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3 July 2009

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2 July 2009

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1 July 2009

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30 June 2009

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29 June 2009

 

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The Panama Canal Container Trades - Past, Present, Future

Separating the two greatest oceans of the world, the Atlantic to the East and the Pacific to the West, the isthmus country of Panama has always been aware of its advantageous geographical position. With the construction of the Panama Canal providing, á la Suez, a link between two major shipping highways, and now that it is operated domestically following 85-years of American administration, Panama expects the Canal to be not only a key passageway but also to become one of the key transhipment points in the world.

When the Canal was opened in 1914, Balboa on the Pacific coast and Cristobal on the Atlantic coast became Panama's two major deepsea ports. It took quite a while before they developed from service points on behalf of the waterway into commercial cargo handling centres.  Colon, including the Colon Free Zone is now already believed to be Latin America’s largest port complex after Santos in Brazil.  Its 3 container facilities handled 2.2 million TEU in 2007. Within a very short time Balboa, for its part, rose in the container port standings to a throughput of 1.8 million TEU that same year.

In fact the change only started with the establishment of the Colon Free Zone, on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus, in the 1940’s. It soon grew into the biggest duty free zone in the Western Hemisphere despite the still slow development of the ports and that the Torrijos-Carter Canal Treaties, which resulted in the handover of the ports and the Panama Railroad in 1979, did not bring about immediately noticeable improvements. This was not at least because of adverse domestic political circumstances, these more or less paralysing Panama for a decade. The railroad even gradually ground to a halt for lack of funds and maintenance, and the ports were ailing.

The turnaround came at the end of the 1990s when concessions were granted to international terminal operators for what are now Manzanillo International Terminal (1995), Colon Container Terminal and Panama Ports Company (Cristobal and Balboa), all in 1997. Finally, on 31 December, 1999 the all important maritime artery was transferred to the Republic of Panama and it has since been operated by the Panama Canal Authority (ACP).

The commercial effects of the meanwhile world class terminals and the new management are certainly being felt in both Latin America and North America. Awareness of the opportunities offered by the integrated logistics network formed by the Panama Canal, its container terminals and free trade zone substantially increased during the shut-out of US longshoremen by West Coast port operators in the last part of 2002, resulting in massive cargo backlogs. Vessel re-routing and transhipping through Panama’s ports during and after this event were clearly reflected in their 2002 throughput figures and starting 2003, a large number of Far East-North America East Coast all-water-via-Panama services have been launched.

Yet, in context of the worldwide ever increasing size of vessels, the limitation put on ships by the capacity of the Panama Canal locks has so far prevented it from offering even more competition to the US Intermodal System. In 2006, the Panama Canal Authority, supported by the people of Panama, embarked on a huge project to substantially increase the artery’s capacity.

Although some still have been predominantly considered the canal as a pressure valve for the US Mini-Landbridge, this will definitely change in 2015 when the new set of locks will cater for the passage of vessels of up to around 13,000 TEU.

This report lists all the important factors related to the (worldwide) container trades using the Panama Canal in one form or the other - on how the operations are organised today and how the challenges of the new locks could translate into new patterns in future.

It indeed looks at the past, present and future of the Canal from a markets, trades and (shipping services) operations angle as opposed to concentrating upon technical and financial issues connected with the exploitation and building of the waterway itself. The focus is on the possibilities and market opportunities for the big ships of over 10,000 TEU.

Main topics covered include:

Ø       Canal user segments by vessels, commodities, trade areas and routes, carriers

Ø       Of course: the new locks and impact of vessel capacities

Ø       The systems supporting the waterway, including extensive container terminal profiles and data on new terminal projects

Ø       Routes and ports in competition with the Panama Canal

Ø       Ships currently able of transiting the waterway by sizes and numbers and data on the future NewPanamax and NewPostPanamax leviathans and the operators committed to them. There are inventories of the current ports of call of ULCS ships of over 10,000 TEU and the largest ships handled by ports across the American Continent

Ø       Supply in the form of all current shipping services and all carriers operating them using the Canal and/or its facilities and the capacities offered by those services, as well as analyses on Panama Canal-based box shipping networks

Ø       Demand in the form of relevant throughput and statistics of all ports and trades connected through Panama, including volume forecasts until 2020

Ø       This all culminating in, and elaborating on future trans-Panama container shipping services of which the outcome even somewhat surprised the initially somewhat sceptical authors of this report

The worldwide orientation of the Panama Canal is underlined by detailed container statistics of its various terminals by main trade area and individual countries. Those are part of the report’s appendices, together with a further quite large number of interesting tables and data.

Dynamar sincerely believes that this “Panama Container Trades - Past, Present, Future” publication -in particular because of its focus on markets, trades and operations- makes interesting, if not essential reading for anybody involved in the container shipping and terminals industry and those working with it ... not at least as the new Panama Canal will just actually start impacting worldwide container flows and trade patterns effective 2015 and possibly ahead of that year.

 

For ordering, please refer to the Publications section of this website.

