Taken from MM&D magazine online:

COPENHAGEN, Denmark—Danish shipping and oil group AP Moller-Maersk says the world’s three biggest shipping container operators have entered an alliance to reduce fuel consumption and improve service and operations.

Vincent Clerc of the Copenhagen-based company’s shipping unit says MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company SA and CMA CGM of France will form the P3 alliance with Maersk Line.

The alliance will be an independently operated network with 255 vessels on 29 loops and is to start operations next year, depending on regulatory approvals. Maersk stressed the companies will continue to have fully independent sales, marketing and customer service functions, but P3 will establish an independent joint vessel operating centre. By combining their resources, the lines will offer more sailings to more ports of call than they currently do individually.

The P3 alliance will operate a capacity of 2.6 million TEUs between Asia and Europe, across the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. The breakdown is expected to be as follows:

• Maersk Line will contribute with approximately 42 percent of the capacity (including the new Triple-E ships), of about 1.1 million TEUs.
• MSC will contribute with approximately 34 percent of the capacity, of about 0.9 million TEUs.
• CMA CGM will contribute with approximately 24 percent of the capacity or 0.6 million TEUs.

The deal should be finalized by Q4 2013.

Boris Hontas, a 19 year old student from Bordeaux, France has joined Brytor’s head office in Mississauga for an eight week internship. Boris describes himself as a dynamic, ever-smiling team player. He hopes to improve his English while also learning something of sales and marketing and the workings of an international business.

Boris comes from a moving industry background, having worked summers in his father’s moving company that specializes in intra-France and Morroco relocations.

We are already impressed with Boris’s willingness to do whatever is asked of him and he is picking up our Moveware computer program quickly. It will certainly be an advantage with our peak season having already started and a heavy workload that will keep him busy.

Boris will head back to France at the end of July to continue his university studies in business management.

From FIDI Magazine Apr/May 2013 by John Luker

Piracy has its roots in ancient Greece, 2000 years ago, when sea robbers threatened the Greek rade routes and it has continued through time to today. It flourished between 1620 and 1720, as romanticised in the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise, until we get to the modern era and the highly publicised Somali pirates, who have been very active over the past five years.

In total, worldwide numbers of actual and attempted attacks on ships increased from 263 in 2007 to 439 in 2011. However only 13o were attributed to Somalia, suggesting that while Somali piracy is on the decline, it is still a significant problem in the rest of the world.

There has been considerable internationa resource dedicated to this issue, with approximately three dozen warships from the royal Navy the U.S. Navy, EU countries,  NATO, Russia, China and INdia currently patrolling more than one million square miles of sea.

With the collaborative work being carried out by these international organisations, it is no surprise that reports of piracy attacks have dropped.

Earlier this year, one of Somalia’s most notorious pirate leaders announced his ‘retirement’, a possible indication that the Somali pirates are starting to realize that piracy is perhaps not as lucrative as it once was.

However, reports provided by the International Maritime Bureau show that piracy is a trade plied in many places and where it stops or reduces in one place, it will increase in another. The coast of Nigeria has seen an increasing number of reported attacks, many violent, with pirates striking as far as 120 nautical miles from the coast.