shipping – Shanghai Metal Corporation

SMC at the 2015 Intermodal Asia Exhibition

On Tuesday 24 SMC Shanghai Metal Corporation attended the second Intermodal Asia Exhibition 2015 held in Shanghai. Wondering what the exhibition is about? Launched in Europe, the Intermodal Asia Exhibition is a new platform for Asia shipping and container industry. It is a great chance for professionals and companies to come together and exchange ideas and industries about the shipping and container market. As Mr Mai Bo Liang, Chairman of the CCIA and President of CIMC, stated, “it is the perfect opportunity for professionals fro throughout the world to come together to network, do business and encourage the healthy and sustainable development of modern intermodal transport.”

Within a globalized world, where interactions and business between countries is growing exponentially, the three-day exhibition was the event that SMC Shanghai Metal Corporation could not miss. As you may know, China is rapidly growing in the market becoming the leading country in the business of containers and shipping. This is also do to the great emphasis that the government is giving to this market. New projects, such as “The New Silk Road Economic Region” and “21 Century Maritime Silk Road” will make China becoming the core of world commerce.

Untitled design (8) — SMC Sales Assistant checking the conferences program

Not only the 2015 Intermodal Asia Exhibition was for suppliers the chance to promote their products and activities, but also a chance to know more about this evolving market. Three conference theaters (The Strategy Theater, The Innovation Theater and the brand new Technology Theater) offered the visitors the opportunity to attend numerous presentations and debates gave by industry leaders such as European Shippers’ Council Acting Secretary General Joost Sitskoorn who discussed about the “Wider Economic Perspective and Intermodal Market Update in the Spotlight.”

Untitled design (6) — Conference at the Strategy Theater

Untitled design (10) — SMC International Interns

Untitled design (13) — SMC International Interns

Untitled design — SMC International Interns

Untitled design (2) — SMC Containers Department Manager and Sales Assistant

Remember! Shanghai Metal Corporation provides you with a great selection of containers. Visit our website and do not hesitate to contact us.

Scan the QR code below and stay informed about our latest updates:

Stefano// SMC Editor

The History of Containers – When It All Began

Today, Shanghai Metal Corporation brings you back in time. Are you ready to take-off? Please fasten your seat belt, sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight. This is the story of containers.

The first stop of this journey is 1936 in Hoboken, New Jersey. The idea of containers, considered by many as “revolutionary”, must be attributed to Malcom McLean. As often is the case, the greatest ideas come in times of crisis. The Economist has described McLean’s early life as follows.

“He was a farmer’s son, one of seven children. His first business transaction was selling eggs for his mother, taking a small commission. But in the 1930s, the time of the Great Depression, farming was one of the worst-hit industries. Mr McLean got a job at a petrol station and saved enough money to buy a secondhand lorry, calling himself, grandly, the McLean Trucking Company. He did well enough to buy five more lorries, hired drivers for them, but continued to drive himself“.

Malcom-Mclean-History — from http://www.intra-plus.com

By observing how the loads of cotton were moved by the trucks of his company to the hold of the ship, McLean thought of using a fixed size “metal box” that could contain the voluminous material making the operations easier. Few years later, this insight would have proved to be revolutionary. Indeed, the “new container”, in addition to speed up the operations of loading and unloading, contributed to decrease transportation costs and to avoid the thefts committed in ports.

primer-container-historia-malcom-mclean — from investorsconundrum.com

According to The Economicst, the Ideal X was the first cargo ship transporting containers. It was an elderly oil tanker “whose deck had been strengthened to accommodate 58 well-filled boxes each some 30ft (9 metres) long”. It was on April 26, 1956, when the Ideal X left Newark for Port Hudson.

According to Internazionale.it, McLean spent $0.16 per ton loaded, while the average cost of goods shipped at that time was $83 per ton. Moreover, from 1966 to 1983 the percentage of countries that used them has risen from 1 to 90 percent. The Economist claims that McLean was celebrated as the “man of the century” and the inventor of “the greatest advance in packaging since the paper bag”. Moreover, former United States President Bill Clinton said that containerisation helped to “fuel the world’s economy”.

Remember! Shanghai Metal Corporation provides you with a great selection of container houses. Visit our website and do not hesitate to contact us.

Scan the QR code below and stay informed about our latest updates:

Stefano// SMC Editor

Shipping Industry Insights – The Blue Denmark

Despite Denmark’s small size, this country has one of the world’s largest shipping industry. It is a global maritime industry leader with long-standing activities and advanced technologies. There is a term used for all of the maritime companies and professions in Denmark – The Blue Denmark.

