RLL Container Report - 05 November 2014
From: John Keir, Ross Learmont Ltd Email: john.keir@telia.com Date: 05 November 2014
Global box fleet on the rise.
In the first nine months of the year, the world’s largest container producer, CIMC increased box sales by 23% compared with the same period last year. This took CIMC’s production of boxes to over one million units. At the same time, sales of refrigerated containers increased by 29% to record 96,000 teu. The second largest box manufacturer, Singamas posted a 17.6% rise in box production to just under 300,000 teu. Drewry Maritime Equity Research forecasts that box production will rise by 11% in 2014 as more ultra-large container vessels enter service. Fifty-three of the jumbo vessels with a capacity of 13,000 teu or more will be added to the global fleet next year with another 43 to follow in 2016.
One of the lines adding to its reefer fleet was CMA CGM, which acquired 7,000 x 40 HC refrigerated containers. The purchase will increase CMA’s global reefer fleet to 185,000 teu. The French line is currently transporting around 850,000 reefer teu per annum. CMA CGM requires the additional units in order to cope with the increase in temperature-controlled cargoes, which rose by 13%. The line forecasts that its annual reefer carryings will reach 1 million teu by 2015.
Temperature-controlled traffic into Russia is also on the rise. On 3 November, Arkas Line inaugurated a new Reefer Express service from Israel and Turkey to Novorossiysk. Arkas is employing two vessels each with a capacity of 975 teu. More importantly, however, each vessel is equipped with 350 plus giving a theoretical reefer capacity of 750 teu. At the same time, Seago Line is to introduce its reefer service for the 2014/2015 season from Morocco to N W Continent, Scandinavia and the Baltic. The primary cargoes to be transported are citrus and vegetables. Seago offers two dedicated services, which include two arrivals per week at St Petersburg and one call per week at Gdansk.
Also in the Baltic, Containerships and OPDR have joined forces to offer a semi-direct service from Agadir, Morocco to St. Petersburg. OPDR’s recently launched Argan Express service (AGAX) which links Morocco with Russia providing fast connections to the North-West with up to three sailing per week from Rotterdam. The service will call at Containerships Moby Dick Terminal. At the same time, OOCL’s subsidiary, Scan Baltic Express announced that they would offer fifteen weekly sailings from the main Baltic terminals, seven of which will be in the St Petersburg area. Maersk has also noticed a surge in Latin America reefer demand for beef, poultry, fruit, vegetables, fish and seafood. Demand for reefer capacity out of Latin America has increased noticeably after Russia increased its imports of salmon from Chile, poultry from Brazil and grapefruit from Peru.
Although the Neva Metal terminal reported a 30% rise in traffic at its St Petersburg box facilityto 24,000 teu, overall container throughput at the North-West port declined by 5.1% in the first half of the year to 1.2 million teu. However, the prize for the best performance must go to the port of Kaliningrad, which registered an impressive 45% rise in box traffic for the first nine months of the year to post a total of 261,700 teu. The twin Polish ports of Gdansk and Gdynia increased box traffic by 7.4% and 21.9% respectively. Of the ports in the Baltic States, Klaipeda continues to power ahead with an 11 percent increase in throughput to register a total of 218,556 teu for the first six months of the year.
RZD is working on a plan to connect 35 terminal-logistic centres (TLC) with regular container trains. The plan involves the reconstruction of two major port facilities at Baltiysk and Primorsk in addition to the 35 TLCs. Already, work has started on five of these TLCs in Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Zabaikalsk and two facilities in Moscow. RZD’s box subsidiary, TransContainer launched a new block train service from Moscow to Blagoveschensk, which sits at the confluence of the Amur and Zeya rivers opposite the Chinese city of Heihe. The block train, consisting of 57 platforms, covered the 7,882 kilometres in nine days. A second train is already on its way to the administrative centre of the Amur Region and TransContainer hopes to run a weekly service from Moscow. So far this year, TransContainer has carried 1.09 million teu, a rise of 1.8% over last year.
Further east, a new rail route will be opened from Russia via Mongolia to China. The Mongolian government has approved the extension of a rail line from Erdenet and Ovoot on to the Russian border. It will then connect Russia’s Ulug Khem coking coal basin, with 2.5 Billion tons of reserves, to the Mongolian rail network and from there on to China. At the same time, the new line will carry coal from Mongolia´s own reserves in the north of the country to clients in the People’s Republic.
Hard on the heels of the Summa project in North East China, North Korea announced plans to upgrade the main rail line linking the west coast port of Namp’o with Pyongyang, Kangdong and the Jaedong coal fields. The project, called Pobeda is supported by Russia. The Pobeda route modernisation is intended to form the first stage of a large-scale co-operation and development project, which would be carried out with the support of Russian organisations, including construction company Mostovik. The project will last 20 years and will involve the upgrading of 3,500 km of track, which is more than half of the entire North Korean network. To improve travel times, a new north-south bypass will be built around the capital, Pyongyang. The project is expected to cost USD 25 Billion and will be funded through the supply of Korean coal, rare earth and non-ferrous metals.
John Keir, Ross Learmont Ltd.
05 November 2014
Copyright ©, 2014, John Keir