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The Baltic Dry Index Is Collapsing Vincent FernandoDec. 21, 2009, 1:06 PM Dry bulk vessel over-supply is finally taking its toll, the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) has gone into a nosedive as shown below. US-listed dry bulk stocks such as DryShips (DRYS) and Eagle Bulk (EGLE) have been drifting lower. While the current index level is still equivalent to historically strong rates, continued strength in 2010 is entirely predicated on continued growth of Chinese dry bulk raw material imports. While November iron ore imports were encouraging and 2009 was a year of surprising strength, with China it could all disappear...

Occasionally, I like to write editorials and opinion pieces to keep my writing skills up and take my frustrations with government policy at the same time.I doubt this will ever run in a newspaper, but I've decided to share it anyhow. Piracy: The Threats and Possible Solutions Part I: The Threat We all remember the times when we were kids. We remember raising the jolly roger, wearing an eye patch, and having a parrot on our shoulder. Normally we would have our parents play the role of victim as we plundered fake gold coins as we, and our friends, would...

Trade Data Points To L-Shaped Outlook by: Wildebeest December 13, 2009 At first glance the contraction in the trade deficit for October looks positive. I'm generally wary of seasonally adjusted data -- not because seasonal effects don't exist but because I prefer to see the raw data and the algorithm used to do the smoothing. Non seasonally adjusted data for the trade in goods is available here. A seasonal plot of the trade deficit, derived from 22 years of data, is shown in the next chart. From that chart we see that October is typically a larger deficit month. That...

Whatever trade statistics you may be reading, here's a simple dose of reality: There's an armada of empty shipping vessels lying idle off the coast of Singapore. Yet Singapore is supposed to be one of the busiest ports in the world. It is a major transhipment hub for global trade. But today, it still looks relatively dead. Don't believe us? Check out the stunning pics we captured on a recent trip: See Amazing Pictures of Singapore's Ghost Fleet >>>

A neat video of about four minutes on what pirates can expect if they attack a vessel outfitted by this new security technology.The water walls may be new technology, but the armed snipers are almost as old as piracy itself.

Merchant ships need guns to fight pirates. Seven months ago, Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama and held its captain hostage. Pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama again this week but were repulsed because the Maersk Shipping Line put armed guards on its ships. Pirates successfully attacked another unarmed ship on Monday, leaving 28 members of its crew dead. On Tuesday, 36 crew members of a Spanish ship were released only after pirates were paid a $3.3 million ransom. But when the pirates got within 300 yards of the Maersk Alabama, the ship tried evasive maneuvers and its security team successfully...

The Port of Tacoma will end this year $17.9 million in the red – the first time the agency’s bottom line has been negative in recent memory. The agency’s loss of profit is largely the result of a $38.8 million write down – or accounting for the lessened value – of investments the port made in projects that have since been canceled.

Little Cargo, Loads Of Debt LANDON THOMAS Jr. Published: November 11, 2009 LONDON — When Eastwind Maritime, a medium-size carrier company, went bankrupt this summer, few banks in the United States took notice. Charles Pertwee/Bloomberg News Singapore's container port last month. As global trade recovers, a glut of a new ships is expected to undermine a price recovery. Vivek Prakash/Reuters Cargo vessels off the coast of Singapore last June. With trade slowed by the recession, bankruptcies of carriers could rise. But in Europe, where banks hold over $350 billion of increasingly dubious shipping industry loans, the inability of Eastwind, which...

34 years ago today, on November 10, 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald - aka "Mighty Fritz," - foundered and sank during a storm on Lake Superior. Launched on June 8, 1958, the Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest ship on the Great Lakes for the next 13 years

DryShips Q3 Earnings Beat Estimates Mon Oct 26, 2009 6:34pm EDT By Hezron Selvi BANGALORE, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Drybulk shipping and contract drilling company DryShips Inc (DRYS.O) reported quarterly earnings that comfortably beat Wall Street expectations, helped by increased spot charter rates for its ships and higher revenues from its drilling rigs. "There was some upside from spot vessels. The spot vessels in the dry bulk fleet came better than expected, but a lot of it also had to do with the fact that the drilling business came in strong," Credit Suisse analyst Gregory Lewis said. Dry bulk shipping...

