Baltic ditches shakeup plan THE Baltic Exchange has scrapped plans for a radical overhaul of the London dry cargo market's constitution.
The UK-flagged cargoship St Helena arrives in Falmouth The UK-flagged cargoship St Helena arrives in Falmouth yesterday to have permanent repairs carried out after transhipment of her cargo in Brest to the Elisabeth Boye. The 3,130 dwt St Helena had been en route from Cardiff to Tenerife when her starboard main engine failed. Repairs are expected to take up to 10 weeks. St Helena is the regular supply ship for the island of the same name, a British dependency.
Anangel seeks cash comfort ANANGEL-American Shipholdings' $46m rights issue should leave the dry cargo specialist in a comfortable cash position even after its current newbuilding programme of up to six bulk carriers is financed.
UK urged to adopt fraud measures CRAWFORD & Co, which describes itself as the world's largest risk and claims management organisation, has called on the UK to implement measures which it says could transform the investigation of arson-related fraud, writes James Brewer.
Tragedy prompts navaids and weather limits probe Navigational aids and weather limitations for fast ferries will be the subjects of intense scrutiny as Norwegian accident investigators gather evidence to determine why the coastal catamaran Sleipner sank with the estimated loss of up to 19 people last Friday night.
Transocean orders third log carrier from Bohai HAMBURG shipping company Transocean Liners has ordered a third 17,784 gt log/bulk carrier from the Chinese Bohai Shipyard, Tianjin, writes Sabina Casagrande, Cologne.
Japanese lines rush for piracy cover JAPANESE shipping lines have rushed to buy insurance coverage for off-hire from piracy problems and have also asked the Indonesian government to protect Japanese ships.
Indonesian disunity threatens safety at sea PIRATES and marauders will rule what are now Indonesia's territorial waters if the country disintegrates, increasing security risks to the whole region, Jakarta's minister for maritime exploration said.
La SNCF privilégie Géodis pour la reprise du Sernam Président de la SNCF (chemins de fer français), Louis Gallois vient d'annoncer officiellement que le Groupe Géodis (détenu par la SNCF à 43,6%) est désormais la solution privilégiée pour la reprise du Sernam (service messagerie de la SNCF). Du côté des pouvoirs publics français on semble attendre d'apprécier le degré de combativité des syndicats avant de s'engager véritablement. Par ailleurs, ce dossier renferme aussi un aspect belge et on y voit réapparaître La Poste française.
Anvers aura traité plus de 3,5 mio. de TEU en 1999 Il est plus que vraisemblable que le port d'Anvers passera la barre des 3,5 mio. de TEU à la fin de l'année. En effet, depuis le mois de juillet le taux de coissance mensuelle de ce trafic varie de 15 à 22%. Le trafic du mois d'octobre, qui fut particulièrement bon, a vu la partie containérisée progresser de 22% avec un volume de 3,78 mio. de t. En TEU, il s 'agissait de 349.701 unités, soit une hausse de 19,3%. Pour les dix premiers mois de l'année, ce trafic s'élevait à 32,22 mio. de t, en augmentation de 8,8%, soit 2.961.141 TEU (+8,3%). En extrapolant sur base d'un maintien de la tendance, on arrive ainsi à un score final de 3.553.369 TEU et 38,67 mio. de t.
P&O NSF poursuit le développement de son terminal à Zeebrugge Peter van den Brandhof, l'administrateur délégué de P&O North Sea Ferries, estime que la légère baisse du trafic fret notée au cours des premiers mois de l'année par sa compagnie n'est que temporaire. Le développement du terminal de Zeebrugge se poursuit invariablement. Il sera en effet étendu de 15.000 m2 et équipé de connexions ferroviaires supplémentaires.
Heppner: "Notre métier consiste à trier et organiser" En 1998, le groupe Heppner a réalisé un chiffre d'affaires de 1,758 mia. de FRF (268 mio. d'EUR) avec 2.000 personnes. Pour l'exercice 1999, le chiffre d'affaires sera sans doute très proche de 1,9 mia. de FRF (289,65 mio. d'EUR) avec un résultat net positif. Analyse d'une stratégie basée sur d'autres choix que celui du transport proprement dit.
