Northwest Europe RMK 500 cst bunker fuel strengthens
An increase in fuel oil exports east from Rotterdam is supporting RMK 500 CST bunker fuel prices, as availability of the higher viscosity fuel tightens. Traders are moving RMG 380 CST and RMK 500 CST fuel oil to Singapore from Northwest Europe to capture value from a firmer East-West spread— a measure of the openness of the arbitrage on the route. The February HSFO East-West spread continued to strengthen, assessed at $27.5/mt Tuesday, 50 cents/mt up from Monday. Rotterdam RMK 500 CST fuel was assessed at minus $4.00/mt against 3.5% FOB Rotterdam barges Tuesday — 25 cents/mt firmer than prices though most of January, according to Platts data — though some traders saw it stronger still at a discount of $3.00-$3.50/mt. Singapore remains well supplied with low sulfur fuel oil, but supplies of high sulfur grades with higher viscosity are tighter.
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Mooring operations resume at Haldia port
Normalcy has been restored at the Haldia port with mooring workers agreeing to resume work immediately. Some 60-odd mooring crew had struck work on Monday after Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) officials issued notices to some absentee workers. A day’s stoppage of work saw half a dozen ships being stuck at the Haldia docks, located 130 km from the city. This apart, some vessels were stranded at the Sandheads, an anchorage 25 nautical miles off the port. Most of the vessels are said to carry dry bulk cargo that include coal from Australia and manganese ore from South Africa. There were some container vessels carrying coastal cargo too.
Last Sunday, some 20-odd crew members were supposed to be present for the night shift at Haldia docks. But only eight were actually present, while the others, despite signing the attendance register, were absent. For the first nine months of this fiscal (April to December), the Haldia port reported over 12 per cent increase in traffic volumes to the tune of 33 million tonnes against the 29.2 million tonnes in the year-ago period.
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New sulphur fuel laws look set to shake up the shipping industry
Each year, billions of tonnes of goods traverse oceans on ships the size of warehouses. With the spread of globalisation, the volume of goods traded by sea has grown by 300 percent since the 1970s, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Today, ships carry more than 80 percent of all goods. While the global maritime industry is an invisible force for most of us, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon once called it the “backbone of global trade and the global economy”. And it is only getting bigger: UNCTAD predicted in 2017 that seaborne trade volumes would increase by around 3.2 percent each year until 2022.
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Indian East coast’s first lng terminal readies for imminent commissioning
State-owned Indian Oil Corp is set to commission its maiden LNG terminal at Ennore in Tamil Nadu within days, company officials said Tuesday. Ennore terminal is the first LNG terminal to be built on India’s east coast, and is part of the IOC’s strategy to end decades of gas shortage in the region.
The $725-million project is due to receive its commissioning cargo shortly after dredging work is completed by the end of January. The Ennore terminal will be connected to the nearby refinery operated by Chennai Petroleum Corporation, an IOC subsidiary, as well as downstream consumers such as Madras Fertilizers, Tamil Nadu Petro Products and Manali Petrol Products of South India. However, the gas distribution project— a 1,385-km (850-mile) gas pipeline linking the Ennore terminal with Nagapattinam via Puducherry — has yet to be completed. The first phase, connecting nearby urban areas, will be completed by May, officials said. The second phase will be completed by December and will be connecting the terminal with other cities in South India such as Madurai, Tuticorin and Bengaluru. The company’s Dhamra LNG terminal, also on the east coast, is expected to become operational in the second half of 2021. Construction commenced in July 2017.
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Ships with Indian, Turkish crews catch fire in Kerch Strait, 11 dead
Two ships carrying Indian, Turkish and Libyan crew members have caught fire in the Kerch Strait separating Crimea from Russia, killing at least 11 persons, media reports said on Tuesday. The fire broke out on Monday off Russia’s territorial waters. Both vessels were flying Tanzanian flags. One of them was a liquefied natural gas carrier and another one was a tanker. The fire broke out as the two ships were transferring fuel from one to the other. One of the ships, the Candy, had a 17-member crew, including nine Turkish citizens and eight Indian nationals. The other one, the Maestro, had 15-member crew, including seven Turkish nationals, seven Indian citizens and an intern from Libya, Russian news agency Tass quoted maritime authority as saying.