The Blue Denmark

This term includes shipping companies, ship yards, industry suppliers, off-shore companies, educational institutions and authorities. The core of The Blue Denmark is formed by 100 Danish companies along with shipyards and maritime suppliers. Denmark transports 10% of the total world trade (approximately 1 billion tonnes).

China and The Blue Denmark

In 1974 the Chinese-Danish agreement on Maritime Transport was signed signed in Beijing by the Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping and Danish Prime Minister Paul Hartling. On 10, October 2014 Chinese and Danish representatives celebrated 40 years of official maritime cooperation. Nowadays, China as the largest shipbuilding nation is even more important for Danish suppliers and Danish ship owners.

Environmentally friendly shipping

Among the leading countries in the world, Denmark is well-known for environmentally friendly shipbuilding and repairing. Shipping is already a climate-friendly way of transport, but Danish companies together within The Blue Denmark have been trying to make even greater effort to protect the climate and environment. The biggest Danish company A.P. Moller-Maersk Ltd with others created a forum “Green Ship of the Future”. Involved members are trying to reduce CO2 emissions and pollution from ships. The vision of this forum is to develop energy-efficient technologies that can be achieved by connecting specific research. (more information)

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers customers shipbuilding steel used in maritime industry, or various types of shipping containers as open top offshore container. For more information visit our website or send us inquiry. Download a new application by scanning QR code below and follow us on Social Media.

Silvia M.//SMC Editor

Read more articles written by this author here.

Credits: dma.dk, greenship.org, cphpost.dk, scmp.com, danishmaritimedays.com, investindk.com, http://worldcareers.dk/

Shipping Industry Insights: Ports in Asia

China is popularly known as the leader of the world’s busiest ports since decades. It possesses an important number of ports that are located in different parts of the countries, the top ones are at Shanghai, Hong Kong and Shenzhen. It has been reported that each year import and export trade moving through the Port of Shanghai represents one-fourth of the value of China’s foreign trade. The importance of activities in the Port of Shanghai has been viewed as an opportunity to establish it as an international shipping center.

Port of Shanghai

Other Asian countries fills the top list of the world’s busiest cargo ports. Although the major parts of the list is composed by ports from different cities in China, we can observe a growth of activities in Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan. Check this website if you’re interested to see the complete list.

The Port of Singapore has one of the most spectacular number of trade transportation in the world. This year, it was named “Asia Container Port of the Year“, beating China. This phenomenon isn’t surprising at all. Having a limited natural resources, the country needed to exports products as a source of revenue to purchase natural resources and raw goods. As a consequence, it becomes one of the world’s largest exporter and importer.

Port of Singapore

To respond to the increase of international trade transportation, the technology of operating it has been improving. For example, more and more cargo are converted to container. The demand of “intermodal container” has been increasing since its efficiency allows the container to be moved from one mode of transportation to another without unloading and reloading the contents, reducing the cost of operation.

Graphic from BIMCO

The size of container ships is becoming increasingly larger over time with the increased uses of intermodal container.

If you are searching for a supplier of container or other shipping equipment, Shanghai Metal Corporation can help you. Our professional experts ensure only the best quality of products. If you have any question, feel free to contact us, our English speaking staffs will help you. Follow us on social media to have a better look on our products.

Credits to Wikipedia
Pictures from Google image.

Ayu P.//SMC editor

Aluminum Leaves Apple’s Desktops

Apple has announced that its new Mac Pro desktop computer will use 74 % less aluminum and steel than its predecessor. The new design of Mac Pro is also said to be 84 % lighter than the previous version.

Reducing the amount of aluminum and steel as well as reducing the overall weight is said to decrease the green house gasses that the manufacturing process would omit. The emissions caused by shipping of goods will also be reduced as the weight becomes substantially lower. This will also reduce Mac Pros’ value-to-weight ratio because according to Apple, the change of materials will not hinder the desktops’ efficiency.

Even though Apple will reduce the percentage of metals in Mac Pros, they still represent the majority of the desktops’ weight. Aluminum and steel still represent about 60 % the Mac Pro’s weight. In addition, aluminum, steel and copper will represent about 73 % of the weight. The total weight of the computer will be close to 13 pounds (six kilograms).

