In June 2013, the top container shipping company in the world, Maersk and MSC(switzerland) and CMA CGM(France), followers right behind the Maersk, have agreed to make an stategic alliance one another. The negotiation among the top three leaders in the world was shocking to the other competitors and some shippers and ports warn strongly against this new threatening alliance. The other say the alliance will lead to loewr price and be beneficial to them.
Korea's Hanjin Shipping and China's COSCO, seventh and fifth of the world market position each, are being investigated by European Union for allegedly inflencing prices to European routes. There are 14 container shipping compaines for this investigation. Lots of competitors including Korea's Hyundai Merchant Marine, Taiwan's Evergreen, and France's CMA CGM are now joining the probe group to seek the truth. If EU finds out the two companies actually tried to control the price for cargos to Europe, they will impose fine to both container shipping giants.
The British Port, Peel Port, handling 65million tonnes of cargo every year succeeded to sign an agreement with Busan Port in order to get technical support from Korean port for their own port development. Peel Port is now planning to develop as one of the one of the most efficient and modern terminals in Northern Europe. Busan Port Authority is a world leader in the port technology sector.
According to the report of Wall Street Journal, Hapag-Lloyd, the sixth biggest container merchant in the world, has the big possibility to succeed in merger with Compania Sud Americana de Vapores of Chile. It will going to make the German container shipping leader the fifth in the world industry, passing by COSCO, the Chinese company. The Chilean peer CSAV has suffered from financial loss for recent years and the merger is expected to be beneficial for the future of both companies.
Incheon Port of South Korea is now getting developed as the port decided to expand its facility from several years ago. Incheon Port is now preparing to handle 10,000 TEU ships by building the new port called "Incheon Shin-Hang (New port)" This should be attracting demands for big TEU container ships to South Korea rather than Chinese port competitors.
Here is a process example of manufactured shoes transported by container shipping.
1. Shoes are manufactured in the domestic factory. Shoe company has a contract with a frieght forwarder and they will manage the total process of shipment.
2. Cargo including shoes just produced is loaded onto container box, which is bolted shut and fitted with a high security seal. The truck is ready to go to the container shipping port. Unless the customs official decides to inspect inside, it will not be opened until it gets to the destination port.
3. The freight forwarder determined that the overload transportation is the best way to move the container to the ports. The forwarder has contracted with a container shipping line, who has to submit a documentation called "bill of lading" to get authorization from the exporting and importing countries.
4. Containers from many warehouses are shipped in the container ship and goes to the destination port. The captain of the vessel provides a report to the government of the destination country that contains the information about the ship, its crew and cargo.
5. After the clearance process, the container ship arrives at the port. The ship comes adjacent to large cranes that will be used to unload the containers.
6. Many dockworkers including crane operators, lashers come to the ship. They include crane operators and cargo equipment operators.
7. In some cases, the officials of customs may select specific containers for furthur inspection. The containers being inspected concretely are chosen according to the documentation containing each container's informatiion.
8. Once cleared by customs, workers load the container onto a special truck trailer. Train can also be used for the long distance trip to the destination. The containers are transported to the distribution center.
9. The containers shipped by trucks or trains arrive at the distribution center. Now it is opened for distribution to the individual stores.
Hanjin Shipping, the biggest Korean container shipping company, does try to deal with economic recession worldwide.
The total container market is being expanded and the revenue has increased, but Korean leading company recorded the operating loss in container shipping due to an oversupply. They will focus on implementing measures to reduce costs, in order to improve operating margin.
Advantage of container shipping over the other methods
The thing we should notice is the fourth one. Let's compare it with other loads like train and truck and you can see how much cargo at once. The container ship is specialized for mass and long-haul transportation. Barge and VLCC are also types of ships, and VLCC especially functions as the oil tanker so it doesn't threaten the container shipping industry.
Reference : Freight Transportation and Environmental Efficiency, Jean paul Rodrigue, Hofstra University US, 2007
This is overwhelmingly the world's busiest trading port which handles 32 million containers a year carrying 736 million tonnes of goods to various places around the globe.
With the help of this container handling capacity, China became the world's largest trading nation passing by the United States in 2012.
