International Association of Marine and Shipping Professionls NEWS BULLETIN 30 – 06 May 2018

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About I.A.M.S.P

The International Association of Marine and Shipping Professionals (IAMSP) is the professional body for Marine and Shipping professionals world-wide, formed in 2015. The association is an independent, non-political organization aims to:

Contribute to the promotion and protection of maritime activities of the shipping industry, the study of their development opportunities and more generally everything concerning these activities.

Promote the development of occupations related to maritime and shipping; serve as a point of contact and effective term for the business relationship with the shipping industry

(charter brokers, traders, shipping agents, Marine surveyors, ship inspectors, ship-managers, sailors, and stevedores etc.).

Ensuring the representation of its members to the institutions, national and international organizations as well as with governments, communities and professional groups while promoting the exchange of information, skills and the exchange of experience.

Develop the partnership relations sponsorship, collaboration between IAMSP and other associations, companies, national and international organizations involved in activities related to Maritimes and shipping.

Contribute to the update and improvement of professional knowledge of its members and raise their skill levels to international standards.

Progress towards a comprehensive and integrated view of all marine areas and the activities and resources related to the sea. INTERNATIONAL news

Container shipping: Alphaliner Top 20

29/04/2018

Source: Alphaliner [Alphaliner]

Oil & gas shipping Kenya: IFC to finance new LPG terminal at

MombasaMombasa

29/04/2018 The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is set to lend Mombasa Gas Terminal Limited (MGT) Sh4.8 billion to construct a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) terminal in the port of Mombasa.

The loan is part of Sh11.2 billion funding for the firm, which is owned by Dubai-based Milio International Limited, a trader of refined fuels. ―Total project cost is $112 million (Sh11.2

billion), and IFC is considering supporting the project by providing MGT with $48 million (Sh4.8 billion) in a combination of loans for its own account and for other participating lenders,‖ IFC said in an investment disclosure statement.

The terminal will include a private berth for unloading mid-sized LPG carriers, an onshore storage whose capacity is 22,000 metric tonnes and associated infrastructure that will have multiple landing points for transfer of LPG to transport vehicles. The facility, which will also have a pipeline and direct mooring access for large-sized LPG carriers, is scheduled to commence operations in early 2020.

MGT has contracted Lloyd Jones Construction, an American firm to construct the terminal over an 18-month period, besides providing maintenance support for the project during the first two years of operations. MGT will use LPG-approved tanks to transfer the gas by trucks to the Rift Valley Railways (RVR) yard in Kilindini and the Standard Gauge Railways (SGR) yard in Port Reitz, from where the commodity will be transported to Nairobi and other parts in the country.

[Business Daily]

Bulk shipping: EGA signs agreement with Louis Dreyfus Armateurs for transshipment of bauxite in Guinea

29/04/2018 • Transshipment will enable EGA to load any ocean-going vessels, including the world's largest, reducing shipping costs • Louis Dreyfus Armateurs and Abu Dhabi Ports intend to form joint venture to work together on the project Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside oil and gas, today signed a 15 year agreement with LD Ports & Logistics, a subsidiary of Louis Dreyfus Armateurs, for the transshipment of bauxite in the Republic of Guinea.

Louis Dreyfus Armateurs and Abu Dhabi Ports separately signed an undertaking to form a joint venture company to work together to implement the project. Transshipment is the process of moving cargo from one vessel to another at sea and is used to transfer cargo when vessels are too big to berth in a port. Using larger ships reduces shipping costs on longer journeys.

EGA will be loading bauxite at the port of Kamsar in Guinea from both its own Guinea Alumina Corporation project, which will supply customers around the world, and from Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée for supply to EGA‘s Al Taweelah alumina refinery in Abu Dhabi. Kamsar is located on the river Nunez some 17 kilometres from the open sea and is inaccessible for the world‘s largest vessels.

Louis Dreyfus Armateurs is a global marine transport and services group. EGA already works with Abu Dhabi Ports in Guinea. Abu Dhabi Ports manages a container terminal built by EGA at Kamsar port.

EGA is currently developing the GAC project in Guinea, a bauxite mine and associated export facilities. First bauxite from the project is expected during the second half of 2019. The GAC project is one of the largest greenfield investments in Guinea in the past 40 years and will be a new global source of bauxite supply. Bauxite is the ore from which aluminium is derived.

EGA is also building the UAE‘s first alumina refinery at Al Taweelah in Abu Dhabi. First alumina is expected during the first half of 2019. Alumina, which is refined from bauxite, is the feedstock for aluminium smelters. Al Taweelah alumina refinery is expected to meet 40 per cent of EGA‘s alumina needs once full ramp-up is achieved.

The transshipment system for GAC will consist of self-propelled barges that will shuttle from the GAC berth at Kamsar port to two floating transfer stations. For bauxite destined for Al Taweelah alumina refinery, LD Ports & Logistics will use a gearless Panamax that will shuttle from the Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée berth to a transshipper.

Bauxite for Al Taweelah alumina refinery will be unloaded at Khalifa Port in Abu Dhabi. In December, EGA and Abu Dhabi Ports signed a long-term port facility agreement which enables Abu Dhabi Ports to develop Khalifa Port to become the first in the Gulf capable of directly handling the world‘s largest bulk cargo vessels.

Abu Dhabi Ports will fund and complete dredging and widening works to the Khalifa Port approach channel and basin including EGA‘s berth.

[Thomson Reuters]

Navigation: Maersk Line to test autonomous vessel technology

29/04/2018 Maersk Line has hired Boston-based automation firm Sea Machines Robotics to install "perception and situational awareness technology" on a new class of containerships.

To "see" the traffic environment the technology deploys computer vision, LIDAR and perception software, and it will be deployed to "augment and upgrade transit operations", Fort Lauderdale's Maritime Executive reported.

In a short mission statement, Sea Machines says that it develops autonomous vessel technology for commercial boats and ships and it offers what it describes as the world's first industrial-grade control system to provide autonomous and remote vessel control for workboats and other commercial marine vessels The technology has the ability to navigate autonomously in many situations with a human standing by to take over if needed. It is targeted primarily at survey, spill response, dredging and security/surveillance applications. This approach is in line with Maersk's bearish position on unmanned vessels. In an interview with Bloomberg, Maersk CEO Soren Skou said that his firm already uses small crews on its giant box ships and he doesn't see much advantage in taking the last few people off the vessel.

Even if there were a commercial reason to do so and the technology were available, "I don't expect we will be allowed to sail around with 400-metre long container ships, weighing 200,000 tonnes without any human beings on board," he said. "I don't think it will be a driver of efficiency, not in my time."

In a statement AP Moller-Maersk innovation manager Michael Rodey confirmed that unmanned shipping is not the objective for its partnership with Sea Machines. "For this containership situational awareness programme, we aim to prove the technology increases our safety, efficiency and reliability. Autonomous vessels are not an end goal for Maersk nor is unmanned vessels, what is more of interest is the technology along the journey and the value it brings," he said.

The project will have Sea Machines install its equipment on Maersk's new "Winter Palace" ice-class vessels. The shipping line has ordered seven 3,500 TEU ice-class feeders for service in the Baltic Sea under its Seago Line brand and the first entered service earlier this month.

[Hong Kong Shipping Gazette]

Terminal operators Africa: Vincent Bolloré is being investigated over his business in Africa

28/04/2018 ―This port is for the Togolese,‖ says Sherif Tchedre, a mechanic standing among containers that line the shorefront in Lomé, Togo‘s capital. ―But it is Bolloré who runs everything.‖ He thinks little of the port‘s French operator, Bolloré Group, or the conglomerate‘s eponymous owner-boss, Vincent Bolloré. They do ―nothing for Togo‖, he says, adding that the Frenchman is too cosy with African presidents. The French police seem to think so, too. On April 24th they arrested Mr Bolloré and some of his firm‘s senior staff in Paris on suspicion of paying bribes a decade ago to win bids to run the Lomé port and one in Conakry, in Guinea. The next day he and two others were placed under formal investigation, one step short of being charged. The authorities suspect that Havas, a communications firm that Bolloré then owned, gave African politicians heavily discounted help in their election campaigns. Mr Bolloré and Bolloré Group deny the allegations. Bolloré is bigger than almost any other multinational firm in Africa, where it has done business for 80 years. It operates in all but four of the continent‘s countries. Its sprawling interests include 16 ports, three railways, energy, media and plantations. The logistics arm has expanded enormously over the past decade, tripling its income between 2005 and 2015. Such heft inevitably involves close official ties. Journalists dubbed Mr Bolloré le petit prince (the little prince) in the 1990s for his prominence in Françafrique—the term for the cosy relations between the French and French-speaking African rulers. The tycoon flaunted his --+ connections, for example by lending Nicolas Sarkozy a yacht so that the latter could celebrate his election as French president in 2007. Bolloré-owned free-sheets in France are known to dish up friendly coverage of African politicians. Two years ago, Alpha Condé, Guinea‘s president, told Le Monde, a French newspaper, that Mr Bolloré was a capable friend, and ―I help my friends, so what?‖

Episodes such as this have long made Bolloré controversial in Africa. In 2015 the firm was awarded a contract to rebuild the railway from Benin to Niger—even after it had been won by another firm, Petrolin. Bolloré was later kicked out of Benin by its new president (an act for which the firm is demanding compensation).

In Ivory Coast in 2013, Bolloré won the contract to build and run a second container terminal at the port of Abidjan. It is currently investing €400m ($487m) in the terminal. When the contract was awarded, Jean-Louis Billon, the country‘s commerce minister, attacked his own government because Bolloré already ran the first terminal and part of the rationale for expanding the port was to promote competition.

The latest affair has already knocked the company: Bolloré‘s shares dropped by 8% after the arrests and the announcement of the investigations. As for Mr Bolloré, ―until yesterday I thought he was untouchable‖, says a person who worked for an opposition figure in Guinea. French investigators made sure to stir up media interest, using the same aggressive legal procedure to detain and question him that was deployed against Mr Sarkozy in March. The former president was charged in an (apparently) unrelated case of alleged Franco-African corruption involving claims—which he denies—that Libya‘s Muammar Qaddafi funnelled money to his campaign.

Trouble has also been brewing for Mr Bolloré and his empire in markets closer to home. Last week his son, Yannick Bolloré, who runs Havas, unexpectedly replaced his father as chairman of Vivendi, a big media firm that Bolloré controls. Last year Vivendi bought Havas in a manoeuvre that seemed to have ―no industrial rationale‖, says François Godard of Enders Analysis. The purchase makes more sense if Mr Bolloré père plans to reduce his role in the overall group.

Mr Bolloré‘s strategy for his media concerns has been unclear for some years. In France Canal Plus, a once-dominant pay-TV channel, is struggling against the likes of Netflix. His attempts to seize rivals have

run into trouble. In March Vivendi abandoned its year-long bid for Ubisoft, a big French maker of computer games, including ―Assassin‘s Creed‖, a wildly popular shoot-em-up. Vivendi amassed a 27% stake before it was stymied.

At least it cashed in €1bn; Ubisoft‘s market value almost doubled to nearly €9bn after the bid was announced. More troubling are Mr Bolloré‘s missteps in Italy, in particular Vivendi‘s grab of Telecom Italia (TI), the former state provider, and its attempt to snatch Mediaset, the country‘s biggest television broadcaster, from a firm belonging to the family of Silvio Berlusconi, a former prime minister.

Talk that he would somehow create a ―European Netflix‖, or roll out fibre connections to rural consumers, has come to nothing. Vivendi is instead beset by both rising political opposition (Mr Berlusconi is again influential) and an attack by Elliot Advisors, an activist hedge fund set on foisting a new board on TI at a shareholder meeting on May 4th. Mr Godard judges that Mr Bolloré has ―spectacularly failed‖ in Italy and that he—or his son—would sell TI given the chance. Along with all his headaches over Africa, he can count on little respite in Europe.

[The Economist]

The methane mystery: Scientists struggle to explain a worrying rise in atmospheric : methane

28/04/2018 Every year human endeavours emit 50bn tonnes of ―carbon dioxide equivalent‖. This way of measuring things reflects the climatic importance of CO2, which traps heat in the atmosphere or centuries before it breaks down, compared with other, shorter-lived greenhouse gases.

Of that 50bn-tonne total, 70% is carbon dioxide itself. Half the remaining 15bn tonnes is methane. In the past decade methane levels have shot up (see chart), to the extent that the atmosphere contains two-and-a-half times as much of the gas as it did before the Industrial Revolution. Earlier this month America‘s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed another sharp rise in 2017.

This is disturbing for two reasons. First, methane is a powerful heat-trapper. Although it is far less abundant than carbon dioxide and stays in the air for only a decade or so, molecule for molecule its warming effect (calculated over 100 years) is 25 times higher. Keeping methane in check is therefore critical if a rise in temperature this century is to remain ―well below‖ 2°C relative to pre-industrial times, a goal set out in the Paris climate agreement of 2015. The second concern is that methane‘s latest rise is poorly understood. The explanations put forward by scientists range from the troubling to the truly hair-raising. More research is needed to determine the correct degree of anxiety. Atmospheric methane is biological in origin—but some of the biology happened a long time ago. The bulk of this ancient methane gets into the atmosphere during the production and transport of natural gas, of which methane is the principal component. A lesser amount leaks straight out of the ground. But this fossil methane is only 20% of the total. The remaining 80% is produced by micro-organisms which break down organic matter. These so-called methanogens inhabit soils, preferably moist ones, as well as the digestive tracts of ruminants (and, to a lesser extent, other animals, humans included).

Detective work

Methane consists of a single carbon atom surrounded by four hydrogen ones, giving the gas its chemical assignation of CH4. To ascertain the provenance of a plume of methane scientists take a sample and measure the proportion of carbon-13, a comparatively rare isotope of the element that it contains.

Methane from wetlands or livestock tends to be lower in carbon-13 than that from pipelines. As global concentration of CH4 rose in the 1980s and 1990s, so did its carbon-13 content, leading observers to finger the former Soviet Union‘s creaky gas infrastructure. When the level stabilised early this century, it was put down to better maintenance.

The latest increase in atmospheric methane is more mysterious. A dip in carbon-13 implies that biological sources are driving the change. But which? One big worry is the Arctic. The soil there contains methane equivalent to 2.3 times all the carbon dioxide humanity has emitted since the 1800s. If it were released it could set off a vast new burst of global warming. But methane-rich Siberian air (see map of average atmospheric methane levels in January 2016, above) shows no sign of rising any faster than the rest of the world.

Some researchers, such as Hinrich Schaefer of New Zealand‘s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, reckon that increasing numbers of cattle in India and China, along with more rice paddies in South-East Asia, are to blame. Others, including Euan Nisbet of Royal Holloway, University of London, point to tropical wetlands, which have been getting wetter and warmer, conditions in which methanogens thrive.

John Worden of NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, and his colleagues, offered an alternative explanation in a paper published last year in Nature Communications. They reckon a decline in bushfires, which release methane even richer in carbon-13 than natural gas, has been steeper than previously thought. This could shift the overall isotopic signature by enough to mask a rise in emissions linked to natural gas.

Of these three propositions, Dr Worden‘s is the one to be wished for, because natural-gas leaks can be plugged more easily than Asian consumers‘ diets can be changed. The fire theory also deals with another puzzle. When annual emissions from all known sources (including fires) are tallied, the corresponding change in planet-wide methane levels exceeds that recorded by NOAA and others. Revise down

blaze-related emissions, Dr Worden argues, and the numbers stack up. Sceptics point out that his approach relies on satellite measurements of carbon monoxide, which like methane is a by-product of incomplete combustion, but whose decline may be down to other things, such as the shift away from leaded petrol.

Dr Nisbet‘s hypothesis about the tropical wetlands is the most alarming, for it could signal an Arctic-like feedback loop there, whereby global warming could be causing them to release more methane by making them hotter and wetter. Worse, this would be happening as the wetlands get bigger. Since 1979 the boundaries of tropical rainfall have been shifting towards the poles, by 60-110km a decade according to one estimate. This is a predictable, and predicted, result of greenhouse warming, though it could be due to natural variation.

