Comings and Goings

There were a good many arrivals and departures in the Port of Halifax today (March 9), particularly in the lower harbour and southend.

MOL Charisma (see yesterday's post) sailed from the PSA Halifax Gateway, where it had been accommodated instead of its usual berthing at PSA Fairview Cove.

The southend terminal remained busy however with Oceanex Sanderling alongside and with the arrival of MSC Nadriely on MSC's Canada Express 1 service from Montreal for the Mediterranean.

 The ship was built in 1998 by Kvaerner Warnow Werft in Warnemunde and is a 26,029 gt, 33,977 dwt vessel with a capacity of 2468 TEU including 320 reefers. It also carries three 45 tonne SWL cranes.
Laid down as Alicia and delivered as Charlotta it has since carried ten more names: 1998: CGM Gaugin; 2000: CMA CGM Gaugin; 2001: Lykes Traveller; 2001: Alianca Rotterdam; 2002: Columbus Chile; 2004: Alianca Hong Kong; 2006: CCNI Guayas; 2012: Helvetia; 2014: MSC Nadriely.

The ship arrived from Montreal to top up cargo to ocean draft, and interestingly also appears to have taken on bunkers. St.Lawrence draft restrictions are such that ships cannot load to maximum draft in Montreal, which restricts the amount of cargo (or fuel) that the ship can carry. The two fuel trucks that I saw were likely from Quebec (both GHL Transport and Contrans are part of TFI International, which has termainals all over North America, including Quebec) - certainly an unusual situation. It apparently made more sense to send several tonnes of fuel to Halifax by truck in order to maximize cargo out of Montreal.

 

Also arriving in the Ocean Terminals was the Nirint Shipping vessel Gotland with its usual consignment of nickel sulfides from Cuba.

 

 

Gotland is a general purpose / heavy lift ship, configured to carry containers, general and breakbulk. At 12,772 gt, 17,409 dwt the ship has a capacity of 834 TEU including 60 reefers. It also carries three cranes, two of 150 tonnes capacity (and combinable) and one of 80 tonnes capacity.

 

The ship was built in 2011 by the Xinshun Shipyard Group Co Ltd in Yueqing, China as Rickmers Tianjin, one of more than 100 ships in the venerable Rickmers fleet. Dating back to 1834 and the age of sail, the Hamburg based, family owned company failed rather spectacularly in 2017.  However this ship had been previously sold in 2015 to Gotland Schiffahrts GmbH and renamed Gotland.

After unloading in Halifax, the Gotland will sail for Barcelona and Rotterdam before beginning another cycle.

Autoport handled the familiar Siem Aristotle which sailed in the late afternoon, with the Morning Courier arriving shortly after. The latter ship will move to Pier 9C tomorrow to discharge RoRo cargo.

 PSA Fairview Cove was not idle either, with the weekly visitor Nohan Ava loading for Argentia and St-Pierre. Also arriving was the NYK Delphinus on THE Alliance's AL5 service.

 

The 55,487 grt, 65,950 dwt ship dates from 2007 when it was delivered by Hyundai, Ulsan. It has a capacity of 4922 TEU. 

Owners NYK Line are partners in ONE (Ocean Network Express) with MOL and K-Line, but have no plans to rename the ship or to re-paint it in ONE magenta.

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Where the twain shall meet

 "East is east and west is west..." but the twain can meet in Halifax, when the two container terminals, under common PSA management, arrange for two ships to cross tracks. THE Alliance's EC5 service calls in Halifax both eastbound and westbound, and to ensure that there are no delays, the Southend Gateway terminal can take a ship that would normally call at Fairview Cove when that facility is also handling a ship.

Today, March 7 saw the Hyundai Courage arriving on the westbound EC5 run, from Cai Mep, Vietnam (January 29), Singapore (February 1-2), Colombo (February 6-7), Suez (February 15-16), berthing as usual at Fairview Cove.

As presently configured Fairvew Cove can accommodagte only one ship of this size at a time, but can devote its three cranes the ship.  The 95,681 gt, 99,052 dwt Hyundai Courage, built in 2008 by Hyundai HI, Ulsan has a capacity of 8,562 TEU.

When THE Alliance was formed by Hapag-Lloyd, Ocean Network Express (ONE) and Yang Ming, Hyundai Merchant Marine was in poor finanacial shape, and was only allowed provisional membership until it was on sound footing. The South Korean government stepped in to stabilize the company, now known as HMM Co Ltd. It is now a full member of the group and is looking to privatise. The company operates about 26 ships with a dozen on order.

The westbound EC5 ship is MOL Charisma which also arrived this morning, but tied up at Pier 41, where it is difficult to see from the shore.