You can see this fearsome amount of containers organized and stacked on the field. Considering
the size of the container, as big as that of a tolerable bus, I cannot imagine how tremendous the port is.
In 2012, the total value of Chinese imports and exports recorded $3.87 trillion, compared to the US amount of $3.82 trillion trade.
The port has an area of 3.94 square kilometres - the equivalent of 470 football pitches.
Here is the list of top 20 container handling ports from the the Journal of Commerce, August 20, 2012.
The notable thing is that all the top ten ports are in Asia, seven of which are surprisingly those of China. More than half of the container cargos in the world are handled and passed by Chinese and other asian ports.
Busan port, the biggest port of Korea takes over about 17 million TEUs of containers. Shanghai and Singapore recorded more than 30 million TEUs, thanks to the geographical merits and the highly developed port facilities.
Top 10 Container Shipping Companies in the World in 2012
1. A.P. Møller – Mærsk A/S (Denmark)
A.P. Moller – Maersk Group is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, with subsidiaries and offices in more than 135 countries worldwide and around 108,000 employees.It ranked 147 on the Fortune Global 500 list for 2010, down from 106 in 2009. It was Founded in 1904 and marks 15% of TEU market share contribution.
2. Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A. (Switzerland)
Geneva, Switzerland based Mediteranean Shipping Company is to be the world's second-largest shipping line in terms of container vessel capacity. It started the business in 1970. The more than 13% statistic in terms of TEUs shipped by the corporation's fleet was recorded in the industry.
3. CMA CGM (France)
CMA CGM is headquartered in Marseille, France and founded in 1978. The trade done by this company accounts for 9% of the world's container shipping share. It operates by 200 shipping routes between 400 ports in 150 different countries.
4. Evergreen Marine Corporation (Taiwan)
Evergreen Marine Corporation was established in 1968. In 2012, this company recorded almost 4.5% of container shipping market share with 700,000 tonnes for this year. The majority of Evergreen's
shipping containers are painted green with the word "Evergreen" placed on the sides in white letters.
5. COSCO (China)
Even though China has the number one container handling port, Shanghai, the single company seems not to handle such big shipping demand. COSCO was established in 1961 and is headquartered in Beijing. It is a goverment-owned company and marked 4.3% contribution to the total market share in the world.
6. Hapag-Llyod (Germany)
The german corporation is based on Hamburg, where one of the biggest port in the world is located. It contributed 4 percent to the global shipping totality. This company was formed in 1970 as a merger of two 19th century companies, Hapag and North German Lloyd (NGL).
7. Hanjin Shipping (Korea Republic)
Hanjin Shipping started its business in 1949. Its fleet consists of some 200 containerships, bulk and LNG carriers. A 3.5% offering made in 2012 made the South Korean maritime giant mark at seventh in the field.
8. American Public Lines (Singapore)
This company has relatively long history of operation. APL was established in 1848 and the original name was Pacific Mail Steamship Company. They changed their name a few times later and now the headquarter is located in Singapore. It contributes 3.4% in terms of the TEUs shipped across the global maritime ports.
9. China Shipping Container Lines (China)
Since initiation of the service in 1997, CSCL has concentrated on container transportation and developed itself to the top ten container shipping companies. On the contrary to APL, CSCL has only 15 years of history. It recorded 3.3% market share in 2012.
10. Mitsui O.S.K (Japan)
The Japanese company started its business in 1884. It marked 3% of TEU contribution in 2012, with over 500,000 tonnes of container transportation. This company is based in three cities in Japan, Toranomon, Minato and Tokyo.
Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers.
The existing cargo ships were stacked with boxes, but the development of container enabled all-weather load, easy count of cargos and fast transportation into other nods such as trains.
Container ship capacity is measured in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). Container ships under 3,000 TEU are typically called feeders. All kinds of container ships including feeders are listed below.
These are the lists of top 20 countries which deal with the most containerized cargo in the international ports. China overwhelms the other countries with noticable difference, as it has the busiest container port, Shanghai port. The Chinese container traffic occupies 27% of the whole world container traffic, while the second place United States only accounts for 9% of the total. South Korea marks the fourth of the world. It's also noticable that most countries here showed the increase of container cargos over the years. Eleven asian countries are in this top 20 list.