The decision of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to correct perceived job hazards affecting dock and warehouse workers and truck drivers who lift heavy packages and perform repetitive tasks is unwelcome news to employers. The corporate-supported National Coalition on Ergonomics accused OSHA of making work places "laboratories for government experimentation." The proposed rules, which could be in place by summer, would require employers to minimize ergonomic hazards that may cause disorders affecting muscles, nerves, tendons, ligaments, joints, cartilage and spinal discs.
A new Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will set up shop Jan. 1 within the Department of Transportation, headed by a presidential nominee confirmed by the Senate. Congress also agreed to double truck safety funding, increase the number of roadside truck inspectors, reform the commercial driver's license system, invoke tougher sanctions against unsafe and illegal Mexican trucks entering the U.S. and require new trucking firms to demonstrate knowledge of safety regulations.
Faced with bigger fines, more regulations and aggressive government crackdown on importing and exporting violations, companies are turning to compliance specialists to help them navigate the nation's trade laws. Bill Conroy, president of Tyler Search Consultants in New York, said his firm has placed 14 compliance specialists this year alone. Two years ago the figure was zero. Instead of hiring import managers to handle compliance along with other tasks, as they have done in the past, firms are paying full-time compliance managers average annual salaries of $80,000 to develop in-house programs. Rennie Alston, president and CEO of the Alston Group, an international trade consulting firm based in New Jersey, said there are many more compliance positions available nationwide than there are people to fill them.
Viking Freight continues to thrive under the FDX Corp. aegis. The West Coast regional LTL unit is enjoying record revenue of $370 million in the current fiscal year. It also is unveiling two new high-tech projects - shipment tracking by piece and a new generation of handheld computers for drivers that will provide another level of customer service and efficiencies to its freight flow, according to CEO Doug Duncan.
GeoLogistics' new management team is charged with breathing new life into the 150-year-old freight forwarder. After taking a $33.2 million charge to get out from under its money-losing domestic business, GeoLogistics is trying to put 1999 behind it and head into 2000 with a clear focus on winning international business. The announced merger between Danzas and AEI, two of Geo's largest competitors, couldn't come at a better time. Customers are certain to get lost in the shuffle during the integration process, said Bob Arovas, Geo's CEO, freeing up new opportunities to pounce on.
An exasperated National Industrial Transportation League was preparing to ask Norfolk Southern and CSX for an open forum to air shippers concerns and provide more public disclosure of the Conrail integration problems. NIT League held several such meetings in Houston when UP was going through its own service crisis two years ago, and shippers maintained that voicing their concerns on a more public level led to a faster resolution of the problem. NS and CSX shippers are hoping for the same results in the East.
How long will ocean shipping continue to enjoy the protection of antitrust immunity? Not long, if House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., has his way. His recently introduced Free Market Antitrust Immunity Reform Act would revoke carriers' antitrust immunity. Lifting the blanket of immunity would expose carriers to the rigors of the free market, but in the process the industry could catch a chill if the end result is less competition. Recent price-fixing scandals, particularly in the transpacific trades, have added weight to the anti-immunity argument. And although the Ocean Shipping Reform Act purports to stimulate competition by opening the shipping market to confidential service contracts, some shippers complain that carriers still collude and price-fixing cartels still undermine the free market for freight services.
Everybody's doing it - application hosting, that is. For Syncra Systems, formerly Syncra Software, the decision to offer their software in a hosted environment was easy: their customers were asking them to. The company is announcing application software provider services for their Syncra Ct software, said Dave Smith, vice president of interactive marketing for the company. Syncra specializes in software that enables retailers and their suppliers to perform collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment, an industry standard. Many companies wanted to use CPFR but did not necessarily have the funds or staff to implement CPFR software in-house, he said.
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