LOS ANGELES, Oct 20 - Foreman Danny Miranda remembers the days when the Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, ports were so jammed that ships waited in line to unload. Now the lingering recession has longshoremen waiting in line for work. After a year of grappling with fewer shifts and falling wages, Miranda and other union port workers hope a surprise jump in September retail sales will fuel a late-season bump in holiday cargo. "Out of seven days, only two we see work. The last quarter it would be four days out of the seven," said Miranda, a veteran port...

Four Shippers Emerging From The Mire October 22, 2009 After a thrilling two-week rally in the stock market during early September, shippers began to fall. They had been enjoying a nice rally on the general premise of economic recovery, market stabilization, and rising materials prices. But suddenly on September 17th, the shipper sector broke, and leading names fell - plummeted, actually, at a much faster rate than the modest pullback in the general market would have implied. With shippers today generally on the rise again, it is worthwhile to look at the reasons for the mid September breakdown. What was...

Container Trade in TEUs* 2009 Year-to-Date*TEUs: 20-foot equivalent units or 20-foot-long cargo container **Preliminary estimate   Loaded Inbound Loaded Outbound Empties Total Containers January 200,588 88,510 110,197 399,295 February 149,299 92,781 75,962 318,042 March 186,450 117,674 70,007 374,131 April 199,051 112,976 96,678 408,705 May 208,591 121,064 89,900 419,555 June 206,358 114,107 92,882 413,347 July 221,719 108,420 102,874 433,013 August 249,920 130,623 112,796 493,339 September 224,924 109,337 106,103 440,364 October November December Year-to-Date 1,846,900 995,492 857,399 3,699,791 YTD % Change -23.8% -26.3% -24.2% -24.6%

Federal efforts to clean up laker emissions are fueling a heated debate throughout the St. Lawrence Seaway. “It’s a threat to the economics of shipping on the Great Lakes,” Adolph Ojard, executive director of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority, said of rules recently proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA wants to wean older lakers off their diet of inexpensive No. 6 “bunker” fuel to reduce sulfur levels 50 percent in 2012 and help prevent tens of thousands of premature deaths. The entire fleet would convert to low-sulfur marine diesel by 2015. But lake carriers say the effort could...

The number of laid up containerships increased 10.4 per cent in a fortnight, according to the latest Alphaliner survey, which showed 568 ships were idle, aggregating 1.35 million TEU as of October 12 from the 548 idle vessels, totalling 1.29 million TEU, noted two weeks earlier. The Paris-based agency said laid up fleet is now the biggest ever. Apart from ships in the 1,000-TEU - 2,000 TEU range (7,500-TEU plus sized ships lay-up rate remained steady), all sizes showed increases in idling during the two-week period. Alphaliner also reported that the raft of service cutbacks by major carriers had an...

The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination - and is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year

Exceeding unemployed carrier controlled fleet for first time The fleet of idled container ships controlled by charter ship-owners reached a record high in September and exceeds the number of unemployed vessels controlled and operated by ocean carriers for the first time. The non-operating owner fleet without work has risen to 654,000 20-foot equivalent units as ocean carriers shrink their capacity and return chartered ships to their owners when they come off hire, according to Alphaliner, the Paris-based container shipping consultancy. The carrier-controlled idle fleet stood at 643,000 TEUs and has fallen below the non-operating owners unemployed fleet for the first...

Banks are facing the prospect of being forced to write down loans to the shipping industry worth more than $90 billion (EUR62 billion) next year. The write-downs would be a delayed response to a crash in ship values of more than 50%, which has fatally undermined loan cover.

The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination - and is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year The tropical waters that lap the jungle shores of southern Malaysia could not be described as a paradisical shimmering turquoise. They are more of a dark, soupy green. They also carry a suspicious smell. Not that this is of any concern to the lone Indian face...

The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination> – and is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year. >Fascinating article by Simon Parry in the Daily Mail this evening on the Ghost Fleet of Singapore — 100s of empty container ships sidelined by the recession.Excerpt: Here, on a sleepy stretch of shoreline at the far end of Asia, is surely the biggest and...

At the end of this past July, one of the largest ports in America, Long Beach, reported that the 20% year-over-year cargo business decline is among the sharpest since the Great Depression. This is not a trend specific to Long Beach. “It’s phenomenal how much things fell away even since December,” said Paul Bingham, managing director of global trade and transportation for IHS Global Insight, the business research firm that monitors North America’s biggest ports for the National Retail Federation. As of September 4, 2009, shadowstats.com reported that unemployment in the US is now near 21% and is showing no...

