EDI was introduced atDamietta. In addition, the port’sentry road and three warehouseshave been overhauled to improveaccess and increase storage capac-ity and a CCTV system has beenfitted at the truck gates. ❏

SHIPPING

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The era of the mega-carrier hasdawned in the world of containershipping. In contrast to the 55 box

ships with a capacity greater than 7,500TEU in service, there are 168 such shipson order. Korean yards have secured thelion’s share of these newbuilding orders,although Japan is beginning to make someinroads into this market lead.

Furthermore, the carrying capacity ofthis current mega-carrier orderbook, at1.47 mill TEU, is some 331 per centgreater than that of the in-service fleet ofsuch ships. Even the total containershiporderbook, at 1,142 vessels totalling 4.39mill TEU, represents an impressive 59 percent of the cargo-carrying capacity of theexisting containership fleet.

The rapid growth in container ship-ping in general, and the mega-carrier sec-tor in particular, is due in large part to therobustness of the world economy and theemergence of China as a dominant playerin global trade. Shipowners are keen to takeadvantage of the economies of scale of-fered by larger ships, as competitively-priced consumer goods made in China findready buyers in markets worldwide. Con-tainerised shipments, which expanded by225 per cent between 1990 and 2000, areexpected to continue to grow at a similarrate for the foreseeable future.

Mega-carrier challengesThe capacity of ships able to transit thePanama Canal has risen slowly over anextended period, from 3,000 TEU in theearly 1970s to about 5,000 TEU today. Theincrease in the size of post-Panamaxcontainerships, or mega-carriers, has beenmuch more dramatic, however. The aver-age size of such vessels, which stood at 5,500TEU a few years ago, is being supersededvirtually every year.

Earlier this year China Ocean Ship-ping Co (Cosco) ordered four 10,000TEU vessels in Korea at Hyundai HeavyIndustries (HHI) for delivery between late2007 and mid-2008. But although de-clared to be the largest capacitycontainerships yet ordered, they are notexpected to hold the size record for long.Shipyards have designs for vessels of12,000 TEU and larger on the drawingboard and, with the current rush forgrowth and limited building berth avail-ability, leading shipping lines are expectedto be placing orders for such behemothssooner rather than later.

The four Cosco ships building at HHI,which are being classed by Lloyd’s Reg-ister (LR), will have an overall length of349m, a breadth of 45.6m and a depth of27.2m. Each ship will be fitted with a 12-cylinder, 94,000 horsepower engine toenable a service speed of 25.8 knots.

As containerships of such size andpower are unprecedented, ship designersand classification societies are workinghard to analyse and verify the viability ofsuch ships in terms of fatigue strength,structural flexibility, propulsion systemsand behaviour in a seaway.

As a result of the need for large deckopenings and high ship service speeds, thedesign of container vessels has tradition-ally approached the boundaries of whatis known to be technically feasible. Withship size now escalating so quickly, thisobservation is more true than ever be-fore and is necessitating careful study of arange of influencing factors.

Quite aside from vessel technical fac-tors, the increase in ship size raises ques-tions over port compatibility, namely isthere sufficient depth of water available;are the cargo handling facilities at the con-tainer terminal able to ensure that thespecified port turnaround times are met;and are the logistics services in the portand its hinterland capable of handling suchconcentrated volumes of containers?

In fact, the main container tranship-ment ports have adopted a proactive atti-tude by preparing for ships with a beamof up to 50m and a draft of 14.5m well inadvance of such vessels entering into serv-ice. In addition, several terminal opera-tors have considered a range of conceptsto enable their facilities to handle the newgeneration of mega-carriers, includingindented docks that enable the ship to be

worked from both sides simultaneously.A notable example of this is the CeresParagon Terminal in Amsterdam.

Higher and widerThe increase in the beam of ships has ena-bled the stowage of more rows of con-

tainers underdeck as well as on deck. Thelatest ships are capable of loading 16 rowsacross underdeck and 18 rows above.

However, the stowage of more than 10

Mega-carriers pushing it to the limitThe rapid increase in the size of containervessels is pushing ship design and con-struction technology to new limits. Will theindustry be able to meet the challenge?

At 8,450 TEU, P&O NEDLLOYD MONDRIAAN

is the largest containership yet built in Japan

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vertical tiers, of containers belowdeck is not possible because theloading limits on the container atthe bottom of the stack are not per-mitted to exceed 346 tonnes.

This puts the focus on the po-tential for loading more containerson deck. Although containershipsin service carry more boxes in theirholds than above deck, it is possi-ble that almost 60 per cent of thecontainers to be carried by the newgeneration of mega-carriers will bestowed on deck. This, in itself, posesnew challenges, not least by thestrains imposed on cargo securingsystems by a large ship piled highwith boxes sailing in rough weather.

Indeed, weather conditionshave proved to be a more criticalfactor than originally envisaged dueto the observation of a growingnumber of rogue waves of unprec-edented height in recent years. Inaddition, the sea states upon whichearlier generations of ship designswere based are deemed no longerto be representative of the roughersea conditions being encountered.

A number of incidents in re-cent years in which large containerships sailing in the Pacific have suf-fered parametric rolling - the sud-den and unexpected violent rock-

ing of the ship between port andstarboard in following and head-sea wave trains - bears testimonyto the power of the sea. In all theincidents cargo damage was ex-tensive and crew were injured.

Another consideration is theload per container. Studies by thePort of Hamburg have shown thatthe weight of goods carried percontainer has increased by 10-15per cent over the past decade, theactual percentage depending onwhether it is an export or importbox and whether it is a 20ft or 40ft.

Design solutionsAs a result of the increased numberof boxes, the greater cargo loadsand rougher sea conditions, hullflexibility and the associated de-formation of the deck plating andits supporting structure are themost critical factors that design-ers are having to confront whenscaling up ship size.

In general, designers have beenable to cope relatively easily withthe need for greater levels of lon-gitudinal strength . However, the

need to cope with greater tor-sional loads has presented particu-lar challenges. The main focus hasbeen on the hatch corner stressescaused by torsional deformationsand on the relative displacementsof the hatch covers to each otherand between the hatch cover andthe coaming.

In response, the alteration of arange of structural design param-eters has been considered in or-der to control the extent to whichthe hull may flex while the ship isunderway with a full cargo.

Studies carried out by naval ar-chitects at classification societyGermanischer Lloyd (GL) have

found that by increasing the dis-tance between inner and outerhulls from 2m to 2.8m on the largepost-Panamax ships, the maxi-mum relative deformation of thedeck structure can be reduced by15 per cent. These deformationsare also sensitive to the depth ofthe transverse box girder, but al-tering the double bottom heightwas found to have only minor in-fluence on deck deformations.

Another option considered byGL is to introduce a 20ft long deeptank about one-quarter of the shiplength back from the bow. Such anarrangement has been found to re-duce the maximum relative defor-

mation of the deck plating at theport and starboard sides of the ves-sel by a significant 17 per cent.

Containerships utilise thickersteel plate than any other commer-cial vessel, with thicknesses ap-proaching 80mm in way of thehatch coamings for some of thelarger ships. Although plate of thisthickness requires care when weld-ing, it is necessary to provide therequired degrees of strength andstiffness in the hull structure.

Propulsion optionsThe largest 12-cylinder slow speeddiesel engines currently availablehave maximum power outputs ofabout 100,000 brake horsepower.This is sufficient to power the larg-est mega-carriers ordered to dateat speeds of up to 25 knots, theestablished industry standard forcontainerships. The healthy freightrates currently being earned bythese vessels helps underpin theneed for high service speeds.

In addition, the introductionin recent years of a new genera-tion of common rail engines, withtheir electronic control systems,has helped improve the efficiencyand performance of large dieselswhen running at slow speeds.

Major marine diesel enginebuilders assure the industry that itis possible to provide propulsionunits with even higher power rat-ings by either adding more cylin-ders or increasing the bore of thecylinders. As there is some reluc-tance on the part of licensee en-gine builders to retool their pro-duction lines to provide cylindersof larger diameter, it appears likelythat industry will favour the ad-ditional cylinder solution.

Additional cylinders will boostthe weight to what is already avery heavy engine. As a result, de-signers will need to be ensure thatthe interaction between the hulland the diesel power plant is notsuch that it excites vibrations inthe ship still further.

Focus on propellersIt is envisaged that any such vi-bration problems can be overcomeand, with the possibility of increas-ing engine power output proven,attention then switches to theship’s propeller as the limiting pro-pulsion system factor.

The largest containership pro-peller yet built weighs 102 tonnesand is 9.1m in diameter. This isbelieved to be nearing the upperlimit of what is feasible due to thedraft restrictions in many of thehub ports. Even though there maystill be substantial clearance be-tween the screw tip and theseabed, a large propeller turningat speed can stir up considerablebottom sediment in its wake.

Such large propellers also haveto be carefully designed to estab-lish the correct balance betweenoptimum efficiency and tolerablecavitation. Cavitation is a phenom-enon that can cause erosion of notonly the propeller tips and leadingedges but also the ship’s rudder.

Although the new commonrail engines are now enabling en-gine speeds to be reduced suffi-ciently to ensure compliance withadmissible speeds in pilotage wa-

ters, existing engines continue tosuffer from the build-up of sootin cylinders and exhaust systemsas a result of long periods of low-load operation.

Weighing up all these factors,it appears that future containerships above 10,000 TEU will bespecified with twin diesel enginesand propellers. Although the capi-tal cost, fuel consumption anddaily operating costs of twin-screwships are greater than those of asingle-screw vessel, their produc-tivity is also higher.

Speed will be the key factor. Ifa shipowner is happy with a serv-ice speed of 23 knots, then he willbe able to make do with a singleengine and propeller, even for aship of up to 12,500 TEU. If 25knots is a requirement, then so aretwin propulsion systems for shipsover 10,000 TEU in size.

Power for reefersWhen considering the ship’s powerrequirement, designers must alsoconsider the increasing number ofrefrigerated containers being car-ried. Some of the larger container-ships today are designed such thatup to one-third of the containersthey carry can be reefers.

As an example, a container shipwith plugs for 1,000 40ft reefercontainers would need to be ableto guarantee an auxiliary powersupply of 16,000 kW for the reef-ers alone. Containerships carryingsignificant complements of reeferboxes must be fitted with a safeand efficient power distributionsystem to ensure an adequate elec-tric power supply. Medium volt-age systems have become thestandard for this task.

Another design factor to takeinto account with reefer contain-ers is bulkhead design, namely thatbulkheads be configured in sucha way as to optimise the potentialfor adequate cooling and ventila-tion of the hold space.

Future is bigger stillThe class societies active in thecontainership sector have carriedout extensive research on the nextgeneration of mega-carrier - theso-called ultra-large containership(ULCS) of up to 12,000 TEU andeven larger.

They conclude that, althoughworking near the upper reachesof current technology and allow-ing for the design challenges en-tailed, such ships are feasiblewithin the constraints of industryknowledge today. Containershipsof this size would be the largestsuch vessels to be able to transitthe Suez Canal fully laden.

LR has found that a twin-screw12,500 TEU ship sailing at 25 knotsbetween Asia and Europe will yieldsavings of 20 per cent in transpor-tation costs compared to today’scontainer-ships. These savings in-crease to 30 per cent if the 12,500TEU ship sails at 23 knots and ispowered by a conventional singleengine and propeller.

