Caixin News

The world's leading exporter of thermal coal on Saturday banned the shipments because of concerns it could not meet its own power demand, prompting President Joko Widodo on Monday to threaten to revoke business permits for any miners who failed to meet domestic market requirements.In turn, Indonesian coal miners want a quick resolution as fuel prices rise and and potential disruptions to the energy supplies of some of the world's biggest economies loom.The wider risk is of a knock-on impact on economic linchpins China…

Only 10 days ago, reports indicated that China cargoes were returning to pre-coronavirus levels, and there appeared to be light at the end of the tunnel. Today, however, a barrage of new headlines has underscored the impact on the rapidly changing global supply chain, including in the United States. In addition to the aggressive spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), new economic developments indicate a decreased trend in global manufacturing. Changes in local economies negatively impacting employees reflect corresponding changes in consumer buying patterns.

The ship-leasing unit of China’s state-owned shipbuilder China State Shipbuilding Corp. (CSSC) plans to raise as much as HK$2.2 billion ($280 million) in an initial public offering in Hong Kong.CSSC (Hong Kong) Shipping, the leasing company, is issuing 153.4 million shares at an indicative price range of HK$1.34 to HK$1.42. The minimum investment is HK$2,868.62 per lot of 2,000 shares.CSSC (Hong Kong) Shipping owns 100 vessels with a total value of $5.6 billion.According to Caixin, CSSC will remain the largest shareholder of the Hong Kong unit with 75% after the listing.The report said that CSSC (Hong Kong) Shipping has secured four cornerstone investors that subscribed for a combined 1.25 billion shares.The investors are China Reinsurance Corp., China Shipping Container Lines Co.

The world’s largest shipbuilding nation China is facing some tough years ahead as new-vessel orders weaken and order backlogs decline, Caixin reported quoting China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry (CANSI). According to the industry association, in the first half of 2017, new orders received by Chinese shipbuilders plunged by 29 percent year-on-year in terms of total estimated freight volume for the new ships, the report said. The new orders are totaling 11.51 million deadweight tons. Deadweight tonnage is how much a ship can safely carry, not the weight of the ship itself. The order backlog held by Chinese shipyards also dropped 30.5% from a year earlier to 82.84 million deadweight tons, the association said.

Rumors that COSCO Shipping Corp plans to bid for Hong Kong's Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) are incorrect, a spokeswoman for the Chinese shipping giant said on Friday.   "We deny these rumors," she told Reuters.   On Wednesday, the Caixin newspaper reported that the company would participate in bidding for the unit of Orient Overseas International Ltd, alongside Taiwan's Evergreen Marine Corp and France's CMA CGM.   Reporting by Brenda Goh

Chinese conglomerate Cosco Group is in talks to acquire smaller rival Hong Kong-based rival Orient Overseas Container Line Co. ( OOCL), Chinese media outlet Caixin reported quoting people familiar with the matter. The state-owned China COSCO  will compete with Evergreen Marine Corp. from Taiwan and France’s CMA-CGM SA in the takeover bid, but COSCO was more likely to win the deal, a source from COSCO told Caixin. A representative at COSCO Shipping's media relations department said the company wasn't aware of the bidding. However, the shares of OOCL surged the most in five years on Wednesday on the Hong Kong stock exchange following the reports.

China's COSCO Shipping Co Ltd may consider buying the port assets of troubled South Korean firm Hanjin Shipping Co Ltd, Chinese online finance magazine Caixin reported on Wednesday. But COSCO Shipping has no plans to buy the world's seventh-largest container carrier's ships, Caixin cited the Chinese firm's Chairman Xu Lirong as saying. Hanjin Shipping collapsed last month. Earlier on Wednesday, a South Korean court said it has not yet decided whether a sale of the company is necessary. Reporting by Beijing Monitoring Desk and Paul Carsten

China COSCO Shipping will not raise its shipping prices as it had planned, reports Caixin quoting shipping agency representatives at Shanghai’s port. The shipping giant has given up its plan to take advantage of Hanjin Shipping’s bankruptcy by raising prices after a surge of international cargo prices turned out to be temporary, says the report. The shipping market witnessed a spike in prices in the first few days after Hanjin filed for court receivership on Aug. 31. One container shipped from China to the western coast of the United States, for instance, cost about $695 shortly before Hanjin filed for receivership. But on Sept. 2, the price jumped to $949, an increase of nearly 40 percent.

