DURING the first nine months, the ports of the southern Guangdong province lifted 35.4 million TEU, up 4.4 per cent year on year, reported Xinhua.

Guangdong ports handled one billion tonnes of freight overall, up 5.2 per cent. Foreign trade cargo increased 8.8 per cent to 356 million tonnes. Domestic trade cargo grew 3.4 per cent to 648 million tonnes.



Statistics also show that Guangdong's port throughput recovered in September with a growth of 10 per cent in container volume and 7.4 per cent in overall tonnage.

MAJOR container terminals in the New York-Jersey harbour were to be up and running Tuesday after being shut down by Hurricane Sandy, which closed the port and blacked out much of the city.

"The container terminals at the Port of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) will be open for business November 5," said the port authority website.



Norfolk Southern and CSX railways were again moving trains into and out of ExpressRail Elizabeth Facility.



The port authority has completed surveys of all berths in Port Jersey, Port Newark and Elizabeth. All berths at these facilities are free of obstruction, said the PANYNJ statement.



The following terminals were to be open from 7am EST on November 5, including APM Terminals, Global Container Terminal, Maher Terminal, New York Container Terminal, Port Newark Container Terminal though the Red Hook Container Terminal in Brooklyn will open an hour later at 8am.



Also, the port authority warned that the Red Hook Container Terminal Port Newark will be closed until further notice, said the PANYNJ statement.



"Port authority staff and engineers remain on site at all port authority facilities to inspect conditions, assess damage, and perform repair work. Our primary goal is to ensure the safety of our workers and those who use our facilities. We will resume operations at our facilities as quickly as possible consistent with safe operations," the agency said.



Some container lines are changing rotations, diverting cargo to other ports, reported American Shipper. Companies with storm-related announcements on their websites are "K" Line, MOL, NYK, OOCL, Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, Evergreen, APL, Hyundai, Hanjin, Zim, Horizon and Crowley.



Several containerships are known to have diverted to other east coast ports that were not as badly hit by the storm, but some ships were still anchored in the roads awaiting further orders.



Last Thursday, the port said it was opened to tug and barge traffic carrying petroleum products and said the Kill Van Kull, the waterway between Staten Island and Bayonne that leads to Newark Bay, was also open. Staten Island shores were heavily damaged by tidal surges.



The New Jersey shoreline of the Arthur Kill has long been home to a large number of refineries, chemicals factories, and tank terminals and is known as the Chemical Coast.

EASTERN Canada's Port of Halifax has tripled throughput with cargo diverted from US ports in the wake of damage from Hurricane Sandy.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has closed the port as berths were rendered useless through power outages or destruction from the storm, reported the CBC News.



"Normally we don't stack containers in this part of the yard over here and as you can see that's quite full at the moment now," said Halterm container port CEO Ashley Dinning said.



"To avoid ships bunching up in New York waiting for the port to open, our biggest customer here at Halterm decided to discharge not only the Halifax cargo but also the New York cargo. We've even brought some people out of retirement to do some work," he said.



Cruise ships have also shown up in the region, with the last one leaving Saint John, New Brunswick on Friday. Natalie Kenrick, of the Halifax Port Authority, said three others docked in Halifax earlier this week to avoid running into bad weather.



"So that represented about 3,000 additional passengers that weren't scheduled to come to the city," she said.

FANGCHENG Port, in southeast China's Guangxi Autonomous Region, is expected to see cargo throughput to exceed the 100-million tonne mark by the end of the year, Xinhua reports.

From January to September, the port's container throughput grew 6.82 per cent year on year to 205,500 TEU. Its overall cargo volume went up 11.8 per cent to 72.32 million tonnes.



In 2011, the port handled 90.23 million tonnes of cargo with a capacity of 74.06 million tonnes.

DOMESTIC automotive exports via western China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region increased 59.4 per cent year on year in the first nine months of 2012 to 17,600 vehicles valued at US$710 million, up 57.6 per cent in dollar volume, reports Xinhua.

Customs statistics show the cars exported via Xinjiang were mainly trucks most going to Central Asian countries, chiefly Kazakhstan, the largest export market.



Increase of automotive exports volume is mainly due to high quality of domestic trucks and the competitive price, which meet the needs of central Asian countries, said the report.