With savings like these and themega-carrier era having alreadyachieved a momentum that looksunstoppable, it is only a matter oftime before the first Suezmax con-tainer ship is ordered. ❏

The percentage of containers stowedondeck is growing along with theincrease in ship size

Designers of container securing systems are reappraising the load limits of theequipment they offer as a result of the escalation in ship size

SHIPPING

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Achieving modal shift from road to wa-ter is a difficult and frustrating job. TheEU spends millions of Euros on grandschemes such as Marco Polo, CoastlinkNetwork’s chairman David Cheslin hascommented, but can’t remove simple ob-stacles to shipping like delays to containerbarge shuttles between Rotterdam andAntwerp caused by nuances of Dutch andBelgian customs, or feeder ships havingto pay pilot charges every time theychange berth in Antwerp.

Cheslin was responding to remarksmade by Erik Petersen of Unifeeder atthe second annual Coastlink conference,held recently in Newcastle-on-Tyne. TheEU is keen to encourage modal shift andshortsea and feeder operators continue toassert their suitability for such a task, butthere is no real co-ordination.

One of the big themes for Coastlinkhas been the overconcentration onFelixstowe and Southampton and theneed to decongest these ports and the roadnetwork by relying more on outports.However, feedering from the continentis not an adequate response on its own.

For one thing, as Petersen graphicallyillustrated, Rotterdam, which touts itselfas the port for the UK and incentivised itby absorbing the cost of the rehandling,has been seriously congested and theproblems are compounded because nearlyall the major shipping lines are missingtheir berthing windows and feeder op-erators are pushed to the end of the queue.

The B & Q effectA shipper which “broke the mould” is B& Q (WorldCargo News, May 2002, p12)and today all of its deepsea containerisedimports for the UK DIY market arefeedered through Humberside, but thislogistic solution is not for everybody.

Steven Cox, H J Heinz Ltd’s globalshipping manager, said that he would liketo book deliveries four or five weeks inadvance, but the lines are reluctant to bookmore than a week ahead because theycannot guarantee when the ship will ar-rive. But if Heinz then opts to land thecontainer on the continent, it has an ex-tra wait for a feeder to bring it to theUK. Normally frequency is two or threetimes/week, but a haulier can be bookedat one hour’s notice to pick up a con-tainer from Felixstowe or Southampton.

In contrast, however, John Foord, rep-resenting both JSA and China Shipping,remarked that the situation at these portsis so bad that “if you want your containerdelivered tomorrow, call last week,” whileDavid Petchey of MSC (UK) admittedthat it is quicker to serve West Londonfrom Bristol than from Southampton,despite Bristol being further away.

Deep thinkersBritain certainly needs more deepsea ca-pacity. Up to now most of the focus hasbeen on Hutchison’s Felixstowe Southand Bathside Bay projects and P&O Ports’Thames Gateway scheme, but at least oneof those and perhaps two will likely gothe same way as Dibden Bay.

Port operators such as Teesport andBristol are asking a legitimate question -why does deepsea capacity have to beconcentrated in the south east, the mostcrowded part of the country where con-gestion is endemic and set to get worse.

Whether Bristol succeeds in its am-bition (see pXX) remains to be seen, butthe port seems well-placed to serve theEnglish Midlands, which according toBristol Port Company, account for 30 percent and 18 per cent of container importand export points respectively.

The case being presented by Teesportalso seems persuasive. According to theport’s general manager Nigel Chew, morethan 2 mill TEU/year of GB containertraffic has O/D points north of the Mid-lands, but nearly all of it is trucked upfrom the south. Most national distribu-tion centres (NDCs) are located in thenorth, owing to cheaper land and labour,less congested roads, etc.

Gone westOf course, much of the cargo in the con-tainers is bound for the south. Full con-

tainers go north, the cargo is devanned,warehoused and restuffed to trailers whichgo south, empty trailers then go northand empty containers go south. Commonsense, it seems, has gone west!

From Teesport, a container haulier cancover the growing Leeds market withthree round-trips/day but he will be luckyto get one in from Southampton or

Felixstowe. Container hauliers face seri-ous problems., with costs rising and ashortage of drivers. There is hardly anyslack in intermodal rail, and it certainlycannot absorb a big shift from truckingas network capacity is not there.

As the Heinz case illustrates, feederingis not the answer for everybody, but thereis also evidence of feedering being dis-

Coming up with a decongestantGreat Britain needs more deepseacontainer port capacity. But putting it allin the south east is not the answer

couraged by some deepsea carriers. Oneline, for example, is understood to havetold receivers in north England that if theyopt to land a container in Rotterdam andhave it feedered to Teesport or Hull, theyhave to bear the cost of repositioning theempty back to Rotterdam.

Strange if trueThis is strange because shipping linesbuild the cost of positioning the emptyback to the port into the headhaul charge.If a container is trucked up from South-ampton or Felixstowe, the receiver doesnot pay to have the empty taken back, so

why should Rotterdam be any different?Another problem is frequency. Bun-

dling shortsea and feeder traffic wouldhelp, but is difficult as the markets havedifferent drivers. [However, look at thenew possibilities at Zeebrugge - ro-ro andMaersk and CMA-CGM deepsea]. An in-crease in common feeder services wouldalso help, but this would require more co-operation between the deepsea operators.

Successful feeder operations todayinclude coastwise services linkingFelix-stowe with Grangemouth andSouthampton with Clydeport. Theremay be scope to expand “domestic” op-erations but in due course the Anglo-Scottish services may be affected byScotland’s own deepsea port ambitions.The Scottish Executive is backingHunterston and Scapa. ❏

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EU stage IIIa and US-EPA Tier 3emission regulations for off-roadmobile engines in the 130-560kW power output range comeinto force next January. A numberof new engines have been intro-duced and accepted by OEMswhose products cover the fullrange of non-road mobile ma-chinery (NRMM) used in ports,scrap yards, quarries, farms, etc.

Compared to Tier 2/Stage 2,there are no changes in CO andPM limit values (3.5 g/kWh and0.2 g/kWh respectively). The tar-get is a significant reduction inNOx and non-methane hydrocar-bon (NMHC) emissions com-bined to 4.0 g/kWh from 7.0 g/kWh under Tier 2.

New CatOne new Tier 3/Stage IIIa com-pliant engine is the CaterpillarC13, as fitted to Cat materials han-dlers and derivatives such as hy-draulic cranes. This has a displace-ment of 12.8 litres, 21 per centmore than the engine it replacesin Cat’s own 345C materials han-

dler. It is more powerful, too, withan output of 257 kW (345 hp). Itis fitted with electronic controlsand Cat’s EUI electronic unit in-jector fuel system.

Oil and filter change intervalshave been extended to 500h, butoperators need to be aware thatthis benefit, touted by a numberof OEMs for their latest equip-ment, is dependent on fuel qual-ity (sulphur content), quality of theoil (base number) and how themachines are driven

Scania 9-litreAs previously reported, Scania hasadded a 5-cylinder unit with aswept volume of 9 litres (DC9EMS) to its modular range of Tier3/Stage IIIa-compliant engines.The turbo-charged, charge-cooled (air-air), 4-stroke dieselengine has unit injectors andScania’s electronic EMS (enginemanagement system).

The starting point was Scania’smodular cylinder concept, ex-plains Lennart Hjelte, senior vicepresident and head of industrialand marine engines at Scania. Thesame cylinder concept is used forall engine sizes. This cylinder isbeing continuously developed andoptimised for improved perform-ance and lower emissions.

The new 5-in-line engine hasdouble balance shafts for smoothand silent running. It has the samecombustion chambers as the 12-and 16-litre engines and sharesmost of the components, such ascylinder heads, pistons, camshaftsand unit injectors. Hence partsstock and distribution are simpli-fied as well as maintenance work,which should translate into higheravailability and uptime.

The DC9 EMS engine, con-tinues Scania, has an optimisedcombustion process, with fourvalves per cylinder, centrally po-

sitioned unit injectors and EMS.The EMS monitors and proc-

esses thousands of pieces of dataevery second and evaluates theinformation to adjust injectiontiming and the amount of fuelinjected to ensure optimum com-bustion and fuel consumption inrelation to the operation. The re-sult is improved performance andlower emissions. It also makes itpossible to program each indi-vidual engine to meet the custom-er’s specific demands for enginerevs and workload, for example.

Measuring 1116mm (h) by811mm (w) and 1275mm (l), theDC9 EMS is more compact thanthe 6-cyl. unit it replaces and, withan output range of 177 - 243kW(240 – 330hp) @ 2200 rpm, isaimed at wheel loaders, FLTs,dump trucks, container handlers,etc. “It is robust and has a hightorque at low revs which meansthat it does not need to be revved

hard to give the desired perform-ance,” says Hjelte. The engine isavailable as Stage II-compliant.

Scania’s 6-cylinder DC12EMS series also complies withStage IIIa/Tier 3. This 1491mm(h) by 1154mm (w) by 1716mm(l) engine has an output range of243 - 330kW (330 - 450hp) @2100 rpm and, like the DC9 EMS,can also be supplied with Stage IIcompliance for non-US or non-European markets not covered bythe new emission limits

CompactnessScania’s approach to Tier 3/StageIIIa, adds Yngve Skog, sales man-ager, industrial and marine en-gines, was to maintain enginecompactness by focusing on thecombustion process, rather thanafter treatment systems.

His point is that emission limitvalues can be obtained byoptimising the combustion proc-ess, and there is no need to useEGR or an after-treatment systemsuch as SCR (selective catalyticreduction). The combustionchamber has been modified, theangle of the unit injectors changedand the camshaft improved.

However, looking ahead toTier 4/Stage IIIb (scheduled forintroduction in January 2011), set-ting sharply reduced limit valuesfor NOx and PM, engine makershave made no secret of their viewthat EGR and after-treatment sys-tems will have to play a key rôle,alongside even better injectioncontrol and higher pressures.

The feasibility of Tier 4/StageIIIb depends on availability of lowsulphur fuel (< 10 PPM S) inNRMM markets. OtherwiseEGR will be counter-productiveand PM values will increase.

Scania has previously drawnattention to the fact that NRMMis moving closer to road standardsand eventually the difference willreach vanishing point. For thepost-2014 environment, Scaniamentions HCCI technology (ho-mogenous charge compressionignition), fuels “between petroland diesel,” premix, etc.

Record yearLast year Scania delivered a totalof 5014 engines for industrial andmarine applications, compared to3165 in 2003. This all-time highwas achieved because of the stronggrowth in industrial demand (32

Shaping up for Tier 3/Stage IIIaOff-road engine emission standards will move onestep closer to road norms next January

Scania’s new Tier 3/Stage IIIa DC9 EMS engine design covers an outputrange from 177 to 243 kW @ 2200 rpm

per cent of demand) in particularfor container handling equipmentand genset demand (39 per cent).

OEM switchingCompetition between enginemakers is the name of the gameand one OEM customer of Scania,SMV Lifttrucks, is switching toVolvo Penta for its medium rangeof ‘B’ series FLTs (10-16t) as wellas well as its dedicated ECH masttrucks and ECH reach stackers. Itis, however, staying with Scania(DC12 EMS) for its heavy lifttrucks and reach stackers.