Metals such as aluminum, copper and steel are still in a crucial role in the mobile phone and computer industry. Even though Apple drastically reduces the use of these metals, it is very unlikely that they will leave the manufacturing process for good. It remains still important for businesses to have good relations with reliable providers of metals, such as the Shanghai Metal Corporation.

Apple Mac Pro’s packaging slightly resembles wine packaging.

In Shanghai Metal Corporation we offer high-quality service for our international clients as well as help them to find the best metal products for their needs. If you are planning to procure aluminum or any other metals, just send us an inquiry and our English speaking staff will guide you further. For specifications of our products, please visit our website. Also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Inhabitat, CleanTechnica, Treehugger, Tapscape, Cnet

How Do You Lengthen A Ship? Cut It In Half Of Course

Have you heard of the infinite chocolate theory? See below for details:

Well that’s not quite what these engineers had in mind, but close. It can be expensive to build an entirely new ship – maybe that’s why one cruise line decided to recycle an old one. Italian line MSC Cruises has decided to cut its smallest ship Armonia in half and stick a new part in.

Over several days, the 60,000-ton vessel was cut in two and a new 79ft-long, nine-deck-high section containing 193 extra cabins was slowly slotted into place. The work that took place in the Fincantieri shipyard in Palermo, Sicily, increases the ship’s length to 902ft – longer than the main Canary Wharf tower in London is high – and makes space for a total of 2,679 passengers. The upgrade will take nine weeks and cost £40million – and then be repeated on three other MSC ships, Sinfonia, Opera and Lirica. The new Armonia is due to sail from the yard on November 17 – fully watertight, of course.

If they wanted to save some money, they could have called Shanghai Metal who manufactures carbon steel shipbuilding plate at competitive prices. As an ISO 14001 (International Quality Management System) Company and recipient of the “Star Enterprise Award,” Shanghai Metal Corporation prides itself on exceeding international standards of quality and reliability. We guarantee the best prices, quality support, and fast delivery. To find out more, please visit our Website or send your inquiry here. Our English speaking personnel will be more than pleased to assist you. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code.

Source: Metro

Siobhan R.// SMC Editor

Drunk Man Found In Container Bound For The USA

Cars, food, lego pieces – shipping containers have been known to carry all kinds of items. But a product unique to shipping was found this time last year: a drunken man.

Jiang Wu was supposed to be staying in a B&B in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao. In his drunken stupor he’d somehow mistaken a shipping container at a dockyard for his room, wandered in and fell asleep. The next morning he woke up and panicked. He found himself in a pitch black sealed shipping container, hung-over and trapped. His one saving grace was that he at least had his mobile phone. He called his friends, the police, anyone who could find. Unfortunately for him, it was not that easy:

“His problem was … that he couldn’t tell us which container he was in, and there were thousands of them stacked on top of each other,” Qingdao Police Spokesman.

Police arrived and asked Mr Wu to bang on the walls of his container. With only an hour to go until his container was due to sail, he was found 60 feet high.

“He’s very lucky. If he’d been asleep for another hour the next stop would have been America,” said a dock worker.

He was fortunate. There are currently over 17 million shipping containers in the world, and five or six million of them are currently shipping around the world on vessels, trucks, and trains. In total, they make around 200 million trips a year.

Approximately 97% of all shipping containers are manufactured in China. For example, Shanghai Metal manufactures shipping containers. We are the leading manufacturer and supplier in China. From the acquisition of raw materials, packaging and exportation, SMC ensures only the best quality of products. By assigning professional experts at every stage of production, we ensure continuous support in our worldwide business. To find out more, please visit our website, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code.

You can also read more articles by our team at SMC:

Containers – The New Political Soapbox

Move Along Airplanes – Submarines Overtake Travel

Thor’s Hammer: The Science

Shipping Container City – Shanghai Immigrant’s Homes

Can You Do A 360 Degree Loop On A Swing Set?

Become Bullet Proof …Using Water

Counterfeit Money Cases

LEGO Lands On British Shores

Innovative Uses of Soap

Air Quality – What Can Be Done?

Team Building Exercises – A New Spin

How Much Petrol Costs Internationally

The Antarctican Training Programme – Could You Make It?

What Is The Mirror Paradox?

Do Oil Discoveries Cause Conflict?

Should We All Switch To Cycling?

Where Did ‘Loom Bands’ Come From?

Are You Apocalypse Ready?

Could You Abseil Down Big Ben?