Algeciras Bay Port Authority in southern Spain has put up a tender for its third container terminal, and China's Cosco Shipping Ports is already being mentioned as a fore runner candidate, says a report by Caixin. According to port authority, Algeciras is Spain's biggest container port and oil importing dock, and handled 2.3 million 20-foot containers in the first half the year – a 13 percent year on year increase. Cosco Shipping Ports  Ltd., the port operating arm of state-owned China COSCO Shipping Corp., is the world's fourth-largest container operator by capacity. Its recent overseas shopping spree includes buying two-thirds of Piraeus…

China's  state-owned shipbuilder Zhoushan Wuzhou Ship Repairing & Building Co. Ltd (ZWSRB)  is first government-backed shipbuilder to go under since sector started having problems last year. Zhoushan Intermediate People's Court said it accepted a petition filed by Zhejiang Shipping Group regarding the bankruptcy of a subsidiary called ZWSRB, reports Caixin. The court said it had frozen the assets of Wuzhou Ship Repairing & Building, which was founded in 2001. The shipbuilder had debts of 911 million yuan and total assets of 534 million yuan as of September 30 this year, its financial report showed. Wuzhou Ship Repairing & Building started having financial difficulties last year, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

China State Council has given the go-ahead for country's two largest shipping conglomerates to merge, continuing a trend in the industry to trim down state-owned enterprises, reports Caixin Media. The China Ocean Shipping Co. (COSCO Group) and China Shipping Group Co. have been working on a deal since August. The listed subsidiaries of the two firms are expected to make separate statements on their next step on December 11, the executive said. Meanwhile, WSJ reported that the shipping companies plan to issue details of their long-expected  multibillion-dollar merger plans as early as Friday, quoting people with knowledge of the matter.

Drop in commodity prices has slashed global demand for bulk carriers, pushing shipyards out of business, says Chinese news agency Caixin. Huai Jinpeng, a vice minister from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which oversees the sector said that the industry is plagued by excess capacity even after many large private ship makers have gone bankrupt or stopped production. China alone will build ships with a total carrying capacity of 80 million tons next year, equal to the forecasted increase in global demand, estimates from the ministry showed. In the first 10 months of 2015, Chinese ship builders have received orders for new vessels totaling 20.3 million tons…

Chinese transport giant China Merchants Group looks set to takeover Sinotrans & CSC in the potential merger between the two shipping giants in China, reports Reuters. The two companies have been locked in reorganization talks, financial magazine Caixin  said, citing sources close to China Merchants. Officials from both companies declined to comment on the talks when contacted by Reuters on Tuesday. Sinotrans & CSC Holdings have announced that the parent group is undergoing strategic restructuring, adding to speculation that a tie-up between the conglomerate and its state-owned peer China Merchants Group is imminent. Sinotrans Shipping…

The merger talk between two state-run shipping conglomerates Cosco Group and China Shipping Group is on strong footing on on Beijing’s command. According to sources, the companies would release an outline plan within three months. Chinese business magazine Caixin reported on its website late on Monday that the central government had urged the firms to draft a preliminary merger plan within three months, beginning from August, citing an unnamed Cosco executive. The report said the firms would set up a five-member working group to consider the merger plan, with three members from China Shipping and two from Cosco. China Shipping's chairman, Xu Lirong, would head the team, it said.

Shenzhen-listed shipbuilder Sainty Marine withheld news of 29 lost orders from said exchange, Caixin reported, citing data from industry research firms and information from a shipbuilding executive. The firm told the stock market that buyers had canceled four orders in May, but the remainder - worth RMB6 billion (US$966.3 million) - remained undisclosed. Data from industry research firms and information provided by a shipbuilding executive reveal that Sainty Marine Corp. Ltd., based in the eastern province of Jiangsu, lost 33 orders for ships that it had received from 2013 to March this year. Regulators had warned the company in April that it could be delisted at the end of the year if it did not address its financial problems.