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Shipping stocks just can’t seem to escape their history of futility. After finally gaining ground in 2017 thanks to a rebalancing of vessel capacity supply and demand, shipping stocks are struggling under the weight of the trade war between the United States and China. Apparently, Wall Street thinks slapping tariffs on everything from steel to soybeans poses a risk to ocean-going trade routes. Despite a temporary truce halting tariffs at 10% through February, things may get worse before they get better if shippers struggle to adapt to a global low-sulfur ...

At Maersk Tankers, dedicated chartering desks have specialised in trading vessels in niche markets, with products such as vegetable oils, chemicals and dirty petroleum products. This provides the company’s MR pool with trading options beyond the core MR markets, contributing to above-market earnings for owners with vessels in the pool. Maersk Tankers’ growing MR pool has total geographic coverage, typically transporting energy products such as gasoline, jet fuel, naphtha, and diesel. Besides trading refined oil products, Maersk Tankers is operating vessels in niche markets and trades, for example, vegetable oils ...

Yara Marine Technologies has officially opened its new office in Shanghai to meet increasing demand for exhaust gas cleaning systems for newbuilds and retrofit projects. “A large percentage of scrubber installations will be executed in the Asia-Pacific region. A strong local presence in Shanghai is key to global customer support and our business,” says Peter Strandberg, CEO, Yara Marine. Yara Marine has delivered more than 100 scrubbers representing an aggregate operation of some two million hours. Shipowners are dependent on quality products, flexible suppliers, and reliable service partners to support ...

The Mission to Seafarers has reaffirmed its commitment to developing new mental health services in 2019 in response to increasing concerns around mental wellbeing at sea. Speaking to many leading industry figures, including the UK Shipping Minister, at its annual Festival of Nine Carols & Lessons in London, the Mission acknowledged the work many shipping companies are doing to tackle issues such as loneliness and isolation, but called for a renewed focus on reaching vulnerable seafarers who may be unable to access existing resources. The Mission also recognised the vital ...

IMO is providing training to countries* in the west Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden on managing insecurity in the maritime domain in a regional workshop at the Djibouti Regional Training Centre (9-13 December). It’s the latest in an ongoing series of capacity-building initiatives in the region, targeted at national focal points and key personnel in maritime security. Participants include officers from coast guards, marine police, navy and maritime administrations, serving at sea or ashore, who have operational responsibility for maritime law enforcement. They are being trained on regional and ...

In January-November 2018, seaports of Russia handled 746.8 million tonnes of cargo (up 4.2%, year-on-year), says press center of the Association of Commercial Sea Ports. Transshipment of dry cargo totaled 357.1 million tonnes (+5.2%) 149.1 million tonnes of coal (+5.5%), 52.1 million tonnes of grain (+21.2%), 48.8 million tonnes of containerized cargo (+11.4%), 27.6 million tonnes of ferrous metal (+7.7%), 16.2 million tonnes of mineral fertilizers (+0.7%), 5.0 million tonnes of timber (+5.9%), 3.7 million tonnes of metal scrap (+8.7%) and 3.4 million tonnes of non-ferrous metal (+2.3%). Transshipment of ...

This week saw the inauguration of a 35-year Abu Dhabi Ports–COSCO SHIPPING Ports concession deal that will let China COSCO SHIPPING Corporation (COSCO) develop and run a new Khalifa Port container terminal to support trade flows anticipated from China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Abu Dhabi Ports chief executive Mohamed Al Shamisi told American business news channel CNBC that having infrastructure whereby the largest vessels can enter and use Khalifa Port (located in the UAE) as a hub will serve the BRI, adding that it is “in the heart” of the ...

During November, there were six new detentions of foreign flagged vessels in a UK port, three vessels remained under detention from previous months. A total of four vessels remain under detention at the end of November. 1. In response to one of the recommendations of Lord Donaldson’s inquiry into the prevention of pollution from merchant shipping, and in compliance with the EU Directive on Port State Control (2009/16/EC as amended), the Maritime and Coastguard agency (MCA) publishes details of the foreign flagged vessels detained in UK ports each month. 2. ...

The Maria Energy LNG tanker carrying the first export cargo from Cheniere Energy’s terminal near Corpus Christi, Texas, is headed to Greece, a company spokesman said Thursday. A statement from Greece’s Ministry of Environment and Energy posted on Twitter by the US Embassy in Athens said the country was expecting its first spot LNG cargo from the US to arrive on December 29. The Tweet from the US Embassy said the US was looking forward to working on a long-term LNG supply deal with Greece. While the Greek statement did ...

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said that, because of U.S. sanctions, India had refused to allow a Russian-owned Indian refinery to use Iranian crude oil that India had obtained under waivers. Zanganeh was responding to a question in an interview on Iranian state television about why Iran had not bought refineries overseas. He said large investments were needed, and the refineries would be under the jurisdiction of the host country. “Even if you own a refinery, …it is under the sovereignty of the country where it is located…. For example, ...

China is back in the market for U.S. soybeans, but the recent purchases represent just a fraction of sales American farmers have lost since the Trump administration embarked on a trade war with Beijing in July. Chinese state-owned companies bought at least 500,000 tons of U.S. soybeans on Wednesday, two U.S. traders told Reuters, in the first major purchases since U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met in early December. The deals – valued at some $180 million – helped propel U.S. soybean prices to a ...

With natural gas prices surging in the U.S., you might think coal would be king again this winter. Think again. Yes, production is rising, a little. And yes, higher electricity prices in the biggest U.S. power market are providing a rare opportunity for aging coal-fired steam generators to run with comfortable profit margins, according to a report Wednesday by Morningstar Inc. But a decade of coal-plant retirements, combined with shut-in Appalachian mines, have left generators supplying PJM Interconnection LLC’s grid with little flexibility to ramp up quickly. Generating margins for ...

Oil traded below $53 a barrel in New York, little changed a week after OPEC and its allies announced substantial output cuts, as traders weighed an uncertain outlook for 2019. Saudi Arabia’s plan to slash exports to the U.S. next month is shoring up expectations that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners will deliver on last week’s promise to curb production. Yet the outlook is clouded by booming American output, which veteran crude trader Andy Hall says is making it hard to predict the market’s direction. “The ...

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said that his country has no plans to reduce its oil production, but will remain a member of OPEC, the official news agency IRNA reported. OPEC and its Russia-led allies agreed on Friday in Vienna to slash oil production by more than the market expected in a bid to shore up prices despite pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to reduce the price of crude. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Rania El Gamal; Editing by Adrian Croft)

A Venezuelan oil joint venture with a state-owned Chinese company accounting for around 10 percent of the crisis-stricken OPEC member country’s output has nearly doubled production in the past seven months, a unit of state-owned PDVSA said. Rising production of heavy crude at Sinovensa, owned by PDVSA subsidiary Venezuelan Petroleum Corporation (CVP) and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), could slow a freefall in Venezuela’s output which has seen production drop to the lowest levels in nearly 70 years. Sinovensa, which is located in the Orinoco oil belt in southern Venezuela ...