The Exim Bank News

The Great Lakes Towing Company (GLT) on Monday unveiled plans to roll out a new breakbulk and RoRo shipping service serving the Caribbean.The Cleveland, Ohio-based company announced the formation of Great Lakes East (GLE), effectively reactivating Crimson Shipping Company’s former domestic and international marine transportation business, based out of Mobile, Ala. However, GLE will shift the primary load port to Fernandina Beach, Fla.GLE will initially service the trade with the 270- by 80-foot fully enclosed deck barge…

Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright has advised Citigroup and other lenders of Danaos on a $2.2 billion restructuring of NYSE-listed Danaos Corp (DAC), one of the world’s largest independent owners of modern, large-size containerships.Norton Rose Fulbright’s Athens, London and New York offices advised Citigroup and certain other lenders (including China Exim Bank and Eurobank) on new money, take out and refinancing facilities, restructuring support agreements, debt for equity arrangements, debt trading, Chinese ECA aspects and complex shared security and other intercreditor agreements.The transaction, which completed out of court,…

Creditors of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) are set to announce a debt-for-equity swap and other measures, worth 3 trillion won (US$2.62 billion), reports Yonhap. Korea Development Bank (KDB), a main creditor of DSME, said that the bank will accept debt-to-equity swaps worth at least 1.6 trillion won ($1.4 billion) to keep the company operating with sufficient financial liquidity. KDB along with  the other creditor Export-Import Bank of Korea (EXIM Bank) would provide a combined 4.2 trillion won worth of financial aid to Daewoo Shipbuilding, which breaks down to 2.6 trillion won from KDB and 1.6 trillion won from the other lender. The financial support includes a debt-for-equity swap and the purchase of stocks to be issued by the shipbuilder.

India will on Monday sign a commercial contract with Iran to build and run a strategic port on Iran's southern coast, the Indian government said on Friday, to help it gain a foothold in Iran and win access to central Asia and Afghanistan. Talks to build the Chabahar port have been on for years but since the scaling back of Western sanctions against Iran, India has pushed hard for the project so it doesn't lose out to other such as China, who are keen to invest. The deal under which India will develop two terminals and cargo berths at Chabahar, on the Gulf of Oman, will be signed during a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Iran beginning on Sunday.

Matthew Paxton is President of the Shipbuilders Council of America (SCA), and a partner at the law firm of Adams and Reese. SCA is the national trade association representing 41 companies that own and operate more than 120 shipyard facilities on all three U.S. coasts, the Great Lakes, inland waterways system, Alaska and Hawaii. SCA also represents 97 partner members that provide goods and services to the shipyard industry. Paxton, who has been practicing law since 2001, focuses his practice on maritime law and policy, fisheries law, natural resources development, and environmental policy issues. In addition to the SCA presidency in which…

South Korea’s second-largest shipbuilder Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME) hit a hurdle in its efforts to get capital injection after the Export-Import Bank of Korea (Korea Exim Bank) delayed necessary funding for its shipbuilding project, reports MKBN. In June, DSME won a $1.8 billion order from Danish container-shipping giant Maersk Line to build 11 ultra-large container vessels with a capacity of 19,630 TEU. The Korea Development Bank (KDB) and Korea Exim Bank, two largest creditors of Daewoo Shipbuilding, issued Maersk refund guarantee (RG) for five and six megaships, respectively. But Korea Exim Bank paid Daewoo Shipbuilding only 60 percent of 900 billion won ($75.3 million)…

Seaspan Corporation has lined-up a $1bn worth of export credit facilities with the Export-Import Bank of China (CEXIM). Seaspan has signed a Framework Cooperation Agreement with the Export-Import Bank of China (CEXIM) for a total of up to $1 billion in export credit facilities. The credit facilities would be made available to Seaspan for the purchase and construction of vessels from shipyards in China within the next three years. Gerry Wang, Chief Executive Officer, Co-Chairman and Co-Founder of Seaspan commented, "We appreciate the strong support Seaspan continues to receive from leading banks around the world. "With the signing of this Framework Cooperation Agreement, we expect to be able to enhance our financial flexibility and increase our access to growth capital.

Financially troubled Chinese shipbuilder Sainty Marine has announced Bank of China and China Exim Bank have frozen its bank accounts. Shenzhen-listed Sainty Marine has also announced that it has reached an agreement with Dutch ship investment firm, Universal Marine, for the cancellation of four 2,350teu containerships. Universal Marine ordered the vessels at Sainty Marine in March 2014, however, it has been unable to secure the financing to start the newbuilding project, which has led to the cancellation of the vessels. No compensation is involved in the agreement. The struggling shipbuilder said that it had not received a court notice from the banks on their decision. The move comes following last week’s court order on freezing of the company’s assets worth RMB 300 million.

