Аналитика

14.02.2018 RLL Container Report - 14 February 2018
The three southern African countries of Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi have much in common: all three have a population in the region of 17/18 million growing at a very fast rate. All three operate the 1067mm “Cape” rail gauge and use English as their common language. More importantly, all three countries face a major challenge in feeding their expanding populations at the same time as increasing their traditional agricultural exports. Finally, the three nations are all land-locked and rely on transhipment via third party ports - mainly in Mozambique. In the case of Zimbabwe, agriculture contributes only 11-14 percent of GDP, but the sector provides employment for some 70 percent of the population, and about 60 percent of all raw materials used in industry. Around 45 percent of the country's exports are of agricultural origin. In order to achieve the required growth in agricultural production, the government of Zimbabwe and its neighbours to the North, have been holding discussions with Russia’s leading fertiliser producers, Uralkhim and Uralkaliy.

07.02.2018 RLL Container Report - 07 February 2018
Prior to its projected sale in April, TransContainer is reporting some very encouraging results for the year just gone. Container moves increased to 1.78 million teu, representing an increase on 2016 of 15.2%. Box exports were up by one fifth to 432,100 teu, while imports reported a 30% increase to register a total of 315,500 for the year. However, transit moves stole the show by returning an impressive 69.9% rise on the previous year, which gives a total for 2017 of 126,000 teu. This augurs well for the sale of the TransContainer, which is attracting a great deal of overseas interest. The French shipping group, CMA CGM is the latest contender to enter the fray having teamed up with Russian partners, Logoper, a 3PL operator specialising in container block trains. However, there are rumblings that the Russian government may decide to impose some restrictions on bids by non-Russian investors.

31.01.2018 RLL Container Report - 31 January 2018
Scrap paper makes up 6.2% of containerised exports from the USA but the Chinese government is redefining precisely which type of scrap paper they will allow into the country. Under the new and far stricter rules, scrap paper containing more than 0.5% contaminates will be rejected. Already September witnessed a 30 per cent decline in scrap imports via Chinese ports and this will put pressure on the exporters either to find new markets or to re-process the scrap paper closer to home. Meanwhile, the purchase by Maersk of Hamburg Sued increased the Danish line’s market share of the global box trade from 16 to 18 percent. More importantly, however, the acquisition of the German shipping line has re-orientated Maersk’s focus from the traditional East-West routes to the north-south trades, especially those targeting the east and west coasts of South America.

24.01.2018 RLL Container Report - 24 January 2018
Wood pellets should be an ideal export product for Russia, as the main cultivation areas lie relatively close to the traditional trade routes to Europe and to Asia, along which currently travel trainloads of empty 20’ and 40’ HC containers that could be used to deliver bagged pellets to both overseas as well as domestic markets. Of course, the theory and the practice of supplying intermodal logistics in the more remote parts of Russia do take longer to reconcile with each other, especially when compared with competing areas such as Scandinavia. Here, there is already a highly developed logistical infrastructure for road, rail and seaports located close to the main timber cultivating areas. In Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, bagged wood pellets can tap into the existing North-South intermodal infrastructure of trucks and containers to distribute pellets to a growing band of commercial and domestic clients throughout Europe.

17.01.2018 RLL Container Report - 17 January 2018
In the eleven months to November 2017, the Port of Klaipeda handled 39.21 million tons, which represents an increase of 6.5% over the previous year. All cargo categories registered an upturn with liquids up by 17.1%, general goods by 14.4% and bulk up by a creditable 16.3% to 1.81 million tons, the greatest increase of any cargo category. It is within this category of dry bulk that one will find cargoes suitable for containerisation. This applies not only to the Lithuanian port but to all ports in the northern range. With inbound containerised cargoes on the increase, the North European ports may now have sufficient return box volume to entice major exporters to consider switching from traditional bulk to intermodal transport. Lest you think there might not be sufficient inbound volumes of boxes to cope with any increase in European exports, fear not for our Chinese colleagues have got it all worked out.