Down the sink

There is one other possibility, advanced by Alexander Turner of the University of California, Berkeley. Rather than sources of methane, Dr Turner looks at methane sinks. Specifically, he has examined hydroxyl radicals, which are water molecules stripped of one hydrogen atom. These volatile compounds act as an atmospheric detergent, mopping up methane by reacting with it to create CO2 and water. And Dr Turner thinks there are less of them about than there used to be.

Because a way to measure atmospheric hydroxyl concentrations reliably has yet to be invented, he and his colleagues arrived at their conclusion based on the use of computer models. The decrease in hydroxyls, they wrote last year in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is ―the mathematically most likely explanation‖ for the rise in methane levels after 2006. Why hydroxyls would have dwindled is anyone‘s guess.

As ever in science, more studies are needed. But methane scholars can complain with some justification that their work commands less attention than CO2. Last year atmospheric methane was the subject of 600 peer-reviewed publications, compared with 2,000 for CO2. The tropics are particularly underserved, with only two year-round monitoring sites: a NOAA station in Hawaii and one overseen by Dr Nisbet on Ascension Island, a British dependency in the South Atlantic, which is run on a shoestring budget. Upgrading it to a ―3D observatory‖, with drones sampling air at different altitudes, might cost little more than £50,000 ($70,000) a year, according to Dr Nisbet, who test-flew a drone for that purpose in 2016.

Better atmospheric measurements are not enough, however. More accurate tallies of individual methane sources are needed, too. On April 11th the Environmental Defence Fund, an NGO, announced plans to build a satellite to pinpoint individual methane sources from space. Steve Hamburg, the fund‘s chief scientist, hopes to see it in orbit by 2021. At first, it will train its sights on oil and gas installations.

Such remote sensing could shed light on leaks in gas-rich but data-poor countries, such as Russia or Iraq, where inspectors are unwelcome or afraid to venture. But it cannot fully replace on-site sampling because carbon isotopes cannot be identified from afar. Last year Dr Nisbet‘s team used isotopic analysis and weather models to trace a cloud of methane over the North Sea not to one of its many oil rigs but to cows in the county of Lincolnshire.

Rich countries already refine and update their methane inventories using such methods, but most developing ones do not, partly because UN guidelines are so lax as to be meaningless. Some scientists would like robust inventories to be introduced as part of the Paris commitments. Enshrining tougher standards for implementing the Paris deal, due to be thrashed out by the end of the year, could make it easier to channel UN climate finance and other development aid to places which cannot afford proper methane accounting. But many countries would resist moves that may limit their discretion.

Even as scientists battle over rival hypotheses, all agree that methane emissions must be slashed. The onus chiefly falls on the oil and gas industry. Several giants have made strides to limit fugitive emissions. BP, for example, has upgraded all but 145 of its 10,000 American rigs with less leaky plumbing.

According to a rough calculation by Stephen Pacala of Princeton University, if all the world‘s gas producers attained BP‘s leakage rate of 0.2%, instead of an industry average of over 2%, it would prevent 100m tonnes or so of methane from entering the atmosphere every year. This would spare Earth as much warming as cutting all the carbon dioxide emitted since the 19th century by one-sixth.

Methane will not displace carbon dioxide as the world‘s main climate preoccupation. Nor should it: cutting CH4 is not an alternative to curbing CO2. But both are unavoidable if the Paris objective is to have any chance of being met. Solving the methane mystery can wait awhile. Starting to tackle the methane problem cannot.

[The Economist]

Oceans: ‘Dead zone’ larger than Scotland found by underwater robots in Arabian sea

27/04/2018 By Tom Embury-Dennis Scientists say situation is 'worse than feared' after finding almost no oxygen in Gulf of Oman.

An underwater ―dead zone‖ larger than the area of Scotland has been discovered by robots exploring the Arabian Sea. Scientists say the situation is ―worse than feared‖ after finding almost no oxygen in the Gulf of Oman, the strait that connects the Arabian Sea to the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East. The region, which is almost totally devoid of life, has been described as the ―largest and thickest dead zone in the world‖ and a ―disaster waiting to happen‖.

Describing the dead zone as "vast and growing", lead researcher Dr Bastien Queste, from University of East Anglia‘s School of Environmental Sciences, said: ―The ocean is suffocating. Of course, all fish, marine plants and other animals need oxygen, so they can't survive there. It's a real environmental problem, with dire consequences for humans too who rely on the oceans for food and employment.‖

Dead zones also impact the chemical recycling of nitrogen, causing nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than CO2, to be produced.

The team deployed two Seaglider robots in the Gulf for eight months in order to build an underwater picture of oxygen levels. The area was previously inaccessible to researchers due to piracy and geopolitical tensions. Communicating by satellite, the gliders, which are the size of a small human diver, reached depths of up to 1,000 metres and covered an area spanning thousands of miles.

"They are a disaster waiting to happen - made worse by climate change, as warmer waters hold less oxygen, and by fertiliser and sewage running off the land into the seas,‖ Dr Queste said.

"The Arabian Sea is the largest and thickest dead zone in the world. But until now, no-one really knew how bad the situation was because piracy and conflicts in the area have made it too dangerous to collect data. We barely have any data collected for almost half a century because of how difficult it is to send ships there. Our research shows that the situation is actually worse than feared.‖

Also known as ―oxygen minimum zones‖, dead zones can naturally occur between 200 and 800 metres deep in some parts of the world. But the team found fish in the Gulf of Oman were being ―squeezed‖ into a thin layer near the surface of the water. Computer simulations showed the problem is set to get worse, with further oxygen decreases and expanding dead zones expected over the next century.

[The Independent]

Shipping emissions: Sentinel tracks ships from orbit

27/04/2018 By Jonathan Amos, BBC Science Correspondent The new EU satellite tasked with tracking dirty air has demonstrated how it will become a powerful tool to monitor emissions from shipping.

Shipping lane: The Tropomi instrument detects a suite of gases including nitrogen dioxide Sentinel-5P was launched in October last year and this week completed its in-orbit commissioning phase. But already it is clear the satellite's data will be transformative. This latest image reveals the trail of nitrogen dioxide left in the air as ships move in and out of the Mediterranean Sea. The "highway" that the vessels use to navigate the Strait of Gibraltar is easily discerned by S5P's Tropomi instrument.

"You really see a straight line because all these ships follow approximately the same route," explained Pepijn Veefkind, Tropomi's principal investigator from the Dutch met office (KNMI). "In this case, we also looked into how many big ships there are in the region [at the time], and there's really not that many - around 20 or so, we estimate - but each one is putting out a lot of NO₂."

Nitrogen dioxide is a product of the combustion of fuels, in this instance from the burning of marine diesel.

But it is also possible to see in the picture the emissions hanging over major urban areas on land that come from cars, trucks and a number of industrial activities. NO₂ will be a major contributor to the poorer air quality people living in those areas experience.

Sentinel-5P is the next big step because of its greater sensitivity and sharper view of the atmosphere.

"Shipping lanes are something we've seen on previous missions but only after we've averaged a lot of data; so, over a month or a year. But with Tropomi we see these shipping lanes with a single image," Dr Veefkind told BBC News.

"The resolution we got from our previous instruments was about 20km by 20km. Now, we've gone down to 7km by 3.5km, and we are thinking of going to even smaller pixels."

Eyes in the sky

Analysis by David Shukman, BBC Science Editor

Far beyond the horizon, steaming through the remote High Seas, the great fleets of global shipping have for years been too distant to be observed. Only in port can anyone catch sight of the plumes of dark smoke rising from the vessels' engines. But added together, the greenhouse gases from the world's 50,000 ships make this industry the world's sixth largest emitter, and most of it is unseen. This has long fuelled suspicions among environmental campaigners.

Exempt from the Kyoto Protocol and then the Paris Agreement, shipping acquired a reputation as a sector that dodged its responsibilities on climate change. That's why the landmark deal earlier this month for a cut in emissions of 50% by 2050 received so much attention. But it also raised a host of questions about policing: who would keep watch, and how?

Europe's Sentinel programme is part of the answer. Suddenly, at just the right time, the world's shipping lanes are in full view.

S5P's availability is timely. The shipping sector has just signalled its intention to make big reductions in its emissions over the next 30 years, in particular of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. At the moment, those emissions are calculated in a "bottom-up" fashion.

By knowing the size of the global fleet, where it moves, the ships' specifications and how much fuel they are likely consuming - it is possible to estimate how much CO₂, or indeed NO₂, is being pumped into the

atmosphere from exhausts. But this all involves quite a few assumptions, and the models also need to be audited by some top-down analysis, which is the role satellites can play.

S5P-Tropomi does not see CO₂, although its NO₂ observations can act as a tracer in the sense that wherever nitrogen dioxide turns up on shipping lanes, there will be CO₂ present as well.

But the best solution would be a dedicated carbon-monitoring satellite. This is why the EU has asked its technical agent on space matters, the European Space Agency, to design a Sentinel specific to this task.

Dubbed Sentinel 7 by many people, because that is the next available number in the series, this future mission should fly in the 2020s. The aim is to be able track CO₂ down through the atmosphere on a scale of around 3km by 3km, but over a wide area. That would make it forceful partner for Sentinel 5.

"Bottom up" accounting: Estimate of CO2 emissions from ships in 2016 Credit: ECMWF/CAMS [BBC]

Shipbreaking: High fatality rate continues at scrapping yards in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan

27/04/2018 Shipbreakers in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan purchase and recycle the great majority of the world's outdated tonnage, but they carry out their work at a high human and environmental cost, according to advocacy association NGO Shipbreaking Platform.

In the first quarter of the year, the group's partner organizations recorded ten fatalities in Chittagong and two more in Alang. As not all accidents are recorded, the group notes, the total for Q1 may be higher.

Credit: NGO Shipbreaking Platform

Among others, the reported fatal accidents in Bangladesh included: • a fire aboard the former tanker Pacific Cape at Jamajuna Shipbreaking, which killed one and injured two; • one killed in a fall and one killed by a falling steel plate during dismantling of the former tanker Ekta; • one killed in a fall aboard the former tanker Tina; • one killed in a fire inside a tank at Khawja Shipbreaking; • one killed in a fall and one struck and killed by a falling piece of iron at M.A. Ship Breaking. In addition, local media reported two fatalities due to a toxic gas leak at Alang Plot 32 in mid-March.

According to the latest brokerage rates, South Asian shipbreakers will pay up to $450 per LDT for outdated vessels, up to twice as much as the rates found at facilities in Turkey and China. This translates into a multi-million-dollar price differential for the seller of the vessel.

Transfers to South Asian shipbreakers are always handled by a cash buyer, a business intermediary who purchases the ship from the owner and resells it, according to the NGO. The ships are generally reflagged for their final journey, and a small number of commercially-operated flag states provided the demolition voyage registry for about half the vessels sold in the first quarter.

[Maritime Executive]

Policing IMO regulations: The role of Port State Control

27/04/2018 By Malcolm Latarche At MEPC 72, the IMO agreed to demands from some industry bodies to make illegal the carriage of fuels incompatible with the impending 2020 cap on sulphur. Clearly the bodies concerned were worried about rogue owners undermining them unfairly. However, policing of the new rule will still fall to individual

states and not the IMO. In fact, the IMO has no role at all in policing the regulations it makes and to give it that authority would be a major diplomatic undertaking that has no guarantee of success.

The prime policing role of IMO conventions and codes lies with the flag states and the usual year between the IMO making or changing a rule and its coming into force is to permit flag states to enact domestic legislation writing the rule into local law. The 1974 SOLAS Convention requires flag states to ensure that ships flagged by them comply with the minimum safety standards in the construction, equipment and operation of merchant ships.

The laws of the flag states may set penalties and sanctions for non-compliance with the IMO rules but historically enforcement has been lax even among the most diligent of maritime states. The reasons why is quite obvious in that ships mostly operate outside of the flag states‘ jurisdictions and unless a contravention is reported to them, the flag state authorities will have no knowledge of any problem that cannot be detected during an annual inspection for issuing or renewing certificates.

Establishing Port State Control

The 1970s was a troubled time for shipping and shipowners with oil crises inflating the costs of operating ships to the point where safety standards were often neglected due to lack of funds. This was the era when the so-called flags of convenience became attractive allowing owners relief from taxation and a lower standard of enforcement on matters relating to maintenance, crew training and operating procedures. In 1978, the IMO under pressure from member states, amended the SOLAS convention with the addition of a new Regulation titled Control. This new Regulation 19 with its six separate sub-clauses established the basis for Port State Control. The authority given to Port States was important because although any state can set the standards for ships allowed into its ports, the new regulation obliged flag states to recognise this right and the authority of port state authorities to detain ships considered unsafe.

With the new regulation in force, individual port states did begin to apply it but there was no grand aim or strategy in the way it was done and no obvious improvement in ship safety was immediately obvious. In 1982 a group of 14 European nations which had earlier been planning to work jointly to enforce the provisions of the ILO Convention on living and working conditions on board ships, decided instead to work together on port state control. This began with the issue of the ‗Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control‘ in January of 1982 and continued with the coming into effect of the MoU in July of the same year.

It would be some time before the group of nations established the port state control infrastructure and began the systematic inspections of ships that has evolved today but it was a start and proved to be a basis which other nations would later follow. Since the group of 14 nations was comprised mostly of countries within the European Economic Community which would later become the EU in 1993, the Paris MoU can also be seen as one of the first steps in the EU‘s ambition to be an influence in maritime regulation.

There was a secondary reason for the Paris MoU that is less often mentioned and that was to avoid distorting competition between ports. If any of the founding nations held back on enforcement, the effect would be for ships to prefer to call at ports there rather than in neighbouring states that applied stricter enforcement. This would have undermined the EEC‘s policy on creating an area with common standards and enforcement.

Perhaps because other regions of the globe did not have a supra national authority as existed in Europe, it would be at least a decade before the Paris MoU was emulated. In 1992 a regional body was established in South and Central America and in 1993 the Tokyo MoU brought the regional concept to the Asian Pacific Area. There are now many more regional bodies extending PSC to most of the globe. Some nations with access to more than one area are members of multiple regional bodies. In the US, PSC is managed by the US Coast Guard and although there may be co-operation with other areas, the US is not a member of any regional PSC grouping.

How PSC works

PSC inspectors will make an examination of a vessel that may be quite short or more detailed if events prove necessary. They can list the deficiencies and require that they either be rectified before the vessel leaves the port or deferred for later action. In the event that the ship is considered too great a safety risk, it may be detained until all of the deficiencies are rectified.

Under the SOLAS regulation on control, port states should only make a detailed examination of a vessel if its SOLAS certificates (loadline, safety construction, safety equipment etc) are invalid or if it has clear grounds for believing the ship and its equipment are suspect. This could be by way of a pilot reporting his observations when bringing the ship to the port, a report from PSC authorities at a previous port or even by contact with the crew of the vessel. The result of any inspection and action taken must be reported to the flag state and if a detention occurs also to the IMO. The PSC authorities at the next port of call should also be informed.

Usually when a PSC inspection of a ship takes place, the first visit by the inspector is done at the expense of the PSC authorities. If however, some problems are found that require rectifying before the ship leaves port, then a subsequent visit to confirm that the required action has been taken may well be charged for. There have been accusations that this method can be abused by port states with trivial reasons being found to justify a second chargeable visit.

Few port states have sufficient inspectors to visit every ship calling in their ports so most PSC regional MoUs have established means of targeting vessels in an attempt to identify the most likely risks. Usually this involves assessing vessels by type, flag state, owner or manager, class society and the ship‘s own PSC record. The data used in these assessments comes from the records kept by the regional MoUs. Much of the data is accessible to the public allowing potential charterers of ships and others to make decisions about the suitability of vessels for their needs.

There is an argument that targeting allows some unsafe vessels to escape scrutiny while perfectly good vessels are inspected more often than is necessary. Some support for this view comes from the fact that many high profile incidents that are investigated by maritime authorities involve ships that would have been rated as very low risk by the targeting policies of most MoUs.

Another method used by PSC bodies is the Concentrated Inspection Campaign or CIC. Usually these take place when a new regulation has been introduced in SOLAS or MARPOL. Under these CICs inspections will take place on as many ships affected by the regulation as possible regardless of the targeting policies. The most recent CIC was carried out last year by both the Paris and Tokyo MoUs and concentrated on the safety of navigation with particular regard to ECDIS.