The trucks scheduled to beswitched typically operate at thelower end of the Scania 9-litre en-gine’s power output spectrum andthe 6-litre Volvo Penta TAD 620VE and/or the TAD 722 VE-HTare less expensive.

This is the normal web andwarft of business. Volvo Penta pre-viously lost some Linde HTDbusiness to Cummins, but hopesto capture some other OEM busi-ness from another engine makerfor equipment requiring 12-litreTier 3/Stage IIIa engines.

Buoyant PentaLast year Volvo Penta sold morethan 2000 engines for containerhandling equipment, not count-ing big engines for RTGs, says TimDavis, the company’s businessmanager, European material han-dling applications.

Notable deals included sup-ply of 35 9-litre TAD 942 VEengines rated at 250 kW toGottwald, in connection with anew order it had for AGVs fromECT Rotterdam. Underscoringthe point that OEMs are pass-ing on customer demands forhigher uptimes and more oper-ating hours from the equipment,the AGVs have an average an-nual workload of 5500h.

Other recent orders includeone from Kalmar for 16-litre en-gines to power the 29 E-OneRTGs it is building for GTI NhavaSheva. Most of Volvo Penta’s OEMcustomers are based in Europe, butEuropean customers often specifyVolvo Penta engines from otherOEMs.

All the ZPMC RTGs at Felix-stowe, for example, have VolvoPenta engines. This port has alsobeen re-engining older RTGswith Volvo Penta engines for thepast five years. ❏

Particle filter fitted to a Kalmar TRX-252 ro-ro tractor (246 kW engine plant)headed for Göteborg. PM limit values are not changed by Tier 3/Stage IIIa

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In the next two years, US container portactivity is expected to grow between sixand eight per cent each year. In many USdeep water ports, container cranes 20 to25 years old have lost some of their origi-nal productivity and can no longer ac-commodate the anticipated growth. Theseolder cranes utilise a variety of motordrive systems, including motor-genera-tor (MG) sets and early solid-state siliconcarbide rectifier (SCR) drives.

Some ports are investing in newcranes. Others, concerned that shippingwill slacken off in a few years and leavethem with idle capacity and large debts,are upgrading hoist, trolley and otherfunctions on older cranes with digitalcontrollers, in order to obtain an extra 5-10 per cent productivity.

Because many drive manufacturers nolonger support older equipment, portssuch as Houston must find other sourcesand ways to get the desired productivityincreases without massive expenditures fornew cranes.

“Six of our ten cranes at Barbours Cutare more than 20 years old, and it’s rea-sonable to assume that they are going tobe here for the next five to ten years,”remarks Paulo Soares, maintenance man-ager, Barbours Cut container terminal, forthe Port of Houston Authority (PHA).“All the analog MG drives were discon-tinued by the manufacturer many yearsago and replacement parts are scarce.”

Board walkSoares’ crew has been sending the origi-nal boards out for repair, but there areonly so many times that a board can berepaired without experiencing reliabilityproblems. “Going with a full retrofit withnew motors, gearboxes and drives,” con-tinues Soares, “would cost an ungodlyamount of money. You might as well buynew cranes.”

Situations such as Houston’s have cre-ated opportunities for companies likeAvtron Manufacturing, which has devel-oped digital drive control upgrade equip-ment specifically for such applications, andsystem engineering partners such asDamas Corporation, based in Alabama.Damas has 20 years of crane and portexperience and has the ability to applythis equipment to older cranes.

Barbour shop quintetTo save his otherwise serviceable equip-ment, Soares recommended to the Hou-

ston Port Commission that the analogdrive control systems on five of the six

older cranes be upgraded.. Simultaneously,a newer container crane at the PHA’sTurning Basin Terminal also needed adrive system upgrade to its early solid-state DC drive and PLC, and it was in-cluded in the proposal process.

Among the offers received was one

from Avtron and Damas that proposedkeeping the existing motors and gen-erators, along with the associatedpower equipment and wiring, and re-placing the original motor and gen-erator field controls with modern dig-ital technology. The joint proposal also

contained a maintenance softwarepackage that provides troubleshootingdiagnostics and remote monitoring.

Best valueDuring the proposal evaluations, Soaresand other PHA staff visited the drivemanufacturer’s US plant, and a con-tainer terminal in New Jersey wherethe proposed hardware and softwarewere already in service. As it turned out,this proposal offered the best value tothe PHA. “It was fairly reasonable interms of price,” said Soares, “so that’swhat we went with.”

Houston cranes - old panel (above) and newpanel compared

Cranes motor on with new drive controlsPartial retrofit of six container cranes operated by the Port ofHouston with the latest digital controls and diagnosticspreserves existing motors, generators and power equipmentand increases reliability and productivity for fast payback*

* This article was prepared for WorldCargoNews by Barry W Wiles, PE, industrymanager, cranes, Avtron Manufacturing, Inc,Ohio, with support from Robert Svec

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Siemens Cranes has introducednew drive technology for con-tainer cranes which, it claims, hasbeen shown in field tests to re-duce fuel consumption of RTGsby as much as 50 per cent.

Even bigger fuel savings, saysSiemens, can be achieved by in-stalling an ultra capacitor (supercapacitor) energy-saving module.The company has worked in closecooperation with APM Terminals(APMT) to develop the new re-generative drives.

The energy generated throughlowering of the load or gantrybraking is stored in the drive sys-tem and released again duringhoisting or gantry acceleration.The design enables most of theenergy stored during lowering tobe available during hoisting.

During extensive field testswith APMT, says Siemens, its so-called “Eco-RTG” system reducedfuel consumption by 50 per cent,based on the same operating con-ditions and throughput as conven-tional RTGs.

Siemens’ background in railsolutions and trolley buses led tothe development of the drive sys-tem. The concept is used in hy-brid diesel/electric traction sys-tems for buses and ship propul-sion systems with Duo inverters.

The Eco-RTG package com-prises the diesel engine, two per-manent magnet generators, themotors and Duo inverter units andcontrols for all drives. SiemensCranes, based in Holland, belongsto the Siemens Automation andDrives Group in Germany. ❏

50% fuel savingsclaimed for RTGs

Siemens Cranes field-tested the Eco-RTG drives with APM Terminals

Maintenance personnel at theTurning Basin Terminal agreed.They recognised that having com-mon hardware and software sup-pliers ensures parts interchange-ability as well as a unified sourcefor product support.

Portainer upgradeBarbours Cut container terminalhas six berths along 6000ft of con-tinuous quay. There are 13 con-tainer cranes available, of whichthree are privately-owned.

Of the 10 cranes which areowned and maintained by thePHA, the five that were upgradedare Paceco Portainers with anSWL of 40 LT (40.6 mt). Theywere originally commissionedbetween 1977 and 1984 with GES-21 and Valutrol analog-control-led MG drives for hoist/gantry/boom and trolley functions.

Over the years, as these oldercranes aged, productivity sufferedfrom periodic drive breakdowns.Also, crane function speeds, par-ticularly on the hoist function,diminished. The result was fewercontainers handled per hour.

While Soares’ technicians hadhandled most drive maintenance,occasional troubleshooting help

The cranes are back to their original service levels and should give good servicefor another five to 10 years - achieved at a fraction of the cost of buying new

was required, but the port had dif-ficulty finding field engineers withexperience of older equipment.

Avtron was the prime contrac-tor for the upgrade, supplyingmost of the hardware, includingdigital MG set controllers (DMGs)and PLCs, and carrying out thepower engineering. Damas han-dled the control system integra-tion, provided the diagnostic sys-tem and did the logic controllerprogramming.

The DMG controllers werefurnished on new pre-assembledsub-panels. They include specialmodifications and software tomeet specific needs of the port in-dustry and handle the high induc-tive loads seen in MG set fieldwindings. Embedded 32-bit con-trollers perform crane controlfunctions like load calculations,speed loops, brake and contactorcontrols, eliminating the need forany additional control devices.

The PLCs, also furnished inpanels, only provide logical evalu-ation of the operator inputs, limitswitches, hard-wired permissivesand so on and tie the diagnosticsoftware to the controller system.

The crane monitoring and di-agnostics system includes two soft-ware packages and an Ethernetradio link. The CraneView Diag-nostic software, installed on eachcrane, links the crane’s drive andPLC systems, providing real-timedata viewing, alarms and datatrending. It incorporates a graphi-cal user interface on an easy-to-use touch-screen computer.

The RemoteView monitoringsystem, installed on a supervisorycomputer in the maintenancebuilding, can access all five on-board systems via the radio link.This allows maintenance person-nel to monitor real-time perform-ance data for each crane withoutactually climbing the crane.Internet access allows the drivemanufacturer and the integratorto assist in troubleshooting any-where in the world.

Cut above the restSignificant improvements in reli-ability, maintainability and down-

time have resulted at BarboursCut. Drive problems are mucheasier to troubleshoot and repairbecause obsolete, difficult-to-re-pair equipment has been replacedwith latest technology controls.Replacement parts and supportare readily available.

“After replacing the drive con-trols, the cranes are more reliableand provide the maintenance per-sonnel with specific informationand alarms that are very helpfulfor troubleshooting,” says Soares.“Before, you had to get a meterand a bunch of drawings and tryto find the problem.”

The five upgraded cranes canalso now be operated at the origi-nally designed acceleration/decel-eration rates and speeds, with thecapability to handle as many as 40moves/crane hour.

As far as Soares is concerned,the upgrade was a success frombeginning to end. “Maintenancepersonnel like the drives and havebecome familiar with them andthe operators are satisfied as well.”

Turning aroundThe upgraded Turning Basincrane is a 40 LT Bardella containercrane, originally commissioned in1996 with a Cutler-HammerGH95 solid-state DC drive andToshiba PLC. While the crane wasstill performing up to originalspecifications, many of the com-ponents were difficult to maintainor repair due to a lack of partsavailability and knowledgeablepersonnel.

In the upgrade, the original,expensive-to-replace SCRs werekept, along with the motors,power equipment, field wiring andbus bars. An Avtron Firing Mod-ule “front end” was installed in theexisting panels in place of the oldGH95 equipment. A new PLC,including remote I/O, was in-stalled, along with the same diag-nostics and remote monitoringsoftware used at Barbours Cut.

Installation processInstallation at both locations wasperformed by the drive manufac-turer, with supervision and start-

up assistance from the integrator.Soares anticipated about 100 daysfor engineering and procurementof the drives for each crane, andabout 20 calendar days for the in-stallation of each crane.

He was most concernedabout losing crane availabilityduring the installation phase.“When we took them out ofservice for the actual installa-tion, the clock started running.But everything was r ight on.”

Marvin Sikes, assistant main-tenance manager at the TurningBasin Terminal agreed. “We hadminimum downtime. In fact, wewere able to work it in betweenships.” The Bardella crane was outof service for approximately 10days, during which time an olderPaceco Portainer was used.

At both terminals, the integra-tor returned after start-up to ad-just reaction times on critical cranefunctions to accommodate craneoperators’ preferences. Upgrad-ing was completed early this year.

