Ship Rejected in China on Radiation
According to a report from Bloomberg, a ship that had “abnormal” amounts of radiation after passing 67 nautical miles off Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, site of a crippled nuclear-power station, was heading back to the country after being rejected by authorities in China. The MOL Presence was due to arrive in Kobe on March 30 from Xiamen, according to AISLive Ltd. ship-tracking data on Bloomberg. (Source: Bloomberg)
Australia: Shipping Rates Poised to Plunge 31%
According to a report from Bloomberg, a 20-mile-long line of commodity carriers off Queensland, suffering its worst floods in a half- century, means less income for owners already reeling from the biggest slump in freight rates in more than two years. There are 132 vessels floating off the Australian state, which accounts for about 50% of the global seaborne supply of coal used in steelmaking, data collected by AISLive and compiled by Bloomberg show. (Source: Bloomberg)
Philippines to Ban Single-Hull Vessels
The Philippines will ban single-hull oil tankers from its waters from April, two years earlier than planned, after the worst oil spill in the country's history and a separate leak in South Korea. Vessels carrying "black" petroleum products such as crude oil and bunker fuel won't be allowed to dock at ports from April 1 without a double hull, said Transportation Undersecretary Len Bautista in a phone interview from Manila. The single-hull crude oil supertanker Hebei Spirit caused the worst spill in South Korea's history last month after it was struck by a crane causing it to lose 66,000 barrels of crude oil, about 1/3 the size of the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989.