CICs are usually announced well in advance and details are given about what inspectors will be looking for. In the CIC mentioned above, a list of 12 questions was used to determine that navigation equipment carried onboard complied with the relevant statutory certificates, the master and navigation officers were qualified and familiar with operation of bridge equipment, especially ECDIS, and that navigation equipment was properly maintained and functioning.

Detaining a ship is not usually done lightly because the shipowner has the right to ask his flag state to intervene and even to challenge the decision using the legal system of the detaining country. If a detention is found to be unjustified the shipowner will be eligible for compensation. Detention is not the ultimate sanction, a ship which is regularly detained or found wanting may be barred from entry to all ports in the regional MoU until such time as the MoU is satisfied that the ship no longer poses a risk to safety and the environment.

While shipowners may have some genuine grievances over the way individual inspections have been carried out, overall the consensus is that PSC has made a significant contribution to the improved safety record of shipping and a reduced casualty rate.

[ShipInsight]

Belt & Road: Malaysian opposition objects to Chinese investment in infrastructure and real estate as election nears

27/04/2018 Political parties hoping to unseat Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in next month‘s general election have seized on a degree of public resentment surrounding the billions of dollars China is pouring into Malaysian infrastructure and real estate.

Malaysia has secured around $34bn worth of loans for projects under China‘s Belt and Road initiative (BRI), making it one of the biggest beneficiaries so far, along with Pakistan and Sri Lanka, reports Reuters, citing a Nomura report.

But there have been objections over Chinese workers getting jobs over locals, a dependence on Chinese materials, and Malaysian firms being passed over for contracts. That has now been turned into an election issue by opposition leader Mahathir Mohamad, who heads an alliance hoping to oust Najib at the election on 9 May.

―Coming in here, buying land, developing luxurious towns, is not beneficial for us,‖ the Mohamad, 92, told Reuters. ―Quite definitely, we will review.‖

The numerous schemes being financed and built by Chinese entities include the $13bn East Coast Rail Link and the £100bn Forest City residential mega-development in Johor state, developed by China‘s Country Garden. Johor locals have complained that large numbers of Chinese people are buying Forest City properties, Reuters reported.

The prime minister has defended China‘s investment, saying at a recent groundbreaking ceremony for the rail link that Malaysia would have been ―stupid‖ not to receive Chinese investment, because it offered a loan for 85% of the project value with a grace period of seven years, said Reuters.

[Global Construction Review]

Port development Seychelles: European support for upgrading and expanding Port Victoria

27/04/2018 EUR 12.5 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) coupled with EUR 5 million European Union (EU) grant to finance modernisation and enlargement of Seychelles‘ main commercial harbour, Port Victoria.

Agence Française de Développement (AFD) will provide a EUR 16.5 million loan to the project. EUR 2 million worth of technical assistance will also be put at the disposal of the SPA.

The project entails the detailed design and construction of a new quay, offset from the existing quay, and demolition as necessary of the existing quay. The port‘s yard area will be extended and dredging works will be carried out, allowing larger vessels into the harbour and increasing overall port capacity. The interventions will mean an increase in the port‘s safety and environmental performance in the handling of goods, and overall improvement of the efficiency of port operations.

[American Journal of Transportation]

Container shipping: MOL posts loss of US$446 million in fiscal year 2017/2018

27/04/2018

By Rebecca Moore

Restructuring related to Ocean Network Express (ONE) has pushed MOL to a loss of US$446M for its fiscal year 1 April 2017 – 31 March 2018.

MOL – which merged its container shipping operations with fellow Japanese carriers NYK and K Line in April this year – said that its loss was due to ―loss-related business restructuring‖ due to ONE. This included: losses related to the charter-out of vessels to ONE, losses on liquidation of the company‘s agencies, and other costs are projected to be incurred from FY2018 and afterwards.

Despite its loss, it noted that revenue of ¥1.6Tn (US$14.6Bn), operating profit of ¥22.6Bn, and ordinary profit of ¥31.4Bn all were higher compared with the previous fiscal year.

The company noted that the container shipping market had improved, saying ―In the container ship freight market, there were observable improvements in the supply and demand environment on Asia-North America, Asia-Europe and Asia-South America routes, which facilitated a recovery in the spot freight rates. In particular, on the Asia-East Coast of South America routes, cargo volumes recovered sharply as the Brazilian economy showed signs of pickup, and spot freight rates began sharply rising from the beginning of spring and stayed strong throughout the fiscal year.‖

[Container Shipping & Trade]

Container shipping: Maersk CEO calls for an end to subsidies

27/04/2018

By Costas Paris

AP Moller-Maersk A/S Chief Executive Soren Skou is calling for governments to withdraw their financial support for container shipping lines, saying subsidies and other backing are causing

overcapacity and profit-crushing price reductions across the maritime industry.

"I don't think any government needs to throw money at container shipping, building ships that are not needed," Mr. Skou told a maritime conference in Singapore.

Denmark-based AP Moller-Maersk operates Maersk Line, the world's biggest container shipping line by capacity, and a pioneer in the use of so-called megaships -- massive vessels capable of carrying around 20,000 twenty-foot containers.

He didn't mention specific carriers. But operators like state-run Chinese behemoth Cosco Shipping, South Korea's Hyundai Merchant Marine Ltd. and Taiwan's Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp. which have been benefiting from cheap state financing, bailouts and other perks for years.

In many cases, governments like those in Seoul and Taipei have pressed ahead with the support because of broader industrial and trade policies that support vast numbers of jobs, such as those in South Korea's shipbuilding sector, and provide critical transportation for exporters.

"In my mind there is no longer anything strategic about governments investing in shipping. The market will sort it out," Mr. Skou said. Without pointing the finger at any one nation, he said companies are building ships that were "not needed, for companies who were not profitable and who do not have a profitable business model," he added.

His criticism comes as shipping rates on key global trade lanes have been slipping, threatening to undermine a recovery for ship operators from a recent downturn that led to broad consolidation among shipping lines.

The cost for sending a container from Asia to Europe, the world's biggest trade route stood at around $600 this week, less than half what industry experts say is a $1,400 break-even rate. Maritime executives estimate capacity outweighs demand by 20% on the route.

Alphaliner, a global shipping research group, forecasts that overall container vessel capacity world-wide will grow 6% this year, ahead of its projecting for 5.1% growth in demand. Capacity across the industry grew at a double-digit annual pace during the mid-2000s across the industry and has nearly doubled since the end of 2008, according to the group's figures.

"This is a very competitive industry," Mr. Skou said. "Even after we have consolidated, there are still more than 10 global carriers and we fight like only siblings can fight for market share, amongst other things."

[Wall Street Journal]

Terminal operators Panama: Legislature repeals law granting PSA terminal concession

without anyone realising

27/04/2018

By Michele Labrut In a tale that proves the adage that the truth can be stranger than fiction last week Panama‘s National Assembly repealed the law granting terminal operator PSA‘s concession in the country without anybody actually realising it had happened.

A low-profile deputy of Panama‘s National Assembly discreetly introduced, in a bill on the sale of liquors in residential area, an article repealing a contract-law agreed in 2015 between the Panama Maritime Authority (AMP) and the PSA-Panama International Terminal for the construction and operation of a $400m, 2m teu container terminal on the east bank of the Panama Canal Pacific entrance.

More disturbing was that the article introduced by Deputy Roberto Ayala, from the opposition Partido Revolucionario Democratico (PRD), went totally unnoticed during the debate about Bill 53 and was approved by the legislative plenary session of 19 April without any reference to the article annulling the contract-Law.

Contract law

In the Contract-Law, PSA is obliged to develop an investment of not less than $350m worth in four industrial estates of the former Rodman naval base, granted by the AMP for a renewable period of 20 years. In return, the State receives a fixed monthly fee of $ 44,400.73, at a rate of 14 cents per sq m. This royalty will have an annual increase of 5%.

The contract was signed on 28 October 2014 by the then director of the AMP, Roberto Linares and a representative of PSA-Panama International Terminal; it was approved by the Assembly on 28 January 2015. On February 10 of that year, it was sanctioned by President Juan Carlos Varela and became Law 2 of 2015.

PSA-Panama had negotiated and signed its concession agreement in full transparency with the AMP and the Panama Canal Authority and went through the formal approval process to obtain its Contract-Law in the Assembly, where the project was debated at length. The process was carried out between 2014 and 2015 under two separate governments; first of former President Ricardo Martinelli and then current President Juan Carlos Varela.

PSA-Panama has invested close to $800m, between the original terminal and the now expanded facility and created over 1000 jobs in the construction and currently 500 for the operations of the expanded terminal and spent three years (May 2015 - May 2018) building and investing. PSA-Panama started trial operations 3 April with the first post-Panamax box ship 13,100-teu MSC Renee part of the ANDES service and is ready to open full operations in May this year.

Even though some deputies condemned the article for ―being irresponsible‖, it remains, nevertheless, that the plenary approved Bill 53 without giving the reading full consideration and with it, giving full backing to the abnormality.

Uproar from the maritime community

When the full text was disclosed, it created uproar in the maritime and trade community, raising again the question of the integrity of the legal security of investments and the damage it would do to Panama‘s international image when the country makes all efforts to become a maritime and logistics hub promoting its unique location for transhipment in the Americas.

President Varela has promised on Twitter that he would veto Bill 53 when it arrives at the Executive branch for its sanction.

Jorge Barakat, minister of maritime affairs and administrator of the AMP complained that ―Panama, for more than 20 years, has been developing its port facilities in Panama and Colon, through a series of national strategies based on joint work between concessionaires and various state institutions. The AMP

strives to attract foreign companies and investments, to continue consolidating our platform of international services and generate more jobs for Panamanians. However, these nefarious actions of some deputies of the National Assembly, endanger these efforts to the detriment of the maritime sector, affecting the creation of decent jobs and the legal security of the country.‖ ―It is indispensable an investigation of these facts by the competent authorities and we must work to promote legal and constitutional mechanisms that avoid repeating these illegitimate actions against the national economy and all Panamanians.‖

The Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture of Panama (CCIAP) said in a statement that it ―believes that the cancellation of the Contract-Law for the construction and operation of a container terminal in Rodman by the company PSA Panama International Terminal is a legislative knee jerk reaction that threatens the legal security of investments in the country.‖ ―In the view of the CCIAP, including this type of actions in a bill on the opening of companies and the sale of liquors in residential area sends a message to the national and international community of a lack of legitimacy and commitment on the part of the Panamanian State.‖

At the moment, PSA-Panama continues with normal operations as usual, receiving weekly two post-panamaxes services.

In order to avoid such actions in the future - a Sword of Damocles hanging over the terminal even after the bill is vetoed the AMP and Jorge Barakat have requested legal changes in the Assembly procedures for protecting the Contract-Laws subscribed by the State.

[Seatrade Maritime News]

Terminal operators Africa: How befriending West African leaders backfired on Bollore

26/04/2018

By Pauline Bax and Olivier Monnier

Vincent Bollore charged in bribery investigation

When Vincent Bollore arrived in Cameroon two years ago to meet with Paul Biya, Africa‘s second-longest serving head of state, the presidential guard escorted him from his private jet to the state house.

The billionaire French businessman emerged after an hour, beaming, to tell reporters about investments he was making in the country, including in railways, a major port and a chain of movie theaters. Then, he was off.

For decades, that was Bollore‘s modus operandi, and that of a generation of older French businessmen: cultivate personal ties with African leaders, mirroring France‘s cosy relationships with its former colonies, and receive lucrative contracts and deals. While recent French presidents have vowed to do away with the shadowy network of money and power widely known as Francafrique, business hasn‘t slowed down.

But Bollore‘s way may be in jeopardy. After operating almost unchallenged in West Africa for more than 20 years, he was brought in for questioning by French judicial police Tuesday as part of a probe into possible bribes of public officials in Guinea and Togo. Wednesday, he was charged and released.

The investigation focuses on whether an advertising and media consulting company controlled by Bollore Group was used to facilitate getting port management contracts for Bollore‘s Africa logistics unit. The media company ran the election campaign of Alpha Conde, who won Guinea‘s 2010 presidential vote. Within months of assuming office, Conde had the operators of the Conakry port evicted by the military and the contract was given to Bollore‘s Africa company.

As for Togo, investigators suspect the company‘s services in the election of Faure Gnassingbe the same year were billed at a lower price than they should have in exchange for a similar port contract in Lome, according to a person familiar with the matter.

―Allegations of meddling by French politicians and businesspeople in West Africa has been a narrative that‘s marked France‘s interventions in these countries since the colonial era,‖ said Liesl Louw-Vaudran, senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, South Africa. ―The rules are certainly changing. People have closed their eyes to the accusations of corruption surrounding Bollore for such a long time that it‘s good to know that finally, some judicial process has started.‖

The Bollore Group said in a statement that it ―formally denies‖ that its African company did anything irregular, while saying it is the target of an investigation over billing for communications services in Guinea and Togo in 2009 and 2010. The media company, now called Havas, ―has always operated with irreproachable transparency.‖ After Bollore was charged, the company said he and his defense team will have access to the case file underpinning the allegations for the first time and ―will have the opportunity to respond to these unfounded accusations.‖

Guinea has repeatedly said the awarding of the port concession was legal. Still, Guinea was ordered by an arbitration court to pay 38.5 million euros ($47 million) to the evicted port managers, according to court documents. The government didn‘t respond to requests for comment on the French case. Neither did the Togolese government.

The African business environment has changed since Bollore first began investing there in the 1980s. Investors and companies from China, India and Turkey have started doing more commerce on the continent, undermining French dominance in West Africa. At the same time, President Emmanuel Macron has gone farther than his predecessors in denouncing France‘s past political interference, telling students in Burkina Faso a few months ago that the country‘s colonial past should no longer color relations.

The probe into Bollore‘s dealings also fits into a global push for more transparency in business and politics, following high-profile exposures of corruption and fraud such as in Wikileaks and the Panama Papers. Last year, a French court handed a suspended jail term to the son of Equatorial Guinea‘s leader after convicting him of using state funds to buy real estate in Paris and luxury cars.

―The problems of Bollore in Africa show that France is getting out of a historical anachronism,‖ said Antoine Glaser, author of multiple books over several decades about France‘s activities in Africa. ―It‘s lasted for a long time because some African presidents were under the sway of France for many years and were still in office. But there‘s a feeling that we‘re heading toward a more globalized Africa.‖

Bollore, 66, built a conglomerate worth $15 billion in part by acquiring a near-monopoly on ports and logistics in West and central Africa. His empire, which runs almost all the main seaports in the region as well as several dry ports, airports and railroads, also extends to palm-oil plantations, marketing companies and television.

Africa accounts for 23 percent of company revenue. Outside Africa, Bollore owns stakes in Vivendi SA, Universal Music, pay-TV channel Canal Plus and Telecom Italia SpA, among others. Among his close friends: former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

On the continent, Bollore fostered ties both with ex-Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and then with the man who defeated him in the 2010 election, Alassane Ouattara. Guinean President Alpha Conde and Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso both call

Bollore a friend. During the visit in Cameroon, Biya, 85, smiled widely as he embraced Bollore and kissed him on both cheeks.

Yet in recent years, Bollore has lost goodwill among some African leaders. Following a protracted legal dispute between Bollore and a Beninese competitor over the right to build and renovate a railway link between Benin and Niger, Benin President Patrice Talon said last month that he wants both companies to withdraw from the $4 billion project. China, he told Radio France Internationale, is much better placed to fund and build the railway.

Bollore still gets his way sometimes. A Cameroonian contract to develop and operate a container terminal at the Kribi port was awarded to a consortium led by his company—even though it had been excluded by a government commission from the shortlist of companies vying for the deal. And that happened even before Bollore‘s 2016 meeting with President Biya.

In Ivory Coast, Bollore won a concession to build a container terminal despite objections from the World Bank about the transparency of the bidding process, before getting the contract for a second terminal in 2013, effectively obtaining a monopoly in the port of Abidjan. Competitors lodged a complaint with a regional authority, the West African Economic and Monetary Union, and the deal was criticized publicly by the country‘s then-Minister of Commerce, Jean-Louis Billon.

