Archive for February, 2010
Payment of Ransom to Pirates Held Not to Be Contrary to Public Policy
pircay
The UK High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, Commercial Court ruled that it is wrong to categorize the payment of ransom to Somali pirates for return of a hijacked vessel, its crew, and its cargo as contrary to public policy. In the instant case, plaintiff owned cargo on a vessel that was hijacked on [...]
Tanker rates poised for hike: report
tanker
The world tanker market stands to benefit if an improving economy and declining oil inventories prompt the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase production, according to a report from Jefferies & Co. A premium of April crude-oil futures over March narrowed to 15 US cents a barrel on Monday, when the March contract [...]
Singapore: Mixed response to shipping tax breaks
cargo
The various tax incentives for the maritime sector were met with a mixed response from industry players, however the consensus was that it was a positive signal to encourage the development of Singapore as a maritime hub. The key changes announced in the Budget are the inclusion of ship management fees as tax exempt under [...]
Chinese shipbuilding industry only gets 6pct orders in January
shipbuilding
It is reported that Chinese shipbuilding industry faces a new round of price competitions. As ship prices hit the bottom in last Q3, some ship owners snapped up the chance to place some orders. According to statistics from Clarkson, new ship contracts reached some 1.89 million deadweight tons in January. South Korean shipbuilders took up [...]
Floating storage ‘critical for tankers’
tanker
The amount of oil held on vessels at sea will remain a critical factor for the tanker market this year amid soft energy demand and rising ship supply, leading ship broker E A Gibson said yesterday. Last year a price play taking advantage of prompt oil that was cheaper than further forward prices had encouraged [...]
Calculating the Value of a Container Shipping Company
conteiner
Containerized shipping deals with the transportation of mainly finished goods by sea. Containers are usually twenty foot equivalent (Teu) and forty foot equivalent (Feu) boxes. Theses boxes come in different forms such as standard, high cube, open top, flat rack, hard top, refrigerated, etc. Container shipping is a cyclical and capital intensive industry.
As the above [...]
Taiwan: Government unveils tax waiver plan for foreign companies
conteiner
The government will waive the business income tax for foreign manufacturers if they store or reprocess their products in any free-trade port in Taiwan before shipping abroad, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) said yesterday. MOTC Deputy Minister Yeh Kuang-shih said in a meeting with shipping companies yesterday that this was one of the [...]
Boxship cancellations hit 6.7% of orderbook
conteiner
Cancellations of containership orders have reached 140 ships for 436,000 teu since the start of the financial crisis in September 2008, according to Alphaliner records. The level of cancellations is lower than the ones observed in the bulk carrier and tanker segments and it represents 6.7% of the 6.51 million teu containership orderbook at 1 [...]
Supply glut weighs on Precious revenue
Revenue at Precious Shipping Plc, Thailand’s second largest dry-bulk carrier, has plunged sharply this year because of an expected drop in time charter rates in line with the dry-bulk supply glut, says managing director Khalid Hashim. “This year’s time charter rates are expected to reach US$12,500 (414,874 baht) per day per ship on average, a [...]
Bangladesh ship breakers protest new standards
ship
Bangladesh’s ship breaking yards ground to a halt Monday as some 30,000 workers protested a government decree aimed at improving environmental standards in the industry, police said. Under a government order issued in late January said, ships heading for breaking yards must now be certified as toxic chemical-free before they are imported and scrapped.
“Ship breakers [...]
