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Congestion shifts to US East coast ports

Congestion at US West Coast ports hit the headlines last year as it reached record levels with vessels waiting more than three weeks to berth at the key ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach (LA/LB) with severe pressure on the supply chain. However, the latest edition The McCown Report by Blue Alpha Capital said that the port congestion situation in the US had morphed from primarily impacting the West Coast to impacting all coastal ranges. According to the report the total number of containerships waiting to berth at US ports had fallen from a peak of 150 at the start of the year to 125, however, many more vessels waiting at facilities on the East Coast. “While the West Coast represented over two-thirds of containerships wating for berths in January, it is only one-third now as the ships at anchor and resulting congestion has shifted eastwards,” the report said. “The last month has seen an increase in this eastward shift and now Houston and New York have as many containerships waiting for berths a LA/LB combined.” The sharpest increase has been seen though at Savannah which now has 42 ships waiting for berths, six times the number the port can accommodate, translating to a typical 14 day wait at anchor.


Rules’ uncertainty plagues dry bulk and tanker

Ship owners in the tanker and dry bulk segments have been the most reluctant to commit to newbuilding orders, as opposed to their LNG and container shipping counterparts, where decisions are driven by different incentives. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker said that “faced with uncertainty regarding the most cost-efficient alternative fuels and the future dominant method to reduce their greenhouse emissions, many owners abstain from the newbuilding realm, especially in the wet and dry sector, while sticking to ageing fleets. During 1H22, fleet grew by 1.4 percent (est. 2.8 percent in 2022), which is way below the 10-year average growth of 3.6 percent. While new orders are not coming in fast enough to halt the trend of an ageing fleet, the introduction of EEXI, CII and EU ETS at the beginning of 2023, has resulted in a record of 61 percent of newbuild orders being alternative fuelled”. “According to our data, tanker fleet renewal remains muted across 1H22. Overall, 31 vessels have been ordered within 2022 in the wet sector (with the orderbook standing at 5 percent of fleet capacity), of which 1 is methanol & ammonia ready, 1 is methanol fuelled, 2 are battery powered and 2 are LNG fuelled/


Update on US maritime and environmental regulations

The regulatory landscape is hard to navigate, even for insiders – at a very high level, rules can be codified as Federal laws or they can be set by agencies that reside within the Executive branch. For Seatrade Maritime News readers, agencies recently in the spotlight have included the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), which is independent and not part of a broader department like Transportation or Commerce, and the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), also an independent agency. The EPA has been in the news lately, with a late-June ruling from the US Supreme Court, the Judicial branch, which would limit the EPA’s ability to set down rules for the domestic power industry, but by no means would it completely strip the EPA of power to write rules. The Court ruling in itself is based on the idea that rules with big impacts on the economy, which emissions related power plant issues surely qualify, should be put in place by Congress, and not by unelected civil servants.


Maritime transport intermodal service connects London and Manchester

The service commenced on July 4 and connects Tilbury2 on the Thames east of London to the newly-refurbished Trafford Park Euroterminal in Manchester. Maritime Transport has partnered with embattled UK ferry operator P&O Ferries for the new service. P&O Ferries attracted widespread negative press and condemnation from the UK government after sacking 800 of its seafarers to replace them with cheaper agency labour. The Tilbury to Manchester service runs five days per week from Monday to Friday, and can move 45′ pallet-wide, 40′, and 20′ deep-sea containers, carrying up to 80 teu in each direction. Maritime Transport said the new service will help cut CO2 emissions by removing over 20,000 lorries from UK roads per year.


6M TEU oversupply of containers after ‘panic’ ordering

Container trading and leasing company Container xChange said there has been a downward trend in container prices since around September 2021. The issue began with container ordering in the early stages of the pandemic, when demand rose sharply and supply was constrained by congestion and disruption in supply chains. “This led to the panic ordering of new boxes at record levels. With time, as markets reopen and demand softens, the oversupply is a natural outcome of demand-supply forces balancing at new levels.” said Christian Roeloffs, Cofounder and CEO of Container xChange.


Portugal-Netherlands green hydrogen supply

The agreement was signed between Shell New Energy, tank storage company Vopak, gas tanker outfit Anthony Veder and law carbon services company ENGIE. The companies will assess the production and liquifying of Hydrogen in Portugal for transportation to the Netherlands for sale and distribution. Shell and ENGIE will work on the whole value chain, with Vopak and Anthony Veder focused on storage, shipping and distribution. The vision is for hydrogen to be produced in Sines port using renewable power for electrolysis, with the first shipment of liquid hydrogen leaving Sines for Rotterdam by 2027. Volumes are expected to start at 100 tonnes per day with room to scale up over time. The hydrogen will have applications as a low-carbon fuel or fuel component for use in heavy duty machinery, marine and aviation.


Rules’ uncertainty plagues dry bulk and tanker

Ship owners in the tanker and dry bulk segments have been the most reluctant to commit to newbuilding orders, as opposed to their LNG and container shipping counterparts, where decisions are driven by different incentives. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker said that “faced with uncertainty regarding the most cost-efficient alternative fuels and the future dominant method to reduce their greenhouse emissions, many owners abstain from the newbuilding realm, especially in the wet and dry sector, while sticking to ageing fleets. During 1H22, fleet grew by 1.4 percent (est. 2.8 percent in 2022), which is way below the 10-year average growth of 3.6 percent. While new orders are not coming in fast enough to halt the trend of an ageing fleet, the introduction of EEXI, CII and EU ETS at the beginning of 2023, has resulted in a record of 61 percent of newbuild orders being alternative fuelled”. “According to our data, tanker fleet renewal remains muted across 1H22. Overall, 31 vessels have been ordered within 2022 in the wet sector (with the orderbook standing at 5 percent of fleet capacity), of which 1 is methanol & ammonia ready, 1 is methanol fuelled, 2 are battery powered and 2 are LNG fuelled/


Tanker contracting only 1.6m dwt in first half of 2022

Between 1996 and 2021, the lowest half-yearly tanker contracting volume was 3.0m DWT, recorded in the first half of 1999. Despite improved freight rates and a more positive market outlook, the first six months of 2022 ended with barely more than half that volume: only 1.6m DWT was contracted. Consequently, the order book to fleet ratio has fallen to 5.1 percent for both crude and product tankers, a ratio which is also the lowest since 1996. “Only 23 tankers have been contracted in the first half of 2022: 4 crude tankers and 19 product tankers,” says Niels Rasmussen, Chief Shipping Analyst at BIMCO. The highest newbuilding prices since 2008 and price increases of between 25 percent and 42 percent since November 2020 may have discouraged owners, and many may be waiting for more attractive prices.

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