“Martin Bencher Cooperates with AG Logistics for Three Continent Movement”

Santos, Brazil, October 17th, 2005 – Martin Bencher and AG Logistics do Brasil, both members of the Global Project Cargo Network (GPLN), cooperated to move five new disassembled Kalmar rubber tired gantry cranes (RTGs) with parts of these containers coming from China and Finland to Brazil. Kalmar Industries’s customer was Terminal Santos-Brasil.

The move meant that Martin Bencher needed to arrange a vessel charter for 3800 cubic meters of steel structures from China to Brazil and had to arrange approximately 20x40’ containers from Helsinki, which contained the electrical and electronic components. “The oversized part of the move wasn’t the only difficult part of this mission,” said Arnaldo Cassettari of AG Logistics, “due to Brazilian customs regulations, the charter for several pieces of the RTGs, which were approximately 28 meters long, had to arrive in Santos on exactly the same day as the containers from Finland, yet the steel structures in China were coming from two separate ports in China – Shanghai and Huangpu in the South of China.”

The move required very high levels of coordination between the shipping agents. Martin Bencher handled booking with Kalmar Industries, the commercial aspects of the shipment, the inland handling and transportation in both Finland and in China, whereas AG Logistics handled operations with the carrier and vessel discharge at Santos.

Kalmar Industries, one of Cargotec’s three subsidiary business areas, is one of the world’s largest and best known makers of rubber tired gantry (RTG) cranes. The RTG is a common container handling system at the world's largest terminals with annual capacity requirements up to millions of TEUs. In large container terminals RTGs can be used stack containers higher and wider than other systems allow. This is needed in a growing port like Santos, which is the main port for neighboring states that account for 55% of Brazil’s GDP, 49% of Brazil’s exports and 45% of Brazil’s consumers.

Kalmar Industries is a client of Danish based Martin Bencher in both Finland and in Poland. Martin Bencher was originally established in the United Kingdom in 1881. In 1997 the name was brought to Scandinavia and today Martin Bencher have their own offices in Denmark, Sweden, Finland & Poland, and several other places around the world. AG Logistics do Brasil is a subsidiary company of the Italian based Aprile Group. Both Martin Bencher and the Aprile Group, including AG Logitics do Brasil, are member so the Global Projects Logistics Network (GPLN). The GPLN is a non-exclusive professional projects logistics group for independent companies specializing in international projects shipping by air, sea and land as well as specialized lifts and handling of oversized, out-of-gauge and heavy lift cargo.