According to the port the shift of the Grand Alliance to Tacoma will continue to affect Seattle YOY volumes until mid-year. As a region, the ports of Seattle and Tacoma are up 3.7% for January 2013 vs. 2012. 

With a total volume of approx. 675,000 standard containers (TEU) handled between Hamburg and the Russian ports, the volume of container traffic was up by a further 13.3 per cent in 2012, consolidating the lead in foreign trade with Europe and overseas via Hamburg. This positive trend is also attributable to Russia’s decision to join the WTO, resulting in associated simplifications in commercial law as well as the dismantling of trade barriers.

“We’re particularly pleased that Hamburg managed to raise its share of container traffic in St Petersburg to 25.3 per cent last year. That’s 1.6 percentage points more than in 2011, which indicates enlarged market share within the North Range ports for this route,” emphasises Axel Mattern, executive board member of Port of Hamburg Marketing. Just under 95 per cent of the total direct traffic between Russia and Hamburg are handled via the seaport of St Petersburg, Russia’s so-called “Window to Europe”. This Russian Baltic Sea port itself handled roughly 2.53 million TEU in 2012, equivalent to an increase by 6.7 per cent year-on-year. Alongside St Petersburg, the Russian Baltic Sea ports of Kaliningrad and Ust-Luga as well as Archangelsk und Murmansk on the Arctic Ocean are called at by ships sailing from Hamburg.

The most important commodities exported from Russia in seaborne container traffic via Hamburg include hard coal, Diesel oil, crude oil, paper, copper and chemical substances. Imports to Russia predominantly comprise meat, motor vehicles, fruit preserves, electrical appliances and paper. Russia is also one of the key trading partners of the Hanseatic port in conventional general cargo handling, e.g. for iron, steel and other metals, as well as machinery. 

In particular, Russian customers appreciate the high quality standards in Germany’s biggest universal port and the immense density of over 150 weekly feeder sailings to the Baltic Sea region as well as the numerous overseas liner services connecting Hamburg with virtually every port in the world. In order to extend and reinforce contacts with Russian and international transport sectors, the Port of Hamburg will be present at the TransRussia trade fair in Moscow from 23 – 26 April 2013. “This means that we will already be represented with a joint stand at Russia’s premier transport trade fair for the fourteenth time,” emphasises Natalia Kapkajewa, Head of the Port of Hamburg Marketing Representative Office in St Petersburg. “The growing number of co-exhibitors and the repeated attendance of Port of Hamburg Marketing member company representatives who have been travelling to Moscow for many years now exemplify the importance of Russia in foreign trade for Hamburg as a logistics and industry location,” adds Kapkajewa. Under the shared “Port of Hamburg” umbrella, the following companies are exhibiting on the 99 m² trade fair stand in the German Pavilion in 2013: Brunsbüttel Ports GmbH, Buss Port Logistics GmbH & Co. KG, Delta Shipping Agency GmbH, Hafen Hamburg Marketing e.V., Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG, HWF Hamburgische Gesellschaft für Wirtschaftsförderung mbH, Maritime Cargo Logistics GmbH, Polzug Intermodal GmbH, Seehafen Kiel GmbH & Co. KG, Swan Container Line GmbH & Co. KG und Team Lines Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG. The Port of Hamburg trade fair stand A313 is located in Hall A.

Furthermore, in the first half of 2013 Port of Hamburg Marketing and its member companies from Hamburg and the region will be advertising for the efficiency and performance of Germany’s biggest universal port and its partner ports at additional international trade fairs in Shanghai, São Paulo, Antwerp and Munich.

AGT will be one of Turkey’s largest container and general cargo terminals and will be entirely operated by APM Terminals under a concession agreement with operations expected to start in summer 2015.

The agreement means that APM Terminals will assume full operational responsibility for the container terminal and general cargo operations in AGT.

The construction of the terminal is being carried out by APM Terminals’ partner in the deal, but under APM Terminals’ technical and operational specifications.

The initial investment for the container terminal is approximately USD 400 million with further investments depending on market demand. APM Terminals will have the right to operate the port for a period of 28 years which may be extended further.

 The CEO of APM Terminals, Kim Fejfer, explains that the independent port operator sees the deal as a winning combination of Petkim Port’s location, its market access and natural deep water:

“Turkey is a very important high growth market which we are pleased to enter together with strong and well respected business partners such as Petkim Petrokimya Holding A.S. and SOCAR. We look forward to establishing a long term presence in Turkey and apply APM Terminals’ strong operational skills as well as our customer and safety focus into further developing the Izmir area into a key strategic logistics centre.”

Petkim’s port is located in the petrochemical complex of Petkim in Nemrut Bay and close to Izmir – the second largest industrial city in Turkey with a rapidly growing population of 4 mill. The hinterland for the port is the Aegean Region with a population of 9.6 mill. With current market utilization already at 90%, the area needs more port capacity to service growth.

Container volume growth in the Izmir area is driven by a combination of Industrial manufacturing, import of consumer goods for a rapidly growing population and agricultural exports.

Petkim’s port will offer 15.5 meter water depth and an efficient access to Turkey’s high growth market. The initial capacity of the new container terminal will be 1.5 million TEU, which is 50% more than the capacity of the current city port of Izmir. Alsancak Port). The facility expects to start operations in the summer of 2015.

Petkim, through its port subsidiary Petlim, is APM Terminals’ direct partner in the agreement. Petkim is listed on the Istanbul Stock Market and produces around 3 million tons of petrochemical products annually. It owns the rights to operate Petkim Port. Petkim is a subsidiary of Socar Turkey Enerji A.S. , the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan. It provides 50% of annual Azerbaijan state income.

Colin Hitchcock, London Gateway Harbour Master, said: “Yeoman Bridge is the largest aggregate ship to come this far up the River Thames to date. The 249 metre long ship arrived with a 14 metre draft and docked safely along London Gateway’s berth two on Sunday.”

Andrew Bowen, London Gateway Engineering Director, said: “This mega delivery was going to be landed at a smaller port in the South East and then transported to us by road, but we insisted the ship make arrangements to unload its cargo here at London Gateway. We were aware that by ensuring the ship docked at London Gateway we would remove 9,000 lorry trips, which is a massive saving in terms of emissions, fuel consumption and impact on our national road infrastructure.”

“In addition to taking shipments by sea and rail, we are recycling and reusing materials and have our own concrete batching on site, to reduce the number of lorries we have coming and going from site.”

The material from the ship will be used to create London Gateway’s fully automated port gate complex, which will use state of the art technology including optical character recognition to read container and vehicle information to manage traffic through the gate process.

Charles Meaby, London Gateway Commercial Director, said: “London Gateway is all about reducing the cost of road miles. We have reduced the number of lorries on the road in the construction of London Gateway and we offer our customers the ability to reduce their lorry miles and save on CO2, fuel and time costs as London Gateway is simply closer to the UK’s major markets, not just in the South East but also the Midlands and the North West.”

Drewry, the independent shipping consultancy, has estimated London Gateway will reduce round-trip transport costs by £59 per container to the Midlands and the North-West, and £189 per container for London and the South-East.

In addition to being closer to major markets, London Gateway will have Europe’s largest logistics park, allowing shippers to cut the cost associated with taking goods to distant distribution centres.  London Gateway estimates 65 million road miles will be saved from DP World’s £1.5 billion pound investment into UK transport infrastructure.