Drawings, trainingThe original drive system draw-ings had been marked up repeat-edly over the years as componentswere removed or replaced. As partof the package, the prime contrac-tor provided a complete set of newdrawings for each crane, showingexactly what was installed andrunning when the upgrades werecompleted. The drive manufac-turer and the integrator also pro-vided on-site training for electri-cians at both terminals.

Whether to upgrade or re-place? This question will con-tinue to face crane maintenancemanagers at other ports in theAmericas, the Far East and else-where as business rebounds.

However, if cranes are struc-turally sound, and motors, trans-formers and other power com-ponents are in good shape, up-grading drive control systemsmakes economic sense.

It affords fast payback and per-mits the cranes to continue oper-ating at peak performance, assur-ing continued parts availability andtechnical support in the future. ❏

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What is believed to be the world’sfirst non-hydraulic anti-snag andoverload protection system for con-tainer cranes has been launched byGermany-based Malmedie and UScrane consultants Casper, Phillips &Associates (CPA) in collaborationwith Bubenzer Bremsen.

Traditionally snag load protection sys-tems are a problem area for crane opera-tors and crane makers. The long-strokehydraulic cylinders add mass and take upvaluable space. They require considerablemaintenance and even then may not workproperly when they are needed. But allthese problems, it is claimed, could beswept away with the Malmedie couplingsand the fast-acting brakes from Bubenzer.

In the event of any form of overloadthe inertia and the driving force of themotor are separated from the hoist withinmilliseconds. Together with the specially-designed brakes from Bubenzer, the re-action time of the system is ultra-fast and,says Malmedie, completed before conven-tional, hydraulic systems are able to react.

MAT Malmedie Antriebstechnik hasbeen making gear couplings, drum cou-plings, safety couplings and other electro-mechanical devices for 30 years and theyare in widespread use in heavy industrysuch as slab mills and steel mills. Almost600 systems are in operation, says thecompany’s owner Dr Rahim Gross, withmotors in the torque range from 5000 to650,000 Nm - much more demandingthan even the most powerful containercrane hoists (5000-10,000 Nm).

Chance meetingGross continues that in the past two yearsor so Malmedie has been looking for newapplications for its products and by chance,late last year, made contact with CPA inTacoma, Washington, which saw imme-diately the new possibilities for the safetycouplings in container cranes.

But CPA also realised that workneeded to be done on the brakes since itsinvestigations showed that when a snagor overload event occurs and the motoris released by the coupling, the time in-terval to “catch the load” is extremelycritical and should be as short as possible.

This is where Bubenzer entered thepicture. The usual setting time for its fast-setting, hydraulic, emergency calliperbrake is 0.25 secs but the company hasnow come up with a modified design forthe Malmedie application. In the firstworkshop test, says Bubenzer’s vice presi-dent, sales Christof Lautwein, the elapsedtime from the snag event for the pads totouch the disc was just 0.03 secs. Within0.07 secs 90 per cent of the braking forcehad been reached and all motion wasstopped in less than 0.10 secs (100 milli-seconds).

Hamburg jobMalmedie and Bubenzer have already hada retrofit application to work on - a 70ton (rope load) Kocks crane at HHLA’sTollerort terminal (TCT) in Hamburg.This is a full machinery trolley cranewhich, because of wheel load limitations,was never fitted with anti-snag, as it wouldhave added 3-4 tonnes to overall weight.However, the full couplings and brakespackage adds just 400 kg and takes uphardly any space. The motor “shift” onthe shaft, to make room for the gear andsafety couplings, is only 300mm per side.

Crucially, says CPA’s principal BillCasper, the crane at TCT was already fit-ted with ac motors and controls (Alstom).The system is not offered for dc motorsbecause of “flashover” when high torqueis suddenly released. Hence it is beingoffered only for cranes with ac drives,whether new or retrofit applications.

It took just six weeks to design andengineer the system for the crane at TCTand it was installed within four days. Itworks “even better than we expected,” saysLautwein, with the e-brakes reaching fullforce after just 0.06 secs.

More to follow?The installation has been approved byGermanischer Lloyd and final approval bythe German safety authorities is expectedshortly. TCT’s management has indicated

that they may have it fitted to two newKocks cranes currently in build, due fordelivery this August and September.

Kocks Krane itself has been support-ive and helped convert the existing crane.Its director in Bremen Helmut Mittelstädtmakes the point that most older cranesare not fitted with anti-snag, but it onlyneeds one snag event to lead to a disaster.

After a snag event trips the couplingsand fast-acting brakes set, there is still thequestion of high tension on the ropes andthe inability to release the load and this

A new approach to snag load protection

The first application is on a Kocks crane atTCT Hamburg (retrofit)

could be tricky if the ship happens to belowering quickly on a rapid ebb tide!Bubenzer has solved this problem throughits service brakes. As they are thrusterbrakes, they can be opened by the cranedriver in a controlled way, using his joy-stick to detension the ropes. This is con-trolled with a snag load PLC and all sig-nals go directly to the brakes, avoidingthe time delay of going via the crane PLC.

Bubenzer is fitting its Litec brake discsand the e-brake is combined with itsCMB spring force monitoring unit. Thisis connected to the PLC so if there areany problems (eg with the release gap),they show up quickly and can be ad-dressed. The system is claimed to be basi-cally maintenance-free, requiring onlyinspection at 2-yearly intervals. A numberof patents are pending.

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The system was “unveiled” atTOC Europe in Antwerp earlierthis month and, according toLautwein, attracted a high level ofinterest from crane makers andoperators alike.

One question is what to doabout TLS, which is often com-bined with snag protection. TLShas to be supplied (or at least trimand skew) irrespective of whetheranti-snag load is fitted, but it doesnot have to be hydraulic. Kocks,for example, controls trim by re-leasing the clutch so the motors

Malmedie couplings are in widespread use in heavy industry, such as slab mills

on the common shaft turn in dif-ferent directions. There are vari-ous ways to handle list, but, as ithappens, the TCT cranes do notneed list control as the terminaldoes not handle small ships. Thereare also alternatives for skew con-trol (eg from the headblock).

CPA says that effective skewcontrol is notoriously difficult toachieve, however it is tackled. Forthis reason, more operators haveelected to use electric-poweredTLS linear actuators rather thanhydraulics. ❏

A “new kid on the straddle car-rier block,” Consens TransportSysteme GmbH, based inVeitshöchheim in Germany, ishoping to have its first machinebuilt by this September, withthree more following by the endof the year. The company is alsooffering crane inspection andconsulting services, repair s,maintenance and modernisationand has already booked somebusiness in this field.

The Consens name may benew, but the team behind it is veryexperienced in production, engi-neering and sales. As previouslyreported (WorldCargo News, De-cember 2004, p1), the companywas set up by a group of formerNoell employees. Its three jointmanaging directors are HelmutHemesath, Björn Riechers andJohannes Mitnacht. Other share-holders include Wilhelm Pfenning(viz: Pfenning ElektroanlagenGmbH) and Bruno Grimm, aWürzburg-based forwarder.

There is no doubt that thedeparture of figures such as

Hemesath and Riechers caused abig shock within Noell and, in-evitably, some ill feeling. In theevent, Consens began trading inApril. It is understood that thereare no legal impediments to dowith patents, intellectual propertyrights, breach of contract, etc tohamper Consens from carrying onas any other new business.

According to Riechers, abouthalf Consens’ staff used to workfor Noell. The crane service teamincludes, for example, GerhardLang, working with MatthiasKiefer, Peter Hartmann, ThomasKunz and Wolfgang Tibitanzl.

Konecranes linkIn a new development, NoellKonecranes GmbH, part of KCIKonecranes, has also become aminority shareholder of Consens,with a stake believed to be above20 per cent. This means, in effect,that the former Preussag Noell

grouping - before Noell CraneSystems was sold to Fantuzzigroup and NSM to Konecranes -has partially reinvented itself.

The deal also gives Konecranesa hand in straddle carriers for thefirst time, to add to heavy lifttrucks and reach stackers (SMV)and its own RTGs, RMGs, ship-to-shore gantry cranes, etc.

OutsourcingAs also previously noted in World-Cargo News, Consens’ productionphilosophy is based on out-sourcing of fabrication while itconcentrates on R&D, design,engineering, quality control, test-ing and commissioning, sales andafter-sales. This is the best way,believes the company, to delivercost-effective and reliable straddlecarriers with the shortest possiblelead times.

All Consens’ straddle carriers(“Constrads”) have an SWL of60t, irrespective of whether theyare fitted with twinlift or singlelift spreaders. This capacity giveswhat Consens calls “true twintwenty capability” when handlingreefers or when a separating cen-tre twin 20 spreader is fitted. Thespreader itself would need to berated to 60t, but if it is not, it issafeguarded from overloadthrough the Constrad’s “intelli-gent” CANbus control system.

Because of the extra heavySWL, Consens recommends thatthe operator chooses size 18.00-25 tyres, but it is also checking outthe recently-introduced 480/95R95 straddle carrier tyre fromMichelin, which is sized between16.00-25 and 18.00-25.

Light but rigidThe ratio of machine weight toSWL is only 1.2:1, but this is notjust a function of the higher SWL,says Consens. It highlights the rela-tively light, but extremely rigidframe construction. The uprights,top beams and travel beams are de-signed as bent form box girders.Only the inside face of the up-rights, giving the support for theyoke beam, is welded.

The structure is so rigid, saysConsens, that tension rods are notrequired, and this improves drivervision and creates more space forcomponents. The yoke beam is fit-ted at both ends with a special,removable clamp which glides upand down the uprights, to facili-tate precise landing. It also helpsabsorb shock loads

The straddle carriers will be 1over 2 or 1 over 3 with hydro-static or diesel-electric drive (viz:63 HS, 64 HS, 63 DE and 64 DE).Because of the modular designprinciple, most of the componentsare standardised so, for example, ahydrostatic machine could be eco-nomically converted to diesel-electric if there is a change in theenvironmental requirements ofthe port.

Almost identicalThe machinery deck is laid outalmost identically for both typesof drive, and the engine powerseither two electric generators ortwo hydraulic pumps and the aux-iliary power pumps. In the diesel-electric version, regenerated en-ergy can be stored insupercapacitors and fed back intothe system, to save between 11 and20 per cent on fuel consumption.

The engine itself may comefrom DaimlerChrysler or Deutz,but Consens has an open mind atthis stage and other engine optionsmay be offered. Power output will

be 350 kW. Maximum travel speedwill be 30 kph empty and 25 kphladen. Maximum lift speeds are 25m/min with empty spreader and16 m/min with rated load. Thesevalues are the same for 3-high and4-high machines.

In both drive configurations,the rope drums are connected tothe transmission via a cardan shaft.All the sub-assemblies are the sameand a hydraulic or electric motormounted in the travel girder drivesthe gearbox. A four-axis steeringsystem, which makes use of shortsteering rods that are less prone tobeing bent out of shape, is used.The operator can carry out allfunctions with a joystick, but canalso steer with a mini-wheel if heprefers it.

Cabin focusThe cabin, housed entirely inwiththe machine portal, is fitted asstandard with air-conditioning.The seat has in-built consoles andpedals. It can be adjusted to suitdifferent driver heights and com-fort positions and pivoted through180 deg with stop positions in-between. As a further visual aid tothe driver, three sides of the cabare made completely from glass(glare- and shatter-proof).

