Waiting it out - again

The third major storm to sweep through the area in as many weeks has once again disrupted arrivals and sailings. As today brightened up from last night's snow and rain, there was still very high wind and breaking waves in the harbour. Conditions outside are no doubt much worse.

0nce again a Wilhelmsen ship took up a position at pier 9C. Titania is a 2011 product of Daewoo, Okpo. The 74,255 grt, 30,907 dwt ship has a capacity of 7,934 CEU. It is also much larger, by about 1,000 cars,  than the last two Wilhelmsen ships, Tomar and Toscana that waited out weather at pier 9C.

Also at pier9C, Stellaprima unloaded the Multicat Dominion Warrior. See today's Tugfax.

At pier 27  BBC Ganges in from Baie-Comeau for a brief stopover - and no cargo work - is stuck in port until conditions improve outside.

Built in 2010 by Tianjin Xingang it is a 12,974 grt, 16,943 dwt ship has two 250 tonne cranes and one 80 tonne crane. The big cranes can work in tandem for a 500 tonne lift. The ship originally intended to stay in port for only a few hours yesterday.

At the adjacent pier 31 Hollandia had completed unloading nickel from Cuba for Nirint, and is waiting its turn to leave port.

On February 19 in Oranjestad, Aruba, while hoisting a mobile truck crane from its hold a sling parted and the unit was dropped on the tween deck and heavily damaged. Apparently the ship incurred minimal damage, but the truck crane was in a sorry state.

Once again at anchor in the lower harbour Nolhanava is repeating its performance of the past few weeks. On arrival from its St-Pierre et Miquelon run, its normal berth is occupied by Oceanex Sanderling and it will await its time either at anchor or at pier 9B.

The ship was registered in Canada September 1, 2017.  The Canadian registration show its name as Nolhan Ava and that is how it will be shown here. For some reason the ship's registration is still shown in Transport Canada's online listings, but is also shown as closed, and the ship still carries Briidgetown (Barbados) on its stern. I understood that it was moved to Canadian flag to allow it to call in Newfoundland as well as St-Pierre on its weekly trips, but whether this has happened yet I am not sure. I believe it does carry a Canadian crew. 

In Bedford Basin CSL Tacoma is waiting out the weather with its cargo of gypsum bound for the US.

Also at anchor is the tanker Silver Millie Built in 2015 by Hyundai Mipo, Ulsan, it is a typical mid-range (MR) product tanker, of 29,327 grt, 49,642 dwt.

When conditions improve, it will dock at Imperial Oil. Interestingly its last port was Vondeling, Netherlands (within the port of Rotterdam). It is the first foreign tanker at Imperial Oil in several weeks - ever since Algoscotia began shuttling product from Lévis, QC. Prior to that Imperial was getting refined product from the US Gulf.

 Harbour ferries were battling it out against wind and some swell as they maintained their regular schedules.

Woodside I was doing some rolling as it lined up for arrival in Halifax from Woodside.

Craig Blake was doing some splashing on its way to Halifax.

And at Fairview Cove, YM Epress moved under the big cranes to work cargo after Dalian Express had finished. Dalian Express then moved to the east end of the pier to await an improvement in sailing conditions.

Wind driven salt spray in the Narrows almost blots out the Dartmouth shore, despite bright sunshine.

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Disappearing cranes

Both Halifax container terminals are disposing of old, obsolete or broken down container cranes. This is not a positive sign for increasing the port's capacity since neither of the terminals has revealed plans for more cranes.
Clearly something must happen soon or further ship delays and reduction in throughput time will only worsen.

Two of the three large cranes work the YM Express this afternoon at Fairview Cove. Demolition is  underway on one of the older (and much smaller cranes) at the west berth.

Ceres at Fairview Cove, there is now only one berth operational. The west berth has large post-Panamax size cranes, but the terminal needs two working berths (or more) to meet demand. Ships are forced to anchor awaiting availability. Tomorrow the arriving Bayonne Bridge will anchor in the Basin all day until Itea clears the berth.

With lots of room for berth space, the terminal will need more cranes to meet demand.

Fairview needs at a minimum two more cranes, but three would be better, and all need to be able to handle (old) post Panamax ships, since those ships can fit under the bridges and reach Bedford Basin.

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Work is well advanced on the second of three cranes to be dismantled at Halterm.

At Halterm, three obsolete cranes that have not seen service for several years are being scrapped. The first is gone and the second is about half-way down. A fourth crane that has been out of service for months may also be on the list. It served pier 36 and the two ships that regularly call there (it is also a RoRo berth) have not had crane access.

