Ocean shipping

An in-depth, exclusive interview with Scott Borgerson, co-founder and CEO of CargoMetrics Technologies.

Research by Clarksons confirms acceleration of scrubber installations, reducing available ship capacity.

East Coast refinery outage spurs more trans-Atlantic gasoline cargoes from Europe.

An exclusive interview with Citi’s head of shipping Michael Parker on Poseidon Principles consequences.

Sentiment toward shipping tech has reached a new high point among startups, tech investors and vessel interests.

One of the highest-profile owners in ocean shipping expounds LNG’s appeal.

Despite all the negative news, container shipping may be on a steadier course than in previous decades.

Geopolitical and trade tensions are having an increasing effect on shipping rates.

Market expert Brian Aoaeh writes about the new Digital Shipping Container Alliance and why standards are important to industry. He also writes about why getting standards written and adopted is particularly difficult.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has just welcomed another ship owner aboard. On June 17, the stock of liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier owner Flex LNG (NYSE: FLNG) began […]

New incentives for container shipping could bring more boxes through the canal to the U.S. East Coast.

Suppliers, traders and ship operators will need to increase credit lines and be more diligent about counterparty risk.

The scale and growth of China’s domestic over-the-road trucking and international ocean container shipping trade has been revealed in new data from the country’s Ministry of Transport.

An independent valuation of DryShips’ fleet by VesselsValue puts the bid to take it private in context.

Middle East tanker attacks could spur oil importers to bring forward purchases, increasing shipping demand.

Suezmax tankers can carry half as much crude as VLCCs, but now command twice the VLCC rate.

Performance Shipping’s expansion into the tanker sector underscores the continued appeal of diversification to listed ship owners.

Nicholas Press, Founder and President of CEC Systems, explores the maritime industry’s problem with empty containers and explores potential solutions to deal with them.

Developers are poised to bring new software to the ocean shipping sector. What will work and what will not?

U.S. coal export volumes are down 12.7 percent in the first four months of this year and the outlook looks even worse for 2020.

Is a recovery near for VLCC crude tanker spot rates? Not yet, warns an an analyst at VesselsValue.

Bringing spot vessels together into a pooling arrangement made sense, but ultimately, business interests diverged.

Switch to long-term coverage that began in 2016 continues to pay off in 2019.

Investor concerns are intensifying over the fate of George Prokopiou’s publicly listed LNG partnership.

Rates are rising for bulkers and gas carriers, while container pricing on the trans-Pacific is showing signs of life.

It has been the slowest start of the year on record for shipping on Wall Street.

With each passing day, it seems the U.S. LNG export sector is gaining further momentum.

There may be so little demand post-2020 for high-sulfur fuel oil that it may end up stored aboard tankers.

As U.S.-China trade tensions escalate, data appears to be pointing to a volume slowdown.

Shipping rates are clawing their way back from lows set earlier this year.

Every corner of the ocean shipping world is completely distinct from the others. What fuels the tanker business is almost entirely different than what steers dry bulkers or container ships. […]

If a trade war pares GDP growth, OPEC cuts may be extended, weighing tanker rates.

A crackdown on plastic waste illegally ocean-shipped to Malaysia took a dramatic turn last night. The country’s environment ministry announced that it would be sending 450 metric tons of contaminated plastic waste in 10 maritime shipping containers back to their countries of origin.

Private equity-backed ship owners continue to sell fleets to already listed companies in return for shares.

The Teekay companies continue to concentrate their focus on oil and LNG shipping.

As a major owner of Capesize bulkers, Golden Ocean is heavily exposed to events in Brazil.

South Korean ocean carrier HMM may have a shiny new corporate identity but its first quarter results were written in the same dreadful red ink as last year. Although the ocean carrier generated large increases in revenues, its costs surged, which led to large losses in the first three months of 2019.

There are some positive signs for shipping rates, but overall, disappointment prevails.

Golar LNG Ltd is spinning off a new public entity. Flex LNG is coming too. Shipping’s US-listed field is getting even more crowded.

A more flexible shipping loan concept is good for borrowers and their clients, but may have limited scope.

Despite the controversies through the years, DryShips has proven to be a survivor – and has posted another quarterly profit.

Large ships may provide liner operators with economies of scale, but they are proving more expensive in the chartering market.

Rail market expert Jim Blaze discusses how FreightWaves SONAR can help determine how best to ship freight.

NYSE-listed Diamond S Shipping brings an experienced management team back into the public arena.

Danaos CEO does not believe trade dispute will cut box-ship ton-mile demand.

China’s new list more than doubles the tariff on LNG, but it’s the dry bulk stocks that are feeling the pain.

In its first full quarter since repurchasing its spin-off, Navios Acquisition moved to lower its fleet age.

Shipping’s ‘trade war’ equation is not measured in tons at sea, it’s measured in tons times miles at sea.

There are reasons to be optimistic about rates in both the crude and product tanker sectors – and INSW’s fleet spans both categories.

Crude tanker owner DHT Holdings believes the stage is now set for a pronounced upswing in rates.

Manila, Philippines-based container terminal operator International Container Services International has posted a solid set of first quarter results. Revenues were up. Profits were up. Box lifts were up. The group attributed its good results to operational improvements, lower finance costs and a “ramp up” in contributions by its new ports.

It’s rough out there in the dry bulk ocean shipping business. New York-headquartered Genco Shipping & Trading (NYSE: GNK) posted a net loss of $7.8 million in the first quarter […]

IMO 2020 is will increase demand for distillates and put upward pressure on diesel. How should truckers prepare?