As well as 1 over 2 and 1 over3 straddle carriers, Consens isworking on a 1 over 1 design,dubbed SpeedMaster, a 1 over 0machine called “Speedy,” steel in-dustry machines for slabs and coils,and an X-Ray portal machine forport security work.

These machines correspond toNoell machines - Sprinter, Por-ter, Coil Carrier, Eagle. Noell it-self is understood to be doing con-siderable work to bring out the 1over 0/1 over chassis Porter Car-rier, which has been in its designbox for at least two years.

Industry nichesConsens is also working on arange of straddle carrier solutionsfor various industrial applications,under the general name ofConlift. In essence these are 4-wheel machines (2 driven) with alow-mount cab attached to oneof the uprights. They could beused, for example, to transport rail-way track, steel wire, pipes, etc.

Ironically, this is Noell’s bestever year for straddle carriers, withproduction set to hit (at least) 1651 over 2/1 over 3 machines - withthe share of ESWs having risenagain. In fact, the future for strad-dle carriers, and derivatives suchas shuttle carriers for yard cranesystems, is looking bright, becauseof the unmatched flexibility whichgrounding (self-buffering) offers.

Apart from Consens which hasdeclared its hand, it is understoodthat Liebherr has been investigat-ing the possibility of introducinga straddle carrier. Liebherr itselfsays only that a research project isunderway in Ireland, althoughthere are some in the industrywho think that the project is muchmore advanced than that.

Suppliers welcomeWhile Liebherr’s LRS 645 reachstacker is enjoying some success,this market area is very “crowded,”while the straddle carrier markethas for years been dominated byKalmar and Noell. However, theJapanese suppliers Mitsubishi andTCM, have never gone away, andCVS Ferrari is also trying to en-ter the market (or re-enter it if oneallows for Belotti). With Consens,and possibly Liebherr, morechoice may soon be available. ❏

Consens comes into the pictureStraddle carrier operators will find that their choice ofsupplier is wider than they have been used to

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Bromma’s two existing Tandem modelsare the telescopic 40/45, as tested byMaersk in Algeciras (pictured) and now or-dered by Hutchison (HPH) for a Chi-nese terminal, and the fixed length 40ft,on trial with Uniport in Rotterdam.

The telescopic 40/45 can handle two20s, or two 40fts or 45fts side by side. SWLis 70t, so the crane capacity on the ropesneeds to be about 100t. It can also be sup-plied without 45ft capability, which savesabout 1t in spreader tare (ie to > 23t).

The unit for HPH in China will befitted under an existing ZPMC crane witha capacity of 75t under the headblock.HPH is looking in particular for fasterdischarge of 40ft empties. The crane atUniport where the fixed length 40ft Tan-dem is in use has a capacity of 77t on theropes. Bromma is aiming this design atterminals handling a large percentage of40ft containers.

Two more comingIn the pipeline from Bromma is the Tan-dem separating centre twin 20 spreader,or T45. This will be able to handle allcombinations of 20ft, 40ft and 45ft con-tainers, including four 20fts, and separatethe 20fts up to 1.5m. Tare weight is 31tand SWL in double twin 20 mode is 2 x65t, for which crane capacity would needto be 165t on the ropes.

Bromma itself concedes that this ca-pacity will “most likely prove unrealistic”so the 20fts would be rated to 20-25t,resulting in a required crane capacity of115-135t on the ropes. As an alternative,Bromma will offer the Tandem Quattro.This is also a separating centre twin 20spreader able to pick up four 20fts at thesame time, but it offers side shift on eachspreader, for when the chassis or containeron the ground is not accurately lined up,and it has a lower tare weight, 24t.

It is not able to handle a single 20ftcontainer as it does not telescope into 20ft.It is aimed at terminals handling a highpercentage of 40fts and 45fts. If a single20ft needs to be handled, the Quattrowould need to be changed out.

Why it is importantIt looks as though side-by-side lifting willbecome more important in future. Shiplength is not increasing in proportion toship size, so still only 4-5 cranes can bedeployed against a ship. But the lines stillwant fast turnaround times so the craneswill need to be more productive. Doubletrolley cranes have not done the job, sosomething else has to.

If a high proportion of 20fts has to behandled, side by side lifting is not the an-swer. Two 20fts can be handled more ef-ficiently using a single, twin 20 spreader.Handling 40fts or 45fts side by side looksmuch more promising and feasible, par-ticularly as the demand on the crane’s lift-ing capacity can no longer be consideredexcessive (2 x 30-34t max).

The real difficulty is 4 x 20ft handling.This complicates the problem of dealingwith unbalanced loads in both the longi-tudinal and transversal direction and inany case may create a “spotting” night-mare for the crane driver. Furthermore,a 20ft can legally gross out at 30.48t.

Some operators (eg Felixstowe, Dubai)are known to be considering cranes with120t SWL for 4 x 30t 20ft lifts, implyinga crane rope capacity in the 160t range. Itis far from clear that this is feasible, evenif the dock is strong enough. At the veryleast, surely, they would have to accept abigger rail span and out-to-out width overbumpers, to reduce crane mass.

Which solution?The next question concerns the best wayto make side by side lifts: the Brommaway with a Tandem spreader; the Stinis

way with a separating device under theheadblock (going on test soon at APM T,Rotterdam); or the Dubai/ZPMC way,using a twin hoist and two spreaders.Bromma and Dubai Ports Authority (DPA)

Turn the ships around fasterBromma is extending its Tandem spreader“family” to accommodate differentrequirements now and in the future. Butthere are still many unresolved questionsrelating to side-by-side lifting

are pioneers, but in different ways.Arif Al Dehail, a DPA director, spoke

about experience to date at Jebel Ali atTOC earlier this month. The vessel con-

figuration does not always lend itself tousing both hoists and sometimes the stow-age plan prevents it. The interface withthe yard is a problem, too. DPA has comeup with a tandem trailer, but clearly thiscannot enter a normal RTG runway.

It is not clear what the increase in pro-ductivity has been; or on what percent-age of vessels calling DPA has been ableto use it; or what percentage of theirmoves per call. But operators want an-swers to these questions. It seems that a50 per cent increase in net productivityis required (?)

Finally, because of the difficulties onthe ground, side by side handling may en-courage renewed interest in straddle car-rier, or shuttle carriers to feed yard cranes.As they are self-buffering, they reduce therisk of the crane being delayed. ❏

June 200530

WorldCargonews REEFER INDUSTRY

The world’s reefer containermanufacturing industry iscontinuing to perform

strongly, with another record pro-duction in prospect for 2005. Ashighlighted in Tables 1 and 2, glo-bal reefer output has been grow-ing annually by more than 15 percent in recent years, having in-creased from almost 100,000 TEUin 2001 to over 150,000 TEU in2004. It has not declined duringany year since 2001.

able cargoes using integral boxesdeployed in standard cellular serv-ice. This growth has averaged eightper cent per annum in recent years,with extra business derived fromboth the expansion of establishedtrades and a continued switch onthe part of cold transport opera-tors away from conventional andpalletised reefer ships.

Portholes closedOne aspect of the latter is the fi-nal phasing of old “Conair” ves-sels by the likes of P&O Nedlloyd,CMA-CGA and Hamburg Süd,and their clearance of all remain-ing 20ft porthole containers. Thisaction has cut the world’s fleet ofinsulated boxes to less than 20,000TEU, which compares with a peakof 80,000 TEU operated until thelate 1990s. All such equipment isbeing replaced by 20ft, as well as40ft, high cube, integrals.

As shown in Table 2, theworld’s integral fleet currentlynumbers around 1.2 mill TEU. Itsurpassed 1 mill TEU in 2003with over 100,000 TEU addedannually in recent years. The 40fthigh cube component is now it-self almost 1 mill TEU, and makesup over 80 per cent of all reeferequipment in TEU terms. Around12 per cent (150,000 TEU) is of20ft length, and a diminishing 5-6 per cent (70,000 TEU) com-prises the 40ft (8ft 6in) size. Thelatter is forecast to gradually dis-appear over the next few years.

Reefer construction is beingboosted further by a rise in theoverall replacement of olderequipment. This peaked at around64,000 TEU replaced in 2003,when box lessors committed to arecord disposal, and there was ageneral push to purge the reeferfleet of containers still running onR12 refrigerant or interim blends,as well as those fitted with olderanalogue machinery controllers.Annual replacement has since heldstable at 55,000 TEU, but is fore-cast to rise again as the increasedreefer production of the early/mid1990s and onwards comes up fordisposal in its turn.

Almost 90 per cent of allreefer production is now carried

out in China and mostly by twopowerful groups, CIMC (ChinaInternational Marine Containers)and MCI (Maersk ContainerIndustri). They were responsiblefor supplying over 110,000TEUcollectively from their Chinesefactories in 2004, a total equat-ing to almost 75 per cent of theentire global figure produced thatyear.

MCI operates a further factory,in Denmark, which has long beenthe only source of mainstreamreefer production outside China,and supplied close to 17,000 TEUin 2004.

The balance of all manufactureis carried out by Singamas Con-tainer Holdings and YangzhouTonglee Reefer Container Co(YTRC), which supply approxi-mately 15 per cent of world de-mand between them.

However, YTRC is now as-sociated with CIMC, followingthe latter’s management takeoverin early 2004 of the TYC(Yangzhou Tongyun ContainerCo) dry freight container manu-facturing operation, which has ashare- holding in YTRC. Despitethis new connection, YTRC isunderstood to be still running itsfactory autonomously, at least forthe time being, with CIMC as yetnot involved. This was confirmedby CIMC itself, which stated thatYTRC was continuing to oper-ate independently.

Big enough?CIMC hardly needs any extra ca-pacity, as it is already meeting over45 per cent of all global demandfor reefer boxes. The share takenby MCI is close to 40 per cent,with all recent expansion focusedat its Chinese operation inQingdao.

MCI-Qingdao started up in1998, having originally been setup by Jindo Corp, and was oneof the last major reefer buildingsites to be opened in China. It hasonly been post-dated by CIMC’sown Qingdao operation, whosemain factory entered into full-scale production in 1999 follow-ing its acquisition from HyundaiPrecision. A second, more special-

Table 1: World reefer container production 2001-2005 by type (rounded TEU)

Year 20ft 40ft 40ft high cube Other* Total Totalintegral integral integral TEU Units

2001 10,000 800 85,000 1,200 97,000 53,5002002 16,500 300 97,000 1,200 115,000 65,5002003 11,000 200 118,000 1,800 131,000 71,0002004 12,800 200 136,000 3,000 152,000 82,5002005** 12,500 100 144,000 3,400 160,000 86,000

*Includes 12ft, 24ft, 45ft, 48ft, 53ft and other specialised lengths. **Projected

Table 2: World reefer container production 2001-2005 as fleet addition/ replacement and cumula-tive year end fleet size (rounded TEU)

Year Integral Integral Integral Integral Insulated Insulatedproduction addition replacement fleet size fleet fleet size

(end year) reduction (year end)2001 97,000 67,000 30,000 915,000 -4,000 40,0002002 115,000 71,000 44,000 986,000 -4000 36,0002003 131,000 67,000 64,000 1,053,000 -10,000 26,0002004 152,000 97,000 55,000 1,150,000 -5,500 20,5002005* 160,000 105,000 55,000 1,255,000 -4,00 16,500

*Projected

Another big year for reefer manufacturersReefer container output reachedan all-time high last year and is ontrack for another record in 2005

Although the current outlooksuggests a more modest increaseof five per cent in 2005, when160,000 TEU is predicted for de-livery, this total could yet prove tobe conservative. The reefer boxmanufacturing sector, dominated

as it is by just three major players,continues to benefit from a stronglevel of forward demand and isalready heavily booked for muchof this year. It could still take onsome limited extra work, espe-cially as total installed reefer build-

ing capacity now exceeds 200,000TEU per annum.