The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination - and is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Revealed-The-ghost-fleet-recession.html#ixzz0R0k4822N

The world's ship owners and government economists would prefer you not to see this symbol of the depths of the plague still crippling the world's economies The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination. Do not tell these men and women about green shoots of recovery. As Briton Tim Huxley, one of Asia's leading ship brokers, says, if the world is really pulling itself out of recession, then all...

MOSCOW — For hundreds of years, mariners have dreamed of an Arctic shortcut that would allow them to speed trade between Asia and the West. Two German ships are poised to complete that transit for the first time, aided by the retreat of Arctic ice that scientists have linked to global warming. The ships started their voyage in South Korea in late July and will begin the last leg of the trip this week, leaving a Siberian port for Rotterdam in the Netherlands carrying 3,500 tons of construction materials. Russian ships have long moved goods along the country’s sprawling Arctic...

Supertanker owners may start refusing cargoes within the next three months unless rates return to a profitable level, said Frontline Ltd., the biggest operator of the ships which carry almost half the world’s oil. Ship owners are contributing $942 a day toward fuel costs to ship Middle East crude, according to the London-based Baltic Exchange. Rates have been below operating costs since July. Should the losses persist, some owners may choose to idle their ships, according to Jens Martin Jensen, Singapore-based chief executive officer of Frontline’s management unit. “If you see another quarter, then I think owners have to do...

I happened to be watching The Kudlow Report last tonight were First Trust’s Chief Economist, Brian Wesbury, stated that the economy is in great shape and global trade is fantastic. He cited the Baltic Dry Index as an indicator of strong trade. However, there must be another Baltic Dry Index as the one everyone else follows shows a horrible past month. In fact, the Baltic Dry Index has dropped another 3.1% Wednesday on top of horrible losses in the last few weeks. Couple that with Japan’s latest trade data which shows the China is now Japan’s largest trade partner. Furthermore...

Port Tracker report projects retail imports to be at lowest level since 2002 Container trade imports will fall 20 percent in August and September and another 18 percent in October, pushing overall retail imports for 2009 down to the lowest level since 2002, industry forecaster IHS Global Insight said in a report released Thursday. In its Port Tracker report, released with the National Retail Federation, the group said the sharp pullback in peak season shipping will leave import shipping volume measured in TEUs down 18.8 percent in 2009 compared to last year. The 12.3 million 20-foot-equivalents IHS Global Insight estimates...

President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the Russian navy to join the hunt for a cargo ship which disappeared after passing through the English Channel. Warships and nuclear submarines have have been told to “take all necessary measures to find and free” the ship and its 15-man Russian crew amid fears that it has been seized by pirates. The mystery surrounding the Arctic Sea has deepened after further details emerged of the “missing” four days after the ship was reportedly raided by armed men off the Swedish coast. There was speculation that the ship had been seized by the Russian Mafia...

There seems to be little sympathy among Asian shippers for the plight of liner shipping; so much so that some of the Asian shippers’ bodies have expressed doubts over cries of poverty by the lines, according to Shippers’ Voice. As the shipping lines struggle to keep their heads above waters in the present economic scenario, Asian shippers warn that they will avoid shipping lines perceived to be “hostile” to them, pointing out that times are even more difficult for shippers with a large number of exporters, importers, wholesalers and retailers having pulled down shutters. They are particularly sore about various...

Owners, carriers bid to cut growing glut of capacity One-third of all container ships under construction or on order will be delivered late after shipowners and ocean carriers persuaded shipyards to defer deliveries amid a growing glut of capacity. Ships of more than 4,000-TEU capacity account for the bulk of the deferrals, and the average delay is eight months, according to Alphaliner, the Paris-based consultant. Deferred deliveries and slippage total 1.8 million TEUs, of which 168 vessels of more than 4,000-TEU capacity account for 1.6 million TEUs. In some extreme cases, delivery has been extended by up to two years,...

The ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) today called for all its union members to oppose the coup in Honduras by focusing protests on the Honduran merchant fleet. The global union organisation, which represents 656 unions worldwide with four and a half million members, has made the call as its latest move to defend democracy in the coup-stricken Central American nation, and in support of the Organization of American States’ (OAS) condemnation of the military takeover. The action call is likely to affect the loading and unloading of the 650 ships flying the Honduran flag, which the ITF considers a flag...

