Fracht Australia News - May 2018
1/5/2018
“Quality service contributes to quality of life for ourselves and others……….”
Catherine DeVrye
AROUND THE WORLD
GERMANY - Fracht will have its own booth in the upcoming BREAKBULK EUROPE exhibition in Bremen, Germany from 29 to 31 May. If you are in the area please visit the Fracht stand 459. Fracht will also host a very interesting Transport Engineering Workshop on 29 May in the Atlantic Hotel Universum, Bremen from 11am to 3pm. This will be of interest for our clients involved in project transports, heavy lifts and over dimensional cargo. If you would like to attend please contact your local Fracht office in Australia.
NORWAY - The first autonomous shipping company – MASSTERLY – has been established by two Norwegian companies, Wilhelmsen and Kongsberg. Wilhelmsen CEO Thomas Wilhelmsen said Norway, as a maritime nation, has taken a position at the forefront in developing autonomous ships. Through the creation of the new company steps will be taken to establish infrastructure and services to design and operate vessels and advanced logistics solutions associated with maritime autonomous operations. Massterly will take on board technological expertise from Kongsberg and ship management experience from Wilhelmsen. Kongsberg already launched a project to build and operate the world’s first fully electric autonomous container ship the “Yara Birkland”.
JAPAN - Many companies in Japan will be closed from 28 April to 6 May to celebrate “Golden Week”. The “official“ holidays are from 28 to 30 April and 3 to 6 May.
SOUTH AFRICA - The Customs Authority in South Africa implemented the first phase of the Reporting of Conveyances and Goods (RCG) on 20 April. It is now mandatory to lodge Advanced Containerised Cargo Loading Notices at least 24 hours before the first container is loaded on board the vessel that will transport the cargo to South Africa. The RCG is required for import, export, national transit, international transit as well as transhipment cargo movements.
IRAQ - The airports of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah are officially open again and carriers are providing narrow body flights to these destinations.
AUSTRALIAN PORTS
- SYDNEY’S PORT BOTANY HUTCHINSON TERMINAL CLOSED WITHOUT NOTICE ON 19 April following a serious accident when a woman in her 50ies fell 10 metres and sustained serious injuries. 1,300 slots were cancelled. On 30 April most of the terminal still remained closed pending investigations and Union safety concerns. Ships were diverted to Patricks. Import slots became available after ANZAC Day but export slots and empty de-hires remained unavailable until further notice.
- THE MARITIME UNION OF AUSTRALIA (MUA) instigated another four day strike at Melbourne’s MIRRAT Terminal on Webb Dock on 5 April. The strike coincided with the 20th anniversary of the infamous 1998 waterfront dispute between the MUA and Patricks. The Australian Logistics Council condemned the Webb Dock strike saying that businesses should not have to pay for a “union anniversary party”. The MUA however indicated that this latest strike is linked to unresolved issues which led to the strike action at MIRRAT on 17 and 18 March.
SEAFREIGHT NEWS
- UNFORTUNATELY SOME VESSEL DELAYS CONTINUED INTO APRIL. We wrote about this problem in recent newsletters and while the situation has improved, delays have continued. A good example of such a delay was MS Hoegh Jeddah v25 which experienced around 10 days delay in the port of Auckland. Such delays of course are not only very expensive but they also severely affect schedule integrity. The “Hoegh Jeddah” was an indirect victim of the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (BMSB) which also featured in our recent newsletters. Several other vessels were denied discharge in Auckland due to BMSB issues and after treatment offshore these vessels returned to Auckland in April. These additional April arrivals plus the fact that BMSB inspections extended discharging times resulted in port and terminal congestion in Auckland.
- AS PREDICTED LAST MONTH THE SHIPPING LINES FROM ASIA WERE UNABLE TO ENFORCE THEIR RATE RESTORATION of USD 300.00 per TEU (twenty foot equivalent unit) and they have now announced another increase of USD 200.00 per TEU effective 15 May. Again it is somewhat doubtful if this will actually be implemented in full.
- OOCL PLANS TO INCREASE THEIR FUEL SURCHARGE TO / FROM ASIA from USD 325.00 per TEU to USD 350.00 per TEU on 1 June 2018.
AIRFREIGHT NEWS
- VIRGIN AUSTRALIA PLANS TO LAUNCH ITS OWN SERVICES TO / FROM NEW ZEALAND at the end of October 2018 after the termination of the Trans-Tasman partnership with Air New Zealand. Virgin will operate five weekly services between Sydney and Wellington and three weekly flights between Melbourne and Queenstown. Currently Virgin codeshares on flights on these routes with Air New Zealand.
- EMIRATES WILL INTRODUCE A SECOND DAILY FLIGHT BETWEEN DUBAI AND PRAGUE on 1 July 2018. The extra wide-body cargo capacity on the B777-300ER will without doubt be welcomed by Czech exporters.
- IATA RELEASED AIR FREIGHT FIGURES FOR FEBRUARY 2018 WHICH INDICATE THAT DEMAND GREW FASTER THAN CAPACITY for the 19th month in a row. For the first two months of 2018 international airfreight grew 8.4% while the Asia Pacific volume increased by 9.3%.
AUSTRALIAN QUARANTINE
As per AQIS Industry Advice Notice 33-2018 “Goods that require a permit, but arrive without one, including where an application is currently under consideration, will be directed for export from Australian territory or required to be destroyed in an approved manner.” This new rule has been implemented on 9 April.
