Some Newsworthy Snippets from the Freight and Logistics Community

FRANCE – Following notice that a 24 hour stoppage by gangway staff at the RoRo terminal in the port of Nantes-St. Nazaire from 0500 hours today (Friday 18th September) with the possibility of a continuance from 0900 Saturday 19th, what will concern many is the news that Port workers at Calais have also announced plans to strike for 24 hours next Thursday, 24 September.

MALTA – Two Maltese maritime training and contingency management training organisations will be offering a new set of integrated courses from 2021 after agreeing a memorandum of understanding earlier this month. The Mediterranean Maritime Research and Training Centre (MaritimeMT) and the International Safety Training College (ISTC) will be creating a new set of courses covering both maritime training and the oil & gas sectors offering some of the highest training standards in these industry sectors from January 2021.

MaritimeMT, founded by the Malta Maritime Pilots in 2010, currently offers online and classroom training courses for local and foreign ports with curriculum designed specifically for Ship Masters, Tug Masters, Ships’ Officers, Naval Officers and Cadets. Over the coming months, MaritimeMT will be developing its fire-fighting courses with the current ISTC ones to generate a new range of integrated training offerings.

WORLDWIDE – CEVA Logistics has instituted a major change to its systems with the roll out of CargoWise, the integrated logistics execution platform across multiple legacy systems, a process it estimates will take a decade to complete. The system will offer all of the CMA CGM owned subsidiary staff real-time visibility of freight forwarding and Customs actions on a single platform.

Licensed across 160 countries, Cargowise is WiseTech’s flagship logistics platform, CargoWise and the move by CEVA is a key part of its IMPACT 2020 plan which aims to both grow the business and improve operational efficiency. Other recent investments as part of that plan include the purchase of a majority stake in AMI Manica in Africa and the launch of the MyCEVA platform for customers.

UK – NORWAY – John Good Shipping advise us of the start of a new weekly direct service from the west coast of Norway to Tilbury in Essex beginning next week. The North Sea Container Line service will offer comprehensive coverage throughout Norway and its fjord ports: Florø; Måløy; Ålesund; Averøy; Orkanger (Trondheim); Mo I Rana; Salten; Stokmarknes; Tromsø.

The service will see the MV Rumba make its first call at Tilbury on the 23rd September having arrived on a rotation from Stavanger and Haugesund (21/9), Bergen and Stord (22/9). The vessel has capacity for 20/40/45ft line equipment, reefer boxes and offers multimodal door/door possibilities.

GERMANY – NORWAY – Liebherr-MCCtec Rostock GmbH together with Aibel AS has signed a contract for the delivery of a cylinder-luffing crane, type RL 2600-35 Lit. The company TenneT TSO GmbH commissioned Aibel AS to build the offshore platform DolWin epsilon on which the Liebherr crane will be used for supply and maintenance tasks on the German North Sea.

DolWin5 is to connect the offshore wind park Borkum Riffgrund 3 to the high voltage grid on shore. The RL 2600-35 Lit is a weight-optimised and compact designed offshore crane. It is the ideal equipment for small platforms, where space is limited. The RL 2600-35 Lit has a box boom with a maximum working outreach of 52 metres and a maximum lifting capacity of 35 tonnes.

US – Import cargo volume increased for the third consecutive month at the Port of Oakland in August. The Port said that containerised import volume jumped 9% in August compared to 2019 totals. Exports were also up, 1.4% compared to August 2019. The Port said it’s encouraged by the rebound as it enters peak shipping season which runs from August to October. Peak season is when retailers get ready for the traditionally busy shopping months of November and December.

Oakland attributed the boost in imports to US retailers restocking their dwindling inventories. Shipments include pandemic-related items such as e-commerce goods, medical equipment and personal protective equipment. The Port said the gain in August exports was due to fruit and beverage shipments doing slightly better compared to August 2019. Year-to-date total cargo volume is down 5% from 2019. That’s due primarily to a 25.3% drop in shipments of empty cargo containers back to origin destinations.

Photo: The MV Rumba which will commence operations to the UK from Norway next week.