Cooxupé, the world’s largest coffee co-op and Brazil’s number one exporter, cut its projection for 2021 coffee exports to 4.8 million bags from 6.5 million bags previously, saying shipping bottlenecks and a smaller crop are reducing export volumes. Cooxupé’s president Carlos Augusto Rodrigues de Melo said the company was about to use for the first time an alternative to containerized shipping, using 1,000 kg bags to put the coffee in dry bulk vessels. “We will ship more than 100,000 bags that way. It is an option to dodge high container ...

OPEC and its Russia-led allies will plow ahead with a production increase for January, despite their own predictions of a looming oil surplus, choosing for now to avoid a potentially politically thorny decision on reining in output. Absent clearer data on the impact of the omicron COVID-19 variant, the OPEC+ alliance agreed Dec. 2 to raise quotas by 400,000 b/d, as prescribed, shrugging off market jitters over the emerging omicron COVID-19 variant, along with a US-coordinated strategic petroleum reserve release. But in a nod to fast-changing conditions, the producer group ...

US employers hired only 210,000 more workers in November, missing economists’ predictions for stronger growth. Forecasters had been expecting US non-farm payrolls to increase by 550,000. The US Bureau of Labour Statistics said there had been a decline in employment in the retail sector. But on the upside, it said there had been a rise in hiring across areas such as professional and business services as well as transport and warehousing. The bureau also said construction and manufacturing had added new jobs. ‘Dropping out’ While job creation fell short of ...

New orders for U.S.-made goods increased more than expected in October and businesses spending on equipment appeared to rebound after declining in the third quarter. The Commerce Department said on Friday that factory orders increased 1.0% in October. Data for September was revised higher to show orders gaining 0.5% instead of 0.2% as previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast factory orders rising 0.5%. Orders increased surged 17.1% on a year-on-year basis. Manufacturing, which accounts for 12% of the economy, is being driven by still-strong demand for goods despite ...

Euro zone retail sales rose in line with expectations in October as consumers spent more on non-food purchases, particularly online, data from Eurostat showed on Friday. Retail sales, a proxy for consumer demand, in the 19 countries sharing the euro, gained 0.2% month-on-month in October and were up 1.4% from a year earlier, the European Union’s statistics office said. Economists polled by Reuters had expected increases of respectively 0.2% and 1.2%. With energy prices having soared and coronavirus infections rising, resulting in renewed restrictions, consumers are expected to become more ...

The Omicron variant of COVID-19 could slow global economic growth by exacerbating supply chain problems and depressing demand, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the Reuters Next conference on Thursday. Yellen cited a great deal of uncertainty about the impact of the highly contagious variant, first detected in South Africa, given the severe U.S. economic slowdown caused by the emergence of the Delta variant of COVID-19 earlier this year. “Hopefully it’s not something that’s going to slow economic growth significantly,” Yellen said, adding, “There’s a lot of uncertainty, but it ...

Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp. (Yang Ming) announced the official completion and delivery of “YM Together,” a brand-new 11,000 TEU container vessel chartered from Shoei Kisen Kaisha, Ltd. and built by Imabari Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. The ship will soon begin Yang Ming’s PN3 trans-pacific operation, providing highly efficient cargo delivery service between Asia and North America. To facilitate medium to long-term operation, Yang Ming has partnered with professional shipowners for the construction of 14 11,000 TEU container vessels. This newest ship, called “YM Together,” is the 9th vessel that was ...

Wärtsilä Voyage is to equip the Technical University of Mombasa (TUM) with Cloud Simulation services. This will make TUM the first African university to adopt cloud-based maritime training services. The contract was signed in November 2021 and the services will be implemented from January 2022 onwards. The Maritime Training Academy at TUM is a leading maritime education university in East Africa and this modern training technology will greatly help the Kenyan and other African seafarers to be trained remotely on STCW Training (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers) ...

On November 26, United European Car Carriers (UECC), which is equally owned by NYK and Wallenius Lines, took delivery of the world’s first dual-fuel LNG battery hybrid pure car and truck carrier (PCTC). The vessel was built by Jiangnan Shipyard (Group) Co. Ltd. in China and will be named “Auto Advance.” The ship will be used to transport finished vehicles within Europe. The vessel is equipped with a dual-fuel engine that can use LNG or heavy fuel oil. This is the third such vessel for UECC after Auto Eco and ...

HullWiper Ltd and Agemar have signed a lease agreement to meet the growing demand for safe, eco-friendly hull cleaning solutions for vessels calling in Guinea. Agemar Guinea (Agemar Agency & Logistics) is part of global maritime consultancy and maritime logistics solutions provider, the Agemar Group. It is the latest addition to HullWiper’s growing family of partners around the world operating under their leasing programme introduced in 2017. The partnership supports the Guinean government’s goal to bring environmentally friendly solutions and operations into Guinean waters and to shipping in general. Alessandro ...

Lorenzo Shipping Corporation (LSC) posted total revenues of P2.164 billion for the nine months, ending in September, which was P216 million higher than last year’s same period while the net loss went down to P78 million from P113 million. LSC saw container cargo volumes were up by 5.24% which resulted in an increase in revenues by P216 million to P2.164 billion as of September 30. LSC’s gross profit reached P24 million, a significant improvement from a negative gross profit last year. Direct costs increased to P2.140 million from last year’s ...

Seafarer wellbeing has been a focal topic for Standard Club in recent years, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic and we are proud to be working in partnership with Sailors’ Society’s Wellness at Sea programme, sharing helpful advice and resources over a few months. This cycle we will be exploring spiritual wellness and accompanying mindful practices that improves our quality of life. Spiritual health revolves around an understanding of ourselves in relation to our surroundings and finding our place within it. One way or another, many of us attempt to find ...

Over the last decade, an average of 22 million tonnes of sugar was shipped from Brazilian ports every year, leaving the sugarcane derivative only behind soya beans in terms of quantities of agriproducts exported from Brazil during that period. Most Brazilian sugar is in raw form shipped in bulk. Refined sugar makes up less that 5% of the total exports. The 50-kg bags are mostly shipped in containers although some are carried as general cargo. Proinde reports that due to the current heated demand for containers, more of the bagged ...

Samsung Heavy Industries has sold one of the five drillships in inventory to a European buyer for US$245 million. The drillship will be delivered within the first quarter of 2023 after preparations for restarting operations. It is one of two drillships that were originally ordered by Ocean League in Greece in 2014 but has been in inventory following cancellation of the contract in October 2019. “The sale is expected to provide additional liquidity and reduce maintenance costs, further strengthening our financial structure that has been bolstered by a recent capital ...

Doha: Hamad, Ruwais and Doha ports recorded a robust performance in November as they witnessed significant growth in handling of containers, vehicles and building materials compared to the same period last month, according to Mwani Qatar. Mwani Qatar ports received 124,923 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) in November 2021, an increase of 9 percent from last month. RORO handling registered a growth of three percent compared to October 2021 and the general cargo reached 172,088 tonnes, Mwani Qatar tweeted, yesterday. The containers (TEUs) handling through the three ports stood at 114,427 ...