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

European shares gained ground on Tuesday, with Germany’s carmakers outperforming, as risk appetite held firm after the United States stepped back from imposing tariffs on Mexico. The pan-European STOXX 600 climbed 0.62%, on course for a sixth day of gains in the last seven, with Frankfurt’s DAX racing up 1.2% as German investors returned from a one-day holiday. There, BMW, Daimler and VW – seen as sensitive to trade tariffs – all gained between 1.8%-2%, mirroring a 1.9% gain for the auto sector. Investors have breathed easier this week after ...

The dollar steadied above a recent two-and-a-half-month low on Tuesday as investors focused on a Group of 20 summit later this month where Beijing and Washington might make some progress on trade talks. A 3.5% rally in the dollar against its rivals in the first five months of 2019 has come to a halt in recent weeks as dovish comments from Federal Reserve officials and weak economic data bolster rate-cut expectations. Though markets are only pricing in about a 20% chance of a rate cut in June, they are fully ...

Chinese exports rebounded slightly in May as companies front-loaded their shipments to beat last month’s US tariff increase, but analysts warned that the damage from the move by US President Donald Trump could soon pose a severe challenge to the world’s second largest economy. Goods sold overseas rose 1.1 per cent in May from a year earlier, confounding market expectations of 3.9 per cent drop and improving from the 2.7 per cent fall a month earlier. Imports, however, fell 8.5 per cent following a rise of 4 per cent a ...

Daily rates on main tanker routes as compiled by shipbroker Charles R. Weber.

It will take years before we know what the true cost of IMO 2020 will be to consumers in the U.S. and around the globe, and whether that cost will be offset by better health and savings in medical care. But nothing good in life comes free, an immutable fact of life that makes no exception for regulations designed to create cleaner air. The impacts of the IMO 2020 regulations mandating the use of low-sulfur marine fuels in all ships, which go into effect on January 1, 2020, are already ...

International maritime regulators are preparing for a likely lengthy process to write safety rules for autonomous ships, even as researchers advance technology they say could bring robot vessels to the oceans in the next few years. “Autonomous ships are like driverless Google cars, but much more complicated,” International Maritime Organization Secretary-General Kitack Lim said in an interview. The IMO, an arm of the United Nations that sets rules for international shipping operations, said it has no timeline for when crewless ships will get the green light to sail across the ...

They come for the companionship, the joshing and joking. Then there’s the kerbside games of chance and anticipation of winning big. They also come for the cheap food and the trinkets on sale, but most of all they are here seeking work. It’s not obvious at first glance that this festive kerbside meeting place is at the heart of global trade and the international maritime industry so crucial to the Philippine economy. Yet the sailors who gather at the “seafarer’s market” on a fringe of Manila’s Rizal Park are among ...

There has been a lot of discussion about autonomous vehicles on the land and in the air, but what about on the sea? While the world got the first glimpse of a fully autonomous ferry thanks to the collaboration between Rolls-Royce and Finferries, the state-owned ferry operator of Finland, there’s still quite a bit of work to be done before we can expect the world’s waterways to be overtaken with autonomous vessels. Levels of Autonomy Even though we might be years or even decades away from the majority of vessels ...

For whales, dolphins and narwhals, the arrival of noisy container vessels, bulk carriers and other marine traffic into their habitats can be fatal. These animals, like other marine mammals, use sound to communicate with each other (and even locate prey), underwater. Their sensitive hearing could be easily damaged by loud underwater noise. “When the noise level is really high for them, they get confused. Their navigation systems fail, they get lost and can’t find food, and then they die because they can’t eat,” says Carlo Pestelli, Wärtsilä’s R&D Manager in ...

Thousands of volunteers plucked plastic and other waste products from the rocks and beaches along Spain’s Basque coast on Saturday, while divers took to the sea to clear garbage from the water as part of World Oceans Day. Divers retrieved rusted scrap metal, a shopping trolley and a discarded bicycle from the waves alongside plastic waste. Volunteers dressed in blue T-shirts sifted through fine sand to remove fragments of plastic as well as collected larger items like bottles. The Urdaibai estuary, on the Bay of Biscay coast in northern Spain, ...

China’s finished steel exports fell 16.6% year on year to 5.743 million mt in May, and were down 9.2% month on month, preliminary data released Monday by the General Administration of Customs showed. Not registered? Receive daily email alerts, subscriber notes & personalize your experience. Register Now Over January-May, China’s steel exports totaled 29.093 million mt, up 2.5% on year, but retreating from the 8.3% year-on-year growth recorded over January-April. Market sources in China said the decline in steel exports in May was within expectations as a strong domestic market ...

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry Monday sold via tender around 275,283 kiloliters or 1.73 million barrels of Khafji crude oil from the Shibushi strategic petroleum reserves in Kagoshima, a ministry official said. This is part of Japan’s plan to replace medium and heavy crude stocks in the nationally-held SPR with lighter grades to reflect growing domestic demand for lighter oil products, the METI official said. The official added that the shipment of Khafji crude will be made some time between July 25 and September 30, but declined to ...

Oil prices were steady on Monday as U.S.-China trade tensions continued to threaten demand for oil, but tight crude supply and the swift end to a trade dispute between Mexico and the United States offered support. Front-month Brent crude futures were at $63.42 at 0850 GMT, 13 cents, or 0.21%, above Friday’s close. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $54.19 per barrel, up 20 cents, or 0.37%. A deal between the United States and Mexico to combat illegal migration from Central America late last week removed the ...

Oil and gas sector Maintain neutral: The results of companies under our coverage have improved as out of the eight companies under our coverage, six came in within expectations. Dialog Group Bhd’s results were stronger than expected due to lumpy contingency cost write-back from its Pengerang Phase 2 developments which are nearing completion while Sapura Energy Bhd’s poor performance stemmed from provisions for its marine vessels amid declines in crude oil prices. Core net profit declined 35% quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) and 30% year-on-year (y-o-y) to RM714 million largely due to Sapura ...

Saudi Arabia said the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) plus Russia and other producers are likely to extend oil production cuts at around current levels as the kingdom did not want a fight for market share with the US or a repeat of the price collapse five years ago. The Opec plus Russia and other producers, an alliance known as Opec+, have a deal to cut output by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) from January 1. The pact ends this month and the group meets in coming ...