I N D U S T R Y    N E W S

Geodis rapidly expands its presence in India; proposes innovative solutions to the Indian market

Geodis, France's leading logistics and transport provider marks its 10th year in India and announces major development in its activities in various cities across the country. With a portfolio of 70,000 clients worldwide, Geodis is turning its focus to the Indian market which represents huge potential for business development by proposing strategic and innovative solutions. One of its major projects includes the transportation of material for the extension of the New Delhi metro consisting of a twin tunnel and 4 underground stations. Geodis India's turnover has significantly doubled from 2005 to 2007 and reached 33 Million Euro in 2007.

Over the past 10 years, the main activity developed in India encompasses Geodis' expertise in multi-modal transportation sea-air, rail & road transport for general and heavy, out of gauge shipments. Geodis is extending its network in the main economic cities such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata (Calcutta), Pune, Tirupur and Hyderabad. "India is a fast-growing market. Geodis locally offers its expertise on the Automotive, High-Tech, Textile and Pharmaceutical markets as well as in the Industrial Projects field, acquired throughextensive cooperation with several leading companies. Our total revenue between 2002 and 2006 increased by 150%", explains Mathieu Renard-Biron, Deputy Regional Vice President Asia Pacific.

Industrial Projects: New Delhi Metro Geodis transports machines and materials between Taiwan and India for the extension of a 5.25km long section of the New Delhi Metro consisting in a twin tunnel and four underground stations. Geodis Taiwan has been transporting successively 60, 80 and 400 tons of cranes and drillers for the construction of the New Delhi Metro and the project is still undergoing. Textile know-how: Quality Control (QC) Center for an E-shopping Company A global leader in home E-shopping is partnering with Geodis to operate a Quality Control Center in Delhi and Tirupur. All local suppliers are shipping 12 million pieces to these Centers, where Geodis provides comprehensive logistics services from quality control inspection support to discrepancy handling, documentation control, and inventory management followed by consolidation for exportation to worldwide markets.

Maritime India - New Delhi

New EU GSP to impact India's export: MCC

"The proposed EU GSP to be operational from 2009 asks for greater value addition that would have a direct impact on Indian export to European countries including to Italy," Merchant Chamber of Commerce President Anupam Shah said. "Though we have not yet gone through the draft document yet, EU is trying to increase the value addition from the present level by 10 to 12 pc depending on products," he said.

Shah said quantifying the impact was difficult, but it could be 10 to 15 pc. Among the products exported to Europe that likely to face the heat are, textiles, garments, engineering, leather and marine goods. EU is also levying other non-tariff barriers among which the latest was carbon tax, Shah said. Shah and Armellini were both apprehensive about trade growth between Indian and Italy due to global slowdown. Bilateral trade in 2007 was up by about 40 pc over 2006. "Under these circumstances I feel bilateral trade growth was likely to come down to 20-25 pc," Shah said.

Maritime India - Kolkata

EU executive adopts competition rules for shipping

Brussels The European Commission said that it had adopted new competition guidelines for shipping liner companies. Liner companies are currently exempt from competition rules, but that arrangement expires in October. 'As from October 2008, liner companies will have to assess themselves whether their business practices comply with the competition rules,' the European Union's executive arm said in a statement. 'The guidelines will help maritime operators understand the implications of this change, and provide details on market definition, information exchange in liner shipping and on operational cooperation agreements between tramp operators, so-called pool agreements,' it added.

Maritime India - New Delhi

Finmin to ease service tax guidlines for truckers

The finance ministry is considering meeting a key demand of truckers by easing procedural issues and raising the abatement on service tax. However, the All India Motor Transport Congress said the govt should implement in "letter and spirit" a four-year-old agreement that gives them 75 pc abatement on service tax payment for all services. Over 4 million trucks stayed off the road and prices of several commodities could rise if the strike continues. Nearly 40 million tonnes of goods are transported by road every day.

