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EGT, Port of LongviewIn the four months since the EGT grain terminal resolved its dispute with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, it has shipped about 1 million tons of bulk grain to Asian ports.
A fire in one of the facility’s three conveyor towers in early April halted operations for one day and has slowed the loading process since then, Larry Clarke, CEO of EGT, said.
He said he expects to have all three shiploaders operational by the end of June.
Aside from that glitch, operations have gone as expected. “We’re still a startup operation, improving daily, weekly, monthly. One million tons is not bad for a startup operation.”
Clarke said there have no repercussions from the labor disputes that put EGT in the news before it opened in February.
More in the Capital Press
United Grain Company is Russia's state grain trader.Summa Group, Russia’s biggest port operator, will acquire almost half of state grain trader United Grain Co. for 5.95 billion rubles ($186 million) as the government dilutes its stake.
United Grain accepted bids for 3.51 million new shares, equivalent to 50 percent minus one share of its equity following the additional stock issue and sale, it said today in a statement.
The grain trader, set up three years ago to conduct state purchases, develop export infrastructure and ship grain abroad, will use the investment to raise handling capacity at ports to 16 million metric tons a year by 2015 and silo storage to 8.4 million tons, according to company data. Russia is poised to become the third-biggest grain exporter in the season ending in June following a shipment ban last year because of a drought.
From Bloomberg
Shareholders of Canada’s largest grain handler, Viterra Inc., voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday in favor of a friendly takeover bid by Swiss commodities trader Glencore International Plc., pushing the biggest deal in years for the global agricultural sector closer to reality.
In Canada and Australia, where Viterra is strong, “ADM, Bunge and Cargill will take notice of Glencore,” said Horst Hueniken, a former analyst based in Toronto who is working to launch a global agricultural hedge fund.
“The other concern will be that Glencore will continue to grow and start penetrating markets beyond Canada, parts of the U.S. and Australia,” he said.
Glencore’s move comes in one of the busiest merger and acquisition
periods for agriculture since the late 1990s as improving diets and
incomes in countries like China and India stoke interest in grain
companies.
From Reuters
Contract negotiations resumed Tuesday between office clerical workers and waterfront employers in Southern California. It was the first face-to-face meeting in six months between the Office Clerical Unit of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63 and the attorney representing 14 waterfront employers.
Employers received a shock last month when the coast arbitrator who handles disputes between the ILWU and the PMA ruled the ILWU dockworkers could legally refuse to cross a picket line set up by the OCU. The office workers could potentially shut down the ports if they established pickets at the terminals where their workers are represented.
More in the Journal of Commerce
Source: Chicago Tribune
Source: IBT
Source: Baltimore Sun
From Port Technology:
Multi-trailer system
A new line of port equipment has been delivered to Manila International Container Terminal. The multi-trailer system (MTS) allows three 40-foot containers, or six 20-foot containers, to be transported simultaneously.
The MTS has been delivered by International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) and allows for the transportation of more containers in a single haul than compared to the traditional single-trailer system.
Composed of a single tractor unit and several trailers set in ship-to-stack mode, the MTS can transport containers to and from the wharf during vessel operation.
Newly elected State Representative Jeff Reardon, center, talks with Working Families Party canvassers. The WFP made 5,000 voter contacts in his campaign to oust a longtime Democratic representative who had the support of the AFL-CIO and the Koch brothers but often voted against progressive values. On election day, Reardon won with 66% of the roughly 4,000 votes cast. The victory is receiving attention nationally as a victory for unions that took a risk to hold a bad elected official accountable.
[Note: The ILWU works with several labor unions as part of the Working Families Party in Oregon.]
In Oregon’s May 15 primary, progressive challenger Jeff Reardon scored a two-to-one victory over Mike Schaufler, a five-term Oregon Assembly Democrat who appeared safe just months before his defeat. Reardon’s victory relied on support from the labor-backed Working Families Party, in coalition with environmentalists, MoveOn, and unions—though the state AFL-CIO, and some of its affiliates, stuck with the incumbent.
The Working Families Party, a progressive, labor-backed third party, hails Reardon’s victory as a national model. “Winning a race like this,” says WFP State...
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