Global news in brief

Renault has opened its new spare parts and accessories centre in Oarja, Romania, around 30km from the Dacia plant in Mioveni.

 

The 65,000m2 warehouse holds Renault’s largest spare parts and accessories distribution centre outside France, with capacity for more than 70,000 part lines. The warehouse will supply original spare parts to the Dacia, Renault and Nissan networks in Romania, as well as to the Dacia sales networks in 33 other countries.

 

The warehouse was designed to cater for the needs of the Dacia brand as it develops into and beyond 2015.

 

The centre is capable of responding to urgent orders by shipping parts in stock to any customer in the Dacia, Renault and Nissan networks in Romania in less than 36 hours.

 

GM’s Opel division has signed an agreement with Shlomo Group to import and distribute Opel vehicles and parts into Israel from early 2011. It marks a relaunch for Opel in the country

 

"We are pleased that one of the strongest industry players in Israel, the Shlomo Group, will represent the Opel brand in the future," said Michael Klaus, executive director, International Operations at Opel. "Israel plays an important role in our export initiative. With our attractive new products like the Insignia and Astra we will re-position the Opel brand in the Israeli market."

 

Opel is preparing to enter more export markets, among them countries in the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and South America.

A Höegh car carrier avoided capture by pirates in the Gulf of Aden at the end of August thanks to the intervention of NATO naval forces. The Höegh Oslo, which was carrying ro-ro cargo was the second boat to be attacked by the pirates who had launched an attack on a cement carrier shortly before their attempt on the Oslo.

 

Höegh Autoliners would not comment on the route the vessel was taking or the cargo on board citing commercial sensitivity.

 

US destroyer Winston Churchill and Danish frigate Esbern Snare intervened to stop the attack on the cement carrier and the arrival of the Esbern Snare’s helicopter deterred the pirates from the second attack whereupon they made for the Somali coast. However, their skiff was stopped under fire from a navy helicopter and boarded by an investigation team who found ammunition, knives and other equipment.

 

Pallet and container pooling services provider Chep has renewed its tender with GM Europe to provide pooling management until July 2016. The company’s automotive division will manage 12.2m product movements across Europe annually according to the company.

 

Chep’s director of European Key Accounts, David Mayo said: "We are delighted that GM Europe, as a result of a robust open tender process, has chosen Chep again. We look forward to continuing the excellent partnership that we have enjoyed to date."

 

GM Europe has been using Chep's pooling approach since 1993.

 

The latest contract extension follows the successful launch in 2008 of the Chep SAP management system for GM Europe's self-owned specialist containers according to the company. Its introduction enabled a standardisation of systems and processes across all plants in a real-time environment, allowing a central overview of assets and flows for both parties.

 

 

In the last edition of Finished Vehicle Logistics magazine we reported in the India Ports feature (starting on page 38) that the country's ports were still currently developing ro-ro terminals and port facilities, though it was emphasised that Hyundai was using Chennai to export all finished vehicles. Our graphic, however, incorrectly stated that there was "currently no ro-ro" at Chennai port. To clarify: Hyundai has been using the port for ro-ro exports with Eukor and WWL for some time.

Furthermore, as detailed in our forthcoming FVL magazine regional report on India, Sical Logistics has now joined hands with Mitsui to set up a port side facility to handle exports from Chennai and yard construction is already complete. See the October-December edition of the magazine which will be available from the beginning of next month.