This week's round up of news from the world of heavy lift and project forwarding.

According to Drewry Maritime Research's latest Multipurpose Shipping Market Review and Forecaster report, the multipurpose shipping sector looks set to bounce back this year after a tough 2013 but it seems that the project cargo market still faces an uphill struggle.

Drewry claims that 2013 was a worse year for ship owners in the multipurpose sector than in the recession hit of 2009.

Although the volumes of minor bulk shipments, consisting mainly of steel and forest products, showed promising growth last year, demand for general cargo (including project cargoes) fell by over 30 percent.

The report estimates that project cargo volumes fell by almost 15 percent and states that this was a result of increased competition from other shipping sectors and a slowdown in the project market.

Expectations for 2014 are subdued but there are signs that the sector should begin to pick up towards the end of the year and start growing in 2015/2016, says Drewry - we have our fingers crossed that the light at the end of the tunnel gets a little brighter for the project carriers.

This week's Friday Flyer is sponsored by DHL Industrial Projects, which aims to be the logistics partner of choice to the oil and gas, mining, power generation and construction industries. Its expertise in cargo scheduling and materials management means it can offer tailored solutions for unique outsize cargoes and heavy lifts.
        
        
In the corporate world

Inchcape Shipping Services (ISS) has been appointed by Van Oord to provide a range of support solutions to an offshore pipelaying project at Rota Cabiunas in Brazil's Santos Basin.

The French subsidiary of European Roro Lines, ERL France, has set up its head office in HAROPA's port of Le Havre and launched a river terminal operation at the port of Gennevilliers dedicated to the transport of vehicles to Le Havre.

Bremen's Roland Spedition GmbH has filed for insolvency. HLPFI understands that the company's business will continue to operate fully, while the search for investors has begun this week.


Capacity developments

AirBridgeCargo Airlines (ABC) is launching two new B747 freighter services (pictured top right) linking Moscow with Malmo in Sweden and Leipzig in Germany.

Columbia Helicopters acquired five Boeing CH-47D helicopters from the US government.

AmQuip Corporation placed an order for a Terex Superlift 3800 crawler crane alongside 24 Terex RT 555-1 rough terrain cranes.

Megalift GmbH added a 750-tonne capacity Liebherr LTM 1750-9.1 mobile crane to its fleet, while Hüffermann Krandienst GmbH also took delivery of a new Liebherr LTM 1350-6.1.

Mammoet employed its new terminal crane, the MTC-15, in Venezuela to turn the port of Güiria into a temporary heavy lift terminal (pictured second right).

Scheuerle developed its HighwayGiant dual lane trailer (pictured third right) for Sterett Crane & Rigging to fulfil the varying transport requirements across the US states.

Aliança Navegação e Logística is to operate a new cabotage service especially developed for the project cargo sector with the chartered vessel Aliança Energia.

Rotterdam Offshore Group mobilised the ABIS Duisburg (pictured bottom right) at its yard in the Waalhaven, ready for a project in the German Baltic Sea.


Shipments of the week

Mammoet completed the transportation of a methanol plant, comprising around 400 heavy modules with a combined weight of 12,145 tonnes, over 8,720 km from the southernmost part of Chile to Methanex Corporation's Geismar plant in Louisiana.

SAL Heavy Lift transported a 1,250-tonne coal shiploader from South Korea to Australia and installed it at Abbot Point in Queensland - marking the completion of a year-long project.

Steder Group transported five heavy locomotives, ranging from 85 to 135 tonnes in weight, from the port of Djibouti to various sites in Ethiopia for railway projects.

Coordinadora moved a 1,320-tonne ethylene oxide reactor from India to Saudi Arabia for Sadara Chemical Company - the second heaviest unit ever moved by Coordinadora, claims the company.

Crane Rental Corporation helped transport a huge tower made up of two 231-tonne units, each with the dimensions 39.3 m x 4.3 m x 5.2 m, from a rail spur to a natural gas plant in the northeast USA using its Goldhofer multi-axle trailer.

Other notable projects reported by HLPFI this week can be seen on the archive news area of our website.

Got some shipment news of your own? Send it in to editorial@heavyliftpfi.com

    
Projects and contracts

A QDVC-led joint venture has been awarded the EUR850 million (USD1.1 billion) second works phase of the New Orbital Highway in Doha.

ABB together with the Xiamen municipal government of Fujian will invest USD300 million over the next five years in production expansion, as it seeks to further penetrate the Chinese market.

Wood Group has won a contract from Esso Australia Proprietary Limited to provide EPC services to support the Gippsland Basin Joint Venture's retrofit portfolio of projects in Victoria, Australia.

For a fuller round up of projects and contracts announced this week please visit the HLPFI website or contact David Kershaw


On the move

FREJA Transport & Logistics AB appointed Jörgen Magnusson its new managing director in Sweden, while Fredrik Dahllöf has taken over the role of new branch manager in Helsingborg. Martina Moritsch is to step down as vice president and managing director of Terex Tower Cranes on June 1, 2014 and will be replaced by Marco Gentilini. Air Menzies International (AMI) opened a new office in Darwin, Australia and one in Christchurch, New Zealand. Wilhelmsen Ships Service (WSS) appointed Hege Solstad regional director for WSS Asia Pacific and Harald Lundestad as general manager for WSS Singapore, and elsewhere, EMS Log GmbH opened a branch in Helsinki, which will be headed up by Markku Koponen.

        
Network news

The Project Cargo Network (PCN) welcomed Grand Arabia as an Iraqi representative and Oversize Transport Service Finland Oy as a new member representing Finland and Estonia, while Manica Africa Ltd joined the Global Project Logistics Network (GPLN) with its offices in Botswana, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Crane Rental Corporation was appointed member of the Cargo Equipment Experts (CEE) network for the USA, while the XLProjects (XLP) network gained Indonesia Projects Logistics and the UAE's Sabelatrans Shipping Global F.Z.E. It was a hat trick for the CLC Projects network this week, with the addition of Nigeria's Africa Port Services Ltd, China's Collyer Logistics North China Ltd and South Korea's Shin-Jo Logitech Co Ltd to its ranks.


All about Evie

Evie was excited to hear that ex-England football captain, Kevin Keegan, will be attending this year's Multimodal exhibition and hopes that he will get a chance to teach her some skills during the event.

She also cannot wait to have a go at the new supply chain board game - Business on the move - which is the brainchild of Andy Page and Pat Smedley and will be part of Multimodal 2014's educational programme.

Evie was impressed this week by Saudia Cargo's successful shipment of 141 animals from Johannesburg to Riyadh on board a B747 freighter.

Finally, news that Jumbo is giving away a trip for two to meet and greet the K-Class in Croatia also caught Evie's eye this week and she recommends that you all visit https://www.facebook.com/jumbomaritime?ref=hl and share the link for a chance to win.

 

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