INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING INDUSTRY
Shipowners, refiners at odds over imo fuel quality
Fuel quality is the great unknown for the shipping and oil refining industry. The International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) January 2020 deadline could see the majority of vessel owners switching to cleaner marine fuels incompatible with each other. Other solutions look similarly haphazard.
The IMO’s global sulfur limit for marine fuels drops to 0.5percent next January from 3.5percent, and the industry is developing a wide range of very low sulfur fuel oils, which may be compliant but also vary in other qualities.
The specifications of the new fuels matter because marine engineers need to know how they will interact with their vessels, and bunker purchasers need to start planning which fuels they will be able to buy, at which ports and in which combinations. Imagine a driver in a car pulling up outside a filling station uncertain as to whether the gasoline at the pump would cause their car to break down.
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Two years in Singapore jail sound good? just use the wrong ship fuel
Singapore has a message for shipping companies considering cheating on rules starting next year to combat pollution to save a few dollars on their fuel bills: don’t.
Captains and owners of vessels that burn overly sulfurous fuel in the Asian country’s territorial waters could face as long as two years in prison from the start of 2020, according to the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore. If enforced, such a penalty would probably be among the strongest deterrents yet to dodging regulations that are supposed to cut emissions of a pollutant blamed for asthma and acid rain.
From next year, the ships must emit 85 percent less sulfur in most parts of the world than they do in most places today. The world’s second-biggest port said that ships that fail to use an approved abatement technology such as a scrubber, alternative fuel or compliant fuel will also be considered non-compliant.
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S Korea’s major shipyards expected to report improved q1 earnings
South Korea’s major shipyards are expected to report an improvement in their earnings for the first quarter of the year, with Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering likely to continue to deliver a decent profit, market data showed on April 3.
Local brokerage houses are estimating that sales for top player Hyundai Heavy Industries will reach some 3.3 trillion won ($2.9 billion) for the January-March period, up over 10 percent from a year earlier. The world’s largest shipyard is forecast to swing to the black from a year earlier as well, they predicted.
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Newcastle coal exports rise 5 percent in first quarter
Australian coal exports from the key hub of Newcastle rose 5percent in the first quarter of 2019 to 27.3m tonnes, port data showed on Monday. March volumes climbed 0.5m tonnes year on year to 9.1m tonnes, despite concerns about customs delays disrupting exports to China, the country’s second biggest thermal coal market.
Volumes in March were up 0.2m tonnes on February’s throughput. Customs delays in China have reportedly spread to other ports and climbed to reach as long as three months, though both countries have denied any policy targeting Australian coal.
Indeed, Port of Waratah coal services data showed China expanded its share of Newcastle coal exports in the first three months of the year compared to the same period in 2018.
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Prem Watsa’s Fairfax picks 41.4pc in seven islands shipping for $72.1 m
Prem Watsa-led Fairfax India Holdings Corporation has invested $72.1 million for a 41.4 per cent stake in privately-run Seven Islands Shipping Ltd, India’s second biggest private tanker shipping company.
The investment was made through a direct subscription and secondary market acquisition of Seven Islands’ shares. Seven Islands will use the proceeds to expand its fleet by acquiring additional vessels and for general corporate purposes.
Seven Islands is engaged in transporting products along the Indian coast and in international waters. The Mumbai-based firm owns 14 vessels with a total deadweight capacity of about one million tonnes, which are registered in India and operate as Indian-owned and -flagged vessels.
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Shipping data signals weakness in global economy
The volume of US ocean cargo imports arranged by Deutsche Post’s DHL Group, United Parcel Service Inc, FedEx Corp and other freight forwarders fell sharply in February, sending a warning on global trade, a key barometer for the world economy.
Though just a sliver of the global delivery and logistics business, freight forwarding – the arranging of end-to-end transport of goods for importers and exporters – is seen as a proxy for international trade.
Towards the end of last year their clients binged on imports such as apparel, auto parts, chemicals and furniture to avoid US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods.
In February, those customers pulled back. U.S. ocean imports fell 4.5 percent, the first drop in two years, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence’s trade data firm Panjiva.
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India: containers handling at major ports up 8pc
India’s 12 state-owned ports loaded a combined 9.876 million 20-foot equivalent units or TEUs in the year to March 2019, 8.08 percent more than the previous year. In FY18, the dozen major ports handled 9.138 million TEUs.
Containers handled at major ports are expected to cross the 10 million TEU mark this fiscal. Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), India’s biggest container port, retained the pole position among the major ports in container handling, ending the year with a volume of 5.133 million TEUs against 4.833 million TEUs in FY18, followed by Chennai Port Trust with 1.620 million TEUs against 1.549 million TEUs in FY18. Kolkata Port Trust held the third spot with 830,000 TEUs from 796,000 TEUs in FY18. The total cargo, including containers handled by the 12 ports, rose 2.9 percent to 699.048 million tonnes from 679.371 mt in FY18.