Nigel Cleave, CEO of Videotel, is well aware of the industry’s need for support and guidance. “In the last few years alone the number of alternatives available in the arsenal of anti-piracy measures has increased, but all have their benefits and drawbacks and the legal implications of many of these options to the ship owner are considerable. This is why Videotel has completely revised and updated its Piracy and Armed Robbery training programme.

“We have seen significant changes in the pattern of piracy behaviour which have been reflected in the response from the shipping industry, governments and other organisations. There has been the use of armed and unarmed guards, as well as citadels and anti-embarkation measures.  Recent years have also seen an increase of pirate attacks in West Africa – as well as other locations – and the industry standard guidelines, BMP (Best Management Practices for Protection Against Somalia Based Piracy), need to be adapted for the different circumstances encountered today.”

Videotel’s updated Piracy and Armed Robbery programme is designed to assist shipping companies and their crews to safely transit pirate zones anywhere in the world. It provides a broad understanding of piracy today and how the shipping industry and governments are responding to it, placing emphasis on BMP as the core tool helping ships avoid, deter and delay pirate attacks.

The programme, available in all multimedia formats including Videotel On Demand (VOD), features ships making preparations prior to transiting the Indian Ocean High Risk Area (HRA), interviews with senior shipping industry personnel and representatives from naval/military forces as well as other organisations. Maps showing the concentration of piracy incidents and graphics illustrating how ships can make evasive manoeuvres are also included.

The customer, with headquarters in Vancouver, Canada, is one of the largest container terminal operators in North America and has ordered the machines for its Global Terminal operations located in Bayonne, New Jersey, USA, which is part of the New York/New Jersey port. These diesel-electric sprinter carriers will transfer containers quickly and safely between the quayside and the container stackyards.

GCT ordered the sprinter carriers to support the expansion of the terminal by its subsidiary Global Terminal & Container Services LLC. By the end of this year, the length of the quay will be extended from 548 metres (1,800′) to 822 metres (2,700′). To increase efficiency and flexibility, the 1-over-1 Terex carriers can travel up to 32 kph (approx. 20 mph) and are equipped with a twin-lift spreader, enabling them to move 20′, 40′ and 45′ ISO containers up to a maximum load of 60 tonnes (66 US tonnes) under spreader. The machines can lift and deposit two 20′ containers separately and stack one high-cube container (9′ 6″ high) on another.

In opting for Terex sprinter carriers, GCT has chosen the market leader in this product segment, as Richard Ceci, Global Expansion Project Manager at GCT emphasised: “We did an extensive evaluation of the competing products and Terex Port Solutions came out as the clear winner.” Furthermore, the economic aspects associated with Terex machines were a decisive factor, Ceci continued: “Besides finishing on top in the technical evaluation, Terex Port Solutions also had the best commercial terms and hence the best value for our project.”

In the eyes of Guido Luini, Managing Director of the Terex Port Solutions facility in Würzburg, Germany, the fact that GCT, also a world-leader in its field, has opted for his company is particularly satisfying: “GCT is one of the big four container terminal operators in North America and has locations both on the Atlantic and on the Pacific coasts.” According to Luini, the strong demand for Terex sprinter and straddle carriers is due to their recognition throughout the market as being reliable, high-performance machines that perfectly combine flexibility and high handling speeds. “The tried-and-tested diesel-electric drive system we use provides low-consumption operation as well as reduced exhaust gas and noise emissions. We were the first company to introduce these machines to the market in 2001 and there are now over 850 of them in use worldwide.” This made Terex Port Solutions the market leader in this field, concludes Luini.

 Terex Port Solutions offers the Terex fleet management system that allows continuous remote monitoring of the technical status within a container terminal’s sprinter and straddle carrier fleet. In addition, the sprinter carriers destined for New Jersey will be equipped with such safety features as stability, load and tyre pressure monitoring while transmitting their exact position to the terminal management system via GPS.

Container volume for the first seven months of the fiscal year rose more than 11 percent to 892,487 TEUs handled from July to January, up from 801,495 TEUs last year.

South Carolina Ports Authority (SCPA) President and CEO Jim Newsome noted during the regular Board meeting that the container business has been growing well above the market in recent months.

“In 2012, North American container port volumes were up two percent overall, while Charleston grew 10 percent,” Newsome shared. “We will continue to focus hard on growing our cargo base. This includes discretionary cargo, such as agricultural products that can be transloaded to containers at or near the port.”

Newsome also noted that several ocean carriers are planning service changes that will benefit Charleston by adding a call or by deploying larger ships.

“This is the time of year when carriers look at realigning services or upsizing their vessels on existing services. Any line that has big ships will deploy them anywhere they can,” Newsome said. “We should begin to see some impact from new or upsized services later this spring.”

The SCPA’s non-containerized business showed similar strength last month. Breakbulk pier tonnage spiked 93 percent in January, with 173,306 tons of freight handled in the ports of Charleston and Georgetown. In the fiscal year to date, non-containerized cargo is tracking 30 percent ahead of the same period last year. The two ports combined have handled more than 1 million tons of breakbulk in the first seven months of the fiscal year.

“The non-containerized cargo segment is a growth market for us,” he said. “It is essential for a port to diversify its business, and breakbulk is a big part of that.”

The dredging, in Southampton Water and the Solent, is part of an extensive programme of investment centred around improving the capability of the port to receive the largest vessels in the world long into the future.  The consent marks the final piece in the jigsaw of licences, consents and permissions to complete the programme.

Although Southampton is blessed with a unique double tide that ensures a wide access window for shipping, the requirement for deeper drafted vessels to call at facilities such as Fawley Oil Refinery and the container terminal has placed some limitations on access.

The work will see the main navigational channel used by commercial shipping deepened from a current minimum depth of 12.6m, at various points along its length of 25 nautical miles. The channel will also be widened to 100m in some areas to allow vessels to pass one another as they enter and exit the port.

More than 23 million tonnes of material will be dredged along the route, from the Nab Channel to the east of the Isle of Wight through the central Solent and extending as far as the most northerly berth of the container terminal in the Test Estuary. The material will be taken to a licensed deposit ground, located in the English Channel to the south east of the Isle of Wight.

The dredging works will:

·        improve the safety of navigation;

·        improve the ability of vessels to pass each other in the approaches to the port;

·        increase the marine tidal access window for large vessels; and

·        safeguard existing direct and indirect port-related jobs by ensuring that the Port of Southampton remains a competitive and viable deep-sea port into the future.

ABP has proposed a series of measures to minimise the effects of the works on the environment.  As well as managing water quality and monitoring sediment levels, a compensatory intertidal habitat scheme is in its advanced stages of completion at Cobnor Point in Chichester Harbour. The scheme will provide a new home for water voles, a protected species native to Britain’s coast and inland waterways.

The consent follows hard on the heels of permission to widen the channel at Marchwood, work which is now underway.

ABP Port Director Southampton, Doug Morrison, said: “This is fantastic news for the long-term future health of the port, for the 12,000 people reliant on it for work and for our customers who can be assured that we will continue to welcome their vessels to the port in the years to come.

“As shipping gets bigger, the port needs to adapt in order to retain its place at the forefront of the industry and to continue to be able to meet our clients’ needs.

“The dredging works are just the latest in a series of investments by ABP in safeguarding the future of the Port of Southampton, including the ongoing work to redevelop the container terminal that is so important to the region’s future economic prospects.”