 The ship is a 86,692 gt, 90,390 dwt vessel with a capacity of 9060 TEU, including 630 reefers. Due to its size, it is just about as large a ship as can be accommodated at Fairview Cove, and depending on its water draft, it might not have clearance under the harbour bridges. On a previous visit in August 2022, it also docked at PSA Halifax Gateway.

MOL Charisma arriving August 30, 2022.

As stated the ship is on the eastbound leg of the EC5 run, from New York (February 17-19), Savannah (February 21-23), Jacksonville (February 24-25), Norfolk March 4-5). Halifax is its last North American stop before heading to Asia via Suez.

PSA Halifax Gateway (Southend terminal) was also handling the 1145 TEU Tropic Hope at Pier 42, using the terminal's smaller cranes.

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Terminal Shift

 As mentioned yesterday PSA Halifax has the option to accept ships at either its South End, Atlantic Hub terminal or at Fairvew Cove. Ships larger than about 10,000 TEU are too big to reach Fairvew Cove due to bridge air draft but many container ships that call in Halifax could be accommodated at either facility. Therefore PSA takes advantage of this flexibility by handling ships where most expedient.

With the 9120 TEU ONE Hangzhou Bay at Fairview Cove (see yesterday), a ship that would normally be handled at Fairview Cove was instead berthed at the South End today (November 8.)

MOL Charisma is on THE Alliance's EC5 Asia / North America service and has previously used Fairvew Cove. Built in 2007 by Mitsubishi HI, Nagasaki, it is a 86,692 gt, 90,390 dwt ship with a capacity of 9060 TEU (including 630 reefers). It was launched as MOL Charisma but delivered as APL France and carried that name until 2010.

Also at the South End today was the MSC Malena from Montreal on the CANEX 2 route. It is in port to top up its cargo to deep sea draft.

Dating from 2000, when it was built by Samsung Heavy Industry's Geoje Shipyard, it is small by current standards at 25,294 gt, 32,350 dwt, with a capacity of 2506 TEU including 420 reefers. It also carries three 45 tonne SWL and one 35 tonne SWL crane. (The fourth crane serves the after deck). Ships of this spec are generally relegated to feeder status these days, but the recent high demand has meant that ships are shifted to odd routes. Delivered as Santa Adriana it was renamed 2000: P+O Nedlloyd Algoa, 2001: MOL Parana, 2002: P+O Nedlloyd Algoa, 2005: Santa Adriana, 2010: EM Athens and 2020: MSC Malena.

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Pax and Box

 The two main "commodities" in the port of Halifax in the autumn of the year are passengers (Pax) and containers (Boxes).  The cruise lines try to avoid the hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean by sailing north to New England and eastern Canada. September and October are usually the busiest months, but the lines seem to be getting off to an early start this year, after two years of shut down.

Container lines usually see an increase in traffic in the early autumn too as retailers stock up for the Christmas buying spree.

Today, August 30, was another "two cruise ship day" with the now familiar Nieuw Statendam arriving from Boston, Portland, ME and Saint John, NB.

The 99,902 gt ship, built in 2017 by Fincantieri, Marghera, can carry 2,666 PAX and 1,053 crew. The Pinnnacle class ship has 1,339 passenger cabins and 589 crew cabins, so sharing is required for a "maximum persons onboard" total of 4,173 souls.

The Nieuw Statendam picked up its pilot at about 0900 hrs, giving the first passenger ship arrival, at 0630 hrs, the Norwegian Pearl, time to tie up, get clearance for passengers to disembark, and to clear the parking areas of a lot of the first armada of buses and taxis. 

Departure times were similarly synchronised with Norwegian Pearl sailing at 1630 for Portland, Maine and Nieuw Statendam sailing at 1930 for Corner Brook, NL.

 The Norwegian Pearl 's cruise also originated in Boston. It then proceeded via Charlottetown, PE and Sydney, NS to Halifax. The 93,530 gt ship was built by Meyer Werft, Papenburg in 2006 and carries 2,394 passengers and 1,099 crew.

As far as the box commodity is concerened much of the activity was concentrated at the southend terminal, PSA Halifax's Atlantic Gateway.

ZIM Monaco embarked its pilot at 0600 hrs and tied up at Pier 42 shortly after 0700. The ship is on ZIM's ZCA (Atlantic) run from the Mediterranean.

It is a 40,030 gt, 50,775 dwt ship built in 2009 by Samsung, Koje, with a capacity of 4,253 TEU.

Pier 41 (the northern portion of Pier C, and with the largest cranes) was left vacant for this afternoon's arrival MOL Charisma a 86,692 gt, 90,390 dwt ship with a capacity of 9060 TEU including 630 reefer plugs. 

Working for THE Alliance's EC5 service, and eastbound, the ship would normally have docked at Fairview Cove. However with the two terminals now under common PSA management, the operators have the option of  berthing ships at the most convenient location. It is possible that the ship's air draft exceeded the harbour bridge clearance requirements, since it did appear lightly loaded (by draft).

