Seacurus Daily: Top Ten Maritime News Stories 11/11/2016
1. Idled Fleet Reaches New High
The idled container ship fleet has reached an all-time high even as shipowners sell a record number of vessels for scrap. Scrapping vessels is one of the few tools left for shipping lines seeking to bring supply in line with demand, but there are doubts that scrapping will be enough to reach this balance given the current capacity glut and orders for new ships still on the books. There were 397 ships above 500 twenty-foot-equivalent units with an aggregate capacity of 1.59 million TEUs, or 7.8 percent of the global fleet, without work on Oct. 31, according to industry analyst Alphaliner.
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2. Port States on Sulphur
The two major port State control regimes – Paris MoU and Tokyo MoU – will increase focus on the sulphur limit regulations. The decision has been made on the basis of a Danish/Dutch proposal. Port State control authorities across 45 countries and 5 continents – South America, North America, Europe, Asia and Australia – have agreed to carry out a so-called Concentrated Inspection Campaign (CIC) in 2018 focusing on air pollution from ships. Peter Krog-Meyer, Senior Adviser of the Danish Maritime Authority:
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3. Hanjin Draws Bids
Hanjin Shipping Co. has drawn two final bids, including one from Hyundai Merchant Marine Co., for the assets of its Asia-U.S. route and its stake in a California terminal, as the beleaguered company is broken up as part of a restructuring plan. Hyundai Merchant, South Korea’s largest shipping line, and Korea Line Corp., a smaller operator of dry bulkers and liquefied-natural-gas carriers have submitted proposals to acquire Hanjin’s trans-Pacific assets. In their proposals, both companies also expressed their intention to purchase Hanjin’s 54% stake in Total Terminals International LLC, which runs Long Beach Terminal in California.
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4. NATO Migrant Operation
NATO, with the participation of a Turkish frigate, has begun a new standing maritime security operation in the Mediterranean Sea named Operation Sea Guardian. Three NATO ships and two submarines – the Italian frigate ITS Aviere, the Bulgarian frigate BGS Verni, the Turkish frigate TCG Gemlik, the Greek submarine HS Papanikolis and the Spanish submarine ESPS Mistral – started to conduct the first patrols in the central Mediterranean as part of Operation Sea Guardian, NATO reported on Nov. 9. Air support to Operation Sea Guardian will include patrols by from Turkey, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece, NATO stated.
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5. US Shipping Soars
U.S. shipping stocks from dry bulk ship owners to tanker companies have soared since Donald Trump was elected President. At of end of day Thursday, the Dow Jones US Marine Transportation Index had risen 6.54% since markets opened Wednesday morning, helped along by a 3.60% gain on Thursday. Dryships, which specializes in the transportation of drybulk cargoes, ended Thursday up a staggering 133%. Other shipping company’s that enjoyed double digit percentage gains Thursday included Navios Maritime, Diana Shipping, Star Bulk, Ardmore Shipping and Eagle Bulk.
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6. White Powder on Food Cargoes
UK P&I Club has been advised of a number of incidents involving white powder deposits being found on food cargoes that have been transported in refrigerated containers. The presence of aluminium oxide/hydroxide, which appears as white powder deposits on food cargoes, can result in lost transportation revenues, customer rejections, insurance claims and even government mandated destruction of the food cargoes. George Radu, Claims Executive at UK P&I Club, comments on how this cargo loss can be prevented.
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7. NORTH Tackles High Court
North P&I Club has successfully supported a Member in its appeal against a UK High Court decision. The Court of Appeal overturned the 5 March 2015 decision in Volcafe Ltd and others v. CSAV, which has been viewed by the shipping community as widely detrimental to shipowners. Chilean shipowner CSAV carried bagged coffee in 17 non-ventilated containers between Columbia and Germany in 2012. Despite lining the containers with two layers of kraft paper, as specified by the shippers, 2.6% of the cargo was found to have been damaged by condensation on arrival.
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8. Cruise Passenger Dies
A British cruise passenger has died and nine others injured after their bus crashed during an onshore excursion in the Caribbean. The passenger, who was on board a P&O Cruise, died from their injuries after being involved in the accident in Dominica on Wednesday lunchtime. The cruise ship Azura set off from Southampton on October 28th with more than 3000 guests on board. Those involved in the accident have not been named – the majority have now been discharged from a local hospital. The bus, which was operated by a shore excursion provider, was carrying 12 passengers – including 10 guests from the cruise ship.
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9. Drug Chase in Caribbean
A Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) ship has intercepted ÂŁ40m of cocaine after a dramatic six-hour chase in the Caribbean. The "RFA Wave Knight" was called into action after a patrol plane spotted a suspicious speedboat in the sea between Puerto Rico and Venezuela on Thursday. The 31,500-tonne "Wave Knight" entered the chase, also launching her Lynx helicopter. A sniper from the Royal Marines fired warning shots and, after these were ignored, fired shots that took out the speedboat’s engines. The speedboat was brought to a halt and the US Coast Guard boarded and seized 350kg of cocaine.
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10. Hanjin Makes Redundancies
Hanjin Shipping has handed 560 crew redundancy notices effective December 10 with the remaining 2,000 crew linked to the Korean line expected to receive similar notices in the coming couple of weeks. The business title also states that every single ship in the Hanjin fleet will now be sold to pay off debts. Today also marked the deadline for bids to be submitted to take over a tranche of Hanjin assets including five 6,500 teu ships and a stake in a terminal in Long Beach. Five bids are believed to have been tabled – all from Korean companies, with Hyundai Merchant Marine deemed the likely winner.
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Daily news feed from Seacurus Ltd – providers of MLC crew insurance solutions www.seacurus.com
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