Container shipping company Yang Ming Marine Transport has added a new 11,000 TEU container vessel named YM Throne to its fleet. The vessel is chartered from Shoei Kisen Kaisha, Ltd. and was built by Imabari Shipbuilding Co. The naming ceremony for YM Throne took place at Imabari Hiroshima Shipyard in Mihara, Japan on Aug. 5, while Yang Ming’s attendees joined the ceremony remotely from their Taipei office. Hsieh-Lung Yeh, Director-General of the Maritime and Port Bureau, MOTC officially named the ship, while Shu-Chu Li, wife of Director-General of the Maritime and Port Bureau, MOTC performed the ceremonial cord-cutting. “To further strengthen Yang Ming’s mid- to long-term operational efficiency, the company ordered a total of 14 11,000 TEU newbuilds through long-term charter agreements with ship owners,” the company explained in a…
For the first time in its 110-year history, the Port of Long Beach could move more than nine million TEUs in a year, according to new data released by the port Thursday. So far this year, the nation’s second busiest seaport has processed over 8.6 million TEUs through November, more than last year’s record 8.1 million TEUs. Last month, Long Beach handled 745,488 TEUs, 4.9% less than November 2020,which was a record month, according to the latest port statistics. Imports fell 5.3% to 362,394 TEUs and exports dropped 6.4% to 109,821 TEUs. Empty containers dipped 3.6% to 273,274 TEUs. Long Beach, along with the Port of Los Angeles, has been besieged by a growing number of cargo containers accumulating at the terminals because of record demand, causing a backlog of…
The Port of Los Angeles celebrated a major milestone Thursday when it moved its 10 millionth TEU in a span of 12 months, the first Western Hemisphere port to do so. “Stacked end-to-end, 10 million containers would circle the world one and a half times,” said Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners President Jaime Lee. “It’s a lot of cargo to handle by any measure. We are deeply grateful to the longshore workers, truckers, terminal operators, shipping line partners and all of the stakeholders that have made this remarkable achievement possible, particularly in the face of an unprecedented pandemic.” The milestone cargo unit was placed onboard the CMA CGM Amerigo Vespucci at Fenix Marine Services Container Terminal. “As the Port of Los Angeles’ largest ocean carrier, the CMA CGM Group…
The Northwest Seaport Alliance - the partnership between the ports of Seattle and Tacoma - handled 308,682 TEUs last month, according to new numbers released Oct. 20. While the ports handled 11.1 percent fewer shipments overall from the same time a year ago (347,278 TEUs in September 2019), the September numbers represent the ports’ best month of the year. Previous months in 2020 don’t surpass 300,000 TEUs, according to the statistics. And despite imports falling 6.8 percent year over year, the ports saw their biggest monthly volumes for loaded imports since September 2019 with retailers replenishing goods in preparation for the holiday shopping season, according to NWSA. Like other ports, the NWSA has experienced the economic effects of the pandemic, with 59 canceled sailing this year. So far, the gateway…
By Karen Robes Meeks Washington State saw its first marine terminal surpass one million TEUs in a year when SSA Marine’s Terminal 18 reached the milestone earlier this month. “To reach 1 million TEUs at a Puget Sound terminal for the first time is an enormous achievement and a testament to the value of working together under the banner of The Northwest Seaport Alliance,” said Don Meyer, Port of Tacoma commission president and co-chair of the NWSA. The North Harbor terminal, which is on its way to 1.1 million TEUs by year’s end, credits the success to an agreement with ILWU Local 19 to launch “continuous vessel operations,” allowing breaks to be staggered so more cargo can be handled daily. This allowed SSA to handle 5,500 containers on and off…
By Karen Robes Meeks For the fifth straight month, the Port of Los Angeles handled more than 800,000 TEUs, keeping the nation’s largest seaport on pace to reach 9 million for the year. The port moved 832,331 TEUs in November, making it the port’s sixth busiest month ever. This despite last month’s numbers reflecting a 9.9 percent decrease from the same period last year when the port moved 924,256 TEUs. Los Angeles also saw an 8.8 percent decrease in imports down to 422,793 TEUs and a 14.3 percent slowdown in exports to 152,527 TEUs compared to the November 2017 figures. So far this year, the port has moved 8,555,490 TEUs. The Eleonora Maersk visit to the port’s APM Terminals moving 27,846 TEUs helped reach those numbers while also establishing a…
During the early morning hours of March 26, a 10,000-TEU capacity containership, the Singapore-flagged Dali, suffered a complete power loss, resulting in the massive vessel crashing into a support beam for the Francis Scott Key Bridge near the Port of Baltimore. The cause of the outage is still under investigation, but the allision resulted in the deaths of six construction workers who had been on the bridge repairing potholes at the time, as well as the total loss of the bridge itself. Part of the 1.6-mile bridge was turned into a twisted heap of metal by the 984-foot Maersk-chartered cargo ship, which weighs 95,000 tons when empty, but reportedly had over 2,000 containers aboard, carrying industrial and hazardous materials that were bound for Sri Lanka, according to various media reports.…
Despite the volatility of the refrigerated cargo market in recent years, some service providers plan to continue making investments in equipment and infrastructure to prepare for the next surge of reefer demand, according to a recent panel focused on the cold chain business. The panel, titled “TPM Cold Chain: Recovering From the Abyss: How Service Providers Are Preparing for the Next Volume Surge,” was held March 6 at TPM24, the annual maritime industry event in Long Beach organized by the Journal of Commerce within S&P Global Market Intelligence. The panel featured Port of Hueneme President and CEO Kristin Decas, J.B. Hunt Transport Services Senior Director of Temperature Control Systems James Schram and COSCO Shipping Lines General Manager of Reefer Trade Alex Yao, along with panel moderator Thomas Eskesen, founder of…
Yard infrastructure projects, facility upgrades and work on notable vessels have kept West Coast shipyards busy over the past year as they take on major jobs and expand operations. Some have purchased new cranes and expanded drydocks, others completed maintenance and repowers on historic boats and a few handled unique projects. Pacific Maritime reached out to yards to find out the latest news, notable jobs and yard improvement projects. Bay Ship and Yacht Co. The big news out of Alameda, Calif.-based Bay Ship and Yacht Co. is the change to employee ownership though an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), Bay Ship and Yacht CEO Joel Welter wrote in an email to Pacific Maritime. “This transition was initiated by BSY’s owners after they explored many options and concluded that selling to…
Setting the Stage The frenzied buzzing of the seaport manager’s cell phone interrupted his weekly staff meeting. There were urgent text messages and voice mails signaling that there was a major problem at Container Terminal 5. One text message said, “Crane 5A has stopped functioning! Crane 5C can’t be stopped! Help!” Apparently when one of the world’s largest container ships containing over 20,000 Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) docked at Terminal 5, all hell broke loose. But why? Even though this is a hypothetical story, the U.S. Government and FBI are worried that such a scenario could come true. On Feb. 21, the Biden Administration, Coast Guard and Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) all issued alerts to “…bolster the security of the nation’s ports, alongside a series of additional actions…