It was widely speculated that when PSA took over the operation of Fairview Cove that it would shuffle  the lines with the larger ships to the Southend and those with smaller ships to Fairview Cove. Aside from the occassional "one-of" shifts such as this one, no permanent moves have been detected yet.

MOL Charisma was launched by Mitsubishi, Nagasaki in 2007. It was delivered as APL France and operated with that name until 2010 when it reverted to its orginal name.

Footnote

The Eimskip charter Vantage did indeed sail late this morning after working containers at Pier 42. The ship arrived from Reykjavik on Friday, August 26, ostensibly on the Green Line route to Portland, ME. However the ship moved to Pier 36 where it was idle until this morning. Meanwhile Eimskip's regularly scheduled Green Line ship Skogafoss arrived yesterday, and seems to have picked up some of  Vantage's cargo before sailing to Portland. [See previous posts]

(File photo from Jume 11, 2022)

Eimskip's schedule shows the ship on Green Line service, arriving in Thorshavn, Faroes Islands on September 7, then shifting to the Purple Line service running between the Faroes and Scrabster, in the north of Scotland.

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MOL Maestro - to Fairview Cove

 MOL Maestro arrived this afternoon, June 3, and docked at PSA Fairview Cove. It is on THE Alliance's EC5 service, and is eastbound. Oddly it is the second EC5 eastbound caller this week. The other one, on June 1 (see a previous post) was MOL Charisma, but it docked at PSA Atlantic Hub (south end terminal).

Tugs met the MOL Maestro to escort it through the Narrows to Fairview Cove.

MOL Maestro dates from 2010 when it was delivered by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd, Kobe, and is a 78,316 gt, 79,423 dwt ship with a capacity of 6724 TEU, including 500 reefers.

 

Although MOL Maestro is a sizeable ship, the previous caller was somewhat larger at 86,692 gt, 90,390 dwt, with a capacity of 9060 TEU, including 630 reefers, which may explain why it did not go on to Fairview Cove. PSA is directing larger ships to the southend facility where there are no air daft restrictions and no narrow channels. In addition, today the Atlantic Hub had other ships scheduled, namely Oceanex Avalon And the ZIM feeder Contship Leo which would have been using most of the cranes.

 

MOL Maestro lines up for the Narrows after working is way past harbour ferries and tourist craft. Tethered escort Atlantic Oak trailed astern on a long line for braking and steering. Atlantic Fir was working forward.

 

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CMA CGM Montreal and MOL at ther Atlantic Hub

 1. New for CMA CGM at PSA Halifax Atlantic Hub

As reported yesterday, the joint Maersk and CMA CGM North Atlantic service CAE / St-Laurent 1 is replacing older ships with newer ones. The first of the newer ships CMA CGM Montreal, arrived today, June 1, from Montreal en route to Bremerhaven.

 

The ship greeted Halifax with a big "burp" of black smoke as it approached PSA Halifax Atlantic Hub.

 The ship was greeted with much hype when it arrived in Montreal on May 25. It was then noted that it has "better fuel efficiency" , provides "extra capacity", etc., I wonder how a 15 year old ship that is smaller than the usual ships on the route can live up to that - and who will keep score.

It was built in 2007 by the little known Naikai Zosen, Sedota, Japan as Hanjin Ningbo and became Ryujin Nakara in 2106 and Irenes Rose in 2018. In March of this year it was renamed CMA CGM Montreal. A 27,104 gt, 33,632 dwt ship it is rated at 2553 TEU including 250 reefers (considerably short of the 2800 to 3100 TEU ships it replaces.)

 The ship is actually owned by CMA CGM SA The French Line, but is managed by Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, and flies the flag of Malta.

A quick look at the ship's deck load showed one lonely CMA CGM box peaking out of one stack, but lots of Maersk and Hamburg-Sud (owned by Maersk) boxes amidst the "no-names" and rentals. The ship also showed lots of freshly painted boot topping, suggesting a light load due to the imbalance of eastbound North Atlantic cargo, and St.Lawrence River draft restrictions. Five high stacks therefore suggest lots of empties.

(In the photo above the navy tug Glenevis is scooting past on its way inbound to HMC Dockayrd, and was not involved in the arrival of this ship.)

2. Also docked at PSA Halifax, Atlantic Hub this morning was MOL Charisma on THE Alliance's EC5 service.

It was built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industies Ltd in Nagasaki in 2007 and is registered at 86,692 gt, 90,390 dwt, with a capacity of 9060 TEU, including 630 reefers. Delivered as MOL Charisma it was renamed APL France from 2007 to 2010 before returning to its orginal and current name.

Ships of THE Alliance have traditionally called at Fairview Cove,  but now that PSA operates both container terminals in Halifax, the larger ships will be worked at the Atlantic Hub southend terminal. It is also expected that lines using smaller ships will eventually move to Fairview Cove.