Output has similarly rocketedin unit terms, surpassing 65,000in 2002, 70,000 in 2003 and82,000 in 2004. It is on target toreach 86,000 this year, with theo-retical annual capacity now morethan 100,000 units.

The forecast for 2005 indicatesa production of at least 72,000 x40ft high cube, 12,500 x 20ft, andupwards of 1500 specialised sizes(ranging from 10ft to 53ft). This isexpected to be valued at aroundUS$1.5 bill overall.

Global 40ft high cube produc-tion topped 68,000 units in 2004,as compared to almost 13,000 x20ft reefers and another 1500 asspecials. Two of most important ofthese “specials” are the 45ftpalletwide (or Euro-container)reefer and a 53ft domestic versionpopular in the US and other lo-calised markets. Several hundredof each type was built in 2004,with similar numbers due for de-livery during the current year.

There has been no mainstreammanufacture of 40ft x standard 8ft6in height reefers for several years,with the 40ft high cube (9ft 6inhigh) long dominating in themaritime sector. Reefers of theolder 40ft size are now confinedlargely to banana trades, whereweight factors disfavour the use ofhigh cube equipment.

Demand driversDemand for reefer equipment isstill being driven mainly by in-creased global shipments of perish-

Insulated porthole equipment is gradually being replaced by integral reefers

REEFER INDUSTRY

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WorldCargonews

ised, plant has since been constructed byCIMC in Qingdao.

Regional switchJust 10 years ago, there was no reefer boxproduction of any significance in China,nor in Denmark, as the reefer buildingindustry then had a wholly different re-gional bias. In 1995, South Korea stillcontrolled the business, alongside Graaff(Germany), Morteo Industrie (Italy) andvarious smaller (and now long vanished)names in Europe and Asia.

It was in 1995 that CIMC opened itsfirst dedicated reefer factory, in Shanghai.This was followed by Singamas, whichcommenced production at the ShanghaiReeferco facility during that year. YTRCalso entered the business around this time.It subsequently took around five years forthe Chinese to see off all its former com-petition and for the current dominationby CIMC and MCI to become firmlyestablished.

The manufacture of reefer machin-ery remains equally exclusive, but moreglobally distributed, than box production.The sector is still led by the ContainerProducts Division of Carrier Transicold,which continues to produce almost 60per cent of world requirement for reefercontainer machines. This US-based cor-poration now conducts all such manu-facture at its dedicated factory in Singa-pore, following its relocation in 2004.

Fast becoming its main rival is DaikinIndustries, of Japan, whose “renaissance”in recent years has been remarkable.Daikin’s revival has been spearheaded bythe successful launch/marketing of a new-generation single-scroll R134a machine,LXE 10E, which has since been suppliedto numerous shipping lines, headed byP&O Nedlloyd, Maersk Sealand, CMA-CGM and CP Ships. The Japanese com-pany currently claims to be meeting 20per cent of orders, having built more than15,000 machines in 2004.

This leaves a share of roughly 15 percent for Thermo King Corp, anotherlongstanding US participant, and aboutfive per cent for the other main Japanesesupplier, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

Price competitionThe recent sales growth achieved byDaikin has shaken the former dominanceof Carrier, while triggering something ofa price war between manufacturers. Thesehave clearly been willing to sacrifice someprofit margin and, in sharp contrast to therising cost of reefer box manufacture,which has been affected by higher mate-rial costs, machine prices have tended tofall. By mid-2005, the average ex-worksprice of a 40ft high cube reefer (of aver-age specification) was around US$18,000,which was several hundred dollars higherthan two years’ earlier. However, whereasmost 40ft machinery was still priced atmore than US$9000 in 2003, its currentaverage is nearer US$8000. There haveeven been reports of 40ft machines beingsold for below US$8000 in the past year.

The average cost of a reefer body in-creased by almost 20 per cent throughoutthe same period. Back in 2003, a 40ft highcube was still available for an average “fin-ished” price of around US$8000. This hassince risen to almost US$9500 as mostmaterials/components essential to reefermanufacture have increased rapidly in price.Amongst the worst affected is steel panel-ling, with the increasingly favoured muf-fler grade stainless steel (MGSS) jumpingby over 25 per cent on its average price in2003. Back then, high specification MGSSwas priced at around US$950 per tonne,but it rose to over US$1200 by late 2004,according to one Chinese source, and sincegone even higher.

The situation has been more extremefor reefer buyers opting for high gradestainless steel, the price of which jumpedby 40 per cent in the 18 months to late2004. It was already at a premium ofUS$1800 per tonne in 2003, but subse-quently topped US$2500 per tonne.Given that a 40ft high cube reefer con-tains over three tonnes of steel, the aboveprice rises equate to over US$2000 whenhigh grade stainless is specified. and overUS$750 for users of MGSS.

Moreover, the cost of some othermaterials has risen just as severely. Theprice of aluminium extrusions are on av-erage 15 per cent higher than in 2003

and were recently quoted at an equiva-lent of over US$2200 per tonne. Even thecost of pre-painted aluminium sheet wasup five per cent, although this has longbeen relatively expensive, at overUS$4500 per tonne. By late 2004, theR141b foam blowing agent had also in-creased by almost 30 per cent on its 2003price, to over US$1600 per tonne.

Despite these higher costs, reefers aretoday more competitively priced in com-parison to standard dry freight equipmentthan at any time in the past. This is becauseof the overall greater rise in the cost ofCorten steel, which is currently over 70per cent more expensive than in late 2003.This single price rise has disproportion-

MCI built a record 56,500 TEU of reefers atits Chinese and Danish plants last year

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WorldCargonews REEFER INDUSTRY

ately inflated the cost of dry freightmanufacturing, as compared toreefer, which has benefited from asmaller overall gain in material costsand some actual reduction in ma-chinery prices.

Thus the current finished priceof a 40ft high cube reefer body isapproximately five times its dryfreight counterpart, whereas thisratio was nearer eight to one in pastyears. The corresponding differen-tial for 20ft equipment has fallenfrom its former 10:1 to aroundseven to one today.

Reefers of 20ft size are thusalso gaining in price relative to40ft high cubes. This is due par-tially to their more limited pro-duction, which now makes up afalling 15 per cent of output inunit terms and already frequentlyattracts a cost premium. It is also afunction of the proportionallyhigh cost of 20ft machinery, whichhas not altered with the recentslide in pricing. Instead, 20ft ma-chines still cost almost as much as40ft to build and to buy.

The average price of a finished20ft reefer is currently put at be-tween US$14,500-15,000 de-pending on specification. AroundUS$8000 covers the machinery

component, with a 20ft box typi-cally costing over US$6500.

Cost savingsReefer box builders have naturallylooked to make cost savings dur-ing the past year and have man-aged some reduction throughtheir ever-greater productioneconomies of scale. Most have fur-ther streamlined their factory linesand also cut margins in order toremain competitive.

The outlook for the remainderof this year suggests that finishedreefer prices will not increase fur-ther, as steel and other material costsare no longer rising, although theyare unlikely to fall since machin-ery prices are now expected to startmoving up again. Also, output vol-umes are holding up strongly anddemand remains relatively strong.However, leasing companies areagain expected to buy proportion-ally few reefers in 2005, account-ing for a similar overall share of 25per cent as they received in 2004.

Out in frontAs indicated earlier, CIMC isholding on to its leading marketposition, although the company isbeing challenged increasingly by

MCI. Output from CIMC’s threereefer factories almost surpassed72,000 TEU in 2004, when mostlines maintained double shiftworking. This overall total was up15 per cent on the 62,500 TEUbuilt in 2003.

Shanghai CIMC Reefer Con-tainer (SCRC) supplied 39,000TEU in 2004, comprising 3,000x 20ft and 18,000 x 40ft high cube,and thus once again contributedthe majority (55 per cent) of out-put. However, a record 30,000TEU came from Qingdao CIMCReefer Container (QCRC), as700 x 20ft and almost 15,000 x40ft high cube. In addition, almost1000 reefers of specialised dimen-sion (equivalent to over 2200TEU) were built at the recently-opened Qingdao CIMC SpecialReefer (QCSR) factory, mostly of53ft length. Almost 600 x 53ftunits were manufactured overall,including 300 for CP Rail. Otherruns included 100 x 45ft reefersfor Sea Star Line and over 75 unitsfor Royal Wolf as a mix of 41ft3in and 46ft lengths.

CIMC’s maritime reefer pro-duction was carried out for theusual spread of buyers in 2004, in-cluding Hamburg Süd, Hapag-

Lloyd, Evergreen Line, CP Ships,MOL, NYK, CMA-CGM, APL,Yang Ming, Horizon Lines andMatson Navigation. However,P&ONedlloyd was, once again, itslargest single customer, receivingover 8600 x 40ft high cube units.The biggest leasing customer wasGE SeaCo, which purchased a to-tal of 5000 x 40ft high cube con-tainers from CIMC’s Shanghaiand Qingdao factories, followedby Carlisle Leasing, Triton Con-tainer, Cronos Container and

Florens Group. Despite the strongsales made to shipping lines,CIMC still achieved a propor-tionally high delivery of reefersto the leasing sector in 2004,when they accounted for over 35per cent of its entire output.

CIMC’s prediction for 2005 isrelatively circumspect, as the com-pany is unsure whether its outputwill exceed the record figureachieved last year. It is currentlyanticipating a construction of “be-tween 65,000-70,000TEU” at itstwo main factories and added that“general demand for reefer boxequipment is likely to be similar in2005 to 2004.” However, CIMChas already got off to a very goodstart, supplying over 24,000 TEUin the first quarter of this year. Thisproduction was actually close to thecompany’s current theoretical reefercapacity, which is equivalent toroughly 100,000 TEU per year (as-suming two-shift operation) and isdivided fairly evenly between itstwo main factories.

CIMC has further plans toenlarge its reefer building facili-ties, mainly through an upgradeof existing production processes.It has also recently bought a

number of patent rights fromWaggonbau Elze GmbH, of Ger-many. These cover various reefermanufacturing techniques devel-oped previously by Graaff GmbH(see WorldCargo News May 2005,p28). SCRC has been buildingreefers under licence to Graaffsince its start-up in 1995 and thelatest patent acquisition includesGraaff ’s 20ft Volumax reefer de-sign. All the new patents are ap-plicable in China, as well as inEurope, the US, Japan and SouthKorea, and they add an extra 77to CIMC’s registered patent pool.

