Digitalisation is making significant inroads into many aspects of global shipping and marine insurance must be ready to embrace this change if it is to reap the associated benefits. This was a topic of discussion at this year’s International Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI) conference currently underway in Edinburgh Scotland. Patrizia Kern-Ferretti, Chair of IUMI’s Big Data and Digitalisation Forum said: “It’s gratifying to see our industry continue to adopt the digitalisation process but there is concern that we might be moving too slowly. Today, we heard from the Digital ...

China’s shipbuilding industry recorded sound development in the first eight months, with robust growth in output, new orders and holding orders, helping the sector emerge as a formidable force propelling the country’s industrial expansion, said a government official this week. Fueled by technological accumulation and industrial upgrading, China saw new orders — a major indicator within the shipbuilding industry — account for 68.8 percent of the global market share during the eight-month period, said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The ministry said China’s shipbuilding output accounted for 49 ...

In the 1980s and early 1990s, the world’s merchant fleet lost 130 bulk carriers, in some tragic cases with all hands. When asked why, the philosophical answer was often “because the safety culture in the marine transport industry is reactive, slow and delayed”. The speed of response often depends directly on the pressure that results from these losses and the public perception of them. In the case of tanker accidents, images of oil-drenched seabirds trigger public outcry which greatly increases the pressure to act. After the MSC Zoe accident, pictures ...

Ecospray, the Italian company specialized in integrated solutions for the sustainable conversion of maritime and land-based industries, announced in Athens, Greece, the finalization of its first two Carbon Capture technologies for the maritime sector. They will be available on the market as of Q1 2024 and will enable the capture of up to 80% of the CO2 emitted during ship operation in specific conditions. Testing of the new technologies, in the laboratory phase, was carried out in collaboration with the University of Turin. In Athens, Ecospray brought together industry stakeholders ...

A recent bump in shares of Asian shipping companies was spurred by optimism that Chinese exports could be on the rebound and that, just maybe, the worst was over for a sector that has seen container rates plunge 68 percent over the past year. But as global industries from footwear to semiconductors hope for a return to pre-COVID normal, purveyors of marine cargo should pray for the very opposite. Wan Hai Lines Ltd and Evergreen Marine Corp climbed around 10 percent in the space of a week, heading back toward ...

Singapore is doing its bit for ocean conservation and sees such efforts as critical to being able to continue making its living by the sea. “Preserving our oceans and maintaining livelihoods is not something that is mutually exclusive,” said Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan. “In fact, it is part of a virtuous cycle.” He was speaking on Tuesday at the Earthshot Prize Innovation Summit, an event coinciding with the ongoing United Nations General Assembly in New York. Britain’s Prince William founded the awards in 2020, offering £1 million (S$1.7 million) each ...

Loss of competitiveness, reduction of transhipment business (transfer of cargo from one ship to another), carbon leakage and diversion of ships to non-European ports (but very close to EU ports). These are the risks that Valenciaport has detected in the imminent implementation of the European environmental tax – Emissions Trading System (ETS) – which will be applied gradually from this year until its full implementation in 2026. In this sense, the Port Authority of València (PAV) alerts the European Commission to the foreseeable changes in the route of ships of ...

Ship arrest is a unique and powerful feature in admiralty practice, whereby claimants can arrest a ship before judgment is obtained in a suit as a security for the claimant’s claim. This feature follows the same position as in England by virtue of Section 24(b) of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 which grants jurisdiction to the High Court of Malaya the same jurisdiction and authority in relation to admiralty matters as the High Court of Justice in England under the United Kingdom Supreme Court Act 1981 (now known as ...

South Korea’s HD Hyundai Co. is supplying its first HiMSEN engine using methanol fuel to a Japanese shipmaker. This represents an acceleration in the development of methanol engines, considered a future environmentally friendly fuel. According to industry sources on Friday, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries’ Engine Machinery Business Unit recently signed a contract with Tsuneishi Shipbuilding to supply the HiMSEN engine (8H32DF-LM) running on methanol as a dual fuel and a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) device for nitrogen oxides as a package. This engine will be applied to a total of ...

From January to August, China’s ports handled 3.34 billion metric tons of goods in foreign trade, up 9.7% year on year and 16.9% compared with the same period in 2019, said an official of the Ministry of Transport on Thursday in Beijing. Source: China.org.cn

Procureship, the Athens-based provider of one of the world’s leading e-procurement platforms for marine buyers and suppliers, has made the strategic decision to open a new office in Singapore in a bid to expand operations to more ship owners, managers and operators based in the Asia-Pacific region. The opening of the new office in Singapore will enable Procureship to offer its e-procurement system, which utilises machine learning (ML) and automation to streamline the entire maritime procurement process, to a wider market and improve its services to ship owners, managers and ...

More than three hundred decision-makers in the maritime sector have already registered for the Caribbean Shipping Association’s (CSA) 53rd Annual General Meeting, Conference, and Exhibition scheduled for Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago from October 23-24, 2023. This premier industry event offers shipping and logistics professionals an exceptional platform to engage in dynamic discussions and explore the latest industry trends. The year-end conference will be hosted by the Shipping Association of Trinidad and Tobago (SATT) at the prestigious Hyatt Regency Trinidad, situated in the heart of the vibrant capital city. ...

Turkey’s crude oil exports have been a major contributing factor in the country becoming a major player in the Mediterranean, despite the absence of its own reserves. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Banchero Costa said that “2023 so far has been another positive period for crude oil trade, despite the high oil prices and risks of economic recession. In Jan-Aug 2023, global crude oil loadings went up +7.0% y-o-y to 1,440.7 mln tonnes, excluding all cabotage trade, according to vessels tracking data from Refinitiv. This was well above the ...

The Baltic Exchange’s dry bulk sea freight index rose to a more than four-month peak on Friday and registered its third consecutive weekly gain on higher rates for capesize vessels. The overall index, which factors in rates for capesize, panamax and supramax shipping vessels, rose by 24 points, or 1.5%, to 1,593 – highest level since May 11. The main index increased by 15.4% for the week. The capesize index, added 76 points, or about 3.8%, to 2,083, hitting its highest in over four months. The index advanced by 30% ...

At the London International Shipping Week headline conference, Yana Popkostova, the founder and managing director of the European Centre for Energy and Geopolitical Analysis, delivered a speech that delved into the complex relationship between geopolitics, decarbonisation, and the shipping industry. Popkostova’s expertise in energy and climate geopolitics provided invaluable insights into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. She set the stage by highlighting the significance of considering geopolitics and decarbonisation in the industry’s resilience plans. According to Popkostova: “It’s important for all of us to try to unpick today ...