―Bollore is the lord of transport in Ivory Coast,‖ he said. ―I wonder why every time someone arrives in the tropics, he allows himself to do what he wouldn‘t do at home.‖

[Bloomberg]

Oil & gas shipping: Buckeye plans VLCC-capable oil terminal at Corpus Christi

26/04/2018

Buckeye Partners, Phillips 66 and Andeavor are teaming up on a giant crude storage and loading terminal in Ingleside, Texas, near the entrance to Corpus Christi Bay.

It would be the second U.S. Gulf Coast facility capable of fully loading a very large crude carrier (VLCC), after the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP). VLCCs would offer oil traders a lower unit cost per mile than loadings on the smaller tankers that currently call at Port of Corpus Christi.

The new terminal will be constructed and operated by Buckeye, which will own the largest stake in the project. Its initial scope of construction will have 3.4 million barrels of crude oil storage capacity, a connection to the new the Gray Oak pipeline and two deep-water berths capable of handling VLCCs. Buckeye says that it has room to expand to up to 10 million barrels of storage and multiple additional docks and inbound pipelines. Buckeye will have a 50 percent interest in the project, with 25 percent each for Phillips 66 and Andover.

Buckeye already has a marine terminal for crude oil on the Port of Corpus Christi's ship channel, and it has been investing at upgrades at the existing facility as well. Buckeye EVP Khalid Muslih said that the new location would strengthen the firm's presence in the export market for the booming Permian and Eagle Ford shale plays.

"This combined marine terminal presence in Corpus Christi will provide our customers with advantaged last mile solutions, including unmatched connectivity to two recently announced Permian Basin pipeline expansions. We believe that these assets represent a competitive advantage for Buckeye and position us at the forefront of the fast-growing U.S. crude oil export movement,‖ said Mr. Muslih.

Without naming Buckeye, Port of Corpus Christi CEO Sean Strawbridge told local media that the port may develop a 250-acre parcel at Harbor Island for a facility for loading VLCCs to full capacity. He said that the site's proximity to deep water would be an advantage, and suggested that to accommodate the giant ships, its development would involve dredging a short section of channel to fully 75 feet of depth. If permitting goes smoothly, the facility could be complete in 2020-2021.

[Maritime Executive]

Container shipping: World Container Index - 26 Apr 2018

26/04/2018

The World Container Index assessed by Drewry, a composite of container freight rates on 8 major routes to/from the US, Europe and Asia, is down by 1.9% to $1157.14/40ft container.

Two-year spot freight rate trend for the World Container Index:

Our detailed assessment for Thursday, 26 Apr 2018

The composite index is down by 1.9% this week and down by 18.9% from the same period of 2017.

• The average composite index of the WCI, assessed by Drewry for year-to-date, is US $1,361/40ft container, which is $92 lower than the five-year average of $1,453/40ft container.

• The composite index calculated by Drewry fell by another $22 per feu. Transpacific headhaul rates displayed a similar trend. Rates from Shanghai to New York declined by $89 to reach $2,309 per 40ft, and rates from Shanghai to Los Angeles decreased to $1,164 – a change of $46 per feu. Similarly, rates

from Shanghai to Rotterdam dropped by $13 for a 40ft box to $1,142, whereas backhaul rates were stable. Drewry expects rates to increase next week on the back of the proposed 1 May GRIs.

Our latest freight rate assessments on eight major East-West trades:

Source: Drewry Supply Chain Advisors

[Drewry]

Thinking outside the box: The global logistics business is going to be transformed by

digitisation

26/04/2018

This will be bad news for some.

Credit: Ileana Soon / The Economist The Munich Maersk, which entered service in June 2017, is a testament to the technological marriage of information and transportation. Its bridge looks like a very spacious cockpit. Packed with computer screens, it is all glass, no brass—with a wheel that looks more like a pilot‘s control column. Sailing her 214,000 tonnes from port to port takes a crew of just 28. Loading and unloading the 20,000 containers she carries only needs the supervision of one crew member.

The Munich Maersk, though, is a high-end exception—one of the best ships in the up-to-the-minute fleet of the biggest shipping company in the world. It shows what can be done. But at the moment the industry‘s big issue is what is being left undone.

Between 1985 and 2007 trade volumes rose at around twice the rate of global GDP. In the 1990s the world‘s largest container ships only had space for 5,000 or so containers; now it boasts giants like the Munich Maersk. The global logistics industry had revenues of $4.3trn (€3.3trn) in 2014, according BCG, a consultancy.

But though the flows and the pipes have got bigger, the principles of the industry‘s plumbing have changed little since they took their modern form in the 1950s and 1960s. Use containers of standard sizes that can be loaded onto trains, lorries or ships as needed; use scale to cut costs; co-ordinate the whole thing with a physical paper trail. When in doubt, buy something bigger.

The economic slowdown following the global financial crisis hit this way of doing things hard. Although giants like Maersk continued to buy enormous ships, smaller lines with worse balance-sheets could not. Airbus, which had hoped to sell a freighter version of its A380 superjumbo, abandoned its plans. Freight rates plunged as demand for shipping did not keep up with supply. Between 2012 and 2016, the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index, a measure of prices, fell by 73%.

At the same time, the growth of e-commerce saw more aware, more demanding corporate customers insist on ever better handling of what is called logistics‘ ―last mile‖—moving purchases from their distribution warehouses to the people who bought them. Though today‘s talk is all of delivery drones and driverless vans, the key to this transformation has been not new equipment but new ways of handling data: knowing where hundreds of millions of things are and where they are going, and being able to act on that data as things change.

Now companies that have been crucial to these changes at one end of the distribution chain—Alibaba and JD, which are Chinese, and Amazon, which is American—are eyeing the rest of it. The business of moving goods internationally from factory to factory and warehouse to warehouse requires many more capabilities than shifting items from local warehouses to doorsteps. But it also accounts for 90% of the logistics‘ industry‘s global revenue. How far the intruders can displace the incumbents and what new business models come out of the struggle will help determine how much world trade can grow and who the winners and losers from that growth will be.

Adrift in a sea of paper

Firms looking to move components through their supply chain or finished goods to retailers have two main options. Express-delivery services such as DHL Express (part of Deutsche Post DHL), FedEx and UPS are fast and flexible—all the more so now they have embraced new data-management systems. But they are also expensive—especially for long-distance air freight. Shipping a 70kg parcel from Shanghai to London with DHL Express takes three times longer, and costs four times as much, as buying a human of the same weight an airline ticket. The passenger gets a baggage allowance and free drinks, too.

So most goods wend their way across the world using the second option—containerised freight. The non-domestic cargo business has revenues of $2.6trn a year, according to BCG. And a lot of those revenues go to middlemen. Dealing with customs clearances, insurance, transfers between sea and road and rail and all the other physical, procedural and bureaucratic hold-ups that freight is heir to requires the

services of a freight forwarder. These companies account for over a fifth of the logistics industry‘s revenues (see chart 1); in some cases they receive as much as 45% of the total delivery cost. In 2016 Deutsche Post DHL‘s in-house freight-forwarder made over $26bn in revenues. Its smaller rivals Kuehne + Nagel, of Switzerland, and DB Schenker, of Germany, made $20bn and $17bn respectively.

For the most part, freight-forwarding companies charge a percentage of the total cost of the shipment; this gives them little incentive to drive costs down. In a free and transparent market where all the shipping options were easily discoverable, this problem would be solved through competition. But the complicated world of shipping contracts is a long way from that ideal, and the incumbents have clear reasons for keeping it so. Zvi Schreiber, founder of Freightos, a website headquartered in Hong Kong that is introducing some transparency by allowing users to compare and book different options, says many firms may take two or three days to quote a price for taking an air-freight pallet or a shipping container from A to B. And forwarders are often unable or unwilling to say whether the goods will get from China to Europe in one month or two.

The industry‘s backwardness can be seen in its thrall to paperwork. Systems based on e-tickets that say who is entitled to go where, and how, have been mandatory in air-passenger transport for ten years. But half of air cargo still travels with paper ―bills of lading‖ rather than e-tickets. In the world of containerised shipping things are even worse: freight forwarders deal with shipping firms, airlines and hauliers mainly by fax. The cargo on each voyage of the Munich Maersk generates a library of documents—many of which then need to be sent to the ship‘s destination by some other means. That secondary shipping is not foolproof, either: vessels and aircraft are often delayed in port because the paperwork has not caught up with the goods that they carry.

The cost of all this is enormous. Removing administrative blockages and outdated practices would, by some accounts, do more to boost international trade than eliminating tariffs. The UN reckons that putting all the Asia-Pacific region‘s trade-related paperwork online could slash the time it takes to export goods by up to 44%, cut the cost of doing so by up to 31%, and boost exports by as much as $257bn a year.

The burden is felt throughout business. Two-thirds of the American importers who responded to a recent survey undertaken by Freightos said that over a quarter of their deliveries from abroad arrive late. Some 42% said they spend more than two hours on paperwork to arrange a shipment. And 83% said they struggle to track items as they move across the world. That leaves many frustrated. ―Amazon Prime can deliver to your house from its warehouse at a set time,‖ Mr Schreiber says. ―Why can‘t you do the same with air and sea freight?‖

One answer is regulation; there are a lot of institutional obstacles to reform. For instance, in 2008 a UN convention put electronic documents in international shipping on a firm legal footing. But for these ―Rotterdam rules‖ to come into force, the agreement must be ratified by 20 countries. Owing to a lack of interest in the subject among politiciansthe tally so far is just four: Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Spain and Togo.

Poor communications used to be partly to blame, too, but that excuse has fallen overboard. Inmarsat, a company originally set up by the International Maritime Organisation to provide satellite services for ships at sea, today offers data rates for ships that are over 100 times faster than they were 20 years ago. Various companies rushing to provide new mobile-broadband services will improve things further. Not just ships and planes, but the individual packages and containers within them, can increasingly be tracked in real time.

The Cincinnati kids

Such data can help integrate the legs of a journey, for example by making sure that lorries do not wait for a ship that is behind schedule, or that they arrive early for one that‘s ahead. They open the possibility of redirecting items along quicker or cheaper routes as they become available—if the shipper can find out about them.

The hard-to-get information which lets people find spare shipping capacity will power the real revolution, according to Martin Stopford of Clarksons, a shipbroker. Matching spare capacity to cargo in need of transport on the fly would allow the ―Uberisation‖ of the freight business. There are already signs of this in haulage. America‘s lorries travel empty more than a quarter of the time: the wasted capacity is equivalent to 200,000 lorries travelling 1,000km every day. This is because it is hard for forwarders to find return cargoes using phone or fax. Now apps have appeared to match loads with drivers, just as the Uber app pairs passengers and drivers. Indeed Uber Freight is one of the contenders. Cargomatic, a startup based in Los Angeles, and Trucker Path, a rival in Texas that was bought by a Chinese firm in December, are competing with it for the freight business, while Amazon is testing ―Amazon Flex‖ as a way of getting gig-economy drivers to make deliveries.

The vision of many in the industry is that such services will eventually cover all sorts of different transport modalities all over the world. In the past, realising the benefits of an integrated global network of ships, planes and lorries required owning such a network, a task too big for even the largest logistics firms. Maersk, one of the world‘s largest container-terminal firms as well as its largest containership operator, ran its sea- and road-logistics businesses almost entirely separately until 2016. Most companies chose to specialise and hand co-ordination over to the forwarders. Smartphones and sensors mean that, with the right platform or platforms, a freight forwarder, or a tech firm that had taken on such a role, could co-ordinate things much better than is possible today—and without any faxes.

One of those seeking such changes is Amazon. In 2017 it spent $25bn on logistics. It thinks it could get better value for money by expanding what it does itself from last-mile to all-the-miles. It has created its own logistics division and acts as its own freight forwarder. Its cargo airline, Amazon Air, is still a tiddler compared with FedEx, with just 33 jets in its fleet. But the cargo hub in Cincinnati on which the company is spending $1.5bn will have room for 100 jets. It has also been granted a licence to act as a maritime freight forwarder.

Freight forwarders and transport giants alike claim that they do not see Amazon‘s move into logistics as a threat. The explosion of e-commerce (see chart 2) allows DHL, FedEx and UPS to tell shareholders happy stories about their future. The demand for parcel delivery is growing by more than 7% a year,

sufficient both to maintain jobs and survive competition, according to Frank Appel, the boss of Deutsche Post DHL. Automation may mean it will soon take a third fewer people to deliver a given volume of goods, he says—but the increase in demand will still make the industry a net job creator. And it will also mean that there will be room enough for both DHL and Amazon to grow.

Another reason for such optimism is that, so far, Amazon has mainly used its network to serve its own customers. But that will change. The companies with big e-commerce networks are keen to take on other firms‘ logistics, too. The idea is not to own all the ships and rolling stock—though they may own some particularly profitable bits of the system—but to control the platforms that make services available, and to bring the rest of the industry on board by simply being too big to refuse.

Perhaps the furthest down the road in this respect is Alibaba. Alibaba is a digital platform where buyers and sellers meet, rather than a retailer that holds inventory itself. It has thus always been focused on end-to-end logistics in a way that Amazon, which runs most of its business through warehouses to which goods are delivered by normal channels, is not. Alibaba says that last year it was the middleman in $550bn of transactions within China, serving over 500m customers. Through its logistics platform, Cainiao, it delivers 70% of all e-commerce parcels in China.

Now Alibaba has its eyes set on international e-commerce. A study produced by Alibaba‘s research arm and Accenture, a consultancy, in 2016 predicted that cross-border e-commerce shipments worldwide could rise from $400bn in that year to nearly $1trn by 2020. Until recently, these international shipments tended to be restricted to fairly high-value goods. But Alibaba now ships cheap, bulky things like nappies and milk powder from manufacturers in America to consumers in China. Last September the company said it was going to invest $15bn in boosting Cainiao‘s cross-border capabilities.

These developments should increase the total volume of goods shipped around the world yet further. But Rob Wolleswinkel of BCG counsels against seeing this as a rising tide for all boats. Amazon‘s logistics division, he suspects, will seek to ―cherry pick‖ profitable undertakings such as managing the system, leaving only low-margin activities, such as basic transport services, to the likes of Maersk and DHL. The newcomers, he notes, have two things on their side that previous would-be disrupters did not. One is that the company that owns the data owns the consumer. Amazon knows a great deal about the people who use its platform, which is a lot of people; logistics firms know next to nothing about anyone. Second is the size of the tech giants. DHL, FedEx and UPS have been big enough to bat away competition from startups. The e-commerce titans are another matter.

Some have woken up to the threat. Soren Skou, chief executive of Maersk, argues that it was a mistake for his firm to spend the past decade focusing so much on no-frills container freight between China and Europe. That allowed freight forwarders to scoop out the profit that Amazon and Alibaba now covet. Maersk must become more integrated to compete against Amazon, he says: he wants to make it ―the DHL of the sea,‖ offering worldwide door-to-door delivery. He plans to replace paper bills of lading with digital ones secured using blockchain technology. The firm is already rolling out a digital ―Maersk Line Operating System‖ to put shipping data into a common format. This promises to be hugely influential. As an executive at a smaller rival admits: ―We just watch what Maersk does and copy it.‖ Et TEU, Brute

In the past, the unreliability of container delivery has made it unsuitable for e-commerce; that has been good for other retailers, who can turn a profit importing items from China in bulk to Europe and America and selling them on. If Maersk, or anyone else, can make containerised shipping truly responsive and flexible it will have implications well beyond logistics.

Credit: Ileana Soon / The Economist

It might seem fanciful to think of shipments on a behemoth like Munich Maersk being flexible in the way that vans tootling round suburbs with packages can be. But smart data management and good data analytics might get you a long way towards the goal. If you really know where all the goods are and have control over where they will go, you do not necessarily need to wait for an order before you ship something. If you know roughly how many of the items in question the market is interested in, they can be shipped ahead of time, their e-ticket-like labels left deliberately vague. When an order is actually placed, the relevant label will be updated with a precise destination in transit. The ship takes on part of the job of the warehouse. Alibaba and Amazon are already pursuing this approach.

To the extent that it can be made to work, such magic will eat into retail and wholesale margins—which for books and toys can be over 50% of the price. This is already happening to some extent. In 2012 Amazon began to allow Chinese businesses to start selling through its marketplace programme, which fulfils third-party orders; they now outnumber American firms. And Amazon has slashed the cost of delivering small items ordered from China to America. It is now lower than the cost of shipping within the United States (though delivery is slower). Other American retailers, online and off, are angry at what they see as a subsidy to their competitors.

