Asian Shipping Lines Form Strategic Alliances

Five shipping lines, including Asia’s largest, announced Dec. 27 that they’ve formed an alliance to provide new weekly shipping routes around the world.

Evergreen Line, Hanjin Shipping, Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha and Yang Ming Line say they’re joining forces with Asia’s biggest shipping company, China Cosco, to offer 12 routes between Europe and the Mediterranean.

The cost and resource-sharing pact is expected to go forward during the second quarter of 2012. No West Coast lines are currently expected to be affected.

Last week, six Asia-based shipping lines revealed they’ve formed a pact to deploy new routes from the Far East; however, like this week’s newly-announced alliance, none of the routes is expected to involve the North American West Coast.

The so-called G6 Alliance, which would be among the largest such arrangements in the world, consists of APL, Hapag-Lloyd AG, Hyundai Merchant Marine, Mitsui OSK Lines, Nippon Yusen Kaisha and Orient Overseas Container Line.

The G6 says it expects to jointly deploy nine services from the Far East to northern Europe and the Mediterranean as a way to increase efficiency and become more competitive against industry giants like the world’s largest shipping company, Maersk Line.

“The nine joint services will offer more frequent departures with daily sailings and fast transit times,” the companies said in a Dec. 20 joint statement. “The schedule includes multiple weekly calls at Singapore, South China, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Southampton.”

More than 90 ships are expected to cover over 40 ports starting in March or April of 2012, according to G6 member Hapag-Lloyd, and include deployment of the latest vessels with capacities of up to 14,000 TEU.

The new alliances come on the heels of another agreement forged earlier this month, when world’s second and third-largest shipping lines, Mediterranean Shipping and CMA-CGM, respectively, agreed to join forces on key global trade routes.

However, according to OOCL head of corporate planning Steven Ng, the G6 lines had been planning their alliance for some time, and its formation was not in response to the Mediterranean/CMA-CGM arrangement.

Longview ILWU Member Beats Assault Charge

An International Longshore and Warehouse Union member has been found not guilty of assaulting the manager of a grain terminal during a July 22 protest at the Port of Longview.

A jury last week found that Shelly Ann Porter, 39, of Longview, was lawful in her use of force in slapping the hand of EGT grain terminal manager Gerry Gibson. During the trial, which ended Dec. 19, Porter had defended her action by saying she committed it to prevent Gibson from taking her picture against her will.

The trial was the first in series that’s expected to take place in the aftermath of multiple labor actions conducted in July and September at the EGT terminal. The protests were part of a long struggle between the terminal operator and union over labor issues.

The union says its contract with the port requires that the 25 to 35 jobs inside the terminal must go to unionized labor. The company, however, says its lease agreement with the port does not specify ILWU labor. It employs members of a different union.

Over 200 longshore workers and supporters have been arrested or received summonses to appear on misdemeanor charges related to the various protests, including malicious mischief and disorderly conduct.

On Dec. 12, Judge Ron Marshall issued a written ruling declaring that there’s enough evidence to move forward with the trespassing trials of 45 longshore workers and supporters for incidents that occurred when protesters blocked incoming trains during the Sept. 7 and 21 demonstrations.

Most cases in the July protests are set for trial in Cowlitz County District Court in early 2012.

In addition to the dozens of arrests, the union was fined over $300,000 by the federal government for blocking of trains and alleged property damaged caused during three September protests.

The union is appealing the fines.

Port of Seattle Monthly Traffic Still Falling

Containerized traffic at the Port of Seattle fell 0.8 percent last month compared with November 2010, according to newly released data. This makes the seventh straight month that traffic was down compared to the same month the year prior.

From May through September of this year, total traffic dropped by double digits each month compared with the same month the year before, before a dip of just 6.6 percent in October.

Relatively speaking, a 0.8 percent drop last month at the port could be seen as good news compared with most of the year. A total of 170,104 TEUs moved through the port in November, compared to 171,546 in 2010.

Imports rose 2.1 percent year-to-year last month, but it wasn’t enough to offset a downward trend for the year, as for the year-to-date, imports are down 8.8 percent compared with the same 11 months in 2010.

For the year to date, Seattle has seen 1.87 million containers so far; in 2010, 1.98 million containers traveled through the port during the first 11 months of the year.

The 1.8 percent year-to-year decrease is mainly due to a drop in exports, which fell 6.1 percent compared to November 2010 and have fallen 5.5 percent overall compared with the same 11 months last year.

By comparison, a total of 1.36 million cargo containers moved through Washington state’s second largest seaport, the Port of Tacoma, through the first 11 months of 2011. The number represented a 3.2 percent increase over the 1.32 million that passed through Tacoma docks during the same period last year.

