According to Peter Quantrill, director general of the British International Freight Association, it was "hardly surprising" to hear the recent news that the U.S. has delayed new rules requiring all cargo containers entering the U.S. to be security scanned prior to departure from overseas for two more years, amid questions over whether this is the best way to protect U.S. ports.
Maersk Line, the container-shipping unit of Danish conglomerate A.P. Møller-Maersk, expects the Chinese government to decide in June on the company's application for a shipping alliance with two other shipping operators, in a bid to reduce operating costs amid weak international trade.
LNG could become the future fuel for Maersk Line. The group is currently negotiating the possibility of using the liquid natural gas with Russian energy giant Gazprom.
In the coming years, the global shipping industry is expected to decline by five percent to 10 percent, according to Global Shipping Industry 2013 - Forecast, Trends and Opportunities, a report from Taiyou Research.
Construction has begun on a three-year $1.6bn overhaul of the largest container port in Australia, with Victorian state government saying the work is necessary to avoid capacity constraints and adding that it will create around 1,100 jobs.
Two shipping firms based in Germany and Cyprus have pleaded guilty to felony obstruction of justice charges and violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS, 33 U.S.C. §§1905-1915) related to the deliberate concealment of vessel pollution from four ships that visited ports in New Jersey, Delaware and Northern California.
CMA CGM is set to open an inland terminal near Abu Ghraib, in the Baghdad Governorate, in June. The shipping group will exclusively manage and operate the facility, which it says will be Iraq's only dry port.
Bollore SA, an investment company controlled by French billionaire Vincent Bollore, is competing to expand its African unit to operate five more port terminals and is eyeing similar growth in Asia and Latin America.