Some estimate that as many as 7.5m retail jobs will disappear in America over the next decade, in part because of the increased possibilities for e-commerce that better logistics will bring. Others are more optimistic. Michael Mandel of the Progressive Policy Institute, a think-tank in Washington, DC, has pointed out that in America jobs in logistics are increasing faster than retail employment is falling. Those new workers, though, are unlikely to be employed by old firms. As Mr Stopford notes, incumbents did badly last time technological change swept logistics. ―Who today has heard of Blue Funnel Line?‖ he asks of the British firm which was one of the largest cargo lines in the world—before containers and

Maersk came along.

[The Economist]

Baltic Exchange releases new code of conduct for shipowners, charterers and shipbroker

25/04/2018

The Baltic Exchange announced the introduction of a modernised code of conduct for shipowners, charterers and shipbrokers using the physical shipping and freight derivatives markets, in line with today's greater focus on fairness & competition, anti-bribery & corruption and benchmarking related issues than before.

Following a detailed review of the current arrangements led by law firm Norton Rose Fulbright with oversight by the Baltic Exchange Council and the Baltic Membership Council, the New Baltic Code has been drafted to bring together a set of principles and business practices which will be applicable not only to Baltic Exchange members, but also to the wider market.

Baltic Exchange Chief Executive Mark Jackson explained: ―Times have changed and Baltic Exchange members are operating in an environment with a greater focus than ever before on compliance. Shipping cannot expect to escape the heightened political and regulatory scrutiny that has been placed on the commodity markets since the 2007-2009 global financial crisis. By introducing this new code of conduct, we want to preserve confidence in and the integrity of the physical freight and freight derivatives markets; eliminate poor practices and raise standards across the entire market as well as increase the attractiveness of doing business with Baltic Exchange members.‖

The New Baltic Code is based on the following principles:

Principle 1 - Integrity of Markets

Market Participants shall act to uphold the integrity of the physical freight and freight derivative markets and avoid any action or omission that may adversely affect these markets or bring the Baltic Exchange and its membership into disrepute.

Principle 2 - Fairness and Competition

Market Participants shall treat their customers fairly, compete fairly and avoid anti-competitive agreements and practices.

Principle 3 - Ethical Business Practice

Market Participants shall do business in an ethical manner, eschew corrupt practices and comply at all times with applicable laws on money laundering, sanctions and tax evasion.

Principle 4 - Good Market Conduct

Market Participants shall comply with applicable laws in respect of their activities in the freight and freight derivative markets, maintain authorisations and permissions to undertake regulated activities and devote due skill, oversight and resources to these activities.

Principle 5 - Accurate and Credible Benchmarks

Baltic Exchange comprises more than 640 members globally and is responsible for a large proportion of dry cargo and tanker fixtures as well as sale and purchase of merchant vessels. The New Baltic Code will be binding on members of the Baltic Exchange and members will be expected to promote compliance amongst all market participants. Members of the Baltic Exchange will be expected to refrain from doing business with counterparties who deliberately refuse to adhere to the principles and good practice standards set out in the New Baltic Code.

[SAFEY4SEA]

Shipbreaking: German bank to back responsible ship recycling

25/04/2018

German lender KfW IPEX-Bank has become the country‘s first bank to join the initiative to adopt Responsible Ship Recycling Standards (RSRS).

KfW IPEX-Bank is one of the top 5 ship financiers in the world with a lending volume of EUR 13.9 billion in 2017.

The RSRS initiative was launched at the end of May 2017, by ABN Amro, ING and NIBC. The initiative now has eight members worldwide, with Nordea, DNB, SEB and Export Credit Norway having joined the three founding banks. The RSRS initiative aims to entice the shipping companies to meet the minimum standards of occupational safety and environmental protection when scrapping their ships.

The goal of the RSRS initiative is to incorporate scrapping clauses in accordance with international standards, including the Hong Kong Convention, into loan agreements. These clauses also include an obligation for shipping companies to ensure that all ships carry a ―Green Passport‖ that provides an overview of all the hazardous materials on board.

[World Maritime News]

Container shipping: Spain seizes record nine tons of cocaine from banana container

25/04/2018

Spain‘s Interior Ministry says police has found nearly 9 tons of cocaine concealed in a banana shipment from the port of Turbo in Colombia - a European record for drugs found inside a shipping container.

Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido says six people have been arrested, four of them in Spain and two in the French city of Lyon, after police and customs officials seized the 8.74-ton cocaine stash aboard a cargo ship that docked last Sunday in the southern Spanish port of Algeciras.

With 101 million tons of shipments handled in 2017, Algeciras is Spain‘s busiest cargo port and a main entry for cocaine into Europe. In January, authorities seized six tons of cocaine there.

[Associated Press]

Container shipping: Baltic Exchange and Freightos to launch new weekly index

25/04/2018

By Jonathan Saul

London‘s Baltic Exchange is developing a container shipping index with Hong Kong-headquartered

group Freightos in another sign that the centuries-old business is moving into new markets.

Founded in 1744 as a forum for chartering vessels, the Baltic Exchange now produces benchmark indexes for global shipping rates, including ones used by the multi-billion dollar freight derivatives market.

The Baltic and its partner on the initiative Freightos, a digital container platform which also has a global database of freight rates, said they would be producing a weekly index for container rates on 12 top container routes that would be audited by the Baltic.

Going forward the index would allow container rates to become tradable instruments by investors.

―Baltic Exchange benchmarks are already widely used as settlement mechanisms in the derivatives and physical markets for billions of dollars-worth of bulk freight transactions,‖ Baltic chief executive Mark Jackson said in a statement.

Singapore Exchange acquired the Baltic Exchange in 2016 and since then the Baltic has been looking for new areas to develop. The Baltic has already overhauled world‘s leading shipping freight index, which tracks rates for vessels transporting dry bulk commodities including iron ore and coal, which also enables it to become a tradable product. It is also working on launching an index for liquefied natural gas (LNG) as that sector grows.

Earlier this week, the Baltic announced it was working on a new code of conduct - with a greater focus on anti-bribery, corruption and fairness practices - which it hopes will be adopted across the wider market for users of freight, thereby boosting the company‘s reach.

Executives and two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters the Baltic plans to launch new indexes for grains, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and potentially air freight in its biggest shake-up for more than a decade as it seeks to boost profitability.

[Reuters]

Container shipping: OOCL and Microsoft to develop artificial intelligence applications for

the shipping industry

25/04/2018

Hong Kong-based shipping company Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) has teamed up with Microsoft‘s research arm in Asia to advance the application of Artificial Intelligence research in the shipping industry.

The collaboration will look for ways to use AI to improve shipping network operations and achieve efficiencies within OOCL‘s business. The project is expected to nurture over 200 AI developers over the next 12 months.

OOCL sees AI as key to the its digital transformation. The company already uses machine learning in some its operations and has as a talent base of over 1,000 developers located in San Jose, Hong Kong, Zhuhai, Shanghai and Manila. Each month, the company‘s systems process and analyze over 30 million vessel data points. ―By leveraging AI technology and machine learning, the company develops predictive analytics on vessel schedules and berth activities,‖ it says.

Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) is Microsoft‘s fundamental and applied research arm in the Asia Pacific region. ―With MSRA‘s efforts and expertise, we expect to save around USD10 million in operation costs annually by applying the AI research and techniques for optimizing shipping network operations from our most recent 15-week engagement,‖ said Steve Siu, Chief Information Officer of OOCL. ―Moving forward, we will embark on an 18-month joint-partnership in research and development to apply deep learning and reinforcement learning in shipping network operations.‖

―Microsoft has been committed in providing cutting-edge AI solutions for companies across different industries to help drive digital transformation,‖ commented Cally Chan, General Manager of Microsoft Hong Kong. ―With our Intelligent Cloud and Intelligent Edge vision, we are partnering with selected top customers worldwide to accelerate the adoption of AI innovations into products and solutions that can be applied in real business contexts. The partnership between MSRA and OOCL demonstrates our strong progress in revolutionizing the shipping industry.‖

[gCaptain]

Container shipping: Box ship scrapping slows ‘dramatically’

25/04/2018

Container ship scrapping activity has ―slowed dramatically from the frenetic pace of 2016 and early 2017‖, Alphaliner said, with only 12 ships for 21,778 TEU sold for recycling so far this year.

Alphaliner has adjusted its full-year scrapping estimates for 2018 to only 200,000 TEU and said this number could be revised downwards further if the currently slow pace of ship-breaking does not pick up in the coming months.

The projected vessel capacity to be scrapped this year, which Alphaliner said was somewhere in the 100,000 to 200,000 TEU region, follows the 413,982 TEU of container tonnage recycled last year, and the record 654,862 TEU scrapped in 2016.

Alphaliner commented ―A further reduction in the rate of vessel scrapping could therefore make this year‘s container ship-breaking volume the lowest on record since 2011.

Source: Alphaliner

―With more than 1M TEU of new container ship capacity still due for delivery between April and December this year, the reduced rate of scrapping has pushed full-year capacity growth estimates up to 6%.‖ Therefore, the total cellular vessel fleet is expected to reach 22.3M TEU by the end of the year, compared to 21.1M TEU at the beginning of 2018.

Alphaliner summed up ―While the overall idle container ship capacity has been reduced significantly from a record high of 1.6M TEU in October 2016 to 340,000 TEU as of today, the overall market remains delicate with any slackening in demand threatening to disrupt the fragile recovery in the container ship charter markets, even as freight rates have started to tumble under the pressure of excess supply.‖

[Container Shipping & Trade]

Port development Singapore: MPA awards $1.1 billion contract for second phase of Tuas

Terminal

25/04/2018

By Aradhana Aravindan and Henning Gloystein

Singapore on Wednesday announced a $1.1 billion plan to expand and modernize its port, the world‘s second-biggest, but which is in fierce competition with several Chinese harbors including Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) said it has awarded a project worth S$1.46 billion ($1.10 billion) for the second phase of its Tuas Terminal port development to a joint venture of firms, including Korea‘s Hyundai Engineering and Construction. Other companies in the joint venture include Japan‘s Penta-Ocean Construction Co Ltd and Boskalis International from the Netherlands.

Works under this phase will include the design and construction of 387 hectares (956 acres) of reclaimed land. Phase two is part of a four-stage development over 30 years, with the first phase of reclamation works scheduled to be completed by the early 2020s and the second phase in the mid-2020s.

The container terminal will have a capacity of about 65 million twenty-foot equivalent units when completed. Part of the development is to move nearly all of the port facilities out of Singapore‘s Central Business District westward to Tuas, a region of the city-state that is dominated by industrial developments.

Singapore is the world‘s second-biggest port, after Shanghai, according to data from the World Shipping Council, benefiting from its location on the Strait of Malacca, one of the world‘s busiest shipping lanes that connects Europe and the Middle East with Asia.

[Reuters]

Port development UK: Ports need better connections to boost post Brexit freight trade

25/04/2018

A new study, released by the UK Government shows that better connections to English ports could help businesses thrive and boost the nation's economy.

The study has been welcomed by both the British Ports Association (BPA) and the UK Major Ports Group (UKMPG), with the UKMPG saying that delivering on the recommendations of the Study and building from it will be crucial to boost post-Brexit trade, growth and jobs.

The Department for Transport study, entitled Transport Infrastructure for our global future - A Study of England's Port Connectivity, along with a set of regional case studies on port connectivity was officially launched by the UK Maritime Minister, Nusrat Ghani at the BPA‘s Annual Lunch in London, and highlights the importance of England's harbours and its global trade links, showing how ports can flourish by improving connections to inland businesses.

Improved road and rail links can provide more effective freight journeys between key economic areas and ports, boosting productivity, lowering costs and giving access to international markets. Shipping Minister Nusrat Ghani said:

―The nation‘s ports are crucial to our success, contributing £5.4 billion to our economy. Shipping is still one of the most efficient way of transporting goods from across the globe into our homes. But the journey doesn‘t stop at a port. Good connections to distributors and manufacturers are also vital in ensuring that products reach our shelves without delay.

―Better links won‘t just boost imports, but will also support British companies that export products across the globe, helping them exploit new international trade opportunities.‖

According to the report, extensive government investment is already improving port access, unlocking private sector funding and stimulating economic growth across the country, with £235 million invested between 2014 and 2019 to improve rail links, and £23 billion to provide better journeys on England‘s roads.

The report also offers a series of recommendations for government and industry on how to raise the profile of shipping, encourage closer collaboration on freight movements and improve information-sharing. This is intended to deliver an ambitious vision for the long term future of port connectivity, linking in with the government‘s long term strategy, Maritime 2050, which is currently subject to a call for evidence which closes on May 16. In welcoming the initiative, the BPA‘s Chief Executive, Richard Ballantyne said:

―Ports are vital components of the UK economy, acting as gateways for 95% of the UK‘s international trade, as well as providing regional hubs for economic activity and employment. The sector is independent of Government but does rely on public investment in road and rail connections and this Study highlights a number of challenges for policy makers. We look forward to working with the relevant parts of government along with industry partners to explore ways to promote what ports do and the reasons why port connectivity should be prioritised.

‖Nationally, Government is starting to understand the issues and we saw good progress in the last Road Investment Strategy where a handful major port schemes were recognised. The feedback we have received from regional policy makers however centres on limited resources. Local authority budgets have come under much pressure and they will need both strategic direction and investment if challenges such as new links, bottlenecks and ‗last mile connections‘ to ports are to be overcome.

―The quality of the road network is critical for efficient freight movement and business growth and roads are vital for UK ports, handling up to 85% of port hinterland traffic. There are also aspirations to increase rail freight in the UK and the BPA has previously called for increased capacity on the network. Improving existing links to ports and exploring new opportunities for those ports currently without rail access should be prioritised. There are also opportunities for developing increased coastal shipping and we are pleased that the Study includes a commitment to explore this policy.‖

[The Handy Shipping Guide]

Marine pollution: Record amount of plastic found trapped in Arctic sea ice

25/04/2018

Scientists have found a record amount of microplastic particles trapped in Arctic sea ice — as much as 12,000 pieces per liter of ice. The level of plastic pollution, measured in core samples taken at five different regions in the Arctic in 2014 and 2015, measured three times higher than previous studies.

The German research icebreaker Polarstern. Photo: Stefanie Arndt

Among the plastic pollution were particles of packaging, paints, nylon, polyester, and cellulose acetate, commonly used to make cigarette filters, The Guardian reported. The scientists said much of the pollution traveled to the Arctic from the Pacific Ocean‘s massive garbage patch. But particles of paints and nylon likely originated from ships and fishing nets, they said, demonstrating the increase in shipping and fishing activity in the Arctic as sea ice disappears in response to climate change. The research, led by scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Germany, was published this week in the journal Nature Communications: Arctic sea ice is an important temporal sink and means of transport for microplastic.

More than half of the plastic particles found in the ice measured less than a twentieth of a millimeter wide, small enough to be easily ingested by Arctic microorganisms and crustaceans and accumulate as they move up the food chain.

Melt pond on Arctic sea ice. Photo: Mar Fernandez

―No one can say for certain how harmful these tiny plastic particles are for marine life,‖ Ilka Peeken, a biologist at AWI and lead author of the study, said in a statement, ―or ultimately also for human beings.‖

[Yale Environment 360]

Shipping emissions: Action groups urge Spanish government to support Emission Control

Area in the Mediterranean

24/04/2018

By Jake Frith

The German organization Control Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU), together with Ecologists in Action, have carried out measurements of atmospheric emissions from sea traffic in the Straits of Gibraltar and Barcelona, finding that the levels of pollution in both areas are up to 70 times higher than the base level of pollution in most urban areas.

It's well known that shipping uses fuels containing high levels of sulphur, whose waste gases are respiratory irritants and are thus highly dangerous for human health. At present, maritime transport contributes 2% of all global emissions of carbon dioxide, according to the latest data produced by the EU, and it's forseen that this figure will increase significantly in the coming years.

