Chinese fishing boat owners have accused the North Korean military of taking 29 Chinese fishermen on three boats captive and holding them for ransom. The seizing of the fishing boats has opened up a rare public rift between North Korea and its most important ally. Chinese ship owners complain that the demands for ransom are tantamount to piracy, little different from what is happening off the coast of Somalia. According to the ship owners, four boats from the port of Dalian were accosted at sea May 8 in what they claimed are Chinese waters, about 50 miles off of the Chinese coast. azstarnet.com/new...

earlier today in the port happened an accident. Passenger ferry stena spirit during manoeuvres, struck the fuselage in a gantry crane at container terminal. Gantry crane struck the wharf and the crippled containers. Three workers injured. action is conducted.

Indonesia’s largest port authority is pumping in more than $2.5 billion to expand Tanjung Priok, the country’s busiest port, which has long been constrained by a lack of berth space and an inability to serve large container vessels. The expansion of Jakarta’s port, first built by the Dutch in 1877, comes three years after a management overhaul. The expansion is expected to help triple the port’s present annual capacity to more than 18 million TEUs — or twenty-foot equivalent units — when all phases are completed in 2023. The first phase of development, which begins in July, involves the construction of three container terminals and two petroleum product terminals. The first terminal will be completed by 2014, according to the chief executive officer of Indonesia Port Corporation (IPC), Mr Richard J. Lino, 59. Indeed, the infrastructure overhaul is driven by the need for the overburdened port to keep up with the rapidly increasing volume of growth.

Heavy fog lingering for a week in East China's seaport of Qingdao, Shandong province, has disrupted passage on the waterway, stranding more than 200 vessels daily at the port, said the municipal marine affairs bureau on Tuesday, May 15 2012. The bureau launched a marine traffic control operation on Tuesday morning, as the fog reduced visibility to less than 50 meters at the port. It sent alerts to passing vessels to avoid docking in Qingdao because the port can not accommodate any more vessels. The bureau also said one person remains missing after a fishing boat from Liaoning province collided with a Shandong-registered cargo vessel near the port on Friday.

As attempts to salvage a 50-metre fishing trawler which ran aground off Clifton in Cape Town continue, questions have been raised about how this could have happened, and whether the grounding was possibly deliberate. The Eihatsu Maru, a Japanese long line fishing vessel, ran aground in heavy fog at Clifton's First Beach 05:15 on Saturday morning. It was carrying 90 tons of diesel and 50 tons of fish. Most of the Taiwanese crew were evacuated. A salvage operation was put on hold due to heavy seas over the weekend, Sapa reported. On Monday, various officials met to assess the situation and are planning to pull the vessel off the sandbank on Tuesday. The cause of the grounding has not been established. The engine remains in working order, and the generators are still operating. More at www.news24.com/So...

Half of Sydney's Port Botany container terminal is shut down, following the discovery of a chemical leak on a container ship, AAP reports. The DP World section of the wharves was closed about 1am (AEST) on Monday, as soon as the California Senator mixed-container ship arrived. Superintendent Paul Bailey of Fire and Rescue NSW said a leak was suspected on several 1000-litre drums containing nitric acid, a chemical used in mining. 'We're not sure how much has leaked into the container itself,' he told AAP. 'We're removing the container from the ship. We're trying to get into the container.' Supt Bailey said the shutdown of the DP World section meant half of the port's operations would be closed, but Patrick Stevedores was unaffected. Source: bigpondnews.com/a...

MUSCAT Oman Container Lines Inc (OCL) has added Port Sultan Qaboos to its Gulf Express Service (GEX) connecting Salalah and Jebel Ali by MV Altonia container ship. The express route service will include a number of destinations. The GEX service calls in Salalah on every Thursday, Port Sultan Qaboos on every Saturday and Jebel Ali on every Sunday. Currently, MV Altonia is the biggest container vessel operated by OCL. The 184.7 M long and 25 m wide ship has a capacity of 1,730 TEUs. The vessel will be able to meet the needs of its clients in the local and regional markets.

APM Terminals will invest over $100 million to ramp up capacity in the Georgian port of Poti over the next three years, The Wall Street Journal reports. APM Terminals, which operates the port of Poti, will build new container and bulk cargo terminals and deepen the berths there with the aim of boosting the cargo-handling capacity by an estimated 50%, the company said Friday, 11th of May 2012. According to estimates from the International Monetary Fund, Georgia's gross domestic product is expected to expand by 6% in 2012, following growth of 7% in 2011. Along with the increasing importance of the sea lane that passes through the Black Sea and services Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the economic growth of Georgia presents both a challenge and an opportunity to port operators in the region. APM Terminals is the world's leading port and inland operator with 62 port facilities in 36 countries. Source : PortNews

Seven Pelican arrived Peterhead Harbour today with Bond helicopter that ditched 25 miles east of Aberdeen yesterday. all 14 onboard survived controlled ditching.

Tacoma port commissioners today approved a contract for design work to equip one of its container terminals to handle the biggest container ships now envisioned. The contract with BergerABAM calls for designing modifications to the port’s existing Pier 3 on the west side of the Blair Waterway north of East 11th street to handle container cranes that can service ships as big as 24 containers wide. Read more here: blog.thenewstribu...