The project – which included 37 stainless steel tanks, the largest of which measured 15m in length and 5m in diameter – arrived in Colombo aboard a chartered vessel from Wallart, Denmark.

Project FPS transported the tanks inland over ten nights, using two specially-constructed, 15m long low-loader trailers with rear steering to help negotiate tight turns on the route.

The route to the new Millers brewery site in Meegoda also involved passing under many low-hanging telecoms and power cables; this required the assistance of staff from Ceylon Electricity Board and Sri Lanka Telecom. All movements were conducted with full Police escorts.

Project FPS Manager Mohan Lazarus was on location throughout the entire operation. “This was a massive undertaking. Although the route was short, it included many challenging obstacles. But everything went very well, and the customer was very pleased with the end result. We would like to thank the Police and utilities staff for their invaluable help throughout,” he said.

Maersk Line, the container shipping arm of Danish oil and shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk, reported an increase in volume of 18 percent in Q1 of 2012 versus Q1 of last year.

For the same period, the A.P. Moller-Maersk group delivered a profit of $1.17 billion, 1 percent higher year-over-year, despite a 1 percent drop in revenue to $14.3 billion. But excluding divestment gains and one-off tax income from the settlement of an Algerian tax dispute, the group recorded zero profit.

“Although most of our businesses deliver good results and the Group’s net result is on a par with last year, we are not satisfied with the Group’s operational performance for the first quarter. Earnings in shipping were weak due to the continued loss-making rates in the container and tanker markets,” said group CEO Nils Andersen.

But he added that efforts to increase container rates are “paying off” and Maersk Line will continue initiatives to improve rates throughout the year.

Maersk Line announced a general rate increase on the Asia-Europe trades effective from March 2012, supported by a 9 percent reduction in capacity mostly from a reduction of the average speed.

The world’s biggest container shipping line expects a “negative up to neutral result” in 2012, assuming that the rate restoration effort will continue. “The outlook is very sensitive towards changes in the market balance,” a company press statement added.

Global demand for seaborne containers is expected to increase by 4 percent to 6 percent in 2012, with lower increases on the Asia-Europe trades but higher increases on the North-South trades, it added.

Meanwhile the group’s global port operator, APM Terminals, showed a profit for the first-quarter period of $235 million from last year’s 141 million. Despite declining volumes in Europe, overall throughput increased by 10 percent, driven by growth markets and new terminals.

EBITDA margin declined to 22.7 percent for the period from 23.3 percent in the first quarter of 2011.

APM Terminals expects a result above 2011 and above market growth in volumes, supported by portfolio expansion.

For 2012, A.P. Moller-Maersk Group expects results to be slightly lower than the $3.4 billion reported in 2011. “The outlook for 2012 is subject to considerable uncertainty, not least due to developments in the global economy,” the company said.

Photo: Maersk Line

The ASEAN Secretariat and the World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific Region division have signed an agreement to strengthen the monitoring capacity of the ASEAN over its progress toward the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015.

“Through this program, ASEAN will not only be in a position to monitor its integration progress but also to come up with appropriate recommendations to address the identified gaps to further enhance the timely implementation of the AEC,” said  Dr. Lim Hong Hin, Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN for the AEC.

He added: “Effective monitoring will facilitate the adoption of the remaining liberalization and regulatory reforms and will move us closer to our goals of an integrated ASEAN.”

The new partnership area between the ASEAN Secretariat and the World Bank complements their ongoing collaboration in the areas of disaster management, disaster risk insurance, infrastructure financing, social protection, food security, and global development and learning network.

“The ten ASEAN economies together constitute a market of US$1.8 trillion, measured by GDP, a very significant economic block.” said Bert Hofman, World Bank chief economist for the East Asia Pacific Region. “Deepening regional integration through the ASEAN Economic Community can become a new driver of economic growth for the East Asia region.”

Under the agreement, the World Bank will help prepare joint ASEAN-WB integration monitoring reports, collect and store policy data, and organize technical workshops for ASEAN officials.

Photo: Ezry A Rahman

Drewry Maritime Research’s latest Carrier Performance Insight incorporated new key performance indicators (KPIs) using data from e-commerce platform CargoSmart to measure the performance of box ships.

The latest result represents a 2.9 percentage point improvement on the previous record of 69.4 percent on-time average recorded in the last quarter of 2011 and means reliability gains over four consecutive quarters, the London-based company said in a statement on May 16.