In order to try to address the problem of these extreme pollution levels produced by maritime traffic, coastal states in northern Europe have drawn up agreements to designate the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the English Channel as Emission Control Areas. With this change to the use of cleaner fuels, the regulation ECA (and including sulphur, SECA) has achieved an immediate improvement of up to 50% in air quality since the year 2015 and has produced socio-economic benefits amounting to thousands of millions of euros.

For this reason, Ecologists in Action are urging the Spanish government to join up with France, which has led the drive to create Sulphur Emissions Control Areas, to radically limit the entrance of highly polluting shipping in the Mediterranean Sea.

To this end, Ecologists have invited, not just those responsible for air quality at Ministry level, but also leading air quality technicians from Andalusia, Murcia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands and Catalonia, to participate in the International Mediterranean Shipping Conference - Reducing air pollution from ships in the Mediterranean Sea. The conference is organised by France Nature Environnement, the French Environment Ministry and NABU, with the colaboration of the alliance of enviromental NGOs to which Ecologists in Action belongs.

―We can't accept any excuse that continues to delay a more strict regulation over shipping emissions in southern Europe,‖ says María Garcia of Ecologists in Action. ―The most important navigation routes from Asia cross the Mediterranean, and it is expected that this navigation traffic will increase by some 250% by the year 2050.‖ [Maritime Journal]

Container shipping: RWI/ISL-Container Throughput Index with clear downward movement

on a high level

24/04/2018

The Container Throughput Index of the RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research and the Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics (ISL) decreased significantly from 135,5 (revised figure) to 133,0 in the month of March.

It remains unclear in how far this reflects first consequences of the rising tension in the trade policy talks between the USA and China. The throughput decrease that the US Pacific ports and even some Chinese ports experienced in March is noticeable. However, the data reliability is less certain than usual. The figures for January and February were much higher after revision but data for an uncommon high number of ports is still missing.

The index is based on data continuously collected from world container ports by ISL as part of its market monitoring. Because large parts of international merchandise trade are transported by ship, the development of port handling is a good indicator for world trade. As many ports release information about their activities only two weeks after the end of the respective month, the RWI/ISL Container Throughput Index is a reliable early indicator for the development of international merchandise trade and hence for the activity of the global economy. As of 2018, the index is compiled based on data of 88 ports. Together these ports account for ~60% of worldwide container handling. The flash estimate for March is based on data

reported by 49 ports, accounting for three quarters of the total index volume.

The RWI/ISL-Container Throughput Index for April 2018 will be released on 23 May 2018.

[Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics (ISL)]

Oil & gas shipping: Oil makes the world go 'round, but how does it go around the world?

24/04/2018

By Barry Hochfelder

The logistics of transporting oil, whether crude or refined, is a global issue with risk and reward.

While alternative fuels, including electric vehicles, are gaining ground, the need for oil won‘t be going away for a while. In addition to transportation fuels, petroleum products are used for heating, for electricity generation, asphalt and road oil, and for making the chemicals, plastics and synthetic materials that are in so many of our everyday products.

When it comes to transporting petroleum —whether crude or refined —there are several options, including pipelines, ships and barges, trucks and rail. Each mode has its own risks and rewards.

Pipelines are common but carry risks

Pipelines are the most prolific, handling about 70% of crude. There are more than 70,000 miles of crude oil pipelines in the United States alone, moving approximately 1 billion gallons of oil from field to refinery daily.

Once built, the pipelines are a very cost-effective way to move the product; however, they don‘t come without risk. In the network of pipelines, most of which are underground, oil is moved at pressures of about 1,000 pounds per square inch. Aging or corroded pipes are apt to leak. How much? According to the USTA‘s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration around 9 million gallons of crude has spilled in the U.S. since 2010.

Sometimes pipelines carry multiple products, including crude and refined petroleum, natural gas and biofuels. Even raw crude oil, which is not typically volatile, can be hazardous because chemicals are added to make it flow more easily through the pipe.

Last November, 210,000 gallons leaked from the 2,687-mile Keystone Pipeline system into a South Dakota field. In this case, the spill was contained quickly, but the risk to humans, animals and vegetation is there.

Spills that reach bodies of water can be devastating. In 2010, 843,000 gallons of crude leaked into Michigan‘s Talmadge Creek and flowed into the Kalamazoo River. The largest inland oil spill in U.S. history, it eventually was contained more than 37 miles downstream from the site of the spill. The cleanup and restoration of the Kalamazoo River cost the pipeline company $1.21 billion.

The environmental cleanup is just one element of a pipeline leak, says Bob Gernon, VP Logistics at Maine Pointe, a Boston-based management consulting company. A 2016 pipeline rupture near Birmingham, Alabama, caused significant problems.

―There were difficulties getting gasoline to the greater Atlanta area," Gernon explained. "They had to identify the leak, get to it and shut it off. It took 10 days to clean up and get back in business. Thousands and thousands of people were inconvenienced because many gas stations were out, and those that did have gasoline raised their prices." When a tanker springs a leak

To move the oil longer distances, say from the Middle East, requires maritime transportation. One tanker can hold 2 million barrels, equivalent to 84 million gallons of gasoline. Also used afloat, but for much shorter distances —typically 100 to 300 miles up to around 2,000 miles —and calmer waters, are barges. Propelled by tugboats, they can carry 10,000 barrels.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), oil spills from transport tankers only account for about 7.7% of oil in the ocean. However, when there is a spill, marine life will suffer. Ingestion can be fatal, and oil-soaked birds lose their ability to fly. Oil spills in open water can contaminate the food chain at the lowest levels and work its way up to the larger animals.

The 1989 Exxon Valdez incident — where a tanker ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, and spilled 10.8 million gallons of crude into a pristine area — is infamous for that reason. The environmental impact was devastating, fouling a thousand miles of coastline and killing hundreds of thousands of animals. Cleanup took years and Exxon paid billions in costs and fines.

But what happens when there is a spill at sea in a highly dense international steamship corridor? "Other ships have to steam out of the way to allow cleanup, or they‘ll just make it worse," Gernon points out. That throws off timing and schedules that can affect ports, unloading processes and onshore transportation to destinations.

In port, Gernon says, vessels have to be repositioned to alternate ports, if that‘s possible. If not, they might have to wait 60 to 90 days to finally unload. ―You have the cost of those vessels, lost utilization, lost capacity,‖ he says, adding that, quite often, the oil was meant for just-in-time delivery.

Trucks can carry about 20 barrels (9,000 gallons). They‘re used primarily for moving refined fuel to distribution plants or gas stations, generally not exceeding around 50 miles. There are nowhere near enough trucks or drivers to move the millions of barrels of crude needed daily.

Trucking companies and 3PLs are striving to meet the growing demand for drivers. That shortage is spilling over into the oil & gas industry and its repercussions are evident.

One clear example is in the Permian Basin in West Texas. Permian has been pumping out oil since the first well produced there in 1920. After weathering the oil bust of 1998-99, when operators lost $2.8 billion in revenue, things have been on an upturn, producing more than 1 million barrels a day, according to the University of Texas Permian Basin. (The basin also produces almost 4 billion cubic feet of natural gas daily.)

Last year, Permian production hit 815 million barrels, easily exceeding the previous record of 790 million barrels set in 1973, business research firm IHS Markit said in a report.

As oil prices creep up and production booms, companies in the Permian Basin are looking for drivers. Many who were dismissed following the 2014 oil price crash have decided not to return, choosing something steady, rather than the boom-or-bust oil industry. The producers also are offering less pay than four years ago.

Willie Taylor, CEO of the Permian Basin Workforce Board in Midland, Texas, told Bloomberg that companies will need to double their workforce to about 6,000 drivers to meet the expected need.

―The ability to physically operate more trucks is not there,‖ says Maine Pointe‘s Gernon. ―The economy heated up and drivers found higher paying jobs that had them home at night.‖ Another roadblock, he says, is passing the scrutiny of background checks. ―Plus, (Electronic Driver Logs) make it difficult for the driver to keep 2 or 3 logbooks going to satisfy driver hours of service.‖

Supply chains positioned to act

There have been regulatory issues that help. Following Exxon Valdez, for example, double-hulled vessels became mandatory for oil tankers built in the United States. And the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, or MARPOL, Convention made it mandatory for tankers of 5,000 dead weight tonnage (dwt) or more to be fitted with double hulls.

But regulatory changes can‘t account for everything. ―Supply chain needs to play a critical pivotal role and understand the best and worst situations, develop contingencies and have them agreed to‖ by all parties involved, Gernon said.

Some questions to ask: Who‘s responsible? What steps should be taken? How long should it take? What does it cost?

Doing what worked in the past won‘t do it, Gernon says. ―Somebody has to have the depth and scope to understand what is happening globally and get into position to act.‖

[Supply Chain Dive]

Terminal operators Europe: HHLA acquires Metrans Group

24/04/2018

German Terminal operator Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) will further expand and strengthen its intermodal activities in the coming years via a recent acquisition in Czech-German Metrans Group.

The acquisition, occurring on April 1, 2018, made HHLA the sole shareholder of Metrans — who are set to invest €350 million by the year 2022 into the company to boost performance and market competitiveness.

Metrans operates 13 intermodal terminals in the European hinterland, with five major central hub terminals, and in 2017 moved one million standard containers by rail.

[Port Technology International]

Terminal operators U.S.: Delaware assembly approves $580 deal to lease Port of Wilmington

to Gulftainer for 50 years

24/04/2018

By Tom Byrne

The Delaware General Assembly approved a $580 million deal with Gulftainer to lease the Port of Wilmington for 50 years.

A resolution signing off on a $580 million deal with Gulftainer to lease the port for 50 years sailed through both chambers of the General Assembly Tuesday. The state Senate approved it 21-0 and the House passed it by a voice vote.

The private operator from the United Arab Emirates will invest in upgrades to the deep-water port facility and build a $410 million container terminal at the former DuPont Edgemoor site. Officials have said the deal could create more than 5,000 new jobs while bringing the state between $6 and $13 million in royalties annually over the next ten years. The port has been losing money for some time, and the state has been subsidizing it in the amount of about $15 million per year. Under the privatization deal, it will receive at least $6 million per year in royalties. Gulftainer hopes to turn around the port's operations, doubling its TEU volume within ten years, boosting non-containerized cargo by 75 percent and employing thousands of additional workers.

Port of Wilmington

Gov. John Carney thanked lawmakers for supporting the deal which he says will ―protect and create good-paying, blue collar jobs at one of Delaware‘s most important employment centers.‖ The Carney Administration still needs to finalize the deal with Gulftainer, and have it reviewed and approved by the federal Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS).

Gulftainer has been working to expand its presence in the U.S. since at least 2014, when it signed a 35-year agreement with Port Canaveral for the operations of a new container terminal. While Gulftainer is owned in the UAE, the Port Canaveral lease agreement did not undergo a review by the CFIUS.

[Delaware Public Media / Maritime Executive]

Terminal operators UAE: Mubadala and partners to sell 50% stake in ADT to Abu Dhabi Ports

24/04/2018

Mubadala Investment Company, the Abu Dhabi strategic company with over $200 billion in assets, and Mubadala Infrastructure Partners agreed to sell their 50 per cent stake in Abu Dhabi Terminals (ADT) to the remaining shareholder Abu Dhabi Ports for an undisclosed sum.

ADT operates and manages the $7 billion Khalifa Port Container Terminal under a 30-year concession that was inked in 2012. Abu Dhabi Ports has been expanding operations at Khalifa Port and adjacent Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi (Kizad) over the last few years.

Container volumes at Khalifa Port in 2019 are expected to double the 1.5m TEU handled in 2017 once China‘s Cosco Shipping Ports completes construction of its $700m container terminal at the facility. Cosco, which signed a 35-year concession agreement with Abu Dhabi Ports in 2016, broke ground on the terminal in February.

Last year, Abu Dhabi Ports signed a 50-year agreement with the Chinese Jiangsu Provincial Overseas Cooperation and Investment Company (JOCIC), under which JOCIC will develop around 23.7 million square feet of Kizad for companies from Jiangsu Province.

[The National]

Terminal operators Ecuador: Yilport begins dredging at Puerto Bolivar

23/04/2018 Yilport Holding has begun dredging operations at Puerto Bolivar in Ecuador as part of a string of investments to expand and improve marine terminals capabilities.

During the first phase of dredging, the access channel at the port will be dredged to a flat draft of 10 metres, whilst four piers of the terminal will be dredged to 12.5 metres. A new 400-metre berth is also being constructed and will be dredged to 14.5 metres to accommodate larger vessels.

Phase 1 the expansion is set to be completed in May 2018, allowing the second phase of dredging works to be started in the last quarter of 2018. The second phase will further expand the access channel, dredging it to -14.5 metres.

Yilport took over operations at Puerto Bolivar in March 2017 and immediately began the $230 million first phase expansion — including the installation of two new mobile harbour cranes to help accommodate larger vessels.

[Port Technology International]

Port development U.S.: Foreign investments in ports face government scrutiny

23/04/2018

Three deals involving proposed investment in U.S. container terminals by foreign companies potentially could rekindle the debate over the appropriateness of these entities operating marine terminals in U.S. ports.

Concerns about foreign investment in U.S. ports reached a fever pitch in 2006, when Congress voted to block Dubai-based DP World‘s planned acquisition of P&O Ports North America‘s marine terminal concessions in six U.S. ports and stevedoring operations in another 16 locations. DP World eventually withdrew its offer, leading to the creation of Ports America, today the largest U.S.-owned terminal operator and stevedore.

Now, these latest major port deals either are being reviewed or are likely to be reviewed as they move forward via the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). They include:

• China-based COSCO Shipping‘s planned acquisition of Orient Overseas (International) Ltd. and its Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) subsidiary Long Beach Container Terminal. OOIL/OOCL leases the Middle Harbor in the Port of Long Beach, where it‘s building one of the largest and most sophisticated automated container terminals in the United States.

• The preliminary agreement that United Arab Emirates-based Gulftainer has signed to lease Delaware‘s Port of Wilmington for 50 years and invest $580 million in the port, including $410 million for a new container terminal on the Delaware River.

• A letter of intent signed by the Mississippi State Port Authority to discuss future port expansion and an exclusive lease with Turkey-based Yilport Holding, a subsidiary of the Yildirim Group of Cos.

[American Shipper]

Port development Oman: Sohar signs contract for south phase 1 construction

23/04/2018

Sohar Port and Freezone has signed an agreement with Dredging International NV – Earth Moving Worldwide LTD. (DINV-EMW JV) for the development of Phase 1 of the Sohar Port South Construction Package.

According to the official statement, the $24 million agreement will see the development of the first 50 hectares of usable land within the new port expansion, which is expected to be fully completed by Q4 2018.

The SOHAR Port South Development involves extensive land reclamation, which will ultimately add 200 hectares in total to the present capacity of Sohar Port, which currently stands at around 2,000 hectares.

Under the terms of the development agreement, the Phase 1 includes the engineering, land reclamation and stabilization, and construction of approximately the 50 hectares of usable land within the port area, together with soil improvement, 1,310 meters of shoreline protection, storm water drainage and navigation aids.

[Dredging Today]

The new world of ocean shipping regulations

23/04/2018 By Peter Buxbaum From reducing emissions to adopting new technologies For all stakeholders in maritime transportation regulation, all eyes were on London during the second week of April and meetings being held there by the Maritime Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC) of the UN International Maritime Organization (IMO). After some debate, the MEPC adopted a strategy for further reductions by the shipping industry of CO2 emissions, a plan which represented a middle ground among member states participating in the meeting.

The MEPC adopted goals that would reduce ocean-carrier emissions by 50% by 2050, compared to 2008 levels. That matched the position being pushed by Norway‘s government and its shipowners‘ association

and supported by industry groups like the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and Canada‘s Chamber of Marine Commerce (CMC). Some officials of the European Union, including its climate commissioner and transportation commissioner, advocated for 70% to 100% cuts in emissions by mid-century, while the United States and Saudi Arabia were reportedly dragging their feet earlier in the week over adopting the standards eventually agreed upon.

Regulatory issues

The question of CO2 emissions is perhaps the primary regulatory issue facing the international maritime industry, but it‘s certainly not the only one. Other regulatory developments on the environmental front include new measures for sulfur oxide emissions (see sidebar on page 5), ballast water systems, and ocean pollution, while others relate to new technologies like autonomous shipping. A common thread that runs through all of these developments is the effort being exerted to develop worldwide regulations and standards for a global industry.

