Friday Action

 Fridays are often busy in the port of Halifax with ships arriving and sailing at the end of the work week. (The container terminals accept truck arrivals Monday to Friday only).  Today, June 14, was no exception with four container ship arrivals and four container ship departures,

The first arrival was the CMA CGM Chile an Argentina class 149,314 gt, 157,076 dwt ship with a capacity of 15,072 TEU. It was built by Hyundai Samho in 2019 and has been calling for the OCEAN Alliance since new. On this trip it departed Colombo on May 14 and sailed via the Cape of Good Hope to Tanger Med, Morocco arriving June 6 and sailing June 7. Most container ships continue to avoid the Red Sea and Suez Canal due to risk of attack.

CMA CGM Chile beneath the mountain of containers at Pier 41.

Also at PSA Atlantic Gateway was the Silver Arctic, a ship at the other end of the size scale, berthed at Pier 42. A short term charter for TSMI, it is filling in while the regular ship, the Nolhan Ava has been in refit in Setubal, Portugal. That ship is now on its way back to North America and is due in Argentia June 18 to resume its weekly Halifax / St-Pierre / Argentia container and RoRo service.

The Silver Arctic is operated for the Silver Line of Bergen, Norway under the Norwegian International registry by Fjord Shipping AS of Mäloy. It was launched in 2010, but was not completed in 2012 when the builders Shipyard P+S Werften went bankrupt. Construction was transferred to Remontowa Shipbuilding in Gdansk, Poland in 2013 but there was further delay in 2018 when the original owners, Royal Arctic Line, refused acceptance. It was then sold to Fjord and completed in 2021. It is a 3162 gt, 2700 dwt ship with a capacity of 111 TEU (59 on deck) including 80 reefers (28 on deck) and carries one 25 tonne and one 45 tonne SWL crane. (It has no RoRo capability however.) 

Its first sailing from Halifax for TSMI was April 5 and was expected to cover the route for six to eight weeks. The ship operates regularly to Antarctica and Greenland, so will likely be headed home at the end of the charter in time for arctic work.

Not long after Silver Arctic sailed, the MSC Lisa arrived from Montreal on the CANEX2 route, and took up the vacated berth 42.

 

 Hanjin Heavy Industry and Construction Co built the MSC Lisa in Busan in 2004. The 54,304 gt, 68,578 dwt ship has a capacity of 5059 TEU. It arrived loaded to St.Lawrence River draft, and will top up cargo to ocean draft.

The ship's arrival was coordinated with the departure of the ZIM Atlantic from PSA Fairview Cove so that the two ships met just off the Southend Container Terminal after the MSC Lisa had completed its turn and backed in to Pier 42 leaving the main channel clear.

 

There is a lot more room between the two ships than it appears in this photo, so a pleasure craft could speed though in relative safety.

ZIM Atlantic is running on the ZIM Container Atlantic (ZCA) service from the Mediterranean. Its hull paint still has a glossy appearance, indicating that its recent survey and drydocking in May included new paint. 

When the ship arrived in Halifax the first time September 23, 2023 it still carried the blue hull paint of its previous owners.

 The ship was launched in 2009 by Hyundai Heavy Industry Co Ltd in Ulsan as the CPO Richmond for the Claus-Peter Offen company of Hamburg, however it was delivered with the name Cap Harvey for charter to Hamburg-Süd and carried that company's traditional red hull paint.

In 2017 the ship moved to CMB NV ownership (Cie Maritime Belge) and was managed by their wholly owned subsidiary Bocimar.  It then acquired blue hull paint and was renamed Heron Hunter. In late 2021 the ship was sold again this time to direct ownership by ZIM with Hammonia Reederei of Hamburg, as managers. (Hammonia manages several other ZIM ships too.) The renaming to ZIM Atlantic was effective January 1, 2022, but the hull was not repainted at once. 

Other container ship activity not detailed above was the early morning departure of the ZIM feeder Pacific Trader and the weekly Oceanex Sanderling container  / RoRo to St. John's.Boh are familiar sights in Halifax and have been covered here before.

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Still more bulk and container swap

Bulkers

 There was another bulk carrier arrival this morning, January 13, but this one was more typical for Halifax than yesterday's bulkers [see previous post]. The Algoma Integrity is in from Jacksonville for Gold Bond to load gypsum.

The Algoma Integrity is passing the A. Murray MacKay bridge inbound to the Gold Bond dock in Bedford Basin with a tethered stern escort tug, the Atlantic Fir.