Transporters have been unhappy with notices issued in Delhi and Kolkata demanding service tax of 12.36 pc on packing, warehousing and labour services. Transporters usually club freight charges with other service charges and make a composite bill for customers. Service tax is paid on 25 pc of the bill since transporters get a 75 pc abatement. In effect, a bill of Rs 100 attracts service tax on only Rs 25.

Service tax officials, however, have held that 75 pc abatement applies only to freight charges and not other services.

The relief could now come by way of an increase in the abatement rate to offset the higher costs that transporters have to bear, CBEC member V Sridhar said. To this end, the board has sought details on whether a goods transport agency provides a composite service or multiple services from different people.

In the latter case, a question arises of whether the independent services will be entitled to abatement or not. The department has sought details from transporters on this.

Maritime India - New Delhi

Lack of ships curtailing deepwater drilling
Rig shortage means slow oil supply growth despite new oil discoveries

As President George Bush calls for repealing a ban on drilling off most of the coast of the US a shortage of ships used for deepwater offshore drilling promises to impede any rapid turnaround in oil exploration and supply. In recent years, this global shortage of drill-ships has created a critical bottleneck, frustrating energy company executives and constraining their ability to exploit known reserves or find new ones. Slow growth in oil supplies, at a time of soaring demand, has been a major factor in the spike of oil and gasoline prices.

But even as oil trades at more than US$135 a barrel - up from US$68 a year ago - the world's existing drill-ships are booked solid for the next five years. Some oil companies have been forced to postpone exploration while waiting for a drilling rig, executives and analysts said. Demand is so high that shipbuilders, the biggest of whom are in Asia, have raised prices since last year by as much as US$100 million a vessel to about half a billion dollars. As a result, drilling costs for some of the newest deepwater rigs in the Gulf of Mexico - the nation's top source of domestic oil and natural gas supplies - have reached about US$600,000 a day, compared with US$150,000 a day in 2002.

These record prices have spurred a new wave of drill-ship construction. This boom could lead to renewed offshore oil exploration that would eventually bring more supplies to the oil market, and push down prices. Already, 16 new drill-ships are scheduled to be delivered to oil companies this year - more than double the number delivered over the last six years combined. In fact, 75 ultra-deepwater rigs should be delivered from this year to 2011, according to ODS-Petrodata, a firm that tracks drilling rigs.

Shipyards from South Korea to Norway are working overtime to meet a huge influx of orders. Robert Long, the chief executive office of Transocean, the world's largest drilling company, said that he has nine deepwater rigs under construction, eight of which are already under contract for periods of four to seven years once they leave the shipyards. He expects to receive the ships between the beginning of next year and the end of 2010.

Transocean believes that the deepwater market will continue to be constrained until at least 2012. Over three-quarters of the drill-ships currently under construction have already been contracted to oil companies eager to benefit from triple-digit oil prices, Mr Long said. Petrobras is expected to drive much of the growth in the booming market. The company has outlined an aggressive programme to increase its drilling capacity, and plans to contract or build 69 deepwater drill-ships by 2017. Brazil stunned the oil world when it announced the discovery of a vast oil field 322km south of Rio de Janeiro last November. Energy experts said that the field could turn out to be just a small part of the largest oil discovery in 30 years. But seven months later, the problem is still how to retrieve it as Petrobras has only three rigs capable of drilling in waters that exceed 6,500 feet, like at the sites of the new fields.

But drilling constraints are not the only problem facing international oil companies, which are seeking to expand at a furious pace after a decade of underinvestment in the 1990s. They have also had to contend with a doubling of development costs across the industry in the last five years, more acute competition for energy resources, shortages in steel, engineering and manufacturing capacity, and pressures posed by an aging work force. Also, gaining access to countries that hold oil reserves is becoming tougher as many oil-rich governments see fewer incentives to raise production as they reap the benefits of higher prices. As a result, explorers are scouring ever-more remote corners of the globe in their hunt for hydrocarbons. That quest has found petroleum reserves off the shores of Africa and Brazil, and opened up promising exploration regions in the South China Sea, off the shore of India, and around the coast of Australia. But those sites will remain largely off-limits until the new drill-ships arrive.

