Business Shipping

More berth facilities in Colombo Port to raise productivity

Hiran H. Senewiratne

The state-owned container terminal in Colombo Port unveiled plans to add berths for feeder vessels in a bid to raise productivity and reduce congestion as the volume of cargo increases and navigation restrictions intensify.

The Cabinet paper will be submitted for this purpose within two weeks to get approval to convert berths to multi purpose berths, Director (Port Operations) Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) U. Bopitiya said.

This comes as the northern entrance to Colombo port is currently closed to ward off Tamil Tiger attacks, which has resulted in having only one navigation channel being opened to traffic, which has led to congestion, longer waiting times, and rising costs.

The SLPA will develop four feeder berths for the smaller regional container vessels that call at the port for transhipment to South Asia via Colombo. Bopitiya said this is an interim measure to ease congestion until the planned new mega-port, the South Port of Colombo, is open for business.

Colombo has four deep-water berths at the State-run Jaya Container Terminal, three deep-water berths at the privatised South Asia Gateway Terminals, and two feeder berths at the Unity Container Terminal to serve increasing container trade, reports Lanka Business Online.

The SLPA will use a combination of mobile cranes and top lifters to handle cargo at the planned new berths. Some of the port’s general cargo berths are also expected to be turned which can handle container feeder vessels. This would free up the deep-water berths for the bigger ships of main line operators.

Meanwhile, the construction of breakwater project, the lowest bidder is Hyundai (US$ 360 billion). Other bidders were China Harbour (US$ 620 million) and Hanjin (US $ 710 million). It is learned that technical evaluation has been done and has reported to ADB.

Taiwan-based CNC line makes her maiden call

Maiden call of Taiwan-based CNC Line, owned by the French Group CMA-CGM was made at the Port of

 Colombo recently. This vessel is the first ship of the newly launched SPX service deploying three vessels to cover Singapore-Port Kelang-Colombo-Karachi-Mundra to call Colombo.

On the occasion of the inaugural call of CNC Line to Colombo, Minister of Ports and Aviation Chamal Rajapaksa sent a congratulatory message to welcome and wish the new shipping line all the best.

The on-board function was well attended by top Shipping, Navy, Port, Terminal officials and well wishers. There was a ceremony of plaque exchange with SAR Maritime presenting plaques to SLPA, SAGT and CNC. Similarly SLPA and SAGT presented plaques to CNC (collected by Master of mv Helene Rickmers).

CNC’s takeover by French-based CMA CGM earlier this year kick-started the company’s active expansion of its operations by deploying additional larger ships and starting new service strings.

CNC has embarked upon a major service expansion programme covering intra-Asia trade with four new services launched recently. These are in addition to the existing services covering the China, India, Korea, Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Java trade.

Capt Igal Dafni, CEO of CNC elaborated: ‘Since April, our commercially-operated fleet has increased from 11 vessels to 19 vessels while our estimated liftings in October will be equivalent to 700,000 TEU a year; a 20 per cent increase over last year’s figures.’ On the occasion of the Maiden call of mv Helene Rickmers, Capt Igal Dafni CEO of CNC wished its Agent in Sri Lanka SAR Maritime Agencies all the best and many successes in its endeavors in Sri Lanka.

Colombo South Port construction bids to be entertained

Hiran H. Senewiratne

The Supreme Court had last Wednesday ordered the government to open all four financial bids to build a new container terminal in the new Colombo South Port project, Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) sources said.

The order came after a consortium led by conglomerate John Keells Holdings sought court intervention when their technical bid for the project was rejected.

The financial bids to build and operate the first container terminal in the new deep water port to be built next to Colombo are scheduled to be opened Thursday.

Also on Thursday, the Appeal Court will hear a case filed by Aitken Spence, which has bid for the terminal in partnership with PSA Corp, seeking to block a rival bid by Hutchinson Port Holdings (HPH). HPH and PSA Corp are two of the world’s biggest port operators, SLPA Deputy Chief Manager Communication Nalin Aponso said.

The Supreme Court order indicates that the Cabinet appointed negotiating committee will have to open the bid submitted by the JKH-led consortium that includes South Asia Gateway Terminals which runs Colombo Port’s privatized container terminal, and the holding company of Malaysia’s Westport.

“Dal Reunion” makes maiden call at Colombo

“DAL REUNION” the 2400 TEU Vessel operated by Deutsche Afrika - Linien, the Hamburg - based shipping line, is scheduled to make her maiden call in Colombo this week.

To celebrate the occasion, DAL together with the local agent, Shipping Agency Services hosted their customers and other officials, at a reception. In attendance were Klaus Lahlah, Director of DAL and Gabriele Reiter, Senior Manager.

Addressing the gathering Klaus Lahlah indicated that their service had been well accepted in all the Asian Ports of call, including Colombo.

Having served Europe to Africa trades for over a 100 years, this was the first time that DAL had entered the Asian market and they were well pleased, withe the immediate success experienced by the line. DAL presently runs several very successful container liner services in the South Africa, East Africa, Mediterranean, UK and Continent sectors.

The line owns several fully containerised modern vessels which are deployed in their liner services.

The cornerstone of DAL’s impeccable reputation in the liner trade in Africa and Europe, is the emphasis placed on customer care.

Utmost flexibility and providing reliability through quality is the key to DAL’s growing customer base.

DAL have assured, their customers in Sri Lanka, of the same quality service and reliability that they have been renowned for, in their history spanning a 100 years.

Seagate posts better-than-expected profit and sales

Seagate Technology, the world’s largest maker of hard drives, on Tuesday reported a stronger-than-expected profit for its fiscal first quarter, as demand drove up its sales 18 percent.

Net income for the quarter that ended Sept. 28 grew to $355 million (euro250.88 million), or 64 cents per share, more than 18 times the year-ago period’s earnings of $19 million (euro13.43 million), or 3 cents per share.

Excluding about $30 million (euro21.2 million) of amortization and other charges associated with its acquisitions of Maxtor and EVault, Seagate earned 69 cents per share in the latest period, beating Wall Street’s expectations of adjusted earnings of 64 cents per share, according to poll of analysts by Thomson Financial.

Revenue climbed to $3.29 billion (euro2.33 billion) from $2.79 billion (euro1.97 billion) in the year-earlier quarter. Analysts were projecting revenue of $3.22 billion (euro2.28 billion).

In August, Seagate raised its outlook for the first quarter, due to favorable supply and demand conditions and a better product mix, forecasting profit of 57 cents to 61 cents per share on revenue of $3.15 billion (euro2.23 billion) to $3.25 billion (euro2.3 billion).

The company said it shipped a record 47 million disk drives in the quarter, up 21 percent from the year-ago period.

AP