The low success rate of the KPI for “elapsed time between shipping instruction & bill of lading issue” showed that roughly only 40 percent of shippers obtain BLs after three days of submitting the original shipping instruction, suggesting that there is still a lot of work required to improve certain commercial processes.

The variance between carriers’ success rates for this KPI was large, with a range of 0 percent to 93 percent across the five months between October 2011 and February 2012.

The KPI for “on-time shipment of cargo,” which measures whether a box leaves the first port of load as scheduled and is a crucial first step to schedule reliability, showed a consistent success rate of 66 percent to 70 percent in the same five months, CargoSmart’s data indicated.

That benchmark score indicates that delays are fairly common even before the box has been loaded on board, Drewry said.

Success rates were slightly better than the previous KPI, but still indicated that roughly one box in four spends longer at sea than planned, it added.

“Any improvement in reliability should be welcomed, but an average score of around 70% is still far too low for a key service industry to be happy with,” said Simon Heaney, research manager at Drewry.

“Reliability remains an area that carriers can distinguish themselves from the competition. Shippers can play their part in driving future service quality by putting greater emphasis on reliability and other service criteria in their carrier selections,” added Heaney.

The most reliable carriers in the period were Maersk Line and its sister company Safmarine, followed by Hanjin Shipping, the report stated.

Photo: KDavidClark

The two airlines carried 124,531 tonnes of cargo and mail last month, a drop of 11 percent compared to April 2011. The cargo and mail load factor was down by 5 percentage points to 63.3 percent. Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometers, decreased by 6.8 percent, while cargo and mail tonne kilometers flown dropped by 13.7 percent.

For the first four months, tonnage declined by 10.7 percent against a capacity drop of 3.3 percent, said Cathay Pacific, Asia’s fourth leading carrier by market value.

“After the temporary surge in business in March, driven by large shipments of hi-tech products from Mainland China, demand softened again out of our key markets in April. The general air cargo market remains soft, especially to Europe, though intra-Asia traffic is holding up better, helped by a recent expansion of the passenger network in the region,” said James Woodrow, Cathay Pacific general manager for cargo sales and marketing.

He added that the carrier will continue to manage capacity in line with demand, particularly on long-haul flights to Europe and the trans-Pacific. He also sees fuel prices continuing to be a major concern on long-haul routes.

Photo: curimedia

R.J. Lino, IPC’s director, said the New Priok Port plan, which received the government’s green light on April 5 this year, will go through three construction stages in order to house a container terminal and two fuel terminals.

Construction of the container terminal will start in 2014, Lino said in a recent press conference.

IPC will invest around IDR11.75 trillion in the project, while private investors will shoulder the rest, the company  said.

“The first phase of the container terminal will [have a] land area of 195 hectares with a length of 4,000 meters and can accommodate up to 4.5 million TEUs of containers,” said Lino.

The terminal will be built on reclaimed land to minimize cost, he added, and the first pole will be erected by early June.

The port will be managed by 10 subsidiary companies to ensure that it  is at par in standards with other international ports, the company said.

Photo: IPC

Expectations are not high for the next two quarters after the global economy emerged from first quarter in a precarious position as the Asian and U.S. economies slowed and an increasing number of European countries entered recession, a press release from Ti said.

Most ports ended the first quarter on a positive note, it added. Imports in particular picked up for many U.S. ports, while European ports struggled with low increases in containers, according to the Global Logistics Monitor. The monitor provides a monthly update of the global transportation and logistics market by drawing together the leading air, sea, road and rail indicators from around the world.

Asian ports noted good throughput in March after a slow start to the year due to the Chinese New Year. However, as capacity continues to be removed from the market, rates are on the increase in an attempt to recover from last year’s free fall.

Airfreight continues to struggle amid high oil prices and shifts to other modes of transport. Declines have been noted by Asian and European airline associations in March and February.

Airports are also noting declines in these two regions, while U.S. airports were a surprise in March, the monitor said. Some US airports such as Miami, Chicago, and Los Angeles all noted increases in cargo for the month of March; however, this increase may be due to the launch of new electronic products from Apple and Samsung and may not carry over into April.

Moving into the second quarter, oil prices have declined but remain above $100 a barrel—this will continue to negatively affect the airfreight market, the monitor predicted. Also, capacity is entering the market as air cargo providers take possession of new fleet. “This along with declining yields will further exacerbate an already difficult situation,” Ti said.