 

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CONTAINERS: Makers, Lessors and Operators

We are pleased to present a totally new Dynamar publication, along the successful format of our well-known Top 25 Container Liner Operators annual reports:

 

CONTAINERS: Makers, Lessors and Operators

 

offering an exclusive insight into the world’s primary container supply industry of manufacturers and lessors, also paying attention to the main users of the same, shipping lines. Leasing companies own/manage over 40% of world's container fleet - carriers own 50% of all oceangoing containers. The main chapters of this brand new study are:

 

Top ten container manufacturing groups

- accounting for well over 95% of all production capacity [over 97% of dry boxes; 100% of reefers]

- deploying more than 50 manufacturing plants/factories, only 3 of which are outside of China

Full profiles on each of 10 these groups, looking at:

- Background, history and development

- Manufacturing capabilities [factories, capacities, types]

- Related/affiliated activities

 

Major container leasing companies

- controlling 93% of world's container fleet on lease

- owning/managing fleets of minimum 100,000 TEU

Full profiles on each of these 13 main lessors, looking at:

- Background, history and development

- Managed container fleets [size, types, major clients/lease types]

- Related/affiliated activities

 

Major users (shipping lines) and clients of leasing companies

- accounting for over 70% of all containers (owned and on lease)

Summarised profiles on each of the top 20 operators of box fleets, looking at:

- Brief background and development

- Main trades lanes served

- Development and short description of container fleets operated

 

The publication is packed with analyses, statistics and overviews - each main section is preceded with history of that particular market, recent developments and trends industry-wide plus issues facing them today - including a historical review as to how the container box came into being and what makes a box, a box - it is a lot more than just one man and his waiting truck!

 

Prices (net, excluding VAT)

.PDF format by E-mail delivery: EUR 475

Coulour printed/bound, priority surface mail: EUR 495

.PDF and bound/printed: EUR 535

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Interested to join Dynamar?

Please look at the news section for a (Dutch language) overview of our current vacancies.

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Top 25 (2007) Container Liner Operators- Trading Profiles

This 7th annual edition, October 2007-published new edition of our most popular report offers an exclusive insight into the world’s 25 largest liner-shipping companies, bound to grow further and now jointly already accounting for:

- 80% of the global full container trade

- 85% of the world container fleet operating in liner services

- 88% of the orderbook for all cellular container vessels

- 100% of all Very Large Container Ships of over 7,500 TEU, including all 10,000 TEU+ monsters

 

NEW and unique features in the 2007 issue include:

- Graphic “at-a-glance” services by main operator, displaying links between core trading areas

- Assessment of carriers actually trading on a global basis

- Car/Cap Ratio©, an indicator of the relation between the development of carryings and capacity

- Scaled container ship fleet overviews  

 

The fully updated contents furthermore encompasses:

- Existing TEU capacity and orderbook - full container carryings - container fleet size - market shares in the main East-West trades - actual global presence analysis

- Carrier profiles: full legal styles - 5-year capacity ranking - Car/Cap Ratio© - corporate background - service developments - container ship fleet and operating capacity - matrix of services and trade lanes - container terminal interests - other operating activities - membership of carrier groups

- Analyses of the East-West Alliances’ capacities and market shares - named North-South consortia

- A survey of Conferences, Discussion Agreements and other carrier groupings; latest state of regulatory reviews

 

Any and all information for this report has been collected, researched and processed in August/October 2007.

After the spectacular consolidation wave of 2005 and the consecutive integration pains of 2006, carriers involved took a breather to prepare for the next step: not so much more companies (all told, there still are nearly 60 profiles) but much, much larger ships instead. Will every current Top 25 operator having invested in those survive such an enormous increase of economy of scale? Not yet this one, but many other answers about the main enablers of globalisation are found in this 2007 edition of the Top 25 Container Liner Operators - don’t miss it - it is IMMEDIATELY available!

Prices:
- by E-mail in .PDF format: EUR 355
- colour printed/bound by priority mail: EUR 375 (excluding courrier costs, if required)
- .PDF and colour printed/bound: EUR 425 (excluding courrier costs, if required)

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Transhipment & Feedering - Trades, Operators, Ships

This (August 2007) Dynamar report builds on the previous 2004 publication (as well as various updated presentations by the author, Mr. Dirk Visser), and completed with recent in-depth analyses of all aspects of the worldwide transhipment and feedering markets. The reader is offered an insight into a huge port activity and maritime industry that lubricate the modern container liner trades and without which globalisation could not reach the out-of-the-way places of this world. Contrary to the general perception, the common feedership is still not much larger than 700 TEU on average - those deployed by dedicated operators are still under 1,200 TEU. Together, they lift a huge volume, which is outside the official statistics, but can be estimated at well over 35 million TEU worldwide in 2006.The publication contains five main sections:

TRANSHIPMENT

Setting the report’s framework:

Definitions; mainline services concepts; hub-and-spoke; relay and interlining; hub port selection criteria; dominant transhipment ports; hubs versus gateways, etc.

FEEDERING

Looking at the industry from a more strategic and general view:

Definitions; types of feeder operators; size, speed, design of feeder ships; industry consolidation; mainline developments affecting feedering; scaling-up; hub port issues; organisation of the feeder move; new hub-and-spoke projects; conclusions

TRADES

Five chapters on the main feeder markets (Europe, Mediterranean, all Asia, Latin America, Others) and their catchment regions; who-hubs-where; connections from the main ports; 5-year hub and regional port statistics; regional transhipment-related port projects

OPERATORS

Extensive biographies on more than 20 common feeder carriers (corporate background, recent developments, services, fleet details); short profiles of another 15 (niche) operators; ranking overviews including average feedership size by operator; carryings; the World’s Top 5 Feeder Operators; extensive overview of the largest non-operating owners

SHIPS

Feeder ship design and requirements; pictures and plans of representative vessels in various size categories; new concepts and projects; overview of non-operating owners

An Appendix with a variety of data completes Transhipment & Feedering - Trades, Operators, Ships - researched, analysed and compiled during the period April-July 2007

Optional - there is an opportunity to subscribe to annual updates of the report’s core information

 

The report is immediately available - ordering via the publications section of this website.

Prices: 

- .PDF format by E-mail - EUR 355

- Colour printed/bound by priority surface mail EUR 375

- Both .PDF and colour printed/bound - EUR 420

All prices are net of any taxes and VAT

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