Record outputMCI also achieved a record out-put of reefers in 2004. The Tinglevplant in Denmark constructed al-most 8500 x 40ft high cubes, whileMCI-Qingdao supplied around4000 x 20ft, 17,400 x 40ft highcube and a further 460 as 45ftpalletwide. Sales of the latter weremade to UES, Unit45, ECS andCoolBox, as well as to Norfolkline.

Maersk Sealand was naturallythe biggest single buyer from MCIfactories, receiving over 60 percent of all output, with large pur-chases also made by NYK, Ever-

Table 3: Reefer container production 2001-2005 by country (TEU)

Country 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005* Capacity**China 72,800 94,500 114,000 135,000 143,000 190,000Denmark 21,000 20,000 16,800 16,800 17,000 18,000South Korea 2,700 - - - - -Other 500 500 200 200 - -Total 97,000 115,000 131,000 152,000 160,000 208,000

*Projected. **Annual multi-shift capacity based on continuous 40ft high cube production

Table 4: Reefer container production 2001-2005 by manufacturer (TEU)

Manufacturer 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005* Capacity**CIMC Group 38,500 56,800 62,500 72,000 68,000 100,000Maersk Cont Ind 38,000 41,000 51,500 56,500 67,000 73,000Shanghai Reeferco 11,200 10,000 9,000 14,300 18,000 20,000Yangzhou Tonglee 5,700 6,500 7,700 9,000 7,000 15,000Jindo Corp 2,700 - - - - -Other 900 700 300 200 - -Total 101,000 115,000 131,000 152,000 160,000 208,000

*Projected. **Annual multi-shift capacity based on continuous 40ft high cube production.

Nearly 125 representatives ofThailand’s fresh and frozen prod-uct import and export sectors at-tended a seminar hosted recentlyby reefer machinery manufacturerThermo King in Bangkok.

Dennis Trusler, director, con-tainer sales, Asia Pacific, and col-leagues Stephen White, director,global marine solutions, Asia Pa-cific, JJ Foo, service manager, glo-bal marine solutions, Asia Pacific,and Pakasit Sarasook, managingdirector, Thai Cool Ltd, led theseminar, focusing on product andservice information important toboth fresh and frozen exporters.

“We’ve had success with simi-lar presentations in other markets,”said Trusler. “Thailand’s market canbenefit greatly from the refrigera-tion technologies we offer in ourMagnum container refrigerationunit and AFAM+ (Advanced FreshAir Management System). Theseminar allowed us to get a morepersonal message out across a broadspectrum of shippers, importers,retail, etc and offered valuable ques-tion and answer time, ensuringattendees understood the features,functions and benefits these prod-ucts can provide.”

Thermo King’s Magnumcontainer refr igeration unit,equipped with a Copeland dig-ital scroll compressor and runningon R404A, was introduced justtwo years ago and is claimed tobe the only container unit on themarket that can maintain a -35degC setpoint in 50degC am-bient temperatures, yet is designedto offer shippers flexibility inproduct loads. The Magnum of-fers increased pull down capac-ity, guaranteeing that fresh or fro-zen cargoes arrive in optimal con-dition, is up to 25 per cent lighter

than competing designs and canreduce overall energy consump-tion by an average of 30 per cent.

AFAM+ is a computerised sys-tem, which manages CO

2 levels

within a container by utilising afresh air exchange door. Touted asa lower cost alternative to control-led atmosphere systems, AFAM+constantly monitors changes inthe respiratory gases of products.When the CO

2 setpoint of the

cargo concerned is reached, thefresh air exchange door automati-cally opens to allow fresh air inand closes when the desired gaslevels are reached. A user-friendlyinterface allows required com-modity setpoints to be easily pro-grammed into the system.

“A big message from the semi-nar was that the Magnum is notlimited to deep frozen transport,”continued Trusler. “AFAM+ com-plements the deep frozen reputa-tion that precedes the Magnum.The unit’s increased pull downcapacity and precise temperaturecontrol ensure that both fresh andfrozen cargoes arrive safely.”

Since the seminar, several Thaiexporters have started trials on fruitand vegetable exports using theMagnum/AFAM+ combination.Thailand’s Department of Agricul-ture is assisting with the trials.

“Our efforts have already ledto many product-specific inquir-ies from Thai exporters includinga mango exporter and an aspara-gus exporter who previouslymoved product by airfreight toexpedite shipments and preserveproduct freshness. A trial wasscheduled with our technology ona container shipment and plans arebeing made to convert to Mag-num with AFAM+ for future ex-ports,” Trusler said. ❏

TK’s Thai seminar

REEFER INDUSTRY

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WorldCargonews

green, Hanjin, Zim and P&O Nedlloyd.Major leasing customers were Triton, TAL,GE SeaCo, Carlisle and Cronos.

Output in 2005 is expected to behigher, according to Soren Johannsen,MCI senior director - sales and market-ing, with up to 9000 x 40ft high cubereefers due for construction at MCI-Tinglev and 27,000 units at the MCI-Qingdao factory. The latter will likelycomprise 3000-4000 x 20ft, over 22,000x 40ft high cube and a further few hun-dred 45ft palletwide reefers. Overall pro-duction from MCI could therefore top67,000 TEU in 2005 and, if achieved,would mark another sizeable increase, ofalmost 20 per cent, on the preceding year.

MCI’s Danish plant is continuing tooperate two eight-hour shifts per day andthus working at close to maximum ca-pacity. Two 10-hour shifts are operated atMCI-Qingdao, where annual capacity isset at a theoretical maximum of 55,000TEU (or 30,000 units). The majority ofoutput, equivalent to more than 80 percent, is again due to go to shipping linesthis year, as they are continuing to ag-gressively expand and renew their ownedreefer fleets. Leasing companies, in theview of MCI, appear more concernedwith managing equipment they alreadyhold, by forcing up average utilisation.

According to Johannsen, MCI has fo-cused recently on improving safety andefficiency across its factories, as well asenhancing quality control and adding fur-ther technical innovation, and continuesto invest in its workforce and productionlines. At MCI-Qingdao, all electricalpower installations have been upgradedduring the past year, while a new generalwarehouse, chemical storage warehouseand environmentally-friendly scrap han-dling/distribution warehouse have beenestablished. Yard capacity has also beenenlarged and two independently operat-ing press lines brought into use.

The factory at Tinglev is already highlyautomated, but additional investment isbeing made constantly to optimise pro-duction efficiency there.

MCI further states that, although fin-ished reefer prices have been climbingsteadily over the past two years “hand inhand with the increase in material costs,”the market is now expected to stabilise inthe summer months leaving (raw mate-rial and container) price levels unchangedfor the rest of this year. However, demandis still running close to record levels andglobal output is predicted to reach an-other high in 2005.

On the upSingamas has been another to benefit fromthe strength of reefer demand. Produc-tion at its established factory, ShanghaiReeferco Container Co, jumped 50 percent in 2004 to more than 14,000 TEU.It had previously averaged less than 10,000TEU per year. Its 2004 output comprisedover 3000 x 20ft (including 500 of highcube size), 5500 x 40ft high cube and 110x 40ft specials.

Sales were made to an impressive spreadof leasing companies, headed by Carlisle,Florens and GE SeaCo, and to various ship-ping lines, including China Shipping Con-tainer Lines, Hyundai Merchant Marineand principal shareholder, PIL. In 2004, theleasing sector accounted for around twothirds of its TEU output, with Carlisle alonereceiving almost 40 per cent.

Shanghai Reeferco is predicting an-other substantial boost in output for 2005,according to Andy Chan, marketing di-rector at Singamas Container Holdings,with up to 18,000 TEU scheduled fordelivery. This would represent anotherlarge increase, of 30 per cent, on the pre-vious year and a near doubling in pro-duction since 2003. The output plannedfor 2005 is expected to split at around1300 x 20ft and almost 8500 x 40ft highcube, with approximately 50 per cent eachgoing to lessors and shipping lines. Dailyproduction at the factory is set at around40 x 40ft high cube containers, based ona nine-hour shift, following a major over-haul of the plant in 2000-01.

Bouncing backYTRC also constructed a record numberof reefers in 2005, including 1,800 x 20ft,over 3,500 x 40ft high cube and about 120specials. Overall production thus topped9000 TEU and, although it was significantly

below an earlier company forecast of over13,000 TEU, was still up around 15 percent on the 7700 TEU delivered in 2003.

The vast majority of sales were againmade to shipping lines headed by OOCL,which purchased 2500 x 40ft high cubesand thus accounted for over 50 per centof all recent YTRC production. Otherimportant clients were China Shipping,Evergreen and Yang Ming, and numer-ous deliveries also went to local carriersoperating to/from China. However,YTRC’s manufacture for leasing compa-nies was minimal, comprising a trial pro-duction of 50 x 20ft units for Carlisle. Itsmore specialised business includes reefersfor military and domestic use in Japan(12ft), Australia and Europe.

YTRC can build up to 30 x 40ft highcube reefers per day, based on its current

two shift working, having earlier carriedout an extensive programme of factoryupgrading. A more recent company an-nouncement indicated that capacity wasto be increased by a further 25 per cent,to around 40 containers/day, subject toan investment of RMB15 mill. At thesame time, its specialised reefer line is alsoto be enhanced and additional designs in-troduced. However, in the aftermath ofCIMC’s management takeover of TYC,the status of these projects is not preciselyknown. Neither has YTRC given anyindication of its likely output for 2005,although it is suggested that this may bedown a little on 2004. ❏

Already highly automated, additionalinvestment is being made constantly at MCI’sTinglev plant to optimise production efficiency

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WorldCargonews CONTAINER INDUSTRY

Sorting the wood from the treesProgress is finally being made in the development of viable alternativesto tropical hardwood plywood for container floors, with the world’sbiggest box builder leading the way

In 2004, the global containermanufacturing industry builta record 2.62 mill TEU of

standard steel dry freight contain-ers, the vast majority of whichwere fitted with tropical hard-wood plywood flooring.

Production of those floorsconsumed around 900,000 m3 ofapitong plywood, culled from theworld’s dwindling tropical rainfor-est resources, primarily in Indo-nesia, but also in Brazil, Malaysia,

Surinam, Cambodia, Myanmarand elsewhere.

The industry has, of course,long recognised that as environ-mental concern over the destruc-tion of tropical rainforests grows,continuing reliance on tropical

hardwood flooring will not be anoption in the not too distant fu-ture. Hitherto, however, no alter-native material - wood or non-wood - has been found that canmatch the technical performanceof apitong at a price that is ac-

ceptable to container buyers andis available in sufficient quantityto replace apitong to any signifi-cant degree.

And ironically, even apitong isnow struggling to meet all the in-dustry’s accepted criteria. Over re-cent years, environmentally-driven logging restrictions haveled to increasingly immature treesbeing logged - often illegally -with the result that the overallquality and technical characteris-tics of the plywood produced hasbeen negatively affected.

Container designers have beenforced into radical measures toovercome quality and perform-ance deficiencies, including in-creasing the thickness of crossmembers and incorporating extracentre rails to reduce the span ofthe individual plywood boards.

At the same time, wild fluc-tuations in availability have led toequally wild fluctuations in price.At the end of 2003, apitong ply-wood was available at US$470/m3,or US$175 per 20ft floor set. Morerecently, it has been closer toUS$600/m3 (US$225 per 20ftfloor set).

