CAPESIZES HEADED FOR SCRAP DESPITE MARKET REBOUND
In what could only be described as a more than positive omen for the future prospects of the dry bulk market, dry bulk carriers and more notably Capesizes are still being sold to scrapyards, even if the number of vessels offered has declined over the past few weeks.
According to the world’s leading cash buyer, GMS, a total of 13 Capes have been sold for scrap so far in 2017, as buyers are willing to pay more money, thus making it an easier decision for some ship owners, in the midst of a rebounding dry bulk market.
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GLOBAL CONTAINER SHIPPING VIEWPOINT FOR 2017
Events like Brexit and the new US administration’s policies threaten to add insult to injury as they inject even more uncertainty into the future of global trade.
Spreading protectionist stances could reverse the past several decades’ steadily easing trade barriers that have supported the growth of containerization since the 1950s.
Yet hope remains for the shipping industry. Rate levels on major East-West trades improved—dramatically in some cases—in the fourth quarter of 2016.
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SHIPPING INDUSTRY CONSOLIDATION
The shipping industry is on course for consolidation as it moves off three-decade lows, it is said on Wednesday.
Anticipating a cyclical recovery to kick in at the end of this year, president of Genco Shipping & Trading John Wobensmith told that a pullback in shipping supply is the main driver of the benchmark Baltic Dry Index’s recovery of more than 7 percent this year. The index, which assesses the price of moving the major raw materials by sea, hit its lowest level ever of $290 during 2016 before resuming a bumpy journey higher towards its current price of just about $1,000.
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TANKER’S U-TURN EXPLAIN HOW SHALE IS CHANGING WORLD GAS TRADE
A cargo of chilled natural gas hauled from Louisiana in late December has become a symbol of how global trade is changing for a fuel increasingly seen as a cheap, cleaner-burning option for countries from Latin America to China and India.
The tanker Maran Gas Achilles passed through the Panama Canal and was headed toward Asia at a speed of 20 knots when, suddenly, it made a sharp u-turn in the Pacific. The abrupt route change shows how the US, which began shale gas exports just last year, is creating a new paradigm in an industry that once revolved almost entirely around long-term contracts with set destinations.
As the new kid on the block, exporters of US liquefied natural gas — led by Cheniere Energy Inc and Royal Dutch Shell SA — are seeking the best price at any given time. As US exports grow, it’s a strategy that could shift the economics of LNG toward an emerging spot market akin to oil. The US stands to become the world’s third-largest exporter by 2020, when it’s expected to ship about 8.3 billion cubic feet a day of capacity, or 14 percent of the world’s share US natural gas futures were up 3.2 percent to $2.913 per million. British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange, compared with the latest assessed spot LNG price in Singapore of $5.652 as of Monday.
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PORT OF NY AND NJ VOLUME UP 8.3PC
The port of New York and New Jersey saw container throughput rise 8.3 percent year on year to 517,668 TEU in January 2017, setting a new monthly record. Within this total, loaded imports were up 5.5 percent to 149,757 TEU, while loaded exports increased by eight percent to 61,740 TEU.
Exports of empty containers rose 14.6 percent to 83,731 containers. The port authority’s ExpressRail system handled a record 43,408 containers in January, up 10.3 percent year on year.
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BANKRUPT HANJIN SHIPPING HAS VESSEL SOLD BY SINGAPORE COURT
One of the few remaining vessels of bankrupt South Korean container line Hanjin Shipping has been sold by a Singapore court. The cargo vessel Hanjin Rome was sold in a sheriff’s sale last Wednesday, Singapore’s Supreme Court website showed.
Ship valuation firm VesselsValue had placed its demolition value at $8.03 million. The vessel had S$639,134 ($453,177) of bunker fuel on board, a non-negotiable sum the buyer had to pay separately to the purchase price of the vessel. The 1998-built, 5,302 teu vessel was placed under court arrest in Singapore on August 29 last year after German shipowner Rickmers Holdings filed a civil claim for unpaid charter fees. Hanjin was declared bankrupt by a South Korean court on February 17 after it ruled the company’s liquidation value would be greater than its worth as a going concern.
Hanjin was once South Korea’s largest container line and the seventh biggest in the world by capacity, but had been struggling under the weight of billions of dollars of debts for some years.