Decline deepens as first half of 2009 ends with business falling off Containerized imports at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles fell 22.3 percent in June, the steepest combined decline at the nation’s largest port complex since March, according to figures released by the ports. Loaded imported containers fell 28.4 percent at Long Beach in June from last year and imports at neighboring Los Angeles dropped 17.1 percent as the ports saw business deteriorate heading into the summer. Both ports saw imported loaded containers pull back during the month from May, when a steady improvement raised hopes of...

TRANSPACIFIC lines are preparing to tear up annual contracts signed less than two months ago in a desperate bid to shore up their finances. The 14 members of the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement issued a stark warning to their customers that freight rates agreed for service contracts signed in May were not sustainable over the typical 12-month term and may have to be renegotiated. In an unprecedented move, that reflects the plight of the industry, the TSA issued a statement saying members had adopted a voluntary across-the-board increase of $500 per feu effective from August 10. This will apply to rates...

Five words would change law, have big impact on ocean carriers and shippers All U.S.-flag ships in international commerce would have to be built in the United States if language approved July 9 by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee becomes law. Shippers of government-impelled cargo such as food aid, project or military cargo that require U.S. flag vessels for transport would likely incur higher rates. Experts said it would be impossible to calculate how much, but owners would have to recover the higher relative cost of building a ship in the U.S. The change — spelled out in...

One could be forgiven for thinking that contracts in shipping are no longer worth the paper they are written on. First we had charterers in the dry bulk sector simply walking away from unfavourable contracts at the top of the market. Now in container shipping we have lines on the transpacific trade trying to unilaterally increase rates on annual contracts just months after they were agreed. It would certainly be interesting to be a fly on the wall when shipping line sales people meet major US shippers and try to explain that they now, in effect, want to tear up...

FRANKFURT, July 3 (Reuters) - German container shipper Hapag-Lloyd (TUIGn.DE) is considering asking for state aid to help it secure its future in the face of a global trade slump, a key shareholder told a German newspaper on Friday. Such a move could not be ruled out, and financial support from the German state would "certainly make sense", Klaus-Michael Kuehne told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He controls around 15 percent of the company.

Chairman calls excess of newbuildings 'gruesome' Evergreen Line plans to withdraw 31 of its oldest ships from service and scrap many of them to help chip away at what its chairman, Chang Yung-fa, described as a “gruesome” excess of vessel capacity in the container ship industry. The ships are 20 G-Class vessels, with capacities of 2,728 TEUs, and 11 GX-class ships, with capacities of 3,428 TEUs. The vessels were built from 1983 to 1988 for use in the round-the-world services that vaulted the Taiwanese line into the top ranks of the world’s container carriers. An Evergreen representative said the G-class...

13-week moving averages are still moving lower, with no apparent end in sight. The first chart shows the one relatively bright spot is coal. I hear the same message about coal from trucker friends.

When the world economy tanked last year and global trade juddered to a halt, nothing fell further or faster than freight rates in the world shipping industry. And within that mix of container lines, tankers and dry bulk cargoes such as iron ore, it was, not surprisingly perhaps, this last one that fared worse. In little more than six months, it fell by more than 90 per cent. Now, however, it is well off the bottom. Iron ore is moving again, as are other bulk commodities, as global industry picks itself up off the floor and begins a tentative restocking....

JOSEPH -- Part of a short-line railroad in Oregon's ruggedly beautiful Wallowa County has become a 30-mile-long parking lot for about 700 idled railcars, some blighted with graffiti. Many residents aren't happy. David Stein, for one, said mustard-yellow centerbeam lumber cars along tracks owned by the Wallowa Union Railroad have spoiled his view of mountains, meadows and pine forests from his home outside Enterprise. "What can you see?" Stein, 54, asked in disgust. "Trains!" The situation is a snapshot of a national picture. The economic slump has idled about 70,000 Union Pacific railcars, now sidetracked wherever space can be found,...

Slight April gain over March gives weak signal for peak season Container volumes at U.S. ports edged up in April compared to March, but remained well below the volumes recorded in April 2008, according to the monthly Port Tracker published by the National Retail Federation and IHS Global Insight. The second half of 2009 appears to be trending the same way the first half progressed, with containerized imports creeping up compared to the month before, but down noticeably from the same month last year. It therefore looks like the back-to-school shopping season this summer, traditionally the second busiest period on...

