Good day Mariners

Hyundai Heavy Industries has signed the largest number of shipbuilding orders this year of all South Korean listed companies, according the Korea Exchange.

The company racked up KRW4.8231 trillion (US$3.9 billion) worth of new orders up to June 16.

courtesy : baird maritime

The US’s busiest seaport complex, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, recorded the second-best May ever, indicating that the economy is finally firing up.

The Los Angeles Times reported that imports increased 12.5 percent in May compared to last year, while exports picked up 5.3 percent in th Port of Los Angeles. For the year through to May, 2.9 million containers have passed through the ports.

At Long Beach, overall traffic was equally good, up 18.5 percent.

More than 40 percent of the US’ imports come through the two ports making them good indicators of national economic health.

COURTESY: BAIRD MARITIME

Greece is still the largest shipping country in the world in terms of dry/bulk cargo and tanker fleet capacity, despite the growing presence of China which ranks third, just behind Japan.
According to N. Cotzias statistics, Greece is the largest buyer for dry/bulk cargo ship and tankers, and occupies 22 percent of dry bulk/cargo ship use. This compares to Japan and China who occupy 20 perceent and 12 percent respectively, with expectations that China will soon largest buyer in the market.

China currently have 12 percent of global cargo ship fleet capacity, while Greece continues to place massive orders – US$2.6 billion in new cargo ships in 2008 – to maintain its number one spot.

courtesy : Baird maritime

“Environment Friendly Ships by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries”

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) intends to return to luxury passenger shipbuilding following ten years of no activity in the sector.

Working out of Nagasaki Shipyard and Machinery Works, MHI will employ 700 designers to develop more environmentally friendly ships, particularly luxury liners, despite claims in the industry that shipbuilding will exceed demand three times over by 2015.

Cruise passenger numbers have increased four to five percent, year on year, with expected orders for passenger cruise ships to be 10 to 15 per year, according to the Yomiuri Daily. MHI said it aims to receive US$654 million in orders over the next four years.

MHI will be entering a tight market, now dominated by South Korea, which has built 28.93 million tonnes or roughly 10 million tonnes more than Japan. China too, is increasing its lead over Japan due to its huge domestic demand.

Courtesy : Baird Maritime

“Samsung comes first in its 36 year history ”

Korean heavyweight Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) has overtaken Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), if only temporarily, to hold the world’s largest shipbuilding orderbook, according to data from Clarksons Research Services.

At the end of March, HHI was ahead with 8.5 million CGT to SHI’s 8.0 million CGT, but a surge of orders in April pulled SHI ahead for the first time in its 36-year history.

Courtesy : Baird Maritime

Government-owned Cochin Shipyard has plans to raise funds through capital markets, but it seems its planned IPO will get delayed further because of some crucial restructuring.

The yard is working on a new face which focuses onspecialised shipbuilding to get better response from the investor for its initial public offer scheduled in FY11 as approved by the government.

Theyard is looking to split the infrastructure in five specialised
business units namely naval, offshore, small commercial ships, repair and ship conversion, in order to be a broad spectrum shipyard.The new IPO draft prospectus will also project defence shipbuilding as a focus area

The restructuring process would delay the yard’s IPO, which was initially planned in 2008 during the shipping boom, to raise Rs 1,000 crore through issuance of 10 per cent fresh equity.

Cochin Shipyard’s move indicates the lucrativeness of allied areas such as defence and ship conversion in the changed shipbuilding market dynamics.

Meanwhile, experts caution that while increasing focus on defence orders Cochin Shipyard should not lose out on its core merchant shipbuilding, as once new orders start flowing globally, shipbuilding countries like Korea and China will become aggressive and here Indian yards should be prepared to maintain their share of global shipbuilding.

Courtesy : Beta NDTV Profit

Second largest Croatian port to be ready in 2013

Vienna-based construction company Strabag has said that construction of a port in Croatia will be completed in 2013.
The new port is located in Gazenica in the Dalmatian city of Zadar. Construction work began in May 2009. The overall
cost of the construction is estimated at US$302 million.

The project has received major backing from the German KfW banking group and the European Investment Bank.

When completed, the port will be the second largest after the port in Split.

Courtesy : Baird Maritime

“Samsung to build green shipyard ”

Samsung Heavy Industries, Korea, held a ceremony to launch its green management programme on January 28. As part of the project, Samsung announced that it launch a “green shipyard”.

Worth US$434 million and to be ready by 2015, this specialised shipyard will develop environmentally-friendly vessels.

“The green growth paradigm is emerging due to global warming and companies are required to take action and responsibility for the cause,” Samsung President Noh In-sik was quoted as saying by Asiasis.

“Keeping pace with the demands of the new era, we will promote growth based on green management in a bid to become a socially responsible company.”

A green management committee with a representative director will also be chosen to head the new shipyard.

The shipyard will aim to develop new technologies to enhance energy efficiency while decreasing green house gas emissions by 30 percent.

“Largest port crown for the third straight year”

Despite the sluggish meteoric standards, Shanghai leaps to own the world’s largest port position with its competitor records showcasing about 120m tons behind Shanghai.

As per records from the National Development and Reform Commission giving it the largest port crown for the third straight year, Shanghai’s overall port figures were up 1.3% or 8m tons to 590m tons in 2009. While Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore states that its nearest competitor, Singapore, saw overall volumes slide 8.5% to 471.5m tons.

