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The Baltic Exchange’s main sea freight index fell to its lowest in more than a week on Friday, weighed by weaker demand for capesize and panamax vessels. The Baltic dry index, which tracks rates for capesize, panamax and supramax vessels ferrying dry bulk commodities, fell 25 points, or 1.5%, to 1,675, its lowest since Feb. 16. The capesize index slipped 32 points, or 2.2%, to an over one-week low of 1,439. The index is down 16% for the week. Average daily earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 150,000-tonne cargoes such ...

The tanker market is expected to keep facing headwinds, at least for the next few months. In a market analysis by ship owner Teekay Tankers this week, it was noted that “crude tanker spot rates declined during the fourth quarter of 2020, due to a combination of lower oil demand as a result of COVID-19, persistent OPEC+ supply cuts, and the return of ships to the spot trading fleet from floating storage”. “Renewed lockdowns in many parts of the world due to a second wave of COVID-19 and the emergence ...

Qatar on Thursday pledged $60 million to build a natural gas pipeline from Israel into the Gaza Strip that will end the energy crisis that has helped cripple the Gaza economy. The Qatari statement, published on its Foreign Ministry website, came two days after Reuters reported that closed-door negotiations on the pipeline had reached a breakthrough. Qatar coming on board publicly gives another boost to the project, which has a 2023 target date for completion. The plan is for natural gas from the deepwater Leviathan field operated by Chevron in ...

The attractiveness of a career at sea has been an industry concern for a number of years. Long periods away from home, increasing administrative demands for paperwork on board, and the threat of criminalisation being major factors. Covid-19 impacts, which have been particularly harrowing for seafarers, have added to these issues, presaging an inflection point in global seafarer supply. As a consequence, labour market conditions are expected to tighten, adding to seafarer wage inflation and vessel operating costs. Drewry projects that the current officer shortfall to crew the global merchant ...

Some hedge fund managers are getting concerned about the money that has flooded into high-flying stocks like Tesla and the popular ARK fund as bond yields spike and growth stocks take a hit. The popularity of stocks like Tesla helped Cathie Wood’s $26.6 billion ARK Innovation ETF become the top-performing actively managed U.S. equity fund tracked by Morningstar last year. But even as shares of Tesla plunged this week and Wood’s fund fell, she increased the fund’s bet on the automaker. The ARK Innovation ETF is down 15% this week ...

The composite index slipped 0.2% this week, but remains 232.4% higher than a year ago. The average composite index of the WCI, assessed by Drewry for year-to-date, is $5,245 per 40ft container, which is $3,569 higher than the five-year average of $1,676 per 40ft container. Drewry’s composite World Container index slipped 0.2% to $5,237.86 per 40ft container. Spot rates on Shanghai – Rotterdam declined 2% or $134 to $8,474 per 40ft box. However, freight rates on Rotterdam – Shanghai increased 3% or a change of $44 and reached at $1,418 ...

Liberalising global maritime transport has far-reaching benefits, according to the International Chamber of Shipping – and it’s not just the maritime industry that would gain. A study from the ICS has recommended that national economies work together to enjoy the benefits of liberalising maritime transport services through the World Trade Organization (WTO), which would then open the door to more efficient and cost-effective maritime transport services. Writing in UNCTAD’s Transport and Trade Facilitation Newsletter, ICS senior advisor for policy Helio Vicente said that concrete policy actions are “urgently needed to ...

Ukraine’s grain exports have fallen almost 20% to 31.7 million tonnes so far this season, which runs from July 2020 to June 2021, economy ministry data showed. Traders sold 13.6 million tonnes of wheat, 13.6 million tonnes of corn and 3.96 million tonnes of barley, the data showed. Ukraine is among the largest global grain exporters, selling about 57 million tonnes to foreign buyers in the 2019/20 season. The government has said exports could decline to 45.4 million tonnes in 2020/21 because of a smaller harvest. Source: Reuters (Reporting by ...

Pioneer Marine Inc. and its subsidiaries, a leading shipowner and global drybulk handysize transportation service provider announced its financial and operating results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2020. Jim Papoulis, Chief Executive Officer commented: “The Baltic Handysize index recovered sharply in the fourth quarter of 2020 and continues to improve during the first two months of 2021. While potential impacts from a third wave of COVID remain, this is a vital indicator that a remarkable turnaround has taken place since spring 2020 when there was a ...

The extreme cold temperatures that hit Texas the week started Feb. 14 caused port closures that locked up tonnage and provided a silver lining for shipowners, already struggling with rates beneath the w100 psychological mark since May 2020 due to low demand for shipping crude following production cuts. Freight for the benchmark 70,000 mt USGC-UKC route shot up over 38% on the week, to be assessed at $21.25/mt, or w125 on Feb. 25, up from w90 on Feb. 17. Local freight likewise saw exacerbated rates, with freight for the 70,000 ...

Uganda’s coffee exports declined 4.9% in January from the same month last year on account of low arabica yields, the state-run regulator Uganda coffee development Authority (UCDA) said. The regulator said in a report, seen by Reuters on Thursday, that the east African country shipped 446,560 60-kilogram bags, compared with 469,951 bags exported during the same month in 2020. The slow down in shipments was attributed to lower yields from arabica trees, a result of the crop’s cyclical nature where a good crop is followed by a bad one. Uganda ...

As more buyers from South America, Eastern Africa and South East Asia start queuing up for the Indian rice, the exports of the cereal — both basmati and non-basmati — are seen scaling new highs this fiscal. Rice exports including both basmati and non-basmati types are expected to range between 16 and 17 million tonnes (mt) against previous fiscal’s 9.48 mt. South American buyers such as Peru and Argentina have recently granted market access to the Indian basmati rice. Similarly in Eastern Africa, countries such as Angola and Tanzania among ...

ITCO, the International Tank Container Organisation, has published its 9th Annual Tank Container Fleet Survey. This year’s Survey estimates that, at 1 January 2021, the global tank container fleet had reached 686,650 units worldwide, compared to the figure of 652,350 on 1 January 2020, a year-on-year growth of 5.26%. Reflecting market uncertainty during 2020 – primarily caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic – the number of tank containers produced last year was lower than in 2019. In 2020, a total of 35,800 tank containers were built, compared to 54,650 in ...

With bunker prices going up, the VLCC market didn’t take the chance to push up. Instead, we saw rates go down slightly compared with last week

In the past nine months, I’ve been proud to see so many businesses stepping up to help their employees and communities. From rolling out new benefits and programmes aimed at helping people navigate the pandemic to making layoffs a last resort, businesses of all types have led with purpose and empathy. Now, with new vaccines offering hope for an end to the pandemic, business leaders have an opportunity to extend that sense of purpose by helping to find sustainable solutions to society’s workforce problems. That includes one of the biggest ...