WUHAN, Central Chinas' metropolis, has started a new direct rail freight service to Pardubice, 60 kilometres east of Prague in the Czech Republic, reports Xinhua.

The first run of service carried 50 FEU of electronic products worth a total of US$5 million from Wuhan's Wujiashan Railway Container Terminal. The train is expected to arrive in the Czech Republic in 23 days, passing Shanxi province's Ankang, Xian, Gansu's Lanzhou and Xinjiang's Urumqi, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland.



The train service enjoys one-stop customs clearance service. Cargo will be inspected at Wuhan and undergo fast clearance at the border checkpoint at Xinjiang's Alashankou city. Operator of the service, China Railway International Multimodal Transport Co Ltd (CRIMT), will coordinate with customs of the countries along the route to ensure high clearance efficiency.



The new service is said to be able to provide a more convenient transportation channel for the imports of Europe-made electro-machinery, automobile and parts, engineering equipment and medical products.

CAUSES of explosion and fire aboard the 6,750-TEU MSC Flaminia mid-Atlantic last July remain a mystery at Wilhelmshaven with some underwriters refusing to go through with a General Average before their cargo is unloaded and inspected, reports London's Containerisation International.

The ship, with its No 4 hold still smouldering from the explosion which killed three seamen and injured two others, was allowed to dock at the new German port of Wilhelmshaven in September.



It has been alleged - since denied by MSC - that the ship was carrying containers of the combustible bleaching agent calcium hypochlorite.



After a fire onboard the 8,194-TEU Charlotte Maersk in July 2010, Maersk Line banned the carriage of the chemical - UNNO 2880, UNNO 1748, UNNO 2208, UNNO 1479 - which is used as a shock treatment in the maintenance of swimming pools, said the report.

JAPAN's Yusen Logistics has posted a 24.7 per cent year-on-year fall in net profit for the first half of its financial 2012 to JPY1.35 billion, drawn on revenues of JPY161.82 billion, up 5.5 per cent.

The company attributed the decline to the global economic slowdown and revised its forecast for the full year, ending March 2013, to a 13 per cent net profit drop to JPY2.2 billion.



Operating profit declined 51.3 per cent year on year in the first half of FY2012 to JPY1.24 billion.

THE Finnish Port of Rauma, 200 miles north west of Helsinki, handled 187,994 TEU in the first nine months of the year, an increase of 16.3 per cent compared to the same period last year.

From January to September, the facility handled 181,096 TEU in foreign trade, up 14.7 per cent year on year, while domestic traffic soared 81 per cent to 6,898 TEU in the nine-month period.



Despite the rising container volumes and the 14 per cent rise in ro-ro business (handling 2,212 trailers), the port's total turnover decreased by 3.1 per cent year on year to 4.51 million tonnes, reports Gdynia's Baltic Transport Journal.



While exports increased by 1.5 per cent to 3.02 million tonnes, imports went down by 10.2 per cent to 1.41 million tonnes and domestic traffic plunging 27.8 per cent to 82,000 tonnes. However, the port recorded a phenomenal growth in the total tonnage of coal handled, which sky-rocketed by more than 7,240 per cent to 14,028 tonnes.

CARGOTEC has received a large order to deliver MacGregor RoRo cargo access equipment for four 45,000 dwt container/ro-ro vessels from Italian container shipping specialist, Ignazio Messina & C.

The ships will be built at the STX Jinhae shipyard in Korea and the equipment is scheduled for delivery between the last quarter of 2013 and the second quarter of 2014. Each ship set includes a quarter ramp, stern door, ramp covers and doors, division doors and a power pack, a company statement said.



"Ro-ro equipment is an integral part of a vessel's cargo-handling capability," says Magnus Sjoberg, sales director for RoRo ships. "Involving Cargotec at an early stage enables us to use our experience to design the most efficient, safe cargo handling solution in order to maximise the ship's overall efficiency and profitability."

AUSTRALIA's Goodman Group will invest US$75 million to build a logistics park in Liangjiang New Area in central China's Sichuan province, reports Xinhua.

The project covers an area of 200 acres with a total floor area of 110,000 square metres and its construction will be divided to two phases.



It is designed to establish an e-commerce, finance and logistics industrial park with the integrated functions of headquarters office, commodity exhibition, production and distribution, storage and delivery facilities.