Shanghai still remains behind the Lion Republic on the box front, having suffered a 10% reversal last year to register a full year container throughput of 25m teu. Container traffic in Singapore last year totalled 25.9m teu, a 13.5% decline from the 29.9m teu registered in 2008.

“China, The Biggest Shipbuilder On The Planet”
China has surpassed South Korea as the world’s largest shipbuilder. Currently, Chinese firms have orders for 54.96 million CGT of ships, compared to 53.63 million CGT of Korea. Thus China has 34.7
percent of the world market. Since 2000, South Korea has had the largest share of the world shipbuilding market. South Korea took the leadfrom Japan.
CGT stands for Compensated Gross Tons. This is a new standard for measuring ship yard effort. Gross tons is a measure of the volume within a ship, which CGT adds adjustments for the complexity of
the ship design. Thus a chemical tanker would end up with a value four times that of a container ship. China is producing far more ships, in terms of tonnage of steel and internal volume, than South
Korea, mainly because a much larger portion of Chinese ships are simple designs. South Korea has, over the years, pioneered the design, and construction, of more complex ships (chemical, and
Liquid Natural gas carriers.) Three years ago, China produced about a quarter of the world’s merchant shipping, while South Korea was in first place, producing about a third. It was then believed that China would take first place in the next 5-10 years. China grabbed the lead in market share for commercial shipping partly because it became more difficult for South Korean builders to expand. There were more restrictions on land use in South Korea, in addition to higher labor costs. South Korean builders, seeing that they could not match
the expansion of Chinese ship yards, expended more effort on building more complex, and expensive, ships. Japan was following a similar path
when it lost the lead to South Korea a decade ago. China also gained more market share by offering generous loan terms to foreign buyers of Chinese ships and cheap loans for their own shipbuilders.

“SMM India 2009 enters the Valedictory Day III”

The SMM India 2009, the biggest International Maritime Conference and Expo in Mumbai, reaches its valedictory day. The event, one of its kinds in India had started on November 12 and closes by today evening.

There are two conference sessions for the day. The paper presentation on Safety of Navigation – Technology Update is expected to be delivered by Tarun K. Mathur (Capt.), Director – Sales Transas Marine Pacific, Singapore.

The final session of the 2009 expo is about Training & Human Resources. Capt.S. Bhardwaj ,Vice Chancellor, AMET University, India and K.N.Deboo (Capt.), Chairman GlobalMET – India Chapter and Director-Principal, Anglo Eastern Marine Training Centre, India spoke on the topic.

The first day of SMM India 2009, ended on a high note with who’s who of the global maritime industry. Two sessions on vital aspects of marine industry were discussedon the day, viz. on Maritime Policy and Economic and Financial Crisis – Its Impact on Shipping Finance Markets.

Day two discussed on “India’s Shipbuilding – Opportunities, Challenges & Imperatives” in the first session followed by “Infrastructure, Support Services & Logistics” in the second session and the topic “Maritime Security” in the third session.

The event will be a remarkable milestone in the maritime history of India.

“A.P Moller-Maersk’s logistics services now trading as Damco”

The A.P. Moller – Maersk Group’s logistics activities start trading as Damco on Monday 7 September 2009. Damco is the new, combined brand of the A.P. Moller – Maersk Group’s logistics activities.
Damco offers a broad range of supply chain management and freight forwarding services to customers all over the world, and has 10,500 colleagues in 272 offices, covering over 93 countries in Africa, Asia, North America, Europe, Middle East, and Latin America.
In 2008, the company had a net turn-over of USD 2.8 billion, shipped more than half a million TEUs ocean freight, air freighted over 60,000 tonnes, and handled over 50 million CBMs (equivalent to 2 million TEU) for our supply chain management customers.
Damco is an independent business activity within the A.P. Moller – Maersk Group.

“DNV certifies the first maritime SOX exhaust gas scrubber”

DNV has issued a compliance certificate for the first ship fitted with an exhaust gas cleaning system capable of meeting the requirements of SOx Emission Control Areas. The certification demonstrates that ship operators may in the future have the option of using traditional fuel oils, rather than low-sulphur fuels, when voyaging in designated sensitive areas such as the North Sea.

“China overtakes Japan in battle of shipbuilding Titans”

Ship deliveries from China exceeded those from Japan in the first six months of the year for the first time. According to figures from Clarkson Research, China’s share climbed to 23% in the first half, compared with Japan’s 22%.

The latest official report released by the China Association of National Shipbuilding Industry (CANSI) dated August 20 showed that a total of 172 vessels were cancelled between October 2008 and July 2009.
Of this 5.95 million DWT figure, 3.8 million DWT, or 75 ships, were cancelled this year.
The CANSI reported that the real number of cancellations could be higher than the figure that was announced. The association added that the rate of cancellations was slowing. In July, only six ships (342,000DWT) were cancelled.

More Iranian warships are to be sent to the Gulf of Aden, to protect the fifth-largest crude exporter’s oil tankers from pirate attacks. 

The naval units are to be sent to the waterway linking the Red and the Arabian Seas 8:00am local time (12:40 GMT), Monday, the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency reported on Sunday. 
The warships are to join the existing two unites stationed at the Gulf where international forces from a number of countries including the United States, India, Britain, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Korea have been fighting pirates preying on commercial vessels.