MSC for Fairview and No Moth

 1.   With the rationalization of services underway, PSA Halifax is shifting some traffic from the southend PSA Atlantic Hub terminal to PSA Fairview Cove. The top off /drop off of containers for MSC ships using the St.Lawrence River is one of the functions to be moved. Those ships do not require the big cranes at the southend nor do they have airdraft issues with the  bridges, since they are (relatively) smaller ships.

Today's arival is MSC Donata on the CanEx 1 service from the Mediterranean. After off-loading enough cargo to reduce draft to St.Lawrence River requirements the ship will sail to Montreal. The ship was here on March 20 of this year when it docked at PSA Atlantic Hub, (southend terminal).

2.  An interesting caller occupied an inner anchorage for a short time this morning. The Panama flag Eagle arrived at anchor off Halifax yesterday, but waited until this morning to enter port for CFIA inspection.

It then followed the Oasis of the Seas and proceeded to the inner harbour. It did not take long to be inspected and cleared to sail.

The ship was built in 2001 by Shikoku, Takamatsu, Japan and is a smallish bulk carrier of 11,194 gt, 18,320 dwt, fitted with three cargo cranes.  It sailed orginally as Auguste Oldendorff and was renamed Beagle VI in 2006 and Eagle in 2019. Its funnel mark, represents the Piraeus based Beatrix Enterprises and shows a letter "B" in reverse joined to a letter "E". This is very similar to the "OE" it would have carried as an Oldendorff ship.

The Eagle is headed for Montreal where it is due to be inspected for compliance with St.Lawrence Seaway regulations and will then procced to Hamilton, ON. (It may require installation of certain equipment as a first time user of the Seaway.)

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Links in the Supply Chain

Much is written these days about the supply chain and current and potential future disruptions. Two important links in the chain are ships and trains, and the two meet in Halifax - but perhaps not always in obvious ways.

It is pretty hard to miss the "ships" part as they arrive and depart almost constantly. The Mediterranean Shipping Company, MSC, is one of the most frequent callers with several of its lines calling here. Today, March 20, it was the Canada Express 1 service from Italy, Malta and Portugal, represented by MSC Donata. 

The ship is en route to Montreal and has stopped in Halifax to offload some cargo to reduce the ship's draft for the St.Lawrence River. MSC Donata dates from 2002 when it was built by Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries Co Ltd, South Korea. It is a 40,108 gt vessel of 52,806 dwt with a capacity of 4132 TEU and is fitted with 500 reefer plugs.

As befits the eve of first day of spring and the last day of March Break, Point Pleasant Park was full of people, most apparently oblivious to the fact that a lot of what they consume is carried by the ships passing nearby.

Containers from ships are transported to their landside destinations by truck or train. In the case of Halifax those trains are operated by the Canadian National Railway (CNR). The trains run on steel rails which take a considerable beating from heavy trains and eventually need replacement. New rails are  manufactured in Poland and arrive by ship as in today's arrival of Onego Neva.

The ship's hull was built in 2008 by Damen Yichang, in China, and completed by Damen Gorinchem, in the Netherlands. First named Leandra it was renamed Thorco Cobra in 2014, Marmindoro in 2016 and Onego Neva in 2018. The ship is operated by the Tom Worden company from Germany, on charter to Onego Shipping + Chartering of the Netherlands. The only connection with Russia seems to be in the ship's name. The river Neva is located in Russia and flows through St.Peterburg on its way to the Gulf of Finland.

The ship is a 7878 gt, 11,121 dwt multi-purpose, open hatch type, with portable tween decks and two 80 tonne capacity cranes that can combine for a 150 tonne lift. Its cargo of rails will be stockpiled in Halifax and sent out to Winnipeg for processing as CN needs them.

Speaking of rails, Canada's other major railroad, the Canadian Pacific (CPR) is shut down due to labour action. The CPR serves the Port of Saint John, NB and it is not yet known if some cargo will be diverted to Halifax. It is partly dependent on the sympathy of other unions. Saint John is also served by CN, which may take up diversions. 

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MSC - makes up for

 It was very quiet at PSA Halifax until late in the day - unusual for a Saturday. The Maersk / CMA CGM North Atlantic service ship Maersk Patras, which would normally have called outbound from Montreal skipped Halifax this week and headed directly for Bremerhaven. Maersk Line previously announced several service changes, bypassing certain ports citing extreme winter weather conditions. (This is the third week in a row with no call in Halifax.)

The CMA CGM Columbus Loop service would also normally have had a ship in port today too, but there was nothing nearby, so perhaps the voyage was blanked. This has also happened with several lines this winter, for a variety of factors including Chinese New Year, lack of available containers in Asia and congestion at several US ports.

The one ship that did arrive at PSA Halifax was MSC Donata en route from Liverpool, UK to Montreal, here to lighter off some cargo to meet St.Lawrence River draft restrictions.

From the appearance of the ship it looks to be loaded to capacity in terms of the number of containers, and is showing a draft of  11.7m. Allowable draft in the Port of Montreal is 10.8m for container ships, but may be somewhat less between Montreal and Quebec City seasonally. Therefore the ship will be offloading a good many boxes to take a meter or so off the draft.

MSC Donata dates from 2002 when it was built by Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries Co Ltd, Yeongam, South Korea. It is a 40,108 gt vessel of 52,806 dwt with a capacity of 4132 TEU and is fitted with 500 reefer plugs.

MSC has scheduled the ship to call in Halifax again next week when it is outbound from Montreal, this time to max out its capacity.

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