Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide, Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and International Shipping

The past few months have seen CEOs departing companies at a record clip — faster than any point in the past 17 years. These include the embattled executives heading up WeWork and Juul, making it seem as though there must be some kind of collective housecleaning taking place in corporate America. That’s not the case. The evidence suggests that, a few high-profile exceptions notwithstanding, CEOs are leaving voluntarily. And this should command our attention: Historical patterns indicate that when we see this rate of turnover, the economic expansion is almost ...

The U.S. Federal Reserve holds its last policy meeting of 2019 on Wednesday, having completed a year-long U-turn that saw it abandon a tightening cycle and lower borrowing costs three times in response to the global trade war. The policy shift has slashed officials’ forecast for the U.S. central bank’s benchmark overnight lending rate over 2020 to a level half what it was when Fed Chairman Jerome Powell took the reins in February 2018. The Fed is expected to leave its federal funds rate unchanged at a level between 1.5% ...

The Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI) today launches the report The Role of Sustainable Biofuels in the Decarbonisation of Shipping: The findings of an inquiry into the sustainability and availability of biofuels for shipping at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) currently underway in Madrid. Outlining the findings of an inquiry commissioned by the SSI in January 2019, the report reflects a broad stakeholder consultation process to explore the potential role of biofuels in the decarbonisation of shipping. The launch event sees SSI sharing key conclusions and recommendations with COP25 participants, ...

Global energy producer Shell is betting on LNG as the first step in ridding shipping of its greenhouse gas emissions while cleaner fuels are still in research and development. Beyond next year’s tougher sulfur emission limits, the next big regulatory challenge for shipping will be decarbonization. The International Maritime Organization has set an initial strategy of cutting carbon emissions per ship by at least 40% by 2030, and total greenhouse gas emissions for the shipping industry as a whole by at least 50% from 2008’s levels by 2050. Over the ...

MABUX World Bunker Index (consists of a range of prices for 380 HSFO, 180 HSFO and MGO (Gasoil) in the main world hubs) slightly decreased on Dec.10: 380 HSFO – USD/MT – 351.71(-0.19) 180 HSFO – USD/MT – 393.48(-1.87) MGO – USD/MT – 669.55 (-0.38) Meantime, world oil indexes increased on Dec.10 as OPEC’s deal with associated producers last week to deepen output cuts in 2020 continued to provide a floor for prices, but U.S.-China trade tensions clouded the demand outlook. Brent for February settlement increased by $0.09 to $63.34 ...

MAN Energy Solutions has developed a new generation of instructional material with augmented reality and featuring a mix of different multimedia. MAN CEON is MAN Energy Solutions’ umbrella brand for all its digital products. Augmented reality provides a new way to give intuitive instructions and guidance on-site and on demand. Using mobile devices or head-mounted displays, TechGuide enables engineers to use their preferred learning style on a job, whether through 3D-models, animations, video, to have instructions read aloud or to browse a pdf. MAN Energy Solutions believes MAN CEON TechGuide ...

Rarely have container shipping lines played for such high stakes as they are right now. Not only are they attempting to pass on higher IMO 2020 low sulfur fuel bills, they are also in the final stages of agreeing to Asia-Europe annual contracts for next year. Their success in negotiating both with shippers will go a long way toward deciding industry profitability next year, not least because Asia-Europe contract settlements will also set the stage for trans-Pacific liner-shipper contract negotiations in the second quarter of 2020. As previously detailed in ...

As a part of its Responsible Ship Recycling Program (RSRP), GMS continually conducts awareness programs for workers at various ship recycling yards in India and Bangladesh, in order to train them to safely undertake their daily operations through topical expert-led training sessions. The first awareness training in the month of November was on oil spill management and was conducted at yard no. V5 in Alang, India. In this training session, workers learned about the various types of oil spills and how to properly use SEPEP kits & PPE to address ...

Ocean Yield ASA is pleased to announce the delivery of the LR2 product tanker “Navig8 Precision” today. The vessel was acquired from a major Chinese leasing company in a transaction with four vessels, where the first three were delivered last week. The vessels have about 9 year’s remaining bareboat charters to Navig8 Topco Holdings Inc. All four vessels are fitted with scrubbers and built in 2018 and 2019. Source: Ocean Yield ASA

1 January 2020 will witness the introduction of Incoterms® 2020. Revised every ten years, in common with previous editions, this latest revision has been assessed against current business practices, taking into account new technologies and challenges faced through the intervening period. Incoterms were first introduced in 1936 amid turbulent economic times, and emergent regional and global markets. At the time, various countries were introducing a series of new trade tariffs and negotiating bespoke contracts; there was a recognition that the general climate of trade risk was changing. Translated into 25 ...

Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) advised Ridgebury Tankers (“Ridgebury”) and Tufton Oceanic (“Tufton”) on the acquisition of two Suezmax tankers in a 50%-50% joint venture with Euronav NV (“Euronav”) who also provided secured debt to the joint venture companies for the purposes of the acquisitions. The joint venture acquired two Suezmax tankers for a combined consideration of US$40.6m. Both vessels have been delivered into the joint ventures. Ridgebury is an award-winning, US-based shipping company with a fleet of high-quality crude and refined product tankers. Tufton Oceanic, a specialist fund manager ...

Bad weather, and the threat of it, is certainly topical. We briefly discussed this in our post of 7 June, it was highly newsworthy recently and it came up again in London Arbitration 21/19 [(2019) 1039 LMLN 1]. There, with about $321,000 at stake, the Tribunal discussed the distinction between actual and approaching bad weather, and considered the meaning of “attributable” in common exclusion wording. Terms Under a COA dated 31 July the vessel was to load at a Mississippi terminal, and laytime and demurrage would not count: “ … ...

South Korean shipbuilders won US$16.4 billion (19.5 trillion won) worth of shipbuilding orders in the first 11 months of this year, beating their Chinese rivals who posted US$15.3 billion (18.2 trillion won) during the same period, according to data released by Clarksons Research this week. The statistics did not include the US$1.5 billion LNG carrier contracts won by Samsung Heavy Industries in November. When the figure is counted, Korean shipbuilders’ combined orders surpass 20 trillion won. Korean shipbuilding companies bagged orders totaling 7.12 million CGT (36 percent) by November, beating ...

SMM estimates that there were 84 vessels carrying 12.61 million mt of iron ore arrived at major Chinese ports during December 1-7, falling 3.47 million mt from the week ended November 30. The decline came after three consecutive weeks of increase. However,Tangshan, China’s top steelmaking city, saw greater arrivals at ports last week. During December 1-7, iron ore deliveries leaving Australian ports rose 1.66 million mt from the prior week to 14.98 million mt, but the proportion of shipments to China declined on the week. Shipments that departed Brazilian ports ...

APM Terminals Yucatán, located in the Port of Progreso, Mexico saw the commissioning of a new mobile harbour crane this week. The USD 4 million investment will increase operational efficiency by around 40% once fully implemented, reducing berthing times and improving the safety. The Terex 5506, which measures 36 meters high, has a 51-meter boom and a 125-ton lifting capacity, arrived on the BBC Switzerland. “We are excited to receive the new crane, which is considered the best port equipment in its class,” says Martijn Koolen, General Director of APM ...