NASDAQ-listed Eagle Bulk believes its ‘owner-operator’ model allows it earn more than ‘pure owner’ competitors.

NYSE-listed Global Ship Lease is reporting improved conditions in the container ship chartering market.

Stocks of publicly listed ship owners, particularly in the dry bulk sector, are feeling the fallout of trade tensions.

Public ship owners like Navios Partners saw rates fall due to cuts in Brazilian iron-ore exports.

Executives at GasLog Ltd. believe the LNG shipping spot market is set to rebound. Others are not so sure.

Government approval has been given for the construction of a $250 million (US$175 million) liquefied natural gas import terminal at Port Kembla, 44 miles to the south-south-west of Sydney, Australia. The country is facing a shortage of gas and record high prices, which is somewhat ironic because Australia is likely the world’s biggest exporter of gas.

According to Seaspan Corporation, the largest U.S.-listed container-ship lessor, liner companies are pulling vessels from service to install scrubbers, which is increasing demand for new charters.

Momentum is building to limit the speed of ocean-going vessels to curtail harmful emissions. The debate will focus on how this could impact charter rates, and whether it could have the unintended consequence of creating even more emissions-generating ship capacity.

NYSE-listed Scorpio Tankers has returned to profitability and its scrubber-installation program should position it to take advantage of the looming IMO 2020 rule.

So far this year, there has been heightened refinery downtime for maintenance and upgrades, but the tide is expected to turn in the second half, to the benefit of product-tanker rates.

Tanker companies like Euronav expect to see financial benefits from impending environmental regulations, which will change the type of fuel burned at sea and could eventually limit how fast ships can go.

At the same time Wall Street investors are shunning ship owners, European banks are pulling back on providing debt to ocean shipping. What are the short- and long-term implications for freight markets?

Dry bulk shipping faced multiple headwinds in the first quarter, but NYSE-listed Scorpio Bulkers benefited from its smaller ships and its diversification into the product-tanker sector.

Japanese transport company, Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK Line) (JPX:9101) has today reported a loss of approximately US$400 million (Japanese Yen 44.5 billion)  for the year ended March 31, 2019. Following the red ink bloodbath, the company has replaced the chairman, president and representative directors.

The final part of the FreightWaves series on the Panama Canal focuses on dry bulk transits. The two trends: US agribulk cargo to Asia is down, Colombian coal to the west coast of South America and Asia is up.

South Korean ocean box shipping company, Hyundai Merchant Marine, and Russian far East intermodal box transport specialist, FESCO, have announced a series of changes to their Russia-China-Korea shipping operations. Rail specialist FESCO has also announced extensive Russia-China rail services.

As GasLog Partners reported its quarterly earnings, its CEO commented on prospects for both spot and long-term charter markets. He optimistically believes current spot weakness will be short-lived, and that rates will be driven higher by the wave of new liquefaction projects coming onstream.

In the second-part of its series on the Panama Canal, FreightWaves interviews a canal authority executive on trends for container-ship transits and expectations for ship size growth in the years ahead.

After languishing for years, tanker stocks are rising in 2019. Investors are seeking to get in early on the belief that the turnaround in rates is nigh. They’ve been wrong before — will their bets pay off this time?

A top executive of the Panama Canal Authority outlines the prospects for LNG, LPG and crude/product tanker transits through the larger locks of the waterway.

Containerized freight rates are continuing to decline. And where gains are made, these are only marginal gains. International maritime consultant Drewry expects that ocean carriers “will struggle to recover rates” in the coming week.

Keelung, Taiwan-headquartered ocean container carrier Yang Ming has announced that it signed charter agreements on April 10 for four box ships of 11,000 TEU with ship-owning specialist Shoei Kisen Kaisa of Imabari City, Japan.

When freight rates are terrible, even a slight improvement seems like an uptick. But a terrible market is still a terrible market. Capesize rates have marginally, slightly, improved… but they’re still dreadful. And the rest of the dry bulk shipping markets  are doing their best to impersonate a submarine… they’re all steadily sinking. Ship scrapping that removes some excess tonnage may help rate recovery.

Biofuels created by recycling used cooking oils are being tested by ocean-going ships in pilot trials around the world. Such biofuels may even be gaining acceptance by ocean-shippers, freight forwarders and ship operators.

Panelists discussed current market data and how the TCA educates its members to operationalize data in their businesses.

Down, down, down – freight rates are down, nearly across the board, on export and import routes to and from China, according to indices published by the Shanghai Shipping Exchange.

A maritime labor-supply demand gap is opening up in Australia as its marine workforce is old and getting older, according to a new report from local domestic trade association Maritime Industry Australia. Worse still, there are fewer and fewer young people entering the local maritime industries.

Australian miner Rio Tinto generated over US$12 billion (all figures in U.S. dollars) from its bauxite, alumina and aluminum production in 2018. It predicts about 67 million tonnes production of bauxite, alumina and aluminum this year. These minor bulk commodities are significant seaborne cargoes.

Revenue growth for the ocean and air 3PL was strong, but margins at Expeditors tightened.

New IMO regulations asking for the shipping industry to cap the sulfur content in its fuel to 0.5% would have far reaching consequences on crude oil refining and potentially send oil prices to $90 per barrel.

Shippers and trucking companies can be charged high fees and detention costs by cargo lines and marine terminal operators for not picking up loads on time, but the Federal Maritime Commission is now going to investigate that practice.