Category: Shipping and Transport

Apr 27, 2010 (LBO) – Colombo port container volumes rose 27 percent in the first quarter of 2010 from last year and also exceeded throughput in the same 2008 period before recession hit global trade, the Sri Lanka Ports Authority said. “I firmly believe that our service is the major order qualifying and the order […]

Apr 22, 2010 (LBO) – Movement of heavy cargo for post-war reconstruction and modernisation in Sri Lanka will provide more business for logistics companies, industry officials said. The specialist skills and equipment of logistics providers will be needed to move cargoes such as equipment for power plants and construction work, they said. Two ports are […]

Apr 21, 2010 (LBO) – Dredging and breakwater construction on a new harbour being built next to Sri Lanka’s Colombo port is on schedule, said a senior official of the Asian Development Bank which is funding the work. But talks on a contract to design and build the new deep-water port’s first container terminal were […]

Apr 21, 2010 (LBO) – Cargo volumes at a Colombo port private container terminal run by an associate firm of John Keells Holdings hit a new monthly high in March, as transshipment trade in the region recovered. But transshipment cargo yields lower margins than domestic import-export containers, , analysts said. The conglomerate John Keells Holdings […]

Apr 15, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state bus service had lost 5,183 million rupees in 2009 despite getting another 4,135 million rupee handout in peoples’ money from the Treasury for operating ‘uneconomic routes’, the latest official data reveals. SLTB data showed that its workforce had increased to 35,895 in 2009 from 34,074 in 2008. […]

Apr 12, 2010 (LBO) – Indian Oil Corp’s Sri Lankan unit aims to expand bunker sales by selling fuel to ships passing the island, a much bigger market than the vessels which call at Colombo port, officials said. With bunker prices falling and the price difference between Colombo and Singapore narrowing, more ships have begun […]

Apr 07, 2010 (LBO) – The Sri Lankan unit of international ship supply firm GAC plans to expand its business with the acquisition of more craft, a senior official said. “We plan to invest on another two supply boats,” said Walter Rodrigo, director of GAC Shipping, which has a service from the southern port of […]

Apr 07, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Colombo Dockyard, a listed ship builder, said it was getting ready to deliver the first of a series of four Multipurpose Platform Supply Vessels for a Singaporean client. Colombo Dockyard is set to deliver six vessels this year, including the Multi Purpose Platform Supply Vessels and a passenger […]

April 01, 2010 (LBO) – Chinese port operator China Merchants Holdings (International) has said it expects a breakthrough in talks to build a new container terminal in Sri Lanka’s Colombo harbour this year. The company, in partnership with Sri Lankan conglomerate Aitken Spence, was the sole bidder for the first container terminal to be built […]

Mar 17, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Singer unit said its sales of motor cycles and bicycles picked up speed in 2009, with demand from former war-torn areas, while its consumer durables sales in the rest of the island plunged. Singer Sri Lanka said sales of bicycles and motor cycles grew 26 percent to 757 […]

Mar 15, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Colombo port will get new cranes before the end of this year to replace aging equipment and improve cargo handling capacity, a senior official said. Container traffic in Colombo, which is a hub for south Asian cargo, has begun to recover after dipping last year because of global […]

Mar 12, 2010 (LBO) – The Sri Lanka Ports Authority is in talks with suppliers of liquid petroleum gas to introduce a third player in the local market once a storage terminal is built in a new port, an official said. SLPA chairman Priyath Wickrama said the LPG storage terminal would come up in the […]