Maritime India - New York

Security gap found in US port procedures

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) programme to strengthen port security has gaps that terrorists could exploit to smuggle weapons of mass destruction in cargo containers, congressional investigators have found. The report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), released assesses the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT). A 2005 GAO report found that many companies were receiving reduced cargo scrutiny without the required full vetting by US Customs, a division of DHS. The agency has since made some improvements, but the new report found that Customs officials still could not provide guarantees that companies were in compliance.

Maritime India - Washington

PIL leads bidding race to operate Chittagong container terminal

The bidding war over which company will land the concession to operate the Chittagong Container Terminal (CCT) is intensifying up with Pacific International Line (PIL) and its partner Container and Terminal Services (CTS) leading the pack. In second and third places were Everest Enterprise Limited and the present operator of CCT, SAIF Powertec. The three bidders will be in the race until the disbursement of the work order by Chittagong Port Authority (CPA). The CPA is expected to reach a decision and finalise the deal in two month. More than 45 Bangladeshi companies participated in the initial stages of the bidding, but two-thirds dropped out failing to meet eligibility terms and conditions. Eleven firms, including four berth operators, joined the bidding and PIL became the top bidder in terms of price.The winning bidder will replace the incumbent operator of the container terminal, for three years. SAIF Powertec has been running the terminal for nearly two years and its contract expires August 6.

Maritime India

Kolkata Port Trust resorts to barge operations on declining draft in Hoogly river

Kolkata Port Trust is working on a package to encourage large-scale lighterage operation (by barges) in view of the declining draft in the Hooghly river making it difficult for vessels with large average parcel loads to call either at Haldia or at Kolkata Dock System. The present plan is targeted to ensure optimum utilisation of the barge-handling facilities already available at Sagar Anchorage and Virtual Jetty offering higher draft.

This mean that vessels cannot call at Kolkata Dock System and Haldia, will moor either at the anchorage or at jetty offering up to 10 metre draft, unload part of the consignments into the waiting barges which in turn will call either at Haldia or at Kolkata Dock System for second round of discharge.

Similarly the barges can load cargoes (exports) at the docks and bring them up to the ships berthed at the anchorage/jetty for second round of loading.

"The ships moored at anchorage/jetty will be entitled to concessional vessel-related charges," Dr A.K. Chanda, Chairman, Kolkata Port Trust, said. "The barge operators too, will be entitled to relief in addition to priority berthing within the impounded docks on guaranteeing certain minimum volume of throughputs. The dry bulk cargoes like coal, iron ore are being targeted for the purpose. Some of the private barge operators have already indicated to offer suitable barges to facilitate the operation," he said.

Dr Chanda, explaining that the thrust of the present move would be to establish barge operation as an extension of the shipping operation. If successful, the proposed plan could be extended even to undertake transloading operation in the Sandheads, the mouth of the Hooghly river.

As part of the proposed plan, the Kolkata Port Trust was also planning to build barge jetties on the river front outside the impounded dock at Haldia.

"A survey is in progress to identify the suitable locations with adjacent land to facilitate handling, evacuation and aggregation of cargoes and to sort out other details such as the number of jetties likely to be set up, the cost of construction and the probable participation of the private barge operators in the construction," he added.

Maritime India - Kolkata

Tuticorin port sets new record in cargo handling

The Tuticorin Port has created a record in cargo handling. Tuticorin Port Trust, on June 23, 8,069 tonnes of urea was discharged from the vessel mv Star Canopus at Berth No. VIII. This is the highest volume of urea so far discharged in the Port, in a single day. The previous record was 7,800 tonnes on June 30, 2007, from the vessel mv Heng Shun. The cargo was imported from Oman.

A quantity of 13,756 tonnes of DAP was discharged on June 6 from the vessel mv Pacific Future at VOC Berth No. III, again the highest tonnage handled in a single day. The cargo was imported by Coramandal Fertilizers Ltd, Chennai, from China. On May 24, a quantity of 12,139 tonnes of industrial salt in bulk was discharged from the vessel mv Slam Jade at Berth No. VIII. The cargo was imported by Raj Salts, Tuticorin, said a press release issued by the port.