U.S. exporters will see ongoing equipment shortages in the months ahead, and the container shortages could become even worse if imports from Asia do not pick up significantly during the peak shipping season. The equipment imbalance is occurring at an especially bad time for shippers of agricultural products because exports are starting to pick up after a lackluster first quarter. If exporters can not secure more empty containers for their products, the export boom will be snuffed out before it gathers steam. Agricultural exporters in the U.S. interior are at greatest risk. "Eastbound cargo isn't delivered where westbound cargo is...

The world’s shipping lines may double the number of idled container carriers to 20 percent of the global fleet amid a surge in new vessels and as the recession saps demand , said First Ship Lease Trust’s Philip Clausius. “It’s the start of the crisis,” said Clausius, chief executive officer of First Ship, which leases 23 vessels. “There are too many container ships coming on line and not enough demand,” he said in an interview in Tokyo yesterday. A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, the world’s largest container line, and other shipping companies have anchored vessels as demand to move electronics, furniture and...

Rate tumbles 3.7 percent in a week, 53.4 percent in a year Average spot rates collected by ocean carriers for a 40-foot container from Hong Kong to Los Angeles fell to a new low of $949 this week, down by 53.4 percent from $2,036 a year ago, according to data compiled by Drewry Shipping Consultants in London for the weekly Container Rate Benchmark published by The Journal of Commerce. The rate for the week starting May 18 is thought to be the lowest rate ever. It was down 3.7 percent from $986 last week, when it fell below the $1,000...

Grand Alliance members Hapag-Lloyd, Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) and Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) have agreed to merge the SCX (South China Sea Express) and the JCX (Japan China Express ) into a single loop. Grand Alliance members Hapag-Lloyd, Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) and Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) have agreed to merge the SCX (South China Sea Express) and the JCX (Japan China Express) into a single loop. The new service will take effect from May 25, 2009, sailing from Thailand.
Grand Alliance customers will be offered the same port coverage options under the new service. One additional vessel of...

US IMPORTERS squeezed double-digit rate cuts out of container lines during this year’s round of transpacific negotiations, a top industry executive confirmed today. With the majority of contracts covering the coming 12 months now signed, container lines have emerged the losers after conceding some hefty discounts compared with last year. Maersk Line chief executive Eivind Kolding described the rate reductions that ocean carriers have been forced to accept for transpacific eastbound cargo as “quite substantial”. While not quantifying how much lines such as Maersk had dropped their prices, Mr Kolding indicated that reductions exceeded 10%. The percentage drop was in...

The Dow may have risen in anticipation of a recovery, but rail car loadings, usually a reliable indicator of economic activity, tell a different story. Jack McHugh, writing at The Big Picture, examines a 24 page Credit Suisse report on rail car loadings and summarizes: "Bottom Line: Last week proved no different than the last 4: railroad carloads were down more than 20%. Week 17 saw a year-over-year volume shortfall of 21.6% - which is slightly worse than the 20.4% drop in Week 16. ...

Ship owners are being forced to pay to carry oil from the Middle East to the U.S. for the first time in at least a decade after demand collapsed and the fleet expanded. Supertanker owners make no rental income from the voyages and are paying $3,445 a day toward fuel costs, data from the Baltic Exchange in London show. Rental rates normally cover fuel costs . The journey to the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port from Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia’s largest export facility, earned owners as much as $104,663 a day in July. Some owners may be prepared to subsidize voyages...

Want to get a sense of just how bad things are? Take a spin on Google Earth.The latest issue of International Economy, edited by FP contributor David Smick, has a clever graphic showing the depth of the economic crisis, so I thought I'd share.The above image, pulled today from Vesseltracker.com's Google Earth file, shows container ships languishing off the Singapore coast. Welcome to the  largest parking lot on Earth. International Economy explains: The world's busiest port for container traffic, Singapore saw its year-over-year volume drop by 19.6 percent in January 2009, followed by a 19.8 percent drop in February....

Keetwonen, 1000 shipping containers from China modified into student housing in Amsterdam, is the largest shipping container housing development in the world. It has been praised for its innovation, cost effectiveness and design. For students, living in modified shipping containers is actually better than it sounds on paper. Each unit addresses many of the common concerns for students living in student housing such as privacy and cleanliness, while retaining the social aspects of living in dorms. Each unit includes amenities such as private bathroom, kitchen, separate sleeping and study room areas, ventilation, heat, hot water heater, large windows and even...