ABU DHABI is positioning its Khalifa Port and Industrial Zone (Kizad), which opens in September, to attract export-generating industries, such as aluminium smelting, foundries, petrochemicals, glass manufacturing and trade. .

    Khalifa Port, which is to replace the old Mina Zayed inner-city port, will have an annual capacity of two million TEU at first, rising to 15 million TEU by 2015 at full build out. The old Mina Zayed handled 500,000 TEU in 2010.

    By comparison, Jebel Ali handled 11.5 million TEU, which included some seven million TEU through Dubai, but cargo was destined for non-UAE markets.

    This is augmented by the federal government's US$11 billion Etihad Rail project, which will be developed in three phases, starting with a cargo line to carry aggregates from inland Abu Dhabi to the coast.

    Phase 2 will extend the railway from Abu Dhabi, carrying containers to Dubai, Sharjah and the Northern Emirates. Phase 3 will link the railway into a GCC-wide rail network by 2017-18 with more distant plans to extend rail links to Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and beyond with aims to move 50 million tonnes a year by 2030.

    Singapore's NOL unit APL to phase out its whole US chassis fleet by 2014

    SINGAPORE's Neptune orient Lines (NOL) has announced that its container shipping arm, APL, will begin phasing out its US fleet of container chassis during the first half of 2012.

    The carrier is expected to complete the disposal of the fleet by 2014, a statement said.

    Chassis are the skeletal truck trailers used to haul shipping containers over the road. The shipping line said it will turn its fleet over to organisations that specialise in providing chassis to drayage companies.

    "This is the direction the container shipping industry is moving," said Americas president Gene Seroka from the company's US headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona. "By relying on providers who specialise in chassis management, equipment is deployed more efficiently."

    Disposal will begin with a pilot programme at terminals in Denver and Salt Lake City, which could begin as early as March. Chassis will be phased out at most of the company's inland terminals by the end of this year, then extended to US east coast seaports in 2013, and is expected to be completed nationwide by early 2014.

(Source:Shippingazette)