Future demand for air and ocean freight will depend on such economic indicators as manufacturing activity, it added. Although weak, Asia noted some improvement in manufacturing activity, while the U.S. reported another surprising increase of 1 percent in April. Europe, however, already suffering from its economic woes, noted sharp declines.

As a result, any notable rise in freight demand will likely come from the U.S. or Asia, or both, predicted the monitor.

Photo: Jim Bahn

“Our investments in advanced ISO tank maintenance facilities in India as well as the manufacture and supply of tank engineering parts in China are the result of sustained growth in demand in these dynamic regions. Both the depot and foundry are ideally located to serve their respective shipping communities,” said William Loh, managing director of Kerry-ITS in Singapore.

The new 11,300-square-meter facility in India is located 8 kilometers from Kandla Port in the state of Gujarat, which provides direct ocean access to international markets.

The depot will provide ISO tank cleaning and repair services for tank lessors, operators, and end users. The cleaning station can clean up to 40 tanks a day using a high-performance automatic cleaning system.

The depot will also be equipped eventually with the latest interior tank shell corrosion treatment technology used in the company’s Singapore operations.

In China, Kerry Logistics has opened a new foundry in Dongying city, Shangdong province, to support its regional ISO tank business with uninterrupted OEM precision engineering, parts manufacturing, distribution, and supplies.

The firm’s depots in Singapore and in Laem Chabang,Thailand, are certified as “Approved Cleaning Station and Repair Depots” by ATCO (The Asia Tank Container Organisation), the company said.

The depot in India has applied for certification and aims to complete the audit by the end of 2012.

Photo: Kerry Logistics

Participants to the 39th Federation of Asia Pacific Aircargo Association Executive Council Meeting in New Zealand

Auckland, New Zealand — The Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Federation of New Zealand (CBAFF) recently hosted the 39th Executive Council Meeting and annual general meeting of the Federation of Asia Pacific Aircargo Association (FAPAA) in New Zealand for the first time in the 27-year history of FAPAA.

The FAPAA meeting, held May 10 to 12 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Auckland, was attended by delegates from 14 of the 19 member countries and regions of the Federation, who joined participants to the CBAFF annual national conference at functions arranged concurrently. The large combined gathering proved to be a networking opportunity for freight forwarding industry members of New Zealand and other Asia Pacific nations.

The FAPAA annual meeting brings together members from within the region to learn and share latest developments on important practical and technical aspects of the air freight forwarding industry.

FAPAA members received updates from International Air Transport Association (IATA) on the project to implement the electronic airwaybill (e-AWB) globally by 2014.

FAPAA chairman Ir Dr Paul Tsui shared the experience of the Hong Kong Association of Freight Forwarding & Logistics Ltd, which he also chairs, in the early implementation of the e-AWB with Hong Kong through Cathay Pacific Airways.

Discussions around the e-freight project were also held; members agreed the e-AWB was more relevant and achievable in the short term, subject to carrier readiness to implement the necessary technology and systems.

Delegates also received updates to various regional and global air cargo security programs. Stephane Parrenin, Cargo Manager, Australia for IATA, delivered a detailed presentation on their Secure Freight Project. Security is always high on the agenda at FAPAA meetings as it is an essential part of freight forwarding business operations.

FAPAA welcomed a three-person high-level delegation from The China International Forwarders Association or CIFA who attended as observer with an expression of interest to join the Federation once they receive government approvals.

FAPAA was formed in 1985 and has grown to include 19 countries and/or region members, namely: Australia; Bangladesh; Brunei; Hong Kong-China; India; Indonesia; Japan; South Korea; Macau-China; Malaysia; Nepal; New Zealand; Pakistan, the Philippines; Singapore; Sri-Lanka; Chinese Taipei; Thailand, and Vietnam.

The A330 freighter service, launched May 12, will fly twice weekly into Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City, taking the route Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, and back to Kuala Lumpur, a company press release said.

The new network will connect the hub to other stations around the world including Sydney, Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Manila, Jakarta, Surabaya, Tokyo, Osaka, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Sharjah, the statement added.

Mohd Yunus Idris, acting chief executive officer of MASkargo, explained that the carrier wants to take advantage of the steady growth of the cargo business in Ho Chi Minh City through increased capacity and the addition of new intra-Asia network destinations.

“The strategic addition of Ho Chi Minh City into MASkargo’s route network signifies the growing importance of the Vietnamese market and its trade relations with Asian countries,” he added.

Photo: MASkargo