In London, advocates emphasized that the strategy adopted matches the expectations of the Paris climate agreement and sets global standards. ―Agreement upon a mid-century objective for the total reduction of CO2 emissions by the sector, regardless of trade growth, is vital to discourage unilateral action and to provide the signal needed to stimulate the development of zero-CO2 fuels‖ said Esben Poulsson, the ICS chairman.

The importance of a global approach was also endorsed by a North American group. ―Similar to the airline industry, marine shipping is an international business and it is important that we have one global solution to the challenge of climate change,‖ said Bruce Burrows, president of the Chamber of Marine Commerce, an Ottawa-based organization. ―Marine shipping is already the most carbon-efficient way to transport goods, but given projections for increasing world trade, the sector recognizes that more needs to be done internationally to continue that progress.‖

The MEPC‘s new greenhouse gas (GHG) standards represents the second stage of a three-step approach under an IMO strategy agreed to in 2016 for reducing emissions from ships. The first is a set of requirements for ships to collect data on their fuel oil consumption which entered into force on March 1, 2018 with amendments to International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL).

The reporting requirements under those amendments will begin on January 1, 2019, with data to be reported at the end of each year to the IMO. The purpose is to inform further measures needed to enhance energy efficiency and to address GHG emissions related to international shipping.

Under new Regulation 22A, ships of 5,000 gross tons and above are required to collect consumption data for each type of fuel oil they use. These ships account for 85% of CO2 emissions from international shipping. Data will be reported to flag states each year, and the flag state must determine the data has been properly reported and issue a statement of compliance to the ship.

Also on the environmental front, a global treaty meant to halt invasive aquatic species through vessel ballast water entered into force less than a year ago. Ballast water is taken on by ships for stability and structural integrity, but can contain thousands of aquatic microbes, algae, and animals, which are carried across oceans and released into ecosystems where they are not native. Hundreds of invasions have already taken place, sometimes with devastating consequences for local economies and infrastructures.

―The entry into force of the Ballast Water Management Convention provides a global level playing field for international shipping,‖ said IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim, ―providing clear and robust standards for the management of ballast water on ships.‖

The Ballast Water Management (BMW) Convention requires all ships in international trade to manage their ballast water and sediments, according to a ship-specific ballast water management plan. All ships must carry a ballast water record book and an International Ballast Water Management Certificate. The BWM Convention was adopted in 2004 by the IMO.

Existing ships must initially meet the D-1 standard outlined in the convention, which requires them to exchange their ballast water at least 200-nautical miles from land and in water at least 200 meters deep. New ships must meet the D-2 standard, which specifies the maximum amount of organisms allowed to be discharged. Eventually, all ships will be required to adhere to the D-2 standard, which could mean retrofitting older vessels with new equipment.

Autonomous ships

With research and development into autonomous shipping advancing rapidly, the Danish Maritime Authority published a report earlier this year which promoted the message that maritime regulation should be made more flexible to support the development of autonomous ships.

―Part of current regulation is based on traditions dating back to the age of sail,‖ said Denmark‘s Minister for Industry, Business, and Financial Affairs Brian Mikkelsen. ―That needs to improve.‖

The overall approach taken by the report is that autonomous ships must be at least as safe as conventional ships. The report provides a recommendation that regulation in this area be agreed upon internationally and more specifically in the International Maritime Organization. Denmark is pushing to get this topic to the top of the international agenda.

The report provides a number of specific recommendations on preparing regulations for autonomous technologies, including, not surprisingly, examining the regulation on the manning of vessels, the definition of the term ―master,‖ and periodically allowing unmanned bridges and electronic lookouts.

―In a globalized industry,‖ said Mikkelsen, ―regulation and standards for autonomous ships must be international. This is the only way to ensure significant global development in this area.‖

[American Journal of Transportation]

Oil & gas shipping: Panama Canal prepares for fivefold increase in LNG carrier traffic

23/04/2018 By Mike Corkhill In the same week that the Panama Canal handled three LNG carrier transits in the same day for the first time, the waterway‘s administration announced it is aiming for a fivefold increase in the volume of LNG it handles, to the 30 million tonnes per annum (mta) mark, by 2020. Approximately 6M tonnes moved through the Canal in 2017.

The three LNGCs that made Panama Canal history last week - Gaslog Hong Kong, Gaslog Gibraltar and Clean Ocean - entered the waterway in the ballast condition on a staggered basis from the Pacific side on Tuesday, 17 April and had completed their transits by early Wednesday.

Between July 2016, when the enlarged Canal locks were commissioned, and March 2018, the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) had handled 300 LNGC transits. In June 2017 the waterway accommodated two passages of such ships in the same day for the first time. This practice became routine in December in December 2017, as LNGC traffic ramped up to meet the burgeoning winter demand for gas in Asia.

The Panama Canal handled its 300th LNG carrier transit in March 2018. Credit: ACP

The majority of the Panama Canal LNGC transits to date have been to meet the needs of Cheniere Energy‘s Sabine Pass LNG liquefaction plant in Louisiana. Sabine Pass has four trains in operation and a fifth is under construction.

A second US export project, Cove Point in Maryland, has just commenced commercial operations and a further US East Coast export terminal, the Elba Island facility in Savannah, Georgia, is set to come onstream this summer. Following that, in 2019, three more US Gulf liquefaction plants – Cameron LNG, Freeport LNG and Corpus Christi, are set to begin operations. All these new facilities are likely to be dispatching westbound cargoes, to Asia and the Pacific coast of the Americas, via the Panama Canal.

The LNG sector has presented scheduling challenges for ACP due to the difficulties associated with the timings of bookings. In contrast to the major container shipping lines, whose vessels are on strict rotations and the day of the anticipated passage can be pinpointed, LNGC operators point out that their vessel itineraries are subject to greater variability due to the increasingly flexible nature of the trade.

One set of challenges that ACP is facing as Canal traffic continues to build rapidly is the provision of sufficient escort tugs and tug crews. Two tugs attend each vessel transit of the new, large-size locks opened in 2016.

ACP is already looking beyond the anticipated build-up in traffic levels over the next few years. Consideration is being given to the construction of a further set of locks to serve a new generation of even bigger ships.

[LNG World Shipping]

Intermodal transport Europe: Impact of Rhine Valley rail closure estimated at €2.2 billion

23/04/2018 By Stuart Todd The economic impact of the ‗Rastatt‘ closure last year of a key section of a major European north-south rail freight corridor has been estimated at almost €2.2 billion, of which close to €1 billion was incurred by rail logistics companies through lost business and the cost of implementing contingency plans, analysis has revealed.

Manufacturing industry shippers and infrastructure managers and terminal operators ran up a ―loss in value creation‖ of €771 million and €308 million respectively for the disruptions through the Rhine Valley in southwest Germany over a seven-week period last year.

These were among the findings of a joint report commissioned by the European Rail Freight Association (ERFA), the European Rail Network (NEE) and the International Union for Combined Rail-Road Transport (UIRR) and undertaken by the Hanseatic Transport Consultancy.

The report said the ―man-made disruption‖, which interrupted traffic between 12 August and 2 October 2017, had ―highlighted the incompatibility of national monopoly-based rail infrastructure management and the increasingly cross-border rail freight traffic that moves across the European Union‖.

Delays to services on the ‗Rheintal‘, which connects European ports such as Rotterdam with Germany, Switzerland and Italy, were caused when tunnel construction in the town of Rastatt resulted in unexpected damage to the double track Rhine Valley mainline. A tunnel boring machine that was crossing a few metres below the railway line caused a serious deformation of the tracks, making them unpassable for the 170-200 freight trains which typically transit Rastatt daily.

The major railway operator on the line, Deutsche Bahn, was only able to run one-third of its scheduled freight trains during the time the section of track at Rastatt was out of service; and of these, some operated ―under adverse conditions‖. Private operators were also badly affected.

The report noted that just under 40% of the capacity offered by diversionary routes was usable. ―The (Rastatt) interruption undermined the trust of shippers in rail logistics for a long time. Today, it is not foreseeable to what extent the market will count even more on road instead of rail in the future. Regarding the damages caused, it can be assumed that there will be claims towards the contractual partners,‖ ERFA, NEE and UIRR underlined in a joint statement.

[Lloyd‘s Loading List]

Intermodal transport Singapore: Startup plays Uber to the container-truck trade

23/04/2018 Over one in four hauliers here using the platform Haulio, which went operational last May Ride-hailing and bike-sharing platforms have entrenched themselves in many countries, including Singapore. And the trend has now spread to container trucks. Homegrown startup Haulio - which is targeting users in the supply chain - has a a web portal that functions like a consumer-focused ride-hailing or bike-sharing platform.

Customers who require containers to be moved from one point to another put up job notices on the platform. The containers are treated like "passengers" and truck drivers assigned using an algorithm-driven engine. And just like ride-hailing platforms, drivers are assigned based on a few criteria, not just a first-come, first-served basis, but also reliability ratings and past performance.

What's different is that customers are the ones setting the prices. And the customers can be truck drivers themselves, who might need a hand in times of overwhelming demand.

Alvin Ea, co-founder and chief executive of Haulio said the firm seeks to solve the problem of increasingly extreme fluctuations in shipments. He said: "As shipping lines are consolidating, the ships are getting bigger and it gets busier with sudden spikes. The big companies have economics of scale; they can do good planning. But those who are suffering are the small ones."

Haulio tries to bring together, on its platform, smaller trucking companies, which typically have fewer than 10 vehicles. Sebastian Shen, co-founder and head of product development, said: "Collectively, there are economies of scale. If you are in this community, anyone who is nearby can serve your customers; you don't need to depend on your own trucks."

Since Haulio's platform became operational in May last year, about 150 companies have registered on the platform, of which over 60 are hauliers. This is more than a quarter of the 230 or so hauliers in Singapore. Hauliers are companies employed to transport goods by road.

These companies have brought a fleet of over 1,000 trucks to the platform, which has moved over 35,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) containers to date. To put it into perspective, Haulio said 100-200 containers are transported every day.

Mr Ea said the startup takes a 3-5 per cent cut from transactions.

Currently, the one-year-old startup is completing its seed round. Its backers include the venture capital arm of port operator PSA International, PSA unboXed, which selected the startup for its incubator programme. Elton Fong, assistant vice-president of PSA unboXed, said: "Haulio is in line with PSA's vision for the container port of the future, a part of which is increased connectivity with the logistics and supply chain industry."

But the company still faces a significant challenge convincing hauliers, some of which were established in the 1970s, to use the platform. Mr Ea said these hauliers are not used to the idea of sharing resources with strangers, especially when price undercutting is common.

To promote the platform to potential users, the company has adopted a bottom-up approach. They have been meeting haulier owners over coffee to explain how their platform works. He said he has used UberFLASH - a common booking service Uber launched with taxi giant ComfortDelGro - as a comparison. He told them: "We are not trying to steal your business. If you have nothing much to do, come to me, we try to feed you work; if you have too much, we will help you to manage the workload."

In addition to acquiring more users to grow the business, the startup hopes to take the platform overseas, leveraging on PSA's global presence. Philippe Salles, head of e-business, transport and supply chain at Drewry Supply Chain Advisors, believes Haulio is well-positioned to develop further.

He said: "Landside container logistics is one of the shipping segments which is open to digitisation. The prerequisite is to operate in an already digitised port environment. Singapore is an excellent place where it can grow."

[The Business Times]

The carbon age: 150 years of CO2 emissions

23/04/2018 by Dyfed Loesche Carbon and carbon dioxide aren‘t dangerous compounds, they‘re found everywhere in our natural environment. The problem is that ever since the onset of the industrial revolution in the 19th century mankind has steadily increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth‘s atmosphere.

Because carbon dioxide, or CO2, is one the most prominent greenhouse gases climate change is happening. Most scientists easily agree that it‘s not a ―Chinese hoax‖.

According to the now defunct Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center CDIAC more than 400 billion metric tonnes of carbon have been released into the atmosphere from the consumption of fossil fuels and cement production since 1751- half of which was emitted since the 1980s. The below infographic shows, that the combustion of liquid and solid fossil fuels causes around three fourths of all carbon dioxide emissions, which stood at some 9.9 billion tonnes a year in 2014.

The emissions caused by the production of cement, the main ingredient of concrete, stood at 5.8 percent in 2014. During the production process CO2 is emitted when lime stone is heated to be turned into clinker.

[Statista]

Deaths from air pollution worldwide

23/04/2018

By Niall McCarthy, Data Journalist

95 percent of the planet's population is breathing unhealthy air, according to the annual State of the Global Air Report published last week by the Health Effects Institute (HEI).

Long-term exposure to air pollution contributed to just over 6 million deaths in 2016 with strokes, lung disease, lung cancer and heart attacks linked to many of them. After smoking, high blood pressure and poor diet, air pollution is the fourth-highest cause of death worldwide with most deaths occurring in developing countries.

Even though India and China have the most deaths from air pollution worldwide with 1.61 and 1.58 million respectively, the statistics paint a different picture when it comes to age-standardized deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. In 2016, Afghanistan had a far higher death rate per 100,000 inhabitants than India. In fact, polluted air is far more likely to harm Afghans today than insurgent attacks or air strikes. In Kabul, wood and plastic are burned in generators that belch out fumes. They then mix with emissions from lead-filled emissions from the city's snarling traffic jams. As bad as the situation is in the capital, things are also desperate in more rural areas where people burn solid fuels for cooking and heating in their homes. That situation isn't unique to Afghanistan, however. Even though the stereotypical image of air pollution usually involves smoke stacks, smoggy skyscrapers and noisy traffic jams in megacities in India and China, much of it actually emanates from simple countryside stoves and generators.

HEI's report notes that over a third of the global population is exposed to household air pollution and that for them, fine particulate matter levels can exceed air quality guidelines by as much as 20 times. The following infographic shows that there is a striking gap between the most and least polluted air around the world. Developed countries have experienced success in reducing emissions and air pollution levels while poorer nations have fallen behind. The situation isn't totally grim with China in particular introducing tougher pollution controls in recent years. All of those people struggling with indoor air pollution are also experiencing a turn in fortune. Back in 1990, 3.5 billion people were exposed to it and that has now fallen to 2.4 billion despite an increase in the global population. India has tried to eradicate indoor air pollution by providing people with LPG as a cooking fuel as well as expanding and modernizing its electricity grid.

[Statista]

Flags of convenience: Cyprus-flagged LNG tanker breaches safety rules in Northern Sea

Route

23/04/2018 The Cyprus-flagged LNG tanker 'Boris Vilkitsky', owned by Greek company Dynagas, entered the Northern Sea Route (NSR) with a number of deficiencies, violating several safety rules, according to the Russian NSR Administration.

Credit: Shipspotting

Specifically, while heading to the port of Sabetta, the 2017-built ice class tanker, which is deployed to transport gas from Russian Yamal LNG project, entered the NSR with inoperative stern thrusters and port steering column.

A recent Bureau Veritas report indicated that the vessel suffered the malfunction in March, while en route from Rotterdam to Sabetta. These malfunctions mean that she is unable to navigate in Kara sea either alone or with icebreakers escort, because she cannot be classified as an Arc7 vessel, but only as an ice class Arc4, under requirements by the Russian Maritime Register.

Except from this, the ship also violated the Rule 19 of the Rules of Navigation, after the master did not notified the NRSA of the ship's condition and faulty mechanisms, upon entering the NSR waters.

[SAFETY4SEA]

Shipbreaking: Breaking badly

23/04/2018

By Matt Miller

Shipbreaking is essential to not only the shipping industry but the global economy. With lower prices for steel scrap and a glut of steel products, there is a tremendous over capacity in the shipbreaking facilities.

To understand global shipbreaking, and all its complexities, it‘s necessary to fathom everything from the price of steel in India to lack of demand for ferrous scrap in China, from construction practices in Bangladesh to manufacturing practices in Turkey, from bankruptcy protocol in Germany to various government subsidies around the world.

Shipbreaking is a billion-dollar-a-year industry that is largely tethered to South Asian yards. Shipbreaking in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh accounts for between 70% and 80% of global output. That‘s largely because the South Asian players, with their outmoded and dangerous practices and low worker wages, can offer substantially more money for scrapping ships than competitors elsewhere, especially their primary rivals in China and Turkey, which have spent substantially on shipbreaking yards in recent years, but find themselves being consistently outbid for business.