Two of Korea's major shipbuilding financiers are creating fiscal risks for the government due to the shipbuilding industry's struggles, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warned yesterday. The report comes just days after Korean shipyards retook the number one spot in global compensated gross tonnage (CGT) delivered, after delivering 12.1m in CGT in 2014. Korea had the number one spot from 2002 to 2009, until falling to second behind China in 2010, the Maritime Executive reported. The Korea Times said that two-state owned export credit agencies, Korea Exim Bank and K-Sure, were singled out as having a problematic level of investment in an industry that is increasingly struggling to pay its debts.

Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding  (SWS), a  yard owned by the industrial conglomerate China State Shipbuilding Corp (CSSC), has secured a US$312million loan from the Export-Import Bank of China to build three 18,000 teu containerships. The deal marks the first time that SWS will be building large containerships of 18,000 teu in capacity. The new buildings will be deployed on the main Asia-Europe trading lanes and the charterer is one of the world’s top three biggest lines, according to CSSC. Founded in 1999, SWS is a wholly owned subsidiary of China CSSC Holding Ltd., a publicly listed company controlled by China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC). The main business of SWS covers design, construction and repair of marine vessels and offshore products.

The development of a successful shipbuilding sector has been pivotal to the rapid and robust economic development in most countries in the world with long coastal boundaries. Shipbuilding industry has the potential to significantly contribute to national GDP. The sector has an immense direct and indirect positive impact on most other manufacturing and ancillary industries, besides its huge dependence on infrastructure and services sectors in an economy. The Study, which analyses the shipbuilding industry in select countries, noted that, in line with the trends in global trade, the global shipbuilding industry witnessed a continued contraction during the period 2008 to 2012…

According to a Feb. 2 report from the Machinist, a research study by Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) assessed that the shipbuilding industry in the country has the potential to grow at a rate of more than 30%, and this rate of growth could be achieved through supportive measures by the government, including incentives for shipyards. (Source: Machinist)

I hope that this headline, if you saw it, scared you as much as it did me. Although I have some confidence about the future of shipping, or I wouldn’t be here, my topic today is about forecasting. Forecasting, to the ancient Greeks and Romans, had a lot to do with omens. The ancient Greeks sought their guidance from the stars, which they believed help them predict the course of future events. The Romans, on the other hand, sought to predict the future in the flight of birds, the cackling of geese, and most famously in the examining of entrails of poultry and domestic animals. The experts who did this kind of thing were called augurs. Today, we rely on Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke. History, however, is on the side of the ancients.

The Bourbon 2015 Leadership Strategy consists of further investing in innovative and cost effective vessels to satisfy customers’ increasing focus on safe and efficient vessels to support their offshore activities, and to enable them to reduce their overall operation costs. By adding 80 supply vessels and 64 crewboats through a $2b investment plan in new buildings, Bourbon will be operating a fleet of 600 vessels for deepwater and shallow water logistics services by 2015. The Bourbon 2015 Leadership Strategy will be built on the Bourbon Liberty series of vessels, to speed up the renewal of the old and obsolete existing shallow water fleet and on the proven expertise of its deepwater operations for exploration and production, including subsea activities.

As a result of the collaboration between the New Orleans U.S. Export Assistance Center and the United States Commercial Service in Colombia, representatives from the Port of South Louisiana and 12 other Louisiana-based companies with maritime-related ties participated in the Louisiana Trade Mission to Colombia, March 8-15, 2009. The Trade Mission group, led by U.S. Embassy Commercial Service Counselor Margaret Hanson-Muse, traveled to four Colombian cities – Bogotá, Cartagena…

India’s newest private shipbuilding firm,Pipavav Shipyard Ltd, is the latest in a growing list of firms looking to enter the business of making diesel ship engines in an attempt to meet growing demand for these in India and in other parts of the world, and is talking to two multinational firms for a partnership. Last week, Pipavav Shipyard started work on the first four of 26 Panamax bulk carriers that have been ordered by Norwegian, French and Greek fleetowners for a total of $1.1 billion (Rs4,360 crore). The contract makes Pipavav the world’s second biggest Panamax size shipbuilder by order size after Japan’s dry bulk cargo shipbuilding specialist Oshima Shipbuilding Co. Ltd.

A multinational shipping firm that has signed a deal to have its ships built at an Indian shipyard, which is still under construction, has already sold the ships, an indication of growing demand for ocean-going vessels. This is the first time such a thing is happening at an Indian shipyard. The yard, Pipavav Shipyard Ltd, is under construction and will not start building ships before February 2008. On 19 March, the Bermuda-based Golden Ocean Group Ltd.—the dry bulk cargo ship operating firm controlled by Norwegian shipping tycoon John Fredriksen—had placed orders with Pipavav Shipyard to build four Panamax bulk carriers, each with a cargo carrying capacity of 75,000 tonnes. The agreed price of each vessel was $35.5m. The company also placed an "optional" order for two more Panamax vessels.

The U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) has posted on its Internet site EXIM Bank Form F - Monthly Report of Ocean Shipments Moving under Export-Import Bank Financing. Also posted are the Instructions