The €60.5 million project will create a high-performance base improving links and pre/post-dispatch handling between Mourepiane container terminal and the adjacent railhead.  The new facility will also serve other Marseilles quays, with their current multimodal site at Canet being transferred to the Euromediterranee urban renewal scheme.                     

Construction will start in summer 2015.  The terminal is due on stream in mid-2017 and will be operated by a purpose-formed company of Marseilles and France-based multimodal specialists.     

The official papers setting up MTTC were signed on July 15.  The launch company stems from the port authority’s call for expressions of interest in 2011.  The authority has taken a 29% stake, the Marseille Provence chamber of commerce has 9% and 15.5% goes to each of the other partners – CMA CGM subsidiary Greenmodal Transport; Credit Agricole’s project development arm Projenor; the Provence Alpes Corse savings bank and the Caisse des Depots public investment group.

MTTC will contribute €41.8 million of the total cost, with the €18.7 million balance coming in a separate investment from the port authority.    

SIPG released it figures which showed that in June the operator handled a total of 3.06 million TEU – an increase of 10.8% compared to the same month last year. In the first six months of this year, Shanghai Port handled a total of 17.26 million TEU – an increase of 5.7% compared to the same period in 2013.

Our World Cup 2014 competition which was held during the TOC Europe 2014 conference & exhibition has come to a conclusion after the final between Germany and Argentina on Sunday. With Germany taking the World Cup title the draw for our Lego Maersk competition took place on Monday. We are pleased to announce that Antonio Caputo from the company Elettrotek Kabel has won the Maersk Triple-E Lego model! Congratulations and the prize will be on its way to you shortly…..

Jurong Town Corporation awarded the reclamation project of Tuas Finger One to the consortium, comprising of Hyundai, Samsung, Penta Ocean, Boskalis and Van Oord. The total contract value is SGD 960 million and the combined Boskalis / Van Oord share is approximately EUR 100 million. It is expected that the majority of the 24.5 million cubic meters of sand required for this project will be supplied by long distance bulk carriers. In addition to the land reclamation work, the consortium will undertake dredging and construct 3.4 kilometers of quay wall. Work is set to start within the next couple of weeks and will last until late 2018.