Scrap rates vary considerably. According to figures compiled by environmental advocate, non-governmental agency Shipbreaking Platform, South Asian yards now offer about $450 per light displacement tonnage, or LDT, while Chinese yards offer only $210 and Turkish yards slightly better at $280 per LDT. A large container ship weighs in at around 25,000 LDTs. That translates into $11.25 million in India, but only $7 million in Turkey and $5.25 million in China.

―Most of the ship owners just care about top dollar, so even if the difference is just 200,000 euros, they will keep going to South Asia,‖ said Nicola Mulinaris, the communications and policy officer at Shipbreaking Platform, which monitors the industry and advocates for better environmental and worker standards.

Scrapping decrease

Shipbreaking Platform releases an annual survey on the industry. Last year, the organization reported, the industry globally scrapped 835 ships, which totaled 20.7 million gross tons. That‘s a substantial decrease from 2016, when 27.4 million tons were scrapped. The number of scrapped ships has fallen by more than 30% from the boom days of 2012-2013.

Source: Shipbreaking Platform: 2017 List of all ships scrapped worldwide - Facts and Figures

Shipbreaking is divided pretty evenly among ship types. According to Mulinaris‘s research, last year, for example, saw the demolition of 170 bulk carriers, 180 general cargo ships, 140 containers, 140 tankers, 20 vehicle carriers, 14 passenger ships and 30-40 oil and gas related units, which include platforms and drill ships. Most fall into the category of small and medium-sized ships, ranging from less than 500 gross tons to 25,000 gross tons, according to one market research survey.

The lower number of ships recycled in recent years reflects the dramatic fall in steel prices that took place beginning in 2015. That was largely because of overproduction in China, coupled with a steep fall in demand. Chinese producers flooded global markets with cheap steel. In India, that steel supply-and-demand mismatch was exacerbated by a downturn in domestic demand for steel and devaluation of the rupee, which made shipbreaking pricing much more difficult. Beginning in 2016, South Asian yards could offer only about $290 per LDT, down dramatically from $500 per LDT offered during the years before.

But steel prices have stabilized globally and analysts expect 2018 to be a growth year. A study by the Japan International Cooperation Agency has forecast the acceleration of global shipbreaking, notably oil tankers and container ships, from now on, but especially from 2020 until 2023. This reflects the scrapping of ships built during the later half of the 1990s, with a useful life of 26 or 27 years.

India is the clear leader in number of ships recycled, although Bangladesh led the pack in terms of gross tonnage, perhaps a better gauge of revenue. Pakistan was third in terms of gross tonnage, although Turkey broke more ships. The EU, by contrast, accounted for about 0.3% of gross tonnage.

Source: Shipbreaking Platform: Press Release – Platform publishes list of ships dismantled worldwide in 2017 [20 Feb 2018]

Breaking badly

South Asia‘s shipbreaking industry is centered on stretches of coastal beaches: In Alang, India; in Chittagong, Bangladesh; and in Gadani, Pakistan. Aliaga, in Turkey, has developed as that country‘s shipbreaking center, while Xinhui and other southern ports have established shipbreaking yards in China.

According to Shipbreaking Platform‘s research, there are 140 shipbreaking companies in Bangladesh, 50 active companies in India that have around 150 plots, and 40 companies in Pakistan, operating 130 plots. The industry employs 15,000 workers in Bangladesh, and 10,000 workers in India, although, said Mulinaris, ―these numbers reach peak of 40,000 in high season,‖ with a high reliance on unskilled, migrant labor.

Much of the labor force in South Asia lives in squalid conditions. Workers break ships on beaches with dangerous and polluting methods that environmental advocates vehemently oppose. These practices stand in stark contrast to shipyards not only in Western Europe and the US, but in Turkey and China as well. (see sidebar on page 6) ―If ships are not cut in a proper way, there‘s a huge impact not only on humans, but on the environment,‖ said Mulinaris.

Indian shipbreaking boosters counter that the bigger Indian yards are improving and point to a recent $76 million soft loan from Japan to upgrade Alang. ―Indian yards have invested heavily in improving the infrastructure and the standards of ship recycling keeping in mind the future regulations such as the Hong Kong Convention and the EU Ship Recycling Regulation,‖ wrote Kanu Priya Jain, in an email. Jain heads the green initiative for GMS, which claims to be the world‘s largest cash buyer of ships for breaking.

India and Bangladesh can offer a substantial premium for the price of recycled ships because of more than merely variations in the workplace environment, however. India, for example, is notoriously protectionist when it comes to domestic industry. After the price of steel plummeted, Indian domestic steel producers lobbied New Delhi. The Indian government responded by imposing a ―minimum import price‖ on Chinese steel in early 2016 and levied more anti-dumping duties. The result was a substantial increase in the price of domestic steel, which continues to this day.

Bangladesh is heavily dependent on the consumption scrap steel. According to a 2016 study published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, shipbreaking provided just over half the country‘s demand for raw materials and 37% of the demand for finished steel products. What‘s more, most of this steel isn‘t melted and mixed with iron in furnaces, as is common elsewhere. Instead, it‘s rerolled at low temperatures, fashioned into steel bars and then sold to the construction industry. The country‘s smaller rerolling mills are almost exclusively dependent on scrap from shipbreaking, according to the Journal.

Because it produces so much steel itself, China, by contrast, has very little demand domestically for scrap, with ferrous scrap imports declining steadily from 2009, a record 13.7 million tons, to just 2.2 million tons in 2016, about what it exported last year. That downturn corresponded with the decline in global market share in its shipbreaking industry from 31% of the total worldwide business to just 12% in 2016, according to one estimate.

In stark contrast to that in South Asia, China‘s shipbreaking industry is state-of-the-art, with many facilities, built to exacting environmental standards in the years before the financial collapse of 2008. Yard owners believed, erroneously as it turned out, that a combination of tougher environmental regulations and buoyant global trade would accelerate the retirement of many ships.

Overcapacity

That industry now suffers from enormous overcapacity. China has two or three shipbreaking yards each with capacity of one million to 1.5 million tons annually, according to Jain. That‘s more than the entire country recycled in 2017.

The Chinese government shares some of the responsibility. It attempted for years after the financial collapse to prop up Chinese ship breakers. In an effort to promote its shipbuilding industry and foster greener ships, Beijing had promoted the breaking up of old ships in homegrown yards by offering subsidies of about $200 per gross ton. But those subsidies ended in December, after a two-year extension.

Turkey offers a slightly different take. It is the world‘s largest importer of scrap steel, which Turkish manufacturers use as raw materials for producing automotive, railway and machinery products. So, there‘s a ready market for recycled steel in Turkey, whose shipbreaking yards boost of green practices that rival those in China.

The steamship industry‘s own woes have impacted the recycling market as well. Notably, scrapped ships have flooded the market from lines that have gone bankrupt. The highest profile was Hanjin Shipping, which a South Korean court ordered liquidated in February 2017. Many of the company‘s so-called ghost ships, stranded in ports around the world, ended up being scrapped.

But these numbers pale in relationship to a string of German ship liquidations, which accelerated last year. They included Rickmers Holding, Germany‘s third largest shipping line, which held more than 100 ships. Most of these were scrapped in South Asian yards because they could fetch more money than being sold whole or dismantled elsewhere, a decision made by creditor liquidators, not ship operators. ―Many insolvency liquidators are duty bound to achieve the highest proceeds for their creditors, or they could risk being made liable,‖ a spokesman of the German Shipowners‘ Association told Handelsblatt newspaper last year.

[American Journal of Transportation]

Shipbreaking: Financial institutions buying into mandate for safer practices

23/04/2018 By Matt Miller In January, Norway‘s Government Pension Fund Global, the world‘s largest sovereign wealth fund, announced it would stop investing in four shipping lines. The reason for such drastic action: The ship owners sell their vessels for scrapping that relies on what critics maintain are dangerous and polluting shipbreaking methods in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Environmental groups applauded the move, a relatively rare victory in a longstanding fight against these common shipbreaking practices on the beaches of South Asia, where some three-quarters of the world‘s annual shipbreaking is still performed in conditions one trade union called ―the world‘s most dangerous job.‖

―It sends out a strong signal to all financial institutions to follow suit,‖ said Ingvild Jenssen, founder and director of the Shipbreaking Platform, a non-profit organization that monitors shipbreaking and lobbies for environmental improvements in the practice.

Beaching refers to running ships aground at high speed when the tide is high, ―docking‖ the ships on the beach so they can be cut up when the waters recede. The practice divides the industry and those involved in shipping in general.

Critics believe that targeting ship owners may be one way to successfully pressure for change, even if owners sell their ships to intermediaries who do the actual contracting with the yards.

―In the end, it will be a lot of moral, ethical and hopefully financial pressure applied to ship owners, in particular for them to realize they have the potential of being the pariahs of the western world if they carry on operating the way that so many of them do,‖ said Martyn Day, senior partner at the London law firm Leigh Day. ―It‘s clear from what we have seen that profit remains the main driver for the ship owning companies and that when they pass on their ships to their intermediaries, they often seem to be totally aware of what‘s going to happen to those ships. The ship owners have a big role to play and bear a significant amount of the responsibility of what goes on.‖

Day‘s firm represented a Bangladeshi worker who lost a leg in a 2015 accident in a Chittagong shipbreaking yard, when a 40-ton ship propeller bounced off a metal platform. Through Day, the worker sued London-based Zodiac Maritime, which owned the ship before it was sold for cash to an intermediary, which in turn contracted with the Ferdous Steel Corp. shipyard in Bangladesh. According to Day, his client settled with the ship owner late last year. The terms of the settlement are confidential.

Supporters of the industry in South Asia, including some of the major cash buyers of ships, counter that yards shouldn‘t be automatically excluded for beaching. ―Environmentally sound recycling does not depend on the method of docking ships, and it is possible at all major recycling locations including the Subcontinent countries,‖ wrote Kanu Priya Jain, in an email. Jain is the business coordinator for responsible ship recycling at GMS, which claims to be the world‘s largest cash buyer of ships destined for scrapping. He claims his company is the first ―amongst competitors to have developed a responsible ship recycling program in Indian yards.‖ Environmental groups maintain that beaching by definition is hazardous, adding that worker conditions in the subcontinent are substandard and prone to abuse. ―Beaching a ship and scrapping a ship in intertidal areas in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh cannot be seen as environmentally and socially responsible,‖ said Nicola Mulinaris, the communications and policy officer at Shipbreaking Platform.

A few ship owners have begun to heed the call for industry reform. These lines include Canadian Shipping Line, Hapag Lloyd, Grieg Group, Wilhelmsen Group and Boskalis, all of which follow ―sustainable ship recycling policies,‖ according to Shipbreaking Platform. In addition, European banking institutions have begun to demand that shipping lines have a clear shipbreaking policy in order for ships to be financed.

Dutch banks ING, NIDC and ABN Amro and Scandinavian DNB announced the measure last year.

Multilateral policies have attempted to bring pressure as well on the various players. In 2009, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) drafted what is called the Hong Kong Convention. This seeks to insure ship recycling doesn‘t pose ―any unnecessary risks to human health, safety and to the environment.‖

However, not enough countries have ratified the agreement for it to be enforceable, Some Indian yards qualify for inclusion as being compliant, but only one yard in Bangladesh qualifies and none do in Pakistan. According to Jain, some 25%-30% of ships are now recycled through ―compliant practices.‖ The convention doesn‘t prohibit beaching per se. And, critics charge, the convention lacks teeth.

―We consider the Hong Kong convention as the first step in the wrong direction,‖ said Mulinaris. ―The enforcement of the regime relies on states and on recycling states, which have no interest in changing current standards.‖

By the end of this year, the European Union will begin enforcing strict standards for the recycling of ships flying EU flags. The EU requirements are far more exacting than those sanctioned by the Hong Kong Convention, with regulations requiring facilities to have impermeable floors. Recycled materials can‘t come into contact with either the sea or permeable surfaces such as sand. This, in effect, prohibits beaching.

However, the EU can‘t prevent these ships from being reflagged before being scrapped, which is common practice in the trade and is something critics believe to be a huge loophole in the new regulation. As it is, only about 5% of the ships recycled globally carry an EU flag, according to Shipbreaking Platform.

―The regulation is a good first step, but it‘s not sufficient,‖ said Mulinaris, who advocates adopting a recent study that recommended requiring a recycling license for all ships calling on European ports.

[American Journal of Transportation]

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIP

Advance your career by gaining Professional Recognition. Professional recognition is a visible mark of quality, competence and commitment, and can give you a significant advantage in today‘s competitive environment. All who have the relevant qualifications and the required level of experience can apply for Professional Membership of IAMSP. The organization offers independent validation and integrity. Each grade of membership reflects an individual‘s professional training, experience and qualifications. You can apply for Student Membership as per following :

Fellow (FIAMSP) To be elected as a fellow, the candidate must satisfy the council that he/she:  Has held for at least eight (8) years consecutively a high position of responsibility in shipping or related business.  Has distinguished himself/herself in shipping practice.  Is a principal in a firm or a director of a company in the business or profession.  Members in this grade are entitle to use the initials FIAMSP After their names.

Full Member (FMIAMSP)  Individuals holding an internationally recognised marine qualification, or who can prove that they have practiced on a full time basis for a minimum of five (5) years as a consultant or marine surveyor.  Individuals who, by producing written reports can demonstrate that they have practiced marine surveying or consultancy for at least five (5) years.  Individuals whose qualifications or experience shall be considered appropriate by the Professional Assessment Committee.  Members may use the initials FMIAMSP after their names.

Associate Member (AMIAMSP) Associate Membership shall be open to any person, partnership, company, firm or other corporate that does not own a Ship but is engaged in ship operating or ship management. Associate Members can nominate one (1) person to represent them in the Association. Associate Members are entitled to attend General Meetings and to participate in discussion at such meetings but shall not vote or stand for election to the Board of Directors.

Technician (TechIAMSP) Individuals holding a recognised qualification, for example Inspector level 2 or higher (NACE, FROSIO, ICorr), RMCI and IRMII, NDT Technicians (CSWIP), for example gauging personnel, divers or other surveyors with at least three years full time practical experience in a marine related field. Technician Members may use the designation TIAMSP after their names.

Affiliate (AFFIAMSP) Graduates who do not meet the criteria for Full or Associate Membership and are continuing to train and gain experience prior to applying for Associate Membership

Student (SIAMSP) Individuals who are enrolled in training programs related to the maritime or shipping will be appointed as student members of the Association for the duration of their course.

LAST MEMBERSHIP

 Fellow (FIAMSP)

M. Peter Harold Tedder M. Robinson Mark M. Jasim Aqeel

United Kingdom United Kingdom Iraq

 Full Member (FMIAMSP)

Capt. Siddig Atif M. MOREIRA JOAO PAULO Capt. Babasahib Mukadam Abdul rauf

Qatar Portugal Qatar

 Affiliate (AFFIAMSP)

M. Kirton Christopher M. Hubert Louis-philippe Mrs. HELENA ISABEL CAMPOS LANÇA PALMA

Singapore France Portugal

UPCOMING EVENTS SUMMARY

May BIG BUSINESS, BIG DATA, BIG IDEAS TO STAY AHEAD OF THE GAME IN LINER SHIPPING. 16 What keeps you up at night? Scale, agility, disruption? Knowledge is power! Get up to date at the annual meeting of the liner shipping industry.

May INTERNATIONAL MARINE INSURANCE SEMINAR 23 A complete toolkit to understanding the key principles of marine insurance.

May PROFILING THE SEAFARER OF THE FUTURE - ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE, ESSENTIAL NETWORKING 24 Radisson blu Hamburg,Hamburg

May

27 Singapore Maritime Week 2018

Singapore

May SHIPPING 360 TRAINING COURSE 27 The Hallam (Cavendish Venues), London

June FUTURE FUELS FOR 2020 COMPLIANCE SEMINAR 13 The Hatton,London

June 3RD ANNUAL PORTS AND TERMINALS INSURANCE SEMINAR 13 The Hallam (Cavendish Venues),London

February 2019 12th Arctic Shipping Summit – Montreal 21 Montreal - venue TBC