Maritime India - Madurai

India eyes huge China, Mexico markets for basmati exports

Indian basmati rice is exported to over 130 countries, and the government hopes to tap the huge markets of China and Mexico in a couple of years. "India's export of basmati is increasing 20-30 pc every year," said AK Gupta, advisor APEDA. "In terms of quality, flavour and taste, our product continues to get preference over that of the rival exporting country," he said, referring to Pakistan, adding "Efforts are on to expand the market world-wide."

Some of the major importers of India's basmati rice are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, the UK, the US, Yemen, Canada, Iran, Germany, Oman, South Africa, France, Syria, Belgium, Australia and Germany. India's share in the global market for basmati rice is about 53 pc and efforts like buyer-seller meets, mounting trade delegations abroad are afoot to expand the consumer base.

Mr Gupta said that China held huge prospects for Indian basmati. As a trial, India had exported about 54 tonnes of basmati to China in 2006-07. Over the past few years, India's export of basmati jumped from 848,919 tonnes to 1.1 million tonnes in 2006-07.

The country had exported 597,793 tonnes in 1998-99. The government has set a production target of 129 million tonnes of basmati and non-basmati rice by 2011-12 on a growth rate of 3.7 pc along with other foodgrains.

"In 2006-07, consumption of rice was 88.3 million tonnes. In April 2008, rice production went up to 95.7 million tonnes," the official added. In a bid to curb inflation, currently soaring at 11.42 pc, the Cabinet Committee on Prices (CCP) on March 31 increased maximum export price (MEP) for basmati rice to $1,200 per tonne, a move the official said would have little impact on the export of basmati rice.

Among foodgrains, basmati and non-basmati rice is the staple source of foreign currency revenue. For instance, the government exported basmati worth about Rs 20,000 crore and non-basmati rice worth Rs 29,400 crore, against pulses worth Rs 652 crore during April-December 2006. The export of wheat during the same period was worth around Rs 34,000 crore.

Apeda data shows Saudi Arabia imported 499,584 tonnes of basmati rice and Kuwait 109,067 tonnes in 2006-07. India exported 104,998 tonnes to the UAE during the same period. Though in a small quantity, Indian basmati rice has also found lovers in Uganda, Angola, Congo, Botswana, Fiji, Ghana, Cameroon, Chile, Romania, Zambia and Surinam.

Maritime India - New Delhi

Excise duty on pan masala

Excise duty on pan masala would now be based on production capacity with effect from July 1 this year. Hitherto, an optional scheme existed for payment of excise duty on the basis of compounded levy for pan masala and gutkha. The new mandatory scheme, based on production capacity, has been notified by the Government. The new scheme will help tackle excise duty evasion in the sector.

Maritime India - New Delhi

Crude import bill may soar to $ 110-120-b in FY09

India's crude import bill may jump by up to 76 pc to $ 110-120 billion this year based on current global prices, Petroleum Secretary M S Srinivasan said. "It will go up (even more) if the prices rise further," he said as crude prices rose to a record $ 146 a barrel on Thursday. In 2007-08, the import bill was $ 67.988 billion and the country had imported 121.672 million tons of crude. This year, the import would be higher because Reliance Petroleum's export oriented 29 MT refinery is set for commissioning in Aug-Sept. He said fuel consumption growth will be 5-6 pc, but if the current pricing policies continue, wherein auto fuels are cheaper than industrial fuel like naphtha, the demand may go up because there is a tendency for power generators to switch to diesel instead of fuel oil and naphtha for electricity generation. While industrial fuels are directly linked to market rates, auto fuels like petrol and diesel and cooking medium fuels like kerosene and LPG are subidised. The govt had increased petrol and diesel prices on Jun 5, but oil marketing companies are still selling these fuels below cost price.

Maritime India - New Delhi

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