 The 10,062 TEU ZIM Djibouti awaits its turn at Halterm, anchored outside the port limits.

Despite tremendous growth in container traffic this year, both terminals need to work ships without delay, and anchored or waiting ships is not a good sign in the container business.

Halterm needs one more large cranes on the pier 41-42 berth (and another 500 feet or more of berth length) just to meet current needs.


My short term plan for relieving pressure on Halifax street traffic would see at least four if not five lines move from Halterm to Fairveiw Cove, since all use small ships and rely on truck delivery for a high percentage of their cargo. These are:
St-Pierre et Miquelon (containers and RoRo)
Melfi
Maersk / CMA CGM
Tropical
Oceanex (containers and RoRo)

This move would certainly justify a berth extension and new cranes at Fairview, and relieve the pressure on Halterm while necessary enlargement of berths takes place. But quick action is needed, since container cranes cannot be delivered over night. Fairview Cove would also need more land area (which is available) and more rail capacity.

Halterm would still have the large ships traffic from ZIM and CMA CGM  and the ability to use all its cranes to move the containers to trains more quickly and to an inland distribution terminal for transfer to trucks.

I estimate it will take five years (if there is a start today) to expand Halterm to meet demand from these expected larger ships.

This week another 21,000 TEU ship came into service on the Asia Europe run. Once thought to be science fiction, these huge ships are all too common now, and will force the previous behemoths of 10,000 plus size to move to smaller routes. Even ships of 10,000 TEU (the largest yet to call in Halifax) need six to eight cranes to move cargo with any kind of decent speed. If two ships of that size arrive at the same time.....

Six cranes work the 13,092 TEU Hanjin Gold in Hamburg in 2016. 

Three more cranes work the 9,580 TEU CSCL Pusan directly astern.

 
Projections for 2018 are that there will be 78 container ships of over 10,000 TEU delivered new from shipyards. With a world container trade increase expected to be near 5% the new deliveries (allowing for a substantial number of ships to be scrapped) keep supply ahead of demand by less than 1%. Even so, bigger and bigger ships will continue to call in Halifax, and only Halterm will be able to handle them. The pressure they will put on roads will clearly be intolerable unless there is more ship to rail transfer.

A proper multi-modal logistics park is clearly needed, well out of the built up area of Halifax. Since the current rail line is well underutilized, such a facility would serve both container terminals, but in my mind it must start by getting Halterm truck traffic off the streets. Terminal to terminal transfers must also be reduced and that would be accomplished to a certain extent by the shipping line relocations mentioned above.

I hear that heavy negotiations are underway between the Port, the City and CN, and I hope that there will be some announcements soon.

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Sunday traffic and updates

Not a particularly busy day in the port, with no cruise ships in but there was activity.

Work on cleaning the hull of the tanker Endeavour (see yesterday's post) has progressed down the port side and onto the starboard side. The difference is noticeable.

No ETD has been posted for the ship yet.

KSL Seville did take bunkers today, but remains in number 1 anchorage. It must be in for some sort of repair.

The Yang Ming container ship YM Express arrived this afternoon. Its first visit for THE Alliance's AL1 service was April 30 but I missed it on that day.

 
Built by China Shipbuilding Corp, Kaohsiung in 2015, the 47,952 grt, 57,320 dwt ship has a capacity of 4662 TEU (including 700 reefers).

 
The ship displays a variety of boxes, but CSAV is now a major owner of HAPAG-Lloyd and H-L has purchased UASC (United Arab Shipping Co). Activities of the latter have now been totally merged into H-L.

At Autoport MSC Immacolata made a brief visit, tying up just before noon and sailing at 1530 hrs.

Due the crowd at Halterm yesterday (the 9365 TEU CMA CGM Rhone and the 3108 TEU EM Kea  and all four big cranes hard at work ) there was no room  at pier 41-42. Tropical Shipping's Bomar Rebecca tied up at pier 36.  Oddly the ship used its own cranes to unload some containers and this evening moved to pier 41 to begin loading tomorrow. Tropical's destinations and schedules may well have been disrupted by recent hurricanes, which might account for the early arrival. Tropical ships usually arrive and sail on Mondays.

There are four cranes lining pier 36-37, but only one (the one on the far right) is a working crane. The others are no longer functional. The fact that Bomar Rebecca did not use it may or may not be significant. 

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