GERMANY's Lufthansa Cargo has posted a 61.1 per cent year-on-year operating profit decline to EUR66 million (US$84.7 million) the first nine months of 2012 as revenue fell 9.7 per cent over the same period.

"Ever-growing low cost airlines and carriers from the Middle East are challenging us in our core business segment. Fuel costs remain stubbornly high," said company chairman and CEO Christoph Franz.



The company has also withdrawn its services to Chongqing due to insufficient volumes, despite adding Detroit, Montevideo and Tel Aviv. But no relief is expected from pre-Christmas volumes and the company hope is for a recovery to be achieved mid-2013.



Another problem has been the night-flight ban at Frankfurt Airport which worsened the impact of a weakening international market with cargo volumes falling 8.9 per cent, noted UK's Transport Intelligence.



Asia Pacific saw a 12.9 per cent drop in volume while tonne-kilometre revenue fell 11.3 per cent, though rate stability was regained through an aggressive reduction in capacity, with available tonne kilometres falling 7.9 per cent.



London's Loadstar reported $5.20 per kilo from Shanghai to the US, attributing the increase to product launches in the consumer electronics sector which in turn have driven load factors.

ETIHAD Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, has announced that it will offer codeshare services to Hong Kong starting in February 2013 in partnership with Air Seychelles subject to regulatory approval.

The thrice weekly return services between Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong will be operated by the airline's equity and codeshare partner, Air Seychelles, in which it has a 40 per cent stake. The service will be operated by an Airbus A330-200.



The new codeshare expands Etihad Airways' network in Greater China, following the launch of services to Beijing in March 2008, and to Chengdu in December 2011 as well as Shanghai in March.



"Hong Kong's fast growing economy and booming middle class have brought a remarkable increase in the number of travellers in recent years," said Etihad Airways president and CEO James Hogan.



"The new service connects two of the world's leading international financial and tourism centres, a move we believe will stimulate the growth of commerce and trade between the UAE and China, the UAE's second largest trading partner."



Said Air Seychelles CEO Cramer Ball: "We see Hong Kong as a significant driver for future tourism growth in the Seychelles, so we are positioning Air Seychelles to seize the opportunity and support this vital market."



The flight schedule will connect Abu Dhabi, to key destinations across the GCC and to key destinations in Europe including the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Ireland. The schedule also allows two-way connectivity between Hong Kong and the Seychelles.



Etihad Cargo, a division of Etihad Airways, currently operates three times weekly service from its hub at Abu Dhabi to Hong Kong.



The Abu Dhabi-Hong Kong schedule in local time is Flight HM86 departs Abu at 2120 hours and arrives in Hong Kong at 0840 +1 hours on Tuesdays Thursdays and Sundays.



Flight EY4121 (HM87) departs Hong Kong at 1800 hours and arrives in Abu Dhabi at 2330 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

IN the first airliner crash test since 1984, California aviation experts deliberately crashed a Boeing 727 into a Mexican dry lake bed in the interests of providing footage for the Discovery channel and to learn what could be learned in the interests of aviation safety.

Broken Wing CEO Chip Shanle, who provides aviation expertise to the film industry, was asked to purchase an airliner, design a remote control system to operate it, and then crash it, reports the California Ventura County Star.



At that stage, the project was part of an episode of "Curiosity" on the Discovery Channel. It was the first time a plane was crash-tested since 1984, when NASA attempted it with mixed results, according to the network.



Creators hoped to create "a serious but survivable crash landing," allowing experts to study how the plane would handle such an impact and its effects on passengers, according to the network. Results could be studied for years and possibly inform safety experts.



They found a suitable aircraft in a storage facility in Ardmore, Oklahoma, and paid US$449,000, then flew it to San Bernardino where it was made more airworthy ahead of the Mexican experiment.



"It was a dry lake bed. There was nothing on it, just dirt. And it was ringed by mountains," said Mr Shanle.



The plane had to be controlled remotely during the crash descent. Until then, a pilot would fly it. The plane would be flown with only two of three engines, both on low power so it couldn't climb. Even if everything failed, the plane wouldn't make it out of the range, Mr Shanle said.



Once the plane was in position the 727's pilot climbed out of the cockpit and parachuted out. Three minutes later, the airliner crashed into the dry lakebed, sending up a plume of dirt and wreckage. Its cockpit buckled as a wave of debris rushed through the inside of the cabin.