Original news was published on 10 August, 2015

U.S. Port of Brownsville opened the new 600-foot marine cargo dock and storage yard on Friday, August 7, expected to make the port more competitive with domestic and foreign ports in the Gulf region.

The USD 27.5 million project, of which USD 12 million was provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) through its Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) competitive infrastructure grant program, is expected to increase cargo capacity and efficiency and help to mitigate congestion in port operations. The Port of Brownsville matched funds for road, lighting and other improvements.

”The Department is proud that this TIGER Grant is strongly supporting the Port of Brownsville’s rise as a regional and international trade hub,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.

”Guaranteed funding is essential for Brownsville and communities across the country so that projects like this one can be built – helping the country remain strong and competitive today and into the future.”

According to the Port of Brownsville, the port generates USD 2 billion in economic activity annually for the state of Texas, and more than 11,000 direct and related jobs that impact the local and regional economy.

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was published on 07 August, 2015

One year after the announcement of a development programme, Egypt's expanded Suez Canal is open for business.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi led the inauguration ceremony, which marked the official opening of a 23-mile parallel channel that will allow two-way traffic and reduce waiting time.

Egypt forecasts the widening to increase traffic to about 97 ships per day and nearly 34,000 annually.

The Suez Canal Authority expects the upgraded canal to boost annual revenue to about USD13.5 billion in 2023 and anticipates growth by at least another 4 percent.

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was published on 04 August, 2015

AAL has transported eight newly-built airport shuttle buses from Xingang in China to Melbourne, Australia for JC Trans Shanghai.

The eight buses, which were manufactured in Beijing, were moved in two separate shipments onboard AAL's multipurpose vessel AAL Hong Kong, which operates on the company's Australia East Coast and New Zealand (AUEC) liner service.

The vehicles, each measuring 14 m x 3 m x 3 m, were loaded and unloaded using the vessel's own side-mounted heavy lift cranes, which have a combined lifting capacity of 700 tonnes.

"We compete head-to-head with ro-ro carriers for this type of cargo and ultimately proposed and delivered a more efficient and safe lo-lo (lift-on, lift-off) solution for the customer," said Frank Mueller, general manager of AAL's liner services division.

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was published on 31 July, 2015

The Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) handled record numbers of containerised and ro-ro cargo in its 2015 fiscal year, and posted its highest ever-recorded total tonnage.

Total tonnage for the year ending June 30 reached 31.69 million tonnes, up 7.8 percent compared with the same period in 2014.

While container volumes grew by 17 percent year-on-year, breakbulk cargo handled at GPA terminals also grew by 7.6 percent to 2.83 million tonnes. Meanwhile, Brunswick and Savannah moved a record 714,021 units of ro-ro cargo, which is a 1.9 percent improvement over the 2014 fiscal year.

"Part of ensuring reliability is investing in port infrastructure," said GPA board chairman James Walters. "Our development plans will follow our current practice of maintaining capacity at least 20 percent above demand - not only in Brunswick, but in Savannah, where we are buying four new ship-to-shore cranes and 30 more gantry cranes. Investments such as these will enable GPA to handle expanding cargo volumes both now and in the future."

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was published on 27 July, 2015

Brasil Terminal Portuário has reached a number of important milestones.

Last Friday (24th July), the facility, a joint venture between APM Terminals and Terminal Investment Limited, has handled container number 1M discharged on its quay from vessel call number 1000.

This was achieved just one year and eight months after operations officially began at this terminal. Authorities and executives of BTP together watched the offloading of the container from MSC AGRIGENTO, a vessel on the Ipanema service, arriving from Durban, South Africa.

According to AMPT, BTP’s highest monthly average productivity per crane was achieved in May, with 34.11 moves per crane hour. In addition to BTP’s increasing quayside productivity, the terminal has got the truck cycle down to only 40 minutes from pre-gate to gate out.

"Our employees have worked increasingly closely with our customers, seeking integrated solutions to improve our processes and increase the quality level of services provided," said Cláudio Oliveira, CCO of BTP. "These efficiency milestones can, above all, be attributed to the BTP team’s dedicated work”.

In the first half of this year BTP handled 363,921 TEU, a 167% increase over the number of containers handled in the same period in 2014, thanks to the dredging of the navigation channel which has increased the depth in the access channel to the same level all over, removing obstacles for larger ships to call.

“The Brazilian Ministry of Ports, the Santos Port Authority and other bodies involved in dredging also all played an essential role in the achievement of the two milestones we are celebrating today,” said Antonio Passaro, CEO of BTP.

BTP welcomed its first commercial vessel call in August 2013 and was officially opened in November 2013 after the planned berthing access and basin dredging was completed. 

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was published on 23 July, 2015

Qatar Airways Cargo will introduce the first 747 freighter to its expanding fleet on August 1, 2015 to further enhance its global on-demand charter services and its ability to carry oversize cargoes.

The B747-400BCF will complement the cargo airline's expanding freighter fleet providing 112.5 tonnes of capacity dedicated to worldwide charter services.

