East Coast Of Mexico News

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a ruling to New Fortress Energy, confirming that the transportation of LNG produced at the its FLNG facility located offshore Altamira in Mexico by non-U.S. qualified vessels would not violate the Jones Act.As a result of this ruling, NFE is now able to sell and deliver LNG produced at its FLNG facility located offshore Altamira, Mexico to U.S. locations, including Puerto Rico.Puerto Rico represents a key downstream market for New Fortress Energy…

APS Technology Group, Inc., located in San Diego, a leading provider of optical character recognition and automation technology solutions for marine and intermodal container terminals announced it has entered the Mexico container terminal market with Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH) implementing the APS Automated Gate System optical character recognition (OCR) solution at two marine container terminals at the ports of Manzanillo and Veracruz. The solution will automate the container…

Bristol Harbor Group, Inc.(BHGI), of Bristol, RI, recently completed design plans for modifications to Trico Moon, a 210-ft platform supply vessel (PSV) for Trico Marine Services Company, Inc. of Texas. Trico Marine Services and Deep Ocean Engineering, Inc. performed the modifications in Mexico, which included the addition of a habitation module, as well as subsea equipment on deck. The installation/addition of the temporary habitability module to the port side of the cargo deck…

With effect from 1 January 2009, the Hamburg Süd shipping group is replacing its Costa Container Lines (CCL) brand with the Hamburg Süd name in order to present itself worldwide under a unified brand. Hamburg Süd took over the liner operations of the long-established Italian shipping company on 1 December 2007. CCL is recognised as a specialist in the trades between the Western Mediterranean and South America East and North Coast, as well as between South America East Coast and Mexico/Caribbean. These operations are complemented by an extensive network of feeder services in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Caribbean. Through brand consolidation Hamburg Süd is seeking to harmonise all its operations, exploit synergies and, as a result, achieve added value for its customers.

Caribbean dirty tanker trades have sustained a massive hit, tumbling from W255 at the end of last week to W202.5, New York brokers said. "The holiday doldrums have left a lot of spare tonnage and that has affected rates. With both Christmas and New Year's Day falling on Mondays this year, we've had two short weeks in a row and the market simply couldn't take that," said one dirty tanker broker. He pointed to Exxon's fixture of the 70,000 tonr Lucky Lady from Covenas to the U.S. Gulf as the initial blow to the market. The fall in rates ends a bull-run that began in November last year and peaked in December at just below W400. "From there it just went down in 10 point increments until we got to 202.5," he said.

Tanker rates have plummeted over recent weeks, sending VLCC owners groping around for the bottom of the market, which, according to brokers, has apparently been found. At W85 for VLCCs going east and W83 for west from the Mideast Gulf, rates appear to have halted their slide toward the end of the week, brokers said. Last Friday, eastbound rates stood at W92 and westbound rates were close to W90. But while VLCCs appeared to have found their floor, million-barrel tankers seemed to have crashed through another level and were still headed earthwards. "I can't really explain it, and I don't see much sign of imminent recovery," said one London tanker broker.

North Sea tanker rates have reversed a three-month decline and are now making significant gains, brokers said. "Everyone's come out of the woodwork to look for tankers for dates from the 20th (of March) onwards," said a London broker. He said that the market for Aframaxes (80,000 tonners) that usually ply the North Sea trades had been helped by the fact that the million-barrel tankers that had recently been competing for North Sea cargoes had now disappeared. London's Baltic Exchange has uprated its assessment of the benchmark route from Sullom Voe to Wilhelmshaven by a fifth so far this week to stand at W190 ($1.01 per barrel). Owners of Aframaxes last week took advantage of Italian legislation to push up rates in the Mediterranean.

Rates for Aframax tankers (70-80,000 tons) took a pounding this week, most notably in the Caribbean market, but elsewhere markets remained flat, brokers said. U.S. brokers said Orion's fixture of the 70,000-ton Astro Sirius from the East Coast of Mexico to the U.S. Gulf demonstrated the extent of the slump in the Caribbean market, which lost almost two months of gains to land at W215 on Friday. Last week, Oslo broker Fearnleys noted that the North Sea market was "primed for a beating" after several days of total silence. Rates fell 50 points last week and a further 20 points this week to below W180. Fixture lists showed the North Sea market being hit by an invasion of million-barrel tankers towards the end of the week.