The Friday Flyer - September 19th 2014

Today we saw the climax of what has been a rollercoaster ride for the United Kingdom, in the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum. The numbers were close, but the result is clear: a union that has lasted for 307 years remains together.

What could have been the most significant constitutional crisis Britain has ever seen, has been narrowly avoided. Worries over the stability of the pound, which had fallen over the past couple of weeks, have been squashed.

There is a slight sense of disappointment after the rabble and excitement of the past few weeks, but what happens now is also unclear. Scotland, although remaining part of the United Kingdom, has expressed its desire for more power. And in an attempt to mitigate the "yes" voters, Prime Minister David Cameron gave the Scots a cocktail of promises.

Further uncertainty also spreads into the shipping and offshore industry. Many will be breathing a sigh of relief at the result of the vote, but the issue of tax devolution to Scotland is still afloat and what effect that would have on the maritime sector remains unclear.

This week's Friday Flyer is sponsored by the Port of Vancouver, USA, which offers superior shipping solutions between Asia and North America. The port offers a dedicated project cargo berth, as well as Liebherr mobile harbour cranes, and specialises in breakbulk, heavy lift and project cargoes.

In business
UTC Overseas and Almajdouie Logistics Company signed an exclusive agency joint venture agreement.

Arkon Shipping and Best Logistics established a new shuttle service for heavy lift and general cargo: Baltic Cargo Shuttle (BCS).

The European Commission's antitrust regulator approved the proposed merger of CSAV's container business with Hapag-Lloyd.

The Port of Virgina's Portsmouth Marine Terminal (PMT), which has been closed for nearly three years, reopened to cargo operations. The port also handled 214,335 teus in August, setting its all-time high for teu volume handled in a single month.

Elsewhere, container shipments at the Port of Long Beach declined by 9.1 percent year-on-year in August at 573,083 teus.

Capacity developments
Karl Scholl took delivery of a new 300-tonne capacity Liebherr LTM 1300-6.2 mobile crane.

ALE has taken delivery of a new fleet of Goldhofer widening trailers, which can react to Australia's road regulations.

Rice Lake Weighing Systems revealed its iDimension system that can instantly calculate the shape of boxes and irregular shapes.

Rickmers Shipmanagement signed up to use ShipServ's offering of e-procurement decision support tools.

Cargolux introduced a second flight connecting Luxembourg with Beijing and Xiamen.

Ferus Smit shipyard delivered the multipurpose vessel Roerborg to Royal Wagenborg.

The Port of Cleveland and Spliethoff Group are to add a second monthly vessel to the Cleveland-Europe-Express ocean service.

     
Shipments of the week
ALE used its AL.SK190 crane to install a 1,538-tonne accommodation module and a 702-tonne service module on a Petrobras FPSO unit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (pictured top right).

Blue Water Shipping has delivered the first of four tunnel boring machines from a factory in Shenyang, China to Australia for Sydney's North West Rail Link project (pictured second right).

Ruslan International delivered 75 tonnes of coil-tubing equipment for the oil and gas industry from London Stansted to Adelaide on board an AN-124 freighter.

Fricke-Schmidbauer Schwerlast used a Terex CC 2400-1 lattice boom crawler crane to move two dismantled ladle handling overhead cranes at a steel mill in Germany (pictured bottom right).

Other notable projects reported by HLPFI this week can be seen on the archive news area of our website. Got some shipment news of your own? Send it in to editorial@heavyliftpfi.com

Capital projects and contracts
Have you got your subscription to HLPFI's Capital Projects & Contracts yet?

HLPFI has officially launched HLPFI's Capital Projects & Contracts e-newsletter.

It is now published on a weekly basis, providing an overview of contract awards to EPCs, oil majors, mining and civil engineering companies, energy groups and OEMs, as well as relevant information to the project freight forwarding community.

If you have not subscribed and would like to receive our Capital Projects & Contracts newsletter, please contact David Kershaw - dk@heavyliftpfi.com - to set up a subscription, which will cost you USD825, GBP500 or EUR650 per annum.
    

On the move
DSV opened two new US offices in Phoenix, Arizona and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. John Klekotka (pictured), chief of engineering and planning at the Port of Everett, was appointed to represent public ports on Washington State's Transportation Improvement Board.
 
Network and association developments
The XLProjects (XLP) network welcomed Germany's Trans-Trading GmbH to its roster, while current XLP member in Italy, Lysander Shipping, added its Hamburg office as a representative in Germany. The Project Cargo Network (PCN) added a new member in Pakistan, Waterlink Group of Companies; as well as representation in Slovenia with TransOcean Shipping, which has been a PCN member in Austria since 2011. Yabuki Kaiun has joined the Global Project Logistics Network (GPLN) with its offices in Tokyo, Japan and Shanghai, China. In Namibia, the Pacific Power Logistics (PPL) welcomed Worldnet Logistics to its roster.

All about Evie

Evie was impressed last month by Egypt's ambitious multibillion pound scheme to construct a second Suez Canal channel.

She was, however, less impressed by the country's embarrassing start to its plans, when she picked up one of the postage stamps marking the inauguration of the new canal.

Instead of 145-year old Suez Canal, the stamp depicts an image of another world-famous canal that runs through Panama. Oops.

In other news, Evie congratulates the Air Charter Service teams that raised more than GBP4,000 (USD6,500) for charity by taking part in the Nuts Challenge assault course. Good work!