Bomb Scare Temporarily Halts Port of LA Traffic

An investigation has been launched into an incident where a suspicious cargo container caused traffic at a Port of Los Angeles cargo terminal to be halted for about five hours last week.

Authorities were called around 3:30 pm on Dec. 21 after a container with the word “bomb” spray painted on it in two places was found aboard the Singapore-flagged APL Belgium cargo vessel while docked at Pier 300.

Port police, U.S. Customs officials and the Los Angeles police and fire departments all responded to the incident, and all loading and unloading at the terminal was temporarily suspended while the ship’s 20-person crew was evacuated.

The suspect container was eventually removed from the ship and inspected. No explosives or other suspicious materials were found. Normal operations resumed at the terminal sometime after 9 pm.

Port spokesman Philip Sanfield said the vessel had originated in Vietnam and stopped at the Port of Oakland before arriving at the APL terminal in Los Angeles last week.

Clean Ports Act Introduced in US Congress

Legislation that would give local and regional ports across the US the autonomy to implement programs that go beyond current federal mandates to reduce diesel emissions has been introduced for consideration in the US Senate.
The Clean Ports Act of 2011, which was submitted Dec. 16 by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), was inspired in part by the respective clean trucks programs at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

“It’s time to update federal laws and allow our nation's ports to help reduce diesel emissions and improve air quality,” Gillibrand said in a statement announcing the proposed legislation.

The Clean Ports Act, which is co-sponsored by five other senators – Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Al Franken (D-MN), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) – would allow ports to impose more stringent terms and conditions of operations on drayage trucks and other diesel-powered equipment that contribute to air pollution.

Similar legislation was first proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010 by Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), but failed to pass. Earlier this year, Nadler introduced a modified version of the bill, which mirrors the Senate version and is still pending.

More than 150 business, environmental and labor groups have already lined up to support the House or Senate versions of the Clean Ports Act, including American Stevedoring Inc., the Teamsters union and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

But the legislation has been opposed by the American Trucking Associations and US Chamber of Commerce, among others. They say the bill would lead to increased costs, as trucking companies would be forced to buy newer, less-polluting vehicles and then pass the cost on to consumers.

The measure has not yet been scheduled for a vote in either the House or Senate.

Oakland City Council Rejects Port Protection Law

A resolution that would have required the city of Oakland to use stronger measures to protect the port in the future in the event of disruptions like the recent Occupy movement demonstrations, was rejected by the Oakland City Council this week.

The proposed legislation, which would have mandated that the city use any and all lawful tools at the city’s disposal to keep protesters from shutting down the port failed to move forward after half of the eight Council members – Jane Brunner, Rebecca Kaplan, Pat Kernighan and Nancy Nadal – voted not to hear it during the Dec. 20 Council meeting.

Brunner indicated during the meeting that her opposition was due to the potential cost the city would incur. She said she’d been told by Oakland police chief Howard Jordan that protecting the port during a two-day protest would cost the city about $1.5 million.

“Police really help us in this city, but they’re not the answer for a social movement,” she said.

The item needed at least six votes to move forward for full consideration by the Council because it had been placed on the agenda less than 10 days before the meeting.

Despite the failure of the proposal, Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente – who wrote the proposal with Councilwoman Libby Schaaf, a former Port of Oakland public affairs director – has said he will reintroduce the legislation at some point in the future.

The proposal was created in response to two recent protests at the port. During the Dec. 12 “Occupy the Ports” movement, where major ports along the West Coast were targeted, four of the Port of Oakland’s seven shipping terminals were blocked by protesters throughout the day.

Port officials said the disruption cost the port and its companies between $4 million and $8 million in lost productivity.

Port of Long Beach Container Volume Dips Again

A troubling trend continued for the Port of Long Beach last month as it saw double-digit decreases in both the number of loaded and empty TEUs in November compared with the same time last year.

The biggest drop was in loaded outbound containers, which fell 22 percent compared with November 2010. According to port data, about 142,600 TEUS were moved in November of last year, but the number dropped to roughly 111,000 in November 2011.

Additionally, the number of loaded inbound containers fell 15 percent year-to-year, going from 274,400 in 2010 to 231,700. The number of empty TEUs transported fell by more than 17 percent, to 459,800 from 558,300.
For the year-to-date, loaded outbound containers have dropped just under 22 percent at the POLB, and the number of loaded outbound and empty TEUS moving through the port have dipped about 18 percent each.

Long Beach has moved a total of 5.5 million containers during the first 11 months of 2011, a drop of 3.3 percent compared with last year. By comparison, the adjoining Port of Los Angeles reported moving 7.2 million containers so far during the calendar year, an increase of about one percent compared with 2010.

Long Beach’s dip in cargo movement is partially due to the loss of tenant Hyundai Merchant Marine, which moved to the Port of LA in 2010.