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New Face for MSC

 Despite having purchased scores of ships in recent months, the Mediterranean Shipping Company still has ships under charter (with non-MSC names). One such ship, named America, arrived today May 31 on the company's Indus 2 service from North India.

The large Cyprus based ship chartering company Danaos Corp, with a fleet of 71 ships at latest count, manages the America for Oceansprize Navigation Ltd. The ship was built in 2004 as CSCL America by Samsung, Koje, and is registered at 90,645 gt, 107,749 dwt with a capacity of 8468 TEU including 700 reefers. 

The ship was renamed MSC Baltic from 2007 to 2009 then CSCL America again until 2018 when it became simply, America.

Also Noted:

While the America was inbound, another ship was noted at anchor offshore. MOL Charisma is due tomorrow, June 1, on THE Alliance's EC5 service. It will be docking at PSA Atlantic Hub Pier 42, rather than the usual PSA Fairview Cove. Now under common management, the two terminals are relocating services to rationalize operations.

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The Switch

 When PSA took over the lease on the Fairview Cove container terminal recently it was expected that certain rationalizations would occur.

 

Some Lines that had been using the Fairview Cove terminal are expected to move to the PSA Halifax / South End, Atlantic Hub terminal and vice versa. There are a number of reasons for this, including faster cargo handling for large ships with more and better cranes at the South End, and reduction of truck traffic through downtown. Smaller ships could be equally well handled at Fairview, and would not be concerned with bridge clearance issues. There are virtually no restrictions at the South End, and even ships larger then the current record holder 16,000 TEU size can be accommodated..
 

Yesterday's [see May 12 ] caller at Fairview Cove, the MSC Sao Paulo was the first of those changes. En route to Montreal, it was in port for only a short time, and offloaded a few containers to reduce draft. It could be handled just as effectively at Fairview since it did not need extra large cranes, and it was small enough to transit the Narrows with ease. These top off and decant visits by MSC are now expected to be served by Fairview.

Today, May 13,  the "other shoe" dropped as you might say, as THE Alliance's MOL Charisma on the EC5 service, docked at The Atlantic Hub / South End terminal. Both THEA services, EC 5 and AL5 have until now used Fairview Cove. (Occasional shifts were accommodated.)

MOL ships are noted for their blue hulls, and the MOL Charisma  is no exception - in fact it appears to be in pristine condition, hinting at a recent shipyard visit.

Built in 2007 by Mitsubishi Heavy Inustries, Nagasaki, it is an 86,692 gt, 90,390 dwt vessel with a capacity of 9060 TEU including 630 reefers. It would have been nearly the maximum size that could access Fairview Cove, but can be handled with ease at the Hub. (The ship did anchor until mid-afternoon, but this was likely for CFIA invasive species inspection, rather than this morning's thick fog.) Launched as MOL Charisma it was immediately renamed APL France for a charter until 2010 when it reverted to its original and present name. Now on the EC5 route, its last port was Colombo, Sri Lanka.

While the MOL Charisma was docking the NYK Meteor arrived from Antwerp on the AL5 service and headed for Fairview Cove.

 Another of the twelve ship Daedalus class, it was built in 2007 by Hyundai, Ulsan, and at 55,534 gt, 65,935 dwt, has a capacity of 4922 TEU. The benefit of two terminals under common management was immediately obvious as this ship would have had to wait at anchor had the MOL Charisma been alongside Fairview Cove.

It may also be that strict assignment to one terminal or the other will be eliminated, and ships will be handled at the first available berth. This may cause headaches for railroads, trucks and cargo planners in the terminals, as considerable advance notice of berthing is needed, particularly for exports.

Both terminals are owned by the Halifax Port Autority, a federal crown corporation, and are operated under lease by PSA. PSA owns the cargo handling equipment within the terminals, and some supplier/contractors, such as reefer maintainers, also have facilities within the terminals.

 

The next step in the rationalization process will be to move some of the smaller lines from the South End Hub to Fairview. Oceanex, Tropical and Maersk /CMA CGM Canada Atlantic Express are all expected to make the move at some point. Whether or not these are "permanent" remains to be seen. The South End is about to embark on another expansion of ground space and rail lines. That is a multi-year process however, during which there may be disruptions. When it is completed in five years or so the shipping "landscape" may have changed considerably.
 

Long range planning for the Port is underway, and several major issues will be under consideration. Rising sea levels and autonomous vehicles (including trains) are among the big elephants in the room, but there are many others including a new bridge (or two) and further port expansion, such as a third terminal (in Dartmouth). Enough parentheses already.

The advantage of crown corporations is that they can see beyond the five year lifespan of current governments. So the pressure is on this particular corporation to stay ahead.

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