Law Enforcers News

In the United States, it is a frustrating time to be in the government shipbuilding business. Even though America depends upon maritime commerce and faces growing security risks at sea, shipbuilding is just not a major national focus.Up to now, shipbuilders have had it pretty good. For the past several years, big naval shipbuilders have enjoyed steady growth and strong performance. In 2020, Huntington Ingalls Industries enjoyed record revenue of $9.4 billion, an 8.5% margin and gave a quarter billion back to shareholders in dividends and stock buybacks.

Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) is considering using a chemical marking system to help trace oil products smuggled out of the country, its chairman said on Wednesday. Mustafa Sanalla also called on a European Union naval mission to combat smugglers by seizing their ships in the Mediterranean, said the United Nations should consider sanctioning smugglers, and urged Libya to reform massive subsidies that allow fuel to be sold for as little as 2-3 U.S. cents per liter. "The fuel smugglers and thieves have permeated not only the militias which control much of Libya…

Philippine fishermen threw fire bombs at Chinese law enforcement vessels in the South China Sea, China's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, after Philippine media said fishermen had been struck by bottles hurled from Chinese coast guard ships. China and the Philippines have long exchanged accusations about each other's behaviour in the disputed South China Sea. China claims most of the energy-rich waters through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Neighbours Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims. Philippine media said this week that a group of fishermen had been chased away from Scarborough Shoal by Chinese coast guards who hurled bottles at them. The fishermen then responded with rocks, the reports said.

So, Maersk, MSC and CMA CGM will not be allowed to form what would have been the largest mega-alliance in the shipping industry. But what are the implications, and what is likely to happen next? Drewry Martime Research consider these questions in their latest Container Insight Weekly. China’s regulators have blocked the P3 mega-alliance between Maersk, MSC and CMA CGM on the grounds that it infringes the country’s competition laws between Asia and Europe, particularly with respect to the lines’ combined market share of 46.7%. The law enforcers appear to believe that the cost reductions gained by the P3 carriers would either have been offset by this unacceptably high risk of market concentration, or would not have been passed back to shippers satisfactorily.

European Union tax revenue authorities are on the alert for any infringement of complicated bunker fuel tax regulations. Turn the key of one of the big ones and 10 minutes later you will have spent hundreds of Euros - and that is without even moving from the spot. Add some cruising speed to it and you will be burning at least €2,000 an hour at average speed, based on the current price of diesel in France and Italy. Fuel is obviously the single most expensive cost item of running a superyacht. Little wonder the realisation triggers various behaviours down there in the Med, some just heady and erratic, others downright rum and perverse.