The British pound crawled off 20-month lows on Tuesday as Prime Minister Theresa May sought support from European leaders to change her Brexit deal, with investors weighing chances of a chaotic British exit from the European Union. May met Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a last ditch bid to save her deal before an EU summit on Dec. 13-14. The British premier on Monday called off a parliamentary vote on her Brexit agreement to seek more concessions. That thrust Britain’s exit from ...

China suffered another economic blow on Sunday with the return of the deflation threat, a day after it reported slower than expected growth in exports and imports. A fall in both consumer and producer price indexes was a result of weakness in demand from both Chinese consumers and investors and reflected their reluctance to spend as confidence in future growth is undermined by the trade war with the US. The figures add the challenge faced by the Chinese leadership in keeping economic growth on track ahead of the annual central ...

The European Central Bank is on course to raise its still-negative deposit rate in the third quarter of 2019 but economists’ conviction has faded over the past month as the chances of a recession have risen. A Reuters poll conducted Dec. 4-7 also showed economists are unanimous in saying the risk is low that the Governing Council will extend its more than 2.6 trillion euro (2.33 trillion pounds) asset purchase programme beyond this month, which would break its long-held guidance. The survey, taken during a period of extreme gyrations in ...

The second phase of an IMO-implemented project to enhance safe and environmentally sound ship recycling in Bangladesh has been launched at a meeting of stakeholders in Dhaka, Bangladesh (26 November). The 19-month project is funded under a US$1.1 million agreement with the Government of Norway. It focuses on building capacity within Bangladesh to develop a legal, policy and institutional reform roadmap towards accession to the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships (known as the Hong Kong Convention), and will train a variety of ...

Container traffic from Asia to North Europe is finally trending upwards. So far, pricing gains have been minimal for carriers. For the first time this year the headhaul Asia to North Europe container trade in October was able to string together two consecutive months with positive year-on-year growth. Westbound demand increased by 7.8% in September, followed by a 5.4% rise in October, according to data derived from CTS. The most recent figures are putting on some gloss to what has otherwise been a very depressing year for Asia-Europe carriers. After ...

Freight shipping on the river Rhine in Germany has returned to normal after heavy rain in the past week raised water levels, traders said. Water levels on the Rhine had been low for around six months after a hot dry summer and a dry autumn, forcing vessels to sail only partly loaded and increasing the cost of commodity deliveries. “The heavy, repeated rainfall in the past days was just what was required,” one grains trader said. “Vessels and barges are now able to take on full loads to all German ...

In recent weeks, there have been reports of increasing soybean imports by Argentina from the U.S. – one of the consequences of ongoing U.S.

The performance of the EcoFlettner, which has been tested on the MV Fehn Pollux since July, clearly exceeds the expectations of the scientists. “The data we have evaluated so far signifcantly outmatch those of our model calculations,” says Professor Michael Vahs, who has been researching the topic of wind propulsion for seagoing vessels at the University of Applied Science Emden / Leer for more than 15 years. “In perfect conditions, this prototype delivers more thrust than the main engine.”15 companies from around Leer have been involved in the development and ...

Yesterday, the Panama Canal welcomed its 5,000th Neopanamax vessel through the waterway, reaffirming the value and impact the route has had on global maritime trade. The COSCO Faith container carrier transited today travelling southbound from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. The vessel has a 13,345 total TEU allowance (TTA) and measures 366 meters in length and 48.2 meters in beam. “The steady increase in Neopanamax transits reflects our customer’s confidence in the Panama Canal route,” said Canal Administrator Jorge L. Quijano. “We reinforce our commitment to continually improve our ...

Overseas Shipholding Group, Inc. (NYSE:OSG) and American Shipping Company jointly announced that OSG has exercised options to extend its charter agreements with AMSC for nine vessels currently under charter from AMSC. Charter agreements for five of the vessels were extended for additional three-year terms, commencing from December 2019 and ending in December 2022. The charter agreements for four vessels were extended for one-year terms commencing from December 2019 and ending in December 2020. OSG previously exercised its option to extend its charter agreement for the 10th vessel that it leases ...

Following the Prime Minister’s statement this afternoon confirming that the Parliamentary vote on the Withdrawal Agreement has been delayed, the British Ports Association’s Chief Executive, Richard Ballantyne has said that many of the UK’s ports with EU trade and the wider logistics industry is becoming anxious to know what they might need to prepare for and when it may be needed: “If there is a hard Brexit the roll-on roll ports who facilitate tens of thousands of lorry and trailers movements between Britain and Europe every day could face real ...

China’s Qingdao Port International is planning to build new berths that will be able receive VLCC and oil product tankers, such as Long Range-class vessels, as well as storage facilities in Shandong province’s Dongjiakou region, which will cater to local independent refiners, the company said. In addition to the VLCC berth, an oil product berth capable of receiving vessels with capacity of 100,000 mt will also be built. Both are targeted to start operations by the end of 2019. Storage facilities totaling over 3 million cu m in capacity will ...

Khalifa Port expects to double the number of containers handled next year with the help of China’s Cosco Shipping Ports, which inaugurated a $430 million terminal and container freight station at the Abu Dhabi facility, officials said. CSP, the Hong Kong-listed unit of the world’s No. 3 container shipping line China Cosco Shipping Corporation, has a 35-year concession agreement to run the new terminal, its first overseas greenfield unit. Khalifa Port handled 1.4 million twenty-foot equivalent units – a measure of container volume – last year and this figure is ...

India’s coal imports rose 9.7 percent to 156.08 million tonne (MT) in the April-November period of the ongoing fiscal, as against 142.25 MT in the year-ago period, according to a report by mjunction services. Coal imports in November increased 10.1 percent to 19.47 MT, over 17.68 MT in the same period a year ago. mjunction — a joint venture between Tata Steel and SAIL — is a B2B e-commerce company and also publishes research reports on coal and steel verticals. “Imports during November 2018 stood at 19.47 MT (provisional)… Earlier, ...

China will need to drop steep tariffs it imposed on a range of American farm products earlier this year before it can fulfill its pledge to buy substantial volumes of U.S. goods, said Chinese traders. China and the United States agreed on Saturday to a ceasefire in a months-long trade war that has roiled global markets and halted sales of U.S. soybeans to the world’s top buyer. The United States agreed to put on hold a scheduled increase in tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods due to come into ...