Ships at Tianjin Port’s North wharf other than those carrying crude and hazardous products can enter and exit normally, according to a post from the official microblog of the Tianjin Maritime Safety Administration at 10.44 am local time on Friday.
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Employees of several companies based in the area have also been injured, some of them seriously.
The Journal said along with Chinese-owned manufacturing facilities, major Western multinationals such as Airbus Group SE, Deere & Co and Wal-Mart Stores Inc operate factories or distribution centres in the area. “We are working with our customers to minimise any potential impact”, the company said. Ore with 62 per cent content delivered to Qingdao, another Chinese port, rose 0.2 per cent to US$56.31 a dry metric ton on Wednesday, according to Metal Bulletin Ltd. The data are issued daily, with yesterday’s figure coming before the blasts were reported from Tianjin. It is also one of the top importers of cars into China.
He said even minor delays could have a vast impact on supply chains because major ports like Tianjin serve as focal points for global shipping as well as transportation inland. Motorola, Toyota, Samsung, Nestle, Honeywell, Coca-Cola, Bridgestone, Lafarge, GlaxoSmithKline and Novo Nordisk, among others, have operations in Tianjin, according to a government trade promotion website. But he said the blast could have long-term implications for the cost structure of China’s energy and petrochemicals industry, if the government imposes stricter supply chain safety standards.
The explosions could potentially have an immediate effect on the price of iron ore imported by steelmakers, according to Nicolai Hansteen, an analyst with shipbroking firm Lorentzen & Stemoco AS in Oslo.
The docks at the port also contain massive iron ore unloading capacity, making it a key destination for the tens of millions of tonnes of iron shipped from Australia and destined for Chinese steel mills.
“It’s fallen to a very precarious levels”.
Volkswagen spokeswoman Larissa Braun told AP that its vehicles kept at a storage facility near the blasts were damaged.
“This is the processing area before things get into the port, with a lot of consolidation and a lot of storage”, he said, adding that the timing of the blasts, coming late Wednesday, probably limited casualties.
There was no indication of what caused the disaster in one of China’s busiest ports, and authorities tried to keep a tight rein over information by keeping reporters well away from the site.
A spokesman for Rio Tinto said the metals and mining company had four vessels waiting to anchor at Tianjin, none of which were affected by the blast, and that “there is no impact” on its operations.
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Logistics operators and cargo handlers on Thursday were still trying to determine the extent of the damage to the large volumes of container shipments, automobiles and commodities near the blast zone.
