The German heavy lift operator BBC Chartering, of Leer, is nearing the end of a contract to transport radio telescope antennas for the currently largest cosmic project on earth, the ALMA observatory.

Industrial strife at the port of Auckland has prompted Maersk Line to move its Southern Star container service, operated in conjunction with Malaysia’s MISC, to rival New Zealand port Tauranga.

Strikes by 327 of Auckland port’s 500 employees forced the closure of two container terminals.

It seems to me that in the ferry world the sky is dark with a variety of (mother carey’s?) chickens coming home to roost. Never have there been so many apparently intractable pressures, some age old, others quite new.

Competition is as great as ever but is exacerbated above and beyond the manageable by the soaring cost of fuel.

On the 15th december 2011 DP World’s London Gateway and Shell celebrated the official opening of a ‘state of the art’ tanker jetty at London Gateway.

This new facility will deliver a quarter of all aviation fuel to the airports in the South East of England from Stanford-le-Hope, Essex.