The tanker market enjoyed a solid growth run during the month of December with Aframaxes posting the biggest gains, OPEC said in its latest monthly report. The tanker market experienced a general strengthening trend in December as freight rates in both the dirty and clean segments of the market increased. On average, dirty tanker spot freight rates rose by 29% from the previous month on the back of increased tonnage requirements, tonnage tightening and high bunker prices. Enhanced market activities were seen to drive rates higher in all areas, affecting ...

The outlook for multipurpose shipping, comprising both breakbulk and heavylift vessels, is brightening despite rising geopolitical risk and economic uncertainty. Drewry forecasts that average earnings will rise 6% in 2020, and despite a mild correction in 2021 will continue to improve over the longer term on stronger cargo demand relative to capacity. Drewry has revised upwards its outlook for the multipurpose shipping segment (MPV) since its September forecast, as the market and its drivers have shifted. Our expectation for dry cargo trade, the bedrock of MPV demand, remains a steady ...

Zim Integrated has emerged as the top performing carrier in the 2019 container shipping Schedule Reliability Report published by eeSea, with the Dominican Republic’s Port of Rio Haina topping the rankings for port reliability performance. Overall, global liner schedule on-time performance ended the year at 43% reliability in December, down from the full year average of 47%. This corresponded to 1.6 days delay on average across 2019. In the world of container alliances, 2M topped the table at 56% of services on time across 2019, but dropped to 44% in ...

The shipping industry will have to plan ahead this year, using a number of assumptions and scenarios, which are expected to hurt global trade and cargo demand. For the most part, predicting where the market will be in a few weeks’ time is proving to be harder and harder, as there are various parameters in play. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Allied noted that “uncertainty in the global geopolitical sphere seems to have not come to an end along with 2019, as 2020 commenced with renewed tensions between the ...

The final quarter of 2019 marked a massive decline of HSFO sales, as the industry transitioned into compliance of the IMO 2020 Sulphur Cap (IMO2020). In Singapore, the world’s largest bunkering hub, the bunker sale landscape saw significant change as the sale of high-sulphur fuel oil dropped tremendously in a matter of months. In contrast, the sale of low-sulphur fuels skyrocketed in the final quarter. In Singapore, the world’s largest bunkering hub, the bunker sale landscape saw significant change as the sale of high-sulphur fuel oil dropped tremendously in a ...

The outlook for the container shipping market remains soft despite the welcome boost of the ‘phase one’ trade agreement signed by the US and China, according to Drewry’s recently published Container Forecaster report. Drewry is now predicting that world container port throughput will increase by 3.3% in 2020, following an estimated 2.3% rise last year. The current year forecast represents a downgrade of 0.7 points on the previous outlook given at the end of September 2019. “A swift and amicable end to the US-China trade dispute has the potential to ...

With availability no longer an issue, ship owners are lamenting the significant rise in operating costs, due to the IMO 2020 rule. The reason being the almost doubling of fuel costs. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Intermodal said that “the early days of IMO 2020 coming into force have certainly had an impact on the industry, but so far it seems that those who feared of major problems for global shipping have not been verified and it looks like we have avoided the destructive consequences. Lack of availability of ...

The physical principle is the same one humans have used on sailing boats since eons ago: the wind hits the leading edge of the sail and splits into two flows which are redirected and travel at different speeds towards the trailing edge, causing a pressure difference that simultaneously pulls and pushes the sail and the craft forward. What has changed is the efficiency. Advanced science has doubled the amount of propulsion power per square metre of sail surface, says Marc Van Peteghem, naval architect and co-founder of VPLP Design. Together ...

Unifeeder, the operator of the LNG retrofitted Wes Amelie and first adopter of LNG as marine fuel in the European container feeder segment, must be quite satisfied with the bunker costs of the vessel in 2019. MV Wes Amelie, a 1.000 TEU container feeder vessel converted to LNG operation in 2017, is operated in one of Unifeeder’s widely ramified feeder network in the North and Baltic Sea and frequently calling Rotterdam as its main port. From Rotterdam the vessel is passing the Kiel Canal and serving several ports in the ...

Dry bulk owners are still keen on more investments in dry bulk tonnage, both newbuildings and second hand vessels, despite the fact that the dry bulk market is experiencing one of its most severe periods of downwards pressure, now at a 9-month low. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Allied Shipbroking said that in the newbuilding market, “despite the fact that the current freight market and global trade prospects remain uncertain for the dry bulk market, 13 new units were added recently to the dry bulk orderbook. The majority of ...

Over $1bn was invested in technology companies working in the maritime sector in 2019 according to a new report published yesterday. A new report published yesterday by technology research and innovation consultancy Thetius, found that 2019 was a record year for venture capital investment in maritime. But the headline figure is distorted by the massive $1bn investment in Flexport, led by Softbank’s Vision Fund. If Flexport’s contribution is removed from the figures, venture funding in the industry actually declined by 24%, from $190m in 2018 to $144m in 2019. Overall, ...

ABB Marine & Ports delivered testimony in the US House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure about the future of marine technologies. Underpinning ABB’s commitment to tackling the ever-increasing consequences of climate change, ABB Marine & Ports presented a comprehensive approach to reducing marine emissions at a hearing in front the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation. The hearing on “The Path to a Carbon-Free Maritime Industry: Investments and Innovation” assessed current and future technologies for zero-emission vessel operations. As the sole original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to testify ...

With 2019 marking one of the low-points of the past decade, in terms of ships’ demolition activity, things need to pick up pace in 2020, for the shipping markets to start recovering. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Clarkson Platou Hellas noted that “the first full week return to the offices of the New Year looks to have finally brought back some renewed optimism with increased demand for tonnage across the waterfront. One surprise, but very welcome, has been the resurgence of Pakistan which appears finally to have awoken from ...

The number of ports at which high-sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) is offered is reducing and could be limited for ships equipped with scrubbers in the first months after 1 January 2020, when the International Maritime Organization (IMO) sulphur regulation takes effect, according to Marine Bunker Exchange, MABUX, which follows the global bunker market closely. As the global bunker market adapts, and players observe how demand for the different types of bunker fuel will pan out in the first months after 1 January 2020, high-sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) inventories are reducing ...

This year will be yet another challenging one for the container industry in terms of capacity management, but they will cope. A new year raises the usual questions about how carriers will handle the introduction of big new ships and their impact on the industry’s precarious supply-demand balance. The unadjusted orderbook calls for an extra 1.2 million teu to be added to the fleet in 2020, of which 532,000 teu is comprised of 23 Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCV), all for HMM (soon of THE Alliance), CMA CGM (Ocean Alliance) ...