Leading from the frontFor more reasons than one, there-fore, the need for a readily avail-able alternative flooring materialis pressing and as befits its status asthe world’s largest containermanufacturer, China InternationalMarine Containers (CIMC) hasdevoted a considerable anount oftechnical and financial resources

to tackling the flooring problem.For the past four years, the

company has been producing28mm plywood floors manufac-tured from 21 plies of eucalyptussandwiched between plies ofapitong at the Xinhui CIMCContainer Flooring Co mill inGuangdong. The eucalyptus, ahard, close grained wood that iswell suited to peeling and process-ing into plywood, comes frommanaged forests in Tasmania.

Originally set up in 1999 tomanufacture apitong plywood, theXinhui mill is now focused ex-clusively on the eucalyptus/apitong combination and pro-duced around 100,000 m3, or270,000 TEU sets, last year.

Annual capacity at the Xinhuimill is put at 480,000 TEU setsand last year, CIMC opened a sec-ond plywood mill in Shanghai,which has already supplied around120,000 TEU of eucalyptus floor-ing to the market. Capacity at thisnew mill is to be built up toaround 420,000 TEU sets per year.

The development of the eu-calyptus floor, which has beenwidely accepted by both shippingline and leasing company buyers,is certainly a step in the right di-rection, but as CIMC itself admits,eucalyptus and other acceptablealternative wood species that arecurrently being produced, such asbamboo/softwood composites,have limitations either in resourcesupply or production capacity and,at the current stage of develop-ment, could satisfy no more than

CIMC says its new larch/birch plywood floor is a promising alternative to apitong

35 per cent of the container in-dustry’s annual demand.

No 2 - the larchIn pursuit of its ultimate goal ofreplacing apitong completely,therefore, CIMC has redirected itsR&D efforts into exploring otherwood species. After two years oftesting, it has come up with a new“hybrid” plywood floor, manufac-tured from larch and birch, that, itsays, is both a viable alternative toapitong and has virtually limitlessavailability.

The new floor is of a conven-tional 28mm thickness and ismade up of 21 plies, the three topand bottom plies using long grainveneers and those in the middlealternated between short and longgrains. The majority of the floor,including the top surface, is madeup of larch, a coniferous softwood,and the rest, including the bottomsurface, is of birch, a deciduoushardwood. The performance ofthe floor is achieved, says CIMC,by combining the elasticity of thelarch with the rigidity of the birch.

CIMC has also developed a vi-able alternative to floor varnish inthe shape of an impregnated phe-nolic film, as well as a layer of blackPVC film as an alternative to bi-tumen undercoating. These filmscan be effectively applied to thelarch and birch surfaces as well asto apitong, the company says.

Extensive testingA full range of testing has beencarried out on the hybrid larch/birch floor to prove that it is ca-pable of meeting the containerindustry’s requirements. Underjoint ABS, Bureau Ver itas,Germanischer Lloyd and Lloyd’sRegister supervision, the floor, fit-ted in a 40ft high cube container,was subjected to the standard ISOplus 33 per cent (7260kg) floorstrength test and after nine passesof the test vehicle passed the testwith no sign of failure. All fourclassification societies have nowcertified the floor.

The floor has also successfullypassed longevity/fatigue tests andthe IICL short span shear test, aswell as weather resistance, adhe-sive bond and edging/scratchingtests. It has also been found to beeasier to clean than apitong.

The new floor was recently fit-ted in trial volume productionruns of Hamburg Süd and MOLcontainers for extended in-serv-ice testing. The installation itselfposed no difficulties, CIMC says.

Birch plywood has, of course,

COA examinesfloor optionsA measure of the importance thecontainer industry is attaching tothe development of new floor-ing materials can be gauged fromthe fact that one of the first itemsof work undertaken by the re-cently-formed Container Own-ers Association (COA) was aReport on Alternative Materials forContainer Floorboards.

Prepared by the COA’s NewMaterials Working Group, madeup of Marc Weidemann (CapitalLease), Jan Striesow (HamburgSüd) and Nigel Stribley (Blue SkyIntermodal), the report reviewsalternatives to apitong that arecurrently available in order to as-sist COA members to make aninformed decision about whichmaterial may be best suited totheir own requirements.

The report notes that all theproducts reviewed have advan-tages and disadvantages and noneis yet available in sufficient vol-

ume to replace apitong on itsown. Instead, for the foreseeablefuture, COA members will haveto purchase and operate a numberof different types of floor in theirnew container production.

Details are provided of thesuppliers of alternative flooringmaterials and the constructionmethod of the floors, followed bya comparison of each of the al-ternative floors with apitong interms of performance, availabil-ity and price.

Alternative materials coveredinclude steel, eucalyptus plywood,larch/birch plywood, bamboo/softwood plywood, composite(plastic) materials, hardwoodplanks, softwood planks, lami-nated softwood, and laminatedhardwood.

For further information visit theCOA’s website at www.containerownersassociation.org or email:marc.weidemann@capital-lease.com

CONTAINER INDUSTRY

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WorldCargonews

long been accepted as a container floor-ing material, having been manufacturedfor decades in Finland by companies suchas Schaumann Wood Products, but it waslargely priced out of the market whenthe container manufacturing industryshifted to the Far East. It is assumed thatby sourcing the materials and manufac-turing the plywood close to the box pro-duction centres, the new floor will becompetitive in pricing to apitong.

The supply sources for the larch andbirch are in North East China and Rus-sia where, says CIMC, the reserve of ma-ture and over-mature coniferous speciesrepresented by larch is over 50 bill m3 andthat of birch exceeds 25 bill m3. “Man-aged exploitation of mature and over-mature forests would help the growth ofyounger trees and hence is sustainable andenvironmentally-friendly,” CIMC says.

CIMC opened a timber factory in In-ner Mongolia last September to processthe larch and birch. Currently it is pro-ducing veneers for shipment to theShanghai and Xinhui mills, but the planis to start plywood production there nextyear at an annual rate of 300,000 TEUsets.

Assuming the hybrid floor is acceptedby the market, all of this means that bynext year, CIMC will be in a position toproduce 1.2 mill TEU of environmen-tally-friendly eucalyptus/apitong or larch/birch floor sets annually, which, on thebasis of last year’s container productionfigure, would slash around 46 per cent offthe global demand for apitong plywoodfloors. CIMC itself built 1.52 mill TEUof dry freight boxes last year - 58 per centof global demand - so it will be capableof meeting close to 80 per cent of ownneeds.

Further erosionOther developments in both the woodand non-wood areas could erode the de-mand for apitong further still. As men-tioned earlier, bamboo/softwood ply-wood composites, exemplified by theGreentech floor developed in the late1990s by Technicon International, are seenas a viable alternative to apitong.

The Greentech project failed, but asuccessor in the shape of Nantong NewAtlantic Forest Industry Ltd (NNAFI) hasnow started full scale production at a newmill in Nantong, producing around 2000TEU sets per month. The NNAFI floor,which has passed all relevant tests, differsfrom Greentech in that it is made up of70 per cent bamboo and 30 per cent pine,whereas it was the reverse withGreentech.

Annual production capacity at theNantong mill is put at 20,000 m3 (55,000TEU sets). The company is reportedlyconsidering a second production facilityin southern China to better serve con-tainer factories in the Guangdong area.Customers for the NNAFI floor to dateinclude P&O Nedlloyd, Interpool,Cronos and Blue Sky Intermodal.

Bamboo also features in a new floordesign manufactured from renewable re-sources that Canadian interests have beendeveloping for the past five years. The so-called Engineered Fibre Container Floor-ing comprises an aspen/poplar softwoodcomposite core with woven bamboo ex-terior veneers on both sides and is manu-factured using a patented technology.

Numerous tests have been conductedin laboratories and at several Chinese con-tainer factories, the latter under the su-pervision of BV and LR. In addition toproving that the floor meets the standardISO floor strength test in both 20ft and40ft containers with 4mm cross members,the tests also showed it was able to with-stand 100 cycles of ISO plus 33 per centloading without exhibiting any cracking,breaking or delamination. In-service test-ing is scheduled for later this year.

Plastic potentialA number of developments with the po-tential to provide an alternative to apitongare also taking place in the non-wood sec-tor, though price remains a drawback.

Furthest down the line is Korea-basedChemfree Tech Co/Container NetworkCorporation with a composite floor manu-factured in an extrusion process from cel-lulose fibres and modified polyolefin res-ins. The floor has passed all relevant testsand has been installed this year by CIMC

in 3500 x 20ft containers for Hanjin Ship-ping Co. A further 2500 x 20ft Hanjin unitswill be fitted with the floor later this year,while MOL and KMTC also have anumber of units on trial.

Production capacity of the Chemfreefloor is, however, limited to around 1500m3 per month, or less than 50,000 TEUsets/year. It is also subject to the vagariesof oil price movements and at a currentprice of US$1250 per m3 (US$470 per20ft set) is still too expensive for the ma-jority of box buyers.

Another Korean company, SaejinContainer Components Co, is attempt-ing to minimise the price of its compos-ite floor by utilising recycled plastic wastereinforced with glass fibre. It also plans tomanufacture the floor in China, close tomajor container production centres.

The “Container Plastic Board” ismanufactured to a 28mm thickness in ahoneycomb configuration and is claimedto be able to match the technical charac-teristics of apitong, whilst being signifi-cantly lighter at around 250 kg per 20ftset. The floor has passed all relevant testsunder classification society supervisionand is currently undergoing in-servicetrials with Maersk Sealand. Full scale pro-duction is scheduled to start shortly at aninitial rate of 4000 TEU sets per month.

The inherent strength of honeycombstructures is also the basis for a new typeof sandwich panel developed by Ger-many-based COHOPA GmbH (Com-pany for Honeycomb Panels) and toutedas an alternative to plywood for containerfloors. Manufactured to a standard 28mmthickness, the new panel comprises a pa-

per honeycomb core infilled with poly-urethane foam, sandwiched between topand bottom layers of glass fibre-reinforcedplastic.

According to COHOPA, initial test-ing at the University of Bayreuth hasshown that the new panel displays up to700 per cent higher bending stiffness thanstandard polyurethane foam sandwichpanels, significantly increased compressivestrength and offers a weight reduction ofaround 50 per cent over a standard hard-wood plywood floor.

Working in association with chemicalgiant Bayer, COHOPA will shortly manu-facture a series of prototype 20ft containerfloors (dubbed FloorKITs), which will besubjected to the full range of standard floortests. Members of the Container OwnersAssociation (COA) have agreed to

provide containers for the testing phase.Assuming the tests are successful, mass

production will be launched initially at afacility in Bavaria and subsequently at ayet to be decided location in China. Eachplant would be capable of producing 1mill m2 annually, or around 76,000 TEUsets if production were devoted entirelyto the box market.

At an indicative price of €24/m2, a 20ftfloor set would work out at aroundUS$380 - significantly more than thecurrent price of apitong, of course, butCOHOPA argues that life cycle costswould actually be lower.

Due to the outstanding properties ofthe honeycomb panel, the company alsosays that it may be possible to reduce crossmember thickness, with a consequent sav-ing in box manufacturing cost. ❏