Building Your Dream Kitchen

How A Tiny Anchor Can Hold A Whole Ship

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Where Did All the Ducks Go?

On January 1992, over 29,000 rubber ducks, turtles and frogs fell from a cargo ship in the Pacific Ocean. Since then, these plastic toys have been floating around the world passing Japan, Alaska and Hawaii. Some of them have spent their years frozen in an Arctic ice pack.

Rubber ducks in a river. (source)

Over 22 years ago, a 40-foot steel shipping container was knocked down due to rough seas and huge waves. Along with several other containers, all the bath toys were knocked overboard.

Some estimates suggest that up to 10,000 containers fall into the ocean every year. The World Shipping Council, whose members represent 90% of the world’s container ship capacity, say that figure is grossly exaggerated and estimate that on average no more than 350 containers are lost annually.

Due to severe weather and high seas, accidents or incorrect stowage, there are now shipping containers littering the seabed all around the world. Many float on the surface for months, some rupture and release their goods, but most eventually sink to the bottom — creating deep-sea stepping stones between ports across the globe.

Rubber ducks floating on water. (source)

Since the accident, oceanographer’s have tried to track all the bath toys. Only about 3% of the missing toys have been reported. It is also estimated that there are only about a few hundred items left drifting in the world’s seas. CNN has published a map that indicates where the toys have run ashore. You can see the map through this link.

Shanghai Metal Corporation also offers shipping containers for construction and housing usage. You can our containers here. Remember to like us on Facebook and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

References: CNN

The cover photo article: Sonetel’s similarity with a big rubber duck

Применение алюминиевой фольги для консервирования продуктов

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Алюминий начали широко применять при изготовлении аппаратуры для производства и хранения крепкой азотной кислоты, пероксида водорода, органических веществ и пищевых продуктов благодаря его высокой коррозионной стойкости и нетоксичности.

Алюминиевая фольга стала очень распространенным упаковочным материалом, так как она гораздо прочнее и дешевле оловянной. Также алюминий стал широко использоваться для изготовления тары для консервирования и храпения продуктов сельского хозяйства. Но хранение не ограничивается маленькими баночками, алюминий используется для строительства зернохранилищ и других быстровозводимых сооружений, востребованных в сельском хозяйстве.

Также широко алюминий применяется в военной промышленности при строительстве самолетов, танков, артиллерийских установок, ракет, зажигательных веществ, и дл многих других целей в военной технике.

Широкое применение алюминий высокой чистоты находит в таких новых областях техники как ядерная энергетика, полупроводниковая электроника, радиолокация.

Большое распространение алюминий получил как антикоррозийное покрытие, он прекрасно защищает металлические поверхности от действия различных химических веществ и атмосферной коррозии.

Egor T.//SMC Editor

Работа Уралвагонзавода и Caterpillar по созданию совместного предприятия не будет продолжена из-за санкций США

Работа Уралвагонзавода и Caterpillar по созданию совместного предприятия не будет продолжена из-за санкций США в отношении УВЗ, сообщает ИТАР-ТАСС.

“Проект пострадает, если санкции будут продолжены. Мы на холде (от англ. hold — «держать») стоим, потому что мы должны были его реализовать на прошлой неделе, но из-за того что ввели санкции, все в стопоре.” – Олег Сиенко, генеральный директор УВЗ.

Речь идет об очередном пакете документов по созданию совместного предприятия с Caterpillar, который планировали подписать еще на прошлой неделе. По словам Сиенко, в августе должны были «привезти два локомотива под сертификацию, их надо было сейчас начинать грузить — эта ситуация остановлена».

Сейчас УВЗ ждет от американских партнеров информацию, как они видят дальнейшую реализацию проекта и, скорее всего, получат ее в начале августа.

Напомним, США ввели дополнительные санкции против России из-за ситуации на Украине. В отношении УВЗ вместе с другими предприятиями российской оборонки ввели блокирующие санкции, которые предусматривают полное прекращение с ними каких-либо контактов со стороны США и замораживание их активов в американских банках.

Локомотивостроительное подразделение Caterpillar — Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) и Уралвагонзавод в 2013 году подписали протокол о намерениях, касающийся разработки и производства магистральных локомотивов в РФ. Предполагалось, что СП создадут на базе Челябинского тракторного завода, входящего в УВЗ. Не менее половины всей продукции будет производиться в России: например, рамы, кабины и элементы управления для нового локомотива.

Egor T.//SMC Editor