 The Algoma Integrity was built in 2009 by EISA- Ilha in Rio de Janeiro for Gypsum Transportation as the Gypsum Integrity. The 33,047 gt, 47,761 dwt ship was meant to service the export facilities in Hantsport and Little Narrows, NS. When parent company United States Gypsum shut down their Canadian mining operations in 2010 the ship and its sister Gypsum Centennial worked globally for Beltship Management. Algoma Central Corp acquired and renamed the Gypsum Integrity in 2015 while CSL acquired the Gypsum Centennial in 2015 and renamed it CSL Frontier. Both ships went to work in the CSL Americas self-unloader pool.

The gravity fed self-unloader system on the ship discharges gypsum at a rate of 2500 metric tonnes per hour, and uses a boom with a 61 meter outreach at 90 degrees from the ship to position the cargo on shore.

As Algoma Integrity made its way to the dock, a more traditional gearless bulk carrier lay at anchor in Bedford Basin. The JY Lake arrived from the Mississippi River grain port of Romeville, LA, yesterday afternoon (January 12).

A very thin skim of ice has formed along the Rockingham shore where the water is calm and is approximately fresh. A small CCG boat did some unofficial high speed icebreaking but the rest of the ice will be gone by tomorrow as a wind and rain storm passes through tonight, with temperatures well above zero C.

The JY Lake dates from 2019 when it was completed by the Changxi Shipyard in Jiangyin, China. The gearless ship measures 45,968 gt 81,146 dwt. It is en route to Rotterdam, and is expected to sail over night. 

No particular reason was given for the ship's visit, but a launch did visit the ship, possibly with a repair technician.

 Container Swap

ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Ltd operates two services from Halifax. Its "big ship" service is called ZCA: ZIM Container Atlantic and its "small ship" feeder service is CGX: Central America Gulf Express.

One of the ships serving the ZCA is the familiarly named ZIM Iberia (the second of the name in ZIM's history. The first, built in 1997, was scrapped in 2015 - see post dated November 23, 2015).

Zim Iberia in the Narrows with the tethered escort Atlantic Cedar. 

(The tug Atlantic Cedar is usually based in Saint John, with the Atlantic Larch, but both are exchanging places temporarily as Atlantic Bear and Atlantic Beaver are working in Saint John.)

The current Zim Iberia acquired the name in 2022, but was built in 2009 by Jiangsu New Yangzijiang in Jiangyin. It was delivered as Rudolf Schepers and in 2017 became the Arkas Afrika then in 2018 Als Juno. The 40,541 gt, 50,300 dwt ship has a capacity of 4253 TEU including 698 reefers. Its Mediterranean / East Coast North America service calls in Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Greece Italy and Spain en route to Halifax. It then calls at New York, Norfolk, and Savannah before heading eastbound again.

 Today at the PSA Fairview Cove terminal, the ZIM Iberia joined the Pacific Trader one of five ships (along with the Annie B and Contship Leo, Contship Pep and Contship Art) on the CGX - Central America Gulf Express feeder service. The Pacific Trader began calling in Halifax November 17, 2023 on the newly revised CGX, which includes the former CFX - Canada Feeder Express.

The CGX links Halifax with New York, Kingston, Jamaica, Houston and Caribbean ports of Altamira, Mexico, Santo Tomas De Castilla, Guatemala and Puerto Cortes, Honduras.

ZIM does a substantial reefer business on both routes, and their white boxes are much in evidence on the Pacific Trader and on the dock. Hapag-Lloyd has a "slot charter" or other such arrangement with ZIM for space on the ZCA route, and orange H-L boxes are easy to see on the ZIM Iberia.

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ZIM feeder

 ZIM's feeder service to New York and Kingston, Jamaica, called CFX (Canada Feeder Express) has apparently been combined with another feeder service the Central America Gulf Express (CGX) which includes calls in Kingston, Houston and Altamira, Mexico. The recent callers on the CFX, the Contship Leo and Contship Pep have extended their trips to the Gulf of Mexico and today's arrival (November 17), the Pacific Trader was listed for CGX, arriving from Altamira (October 30 - November 2), Kingston (November 8-9) and New York (November 14-15).

Built as the Pacific Trader in 2008 by Jinling Shipyard in Nanjing, the 9957 gt, 13,760 dwt ship has a capacity of 1118 TEU and carried tow 45 tonne SWL cranes. (The cranes are extended over side to clear the shore cranes as the ship works cargo at PSA Fairview Cove.) The ship carried the name Mell Semakau from 2010 to 2012.

Combining the two feeder services is likely a way of better utilizing the ships. After couple of boom years, shipping lines are being forced to tighten their belts again, with some shipping rates in free fall and charter rates for ships diving.

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