A parcel is an individual consignment of cargo for shipment. Is the unit used in the daily practice for sending and receiving all kinds of cargo. It may have all shapes and sizes. The size can range from an actual mail parcel to 100 boxes of wine, with a top limit, for example, of 4 million barrels cargo of oil large enough to fill a supertanker. [1]
Each product has particular parcel size in which may be transported in the most economical way. This is expressed as parcel size distribution. Thus, the parcel size distribution size for coal it's completely different from the size used for ore, for grain or for sugar.
For sea Bulk transport there are given some typical parcel sizes. For coal is between 20,000 and 160,000 tons, but for the majority of cargoes parcel sizes lie between 150,000 and 60,000 tons. Iron ore is transported especially in parcel sizes of 150,000 tons, while with grain sizes are between 60,000 and 25,000 tons. When transporting sugar the most common parcel sizes are around 25,000 tons.
Maximizing parcels to the maximum possible size has helped the economies of scale. This has contributed to the economic growth of the use of great vessels after the World War II.
However, there are a number of factors that limit the parcel size :
The transition from bulk to cargo begins when parcel sizes smaller than the carrying capacity of a single ship. The option than is transporting several parcels together, making generally necessary the use of a container, then the transportation costs rise sharply. With the advent of the intermodal containers it has become possible to transport smaller parcels efficiently (loading and unloading), the same way the cargo has also benefit from the economies of scale that had taken place earlier in the bulk transportation.
Maritime transport and hydraulic effluvial transport, or more generally waterborne transport, is the transport of people (passengers) or goods (cargo) via waterways. Freight transport by sea has been widely used throughout recorded history. The advent of aviation has diminished the importance of sea travel for passengers, though it is still popular for short trips and pleasure cruises. Transport by water is cheaper than transport by air, despite fluctuating exchange rates and a fee placed on top of freighting charges for carrier companies known as the currency adjustment factor. Maritime transport accounts for roughly 80% of international trade, according to UNCTAD in 2020.
A container ship is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport and now carry most seagoing non-bulk cargo.
Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. Cargo was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including transport by rail, van, truck, or intermodal container. The term cargo is also used in case of goods in the cold-chain, because the perishable inventory is always in transit towards a final end-use, even when it is held in cold storage or other similar climate-controlled facility. The term freight is commonly used to describe the movements of flows of goods being transported by any mode of transportation.
A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year, handling the bulk of international trade. Cargo ships are usually specially designed for the task, often being equipped with cranes and other mechanisms to load and unload, and come in all sizes. Today, they are almost always built of welded steel, and with some exceptions generally have a life expectancy of 25 to 30 years before being scrapped.
A merchant ship, merchant vessel, trading vessel, or merchantman is a watercraft that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This is in contrast to pleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, and naval ships, which are used for military purposes.
A bulk carrier or bulker is a merchant ship specially designed to transport unpackaged bulk cargo, such as grains, coal, ore, steel coils, and cement, in its cargo holds. Since the first specialized bulk carrier was built in 1852, economic forces have led to continued development of these ships, resulting in increased size and sophistication. Today's bulk carriers are specially designed to maximize capacity, safety, efficiency, and durability.
Lake freighters, or lakers, are bulk carrier vessels that ply the Great Lakes of North America. These vessels are traditionally called boats, although classified as ships.
The modern terms short-sea shipping, marine highway, and motorways of the sea, and the more historical terms coastal trade, coastal shipping, coasting trade, and coastwise trade, all encompass the movement of cargo and passengers mainly by sea along a coast, without crossing an ocean.
Rail freight transport is the use of railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers.
Bulk cargo is commodity cargo that is transported unpackaged in large quantities.
A freight rate is a price at which a certain cargo is delivered from one point to another. The price depends on the form of the cargo, the mode of transport, the weight of the cargo, and the distance to the delivery destination. Many shipping services, especially air carriers, use dimensional weight for calculating the price, which takes into account both weight and volume of the cargo.
The Port of Ashdod is one of Israel's three main cargo ports. The port is located in Ashdod, about 40 kilometers south of Tel Aviv, adjoining the mouth of the Lachish River. Its establishment significantly enhanced the country's port capacity. It handles the largest volume of cargo containers annually of all Israeli ports. Ships carrying humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip also unload their cargo at Ashdod.
The Port of Montreal is a cruise and transshipment point located on the St. Lawrence River in Montreal, Québec, Canada. The port operates as an international container port where it services Toronto and the rest of Central Canada, the U.S. Midwest, and the U.S. Northeast. Though found on the Saint Lawrence Seaway and found 1,600 kilometres (990 mi) inland from the Atlantic Ocean, it is the shortest direct route between Europe and the Mediterranean, with the North American midwest.
A shipping line or shipping company is a company whose line of business is ownership and operation of ships.
Handysize is a naval architecture term for smaller bulk carriers or oil tanker with deadweight of up to 50,000 tonnes, although there is no official definition in terms of exact tonnages. Handysize is also sometimes used to refer to the span of up to 60,000 tons, with the vessels above 35,000 tonnes referred to as Handymax or Supramax.
The port of Port Talbot is located on the River Afan estuary next to Port Talbot Steelworks in the industrial town of Port Talbot, South Wales. The whole basin complex covers about 500 acres (2.0 km2), consisting of: an inner set of floating docks, developed from 1834 onwards; and an outer tidal basin, completed in 1970. Owned and operated by Associated British Ports, the tidal basin has the deepest berthing facilities in the Severn estuary and is one of only a few harbours in the UK capable of handling Capesize vessels of up to 170,000 tonnes deadweight (DWT), mostly for the import of iron ore and coal for use by nearby Port Talbot Steelworks.
In 1961 China established a state-run maritime shipping company and subsequently signed shipping agreements with many countries, laying the foundation for developing the country's ocean transport. That organization developed into the present-day China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company (COSCO). The Chinese government also invested heavily in water transport infrastructure, constructing new ports and rebuilding and enlarging older facilities.
Sea transport systems in today's shipping market have evolved into three separate but closely connected segments: bulk shipping, liner shipping and specialized shipping. Although these segments belong to the same industry, each carries out different tasks and has a very different character.
The international shipping industry can be divided into four closely related shipping markets, each trading in a different commodity: the freight market, the sale and purchase market, the newbuilding market and the demolition market. These four markets are linked by cash flow and push the market traders in the direction they want.
In shipping, the stowage factor indicates how many cubic metres of space one tonne of a particular type of cargo occupies in a hold of a cargo ship. It is calculated as the ratio of the stowage space required under normal conditions, including the stowage losses caused by the means of transportation and packaging, to the weight of the cargo. The stowage factor can be used in ship design and as a reference to evaluate the efficiency of use of the cargo space on a ship.