The aircraft is well known for its loading flexibility and with a wide side cargo door the B747 freighter can be loaded quickly and easily, irrespective of whether the load is made up of standard containers and pallets, or outsized cargo.

Qatar Airways chief officer cargo Ulrich Ogiermann said: "Qatar Airways Cargo is experiencing increased worldwide demand for charter services as well as growing local demand with significant infrastructure projects under way in Qatar that require outsized cargo capacity."

The airline will welcome a B747-400F with a nose loading door to its fleet in October 2015, replacing the B747BCF to provide even more flexibility to satisfy customers' oversized cargo transportation demands.

One of the largest palletised cargo aircraft available in the market, the 747F will provide belly freight capacity and main cargo deck capacity with 39 ULD positions.

*NEWS SOURCE

We are also happy to share with you that Country Manager, Ms. Monruedee Rattanajitbunchong and Ms. Kalayanee Jiratanung will be attending our coming Annual Meeting in Malaysia at 12,13,14 November 2015. We are looking forward to meet you all in Kuala Lumpur. Please click here for full information on our event.

Hereby let us remind you that by their registration to the November meeting, now GLOBAL POWER LOGISTICS SERVICES (THAILAND) CO., LTD has the privilege of becoming OPCA member for 1 year. It would be our pleasure to serve our new agent for a long term cooperation in our group.

GLOBAL POWER LOGISTICS SERVICES (THAILAND) CO., LTD 

COMPANY PROFILE 

Global Power was established in Thailand since year 2000. We are handling air, sea, custom clearance, pick up and delivery including special project cargo with a dedicated team. Our project team is divided in Aviation Team, Infrastructure Project Team, Oil & Gas Team, and Pharma Team.

Our Mission is to go for customer delight - providing quality services to our customers in total logistics support is Global's Mission. Delighting customer is our management philosophy. It is this philosophy that guides us towards the path of quality excellence.

Our Vision is to be a leading Freight and Logistics Solutions Provider continues to drive us in our pursuit towards Customer Delight through Service Excellence.

Our group have 23 offices in South East Asia including China and Taiwan. 

You can click here to download company presentation of Global Power Logistics Services (Thailand) Co., Ltd.

Mr.Kemal KIRIKKANAT (OPCA Chairman) visited "SHANGHAI CAPITAL LOGISTIC TRANSPORT CO. LTD" on Friday (20 March 2015) as part of his Asia Productivity Trip. Mr.Kemal said "It was my pleasure to meet Mr.Danilo and Mr.Andrea. We had a quite beneficial meeting together and I learned much more about Shanghai Capital abilities. Site visits help us to verify members, know about their targets, needs and expectations. More to the point, it shows that we care our members. OPCA Asia Productivity trip already reached its target since our agents have already started to cooperate and provide project shipments one another. I thank Mr.Danilo and Mr.Andrea for their hospitality. Can't wait to meet them again."

SHANGHAI CAPITAL WEBSITE (CLICK HERE!) | SHANGHAI CAPITAL OPCA PROFILE (CLICK HERE!)

Original news was published on 21 July, 2015

The total number of Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs), the fastest growing segment of the naval vessels market, ordered last year marked a 4 percent increase, while the number of planned orders has also increased by 4 percent, OPV Market Report for 2015-2016 by Defence iQ finds.

At least 24 countries are known to have a total of 136 OPVs on order and 30 countries have plans for up to another 276 at a total value of over USD 60 billion.

The total number of OPVs in operation worldwide has increased from 681 to 776 last year, but an additional 49 Chinese and 16 Taiwanese vessels, now classified as OPVs have been added to the total.

Disregarding these additional vessels, the world OPV fleet has actually grown by 4.4 percent last year.

Asia has the largest proportion of the current fleet (44%) and the numbers on order (46%). Japan and India have 50% of the Asian vessels between them, while India alone has 26% of the total vessels on order worldwide, the report shows.

The proportion of the total number of OPVs on order worldwide, in South America, has increased from 13%-15% over the last year, while in Europe, the proportion on order has increased from 8% to 19% of the worldwide total and in North America, from 6% to 15%.

OPVs can be broadly classified into high-end war-fighting vessels with expensive weapon systems and C4I suites and more basic patrol vessels, designed for sustained low intensity missions and equipped with basic gun armaments.

According to the report, the majority of OPV programmes are of the lowcost, multi-role variety.

These are being used in an increasing number of roles, including fishery protection, pollution control, firefighting, salvage or search and rescue (SAR), counter-narcotics, humanitarian operations and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) patrol.

*NEWS SOURCE

Congratulations Xllent Marine Line Pvt Ltd.

We are very happy to share with you that our India member XLLENT MARINE LINE PVT LTD won the “Winners Award” on the Special Equipment Segments - “NVOCC Of the year 2015 at the 7th Edition of South East, Cargo and Logistics Award 2015 on Friday, 10th July, 2015.