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Over the past eight quarters, ship recycling of bulkers, tankers and container ships has dropped to the lowest level in 20 years. “A combination of strong demand following a series of market shocks and low orderbooks have kept older ships operating for longer than usual,” says Filipe Gouveia, Shipping Analyst at BIMCO.During the first quarter of 2024, only two million deadweight tonnes (DWT) ship capacity were recycled. This marks the ninth consecutive quarter with recycling levels below three million DWT.

The pilot of the container ship that knocked down a highway bridge into Baltimore Harbor had radioed for tugboat help and reported a power loss minutes earlier, federal safety officials said on Wednesday, citing audio from the ship's "black box" data recorder.The head of the National Transportation Safety Board also said that Francis Scott Key Bridge, a traffic artery over the harbor built in 1976, lacked structural engineering redundancies common to newer spans, making it more…

Divers on Wednesday recovered the remains of two of the six workers missing since they were tossed into Baltimore Harbor from a highway bridge that collapsed into shipping lanes when a faltering cargo freighter rammed into the structure, officials said on Wednesday.The bodies were pulled from the mouth of the Patapsco River a day after the massive container ship lost power and its ability to maneuver before plowing into a support pylon of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, knocking…

Federal investigators on Wednesday examined the cargo ship that crashed into a Baltimore bridge while emergency teams searched for bodies and details emerged of the intense efforts to save lives in the minutes before the steel span collapsed."Hold all traffic on the Key Bridge. There's a ship approaching that just lost their steering," someone said on police radio minutes before the 1:30 a.m. crash on Tuesday.While voices were heard discussing next steps, including alerting any work crews to leave the bridge…

Constant attacks on Ukrainian Black Sea ports by Russian drones and missiles are leading to a slowdown in Ukraine's maritime agricultural exports, brokers said on Wednesday.A key maritime hub in the southern Odesa region has been under almost daily attacks in recent weeks, but authorities have not reported any significant damage to port infrastructure."Active shelling of Ukraine, particularly in the south, by Russia last week led to interruptions in export shipments and a slowdown in waterborne exports…

The catastrophic bridge collapse that closed the Port of Baltimore to ship traffic is unlikely to trigger a major new U.S. supply chain crisis or spike goods prices, due to ample and growing spare capacity at competing East Coast ports, economists and logistics experts say.With six people still missing after a container ship collision destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge, it remained unclear how long the span's twisted superstructure would block the harbor's mouth.But port officials…

Rescuers have lost hope of finding more survivors of the Baltimore bridge collapse, the coast guard said, as efforts switched on Wednesday to looking for bodies of the missing and more answers to why a container ship smashed into the span.Search divers were expected to return near dawn to the waters surrounding the twisted ruins of the bridge in Baltimore Harbor to search for six workers missing and now presumed dead.The disaster has forced the indefinite closure of the Port of Baltimore, one of the busiest on the U.S.

Search divers were expected to return near dawn on Wednesday to the waters surrounding the twisted ruins of a bridge knocked down in Baltimore Harbor by a faltering cargo ship, leaving six workers missing and presumed dead.The disaster also forced the indefinite closure of the Port of Baltimore, one of the busiest on the U.S. Eastern Seaboard, and created a traffic quagmire for Baltimore and the surrounding region.As the odds of their survival vanished, the search for the six workers was suspended on Tuesday evening…

U.S. importers are playing the waiting game with new container shipping contracts, gambling the rate spike from Red Sea vessel attacks will fade and put them in a stronger negotiating position, shipping industry analysts said.Iran-aligned Houthi missile and drone attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea have forced most container carriers to reroute vessels around Africa and sent spot rates soaring.That price shock is a "gift" that carriers will be giving back when the assaults stop…

Ukraine has managed to boost its Black Sea grain exports to a level not seen since before Russia's invasion, although the Red Sea shipping crisis poses a new challenge to its crucial agricultural trade.Kyiv's success in replacing a UN-backed Black Sea export deal with its own shipping scheme has brought relief for Ukrainian farmers and importing countries while representing a naval breakthrough for Ukraine's military as a land counteroffensive has stalled.The export turnaround…

Continued missile attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea have plunged supply chains into chaos, and consumers around the world will have to pay the price, according to Xeneta.Latest data from the industry analyst shows spot rates in the ocean freight shipping market spiked by 20% since Friday after major shipping liner companies such as Hapag Lloyd, MSC and Maersk announced they are avoiding the Red Sea amid the attacks by Houthi militia.Xeneta chief analyst Peter Sand said…

It is clear that sub-continent ship recycling markets are not going to have the bumper conclusion to 2023 that many had been hoping for, reports cash buyer GMS.“Instead, only a trickle of deals are being done to muted markets, as demand and sentiments continue to struggle for another week,” says GMS. “There was one further container deal done, amidst a last quarter flurry, but dry bulk supply has stalled as trading markets have enjoyed an unexpected spike, and it seems many owners…

Freight costs for ships using Ukraine's alternative export corridor have risen following an attack on a cargo vessel in the Black Sea off Odesa, brokers said on Friday.Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday a Russian missile damaged a Liberia-flagged civilian ship entering a Black Sea port in the Odesa region, killing one person and injuring four others. The vessel was supposed to transport iron ore to China.Later, they said that the corridor was working despite the attack. "As a result of a Russian missile hitting a cargo ship...

Threatened strikes by workers at Australian liquefied natural gas (LNG) providers would need to last more than a month to significantly push up global prices, analysts said this week.The Woodside Energy and Chevron operations supply about 10% of global LNG output and worries of a walkout have lifted prices of European gas benchmark TTF forward curve 5%-7% higher over the September-to-April period than just before the news of a potential strike.The three Australian plants facing possible strikes risk losing 4 to 5 billion cubic meters of production per month if they go offline…

Major Asian buyers of LNG could seek US cargoes in the coming weeks if worker-related disputes at key LNG facilities in Australia escalate, analysts said, as electricity demand continues surge due to warm weather.Uncertainty over labour disputes at western Australian facilities run by Woodside Energy Group and U.S. major Chevron have spurred Asian LNG prices to their highest in five months, and analysts say they could rise further.As many as 700 workers at the Australian facilities could potentially down tools over pay and job security, the first of them as early as Sept.

Three bulk carriers were robbed in the Singapore Strait earlier this week, a Singapore-based regional maritime security centre on Friday. One of the busiest commercial waterways in the world has seen a spike in piracy in recent years. The incidents of "petty crime" happened between Aug 8-9, when the ships were in the Phillip Channel in the Singapore Strait, said the Information Fusion Centre, which is a regional facility hosted by the Singapore navy. One of the ships was flagged to Cyprus, while the other two carried Liberia flags, the center said in a statement.

The product tanker orderbook to fleet ratio has surged from 5.4% in December 2022 to 9.3% in June 2023, driven by a remarkable 337% y/y rise in contracting during the first half of this year.“A spike in freight rates and product tanker demand is likely behind the surge in contracting,” says Filipe Gouveia, Shipping Analyst at BIMCO.By June 2023, product tanker contracting reached 8.9 million DWT. This means that more product tankers were already ordered in the first half of 2023 than during all of 2022.While the contracting of MR and LR1 ships saw notable growth…

City-run ferry operations have been relaunched from Jersey City’s southernmost coast in an effort to close transit gaps and create more affordable and efficient transportation options for low- and middle-income residents outside of the downtown area. Ferry service from and to the Port Liberte terminal shut down at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in February 2020. Jersey City Mayor Steven M. Fulop's administration recently acquired the ferry terminal to take an active role in subsidizing ferry rates for residents traveling to and from New York City.

Prices in the most volatile segment of ocean shipping are collapsing, but top retailers like Walmart and Home Depot should not expect relief until the spring contract renegotiation season, industry experts said.Spot rates, which cover anywhere from 10% to 40% of ocean container shipments and are considered a key indicator of the industry's health, are in free fall as recession looms and the pandemic-fueled U.S. import bubble deflates.The cost to send a container from Asia to the United States on the demand-sensitive spot market has tumbled more than 80% from its September peak above $20…

DP World expects freight rates to drop by a further 15% to 20% in 2023 as demand slows, the Dubai-based global logistics company's deputy chief executive and chief financial officer Yuvraj Narayan told Reuters on Monday.Narayan said the first signs of a significant drop in demand were visible and freight rates on the shipping side had declined quite significantly on certain routes as agencies including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) lowered growth forecasts.Freight rates are the prices at which cargoes are delivered by container from one point of the globe to another.The biggest problem

-Monthly sales of marine fuel, also known as bunker fuel, hit over five-year highs at the world's largest refuelling hub Singapore in May as vessel arrivals spiked amid firm container throughput, official data showed on Wednesday.Singapore's bunker sales are an indicator of sentiment at one of the world's major ports and demand also affects fuel oil refining margins in Asia. Sales extended gains for a third consecutive month to 4.52 million tonnes, up 6.2% month-on-month, Singapore's Maritime and Port Authority data showed.

A flood of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects due online worldwide in mid-decade will vie against lower-cost renewable energy and a revived nuclear power sector, which could rock gas prices and hurt some proposed projects, analysts say.Proposed and approved new LNG plants would boost LNG supply by 67% increase to 636 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) by 2030 from 2021 levels, potentially saturating the gas market."There's over a trillion dollars of natural gas infrastructure being built in the world today.

Sembcorp Marine celebrated the naming of JMS Sunshine, its first of a series of LNG hybrid tugs specially designed for domestic service in Singapore.Sembcorp Marine commissioned the design and build of the world’s first LNG hybrid tug in 2018, and the company plans to build a fleet of tugs to progressively replace the existing diesel-powered fleet operated by Jurong Marine Services (JMS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Sembcorp Marine Ltd and a licensed operator of the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore.