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What to watch   |   Analysis   |   Opinion   |   Markets   |   In other news

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What to watch

One of the EU’s most important environmental lawmakers has unveiled regulation that would force ships to operate under an emissions cap and trade system, ramp up their carbon intensity performance and contribute to a European maritime decarbonisation fund.

Tanker spot earnings continued their coronavirus-led freefall yesterday as oil company BP revealed the likely scale of contracting global crude demand growth. Latest very large crude carrier charters show earnings on key benchmarks are 48% lower than six days ago.

As countries tighten border controls in defence against the spread of the coronavirus outbreak, inevitably an impact has started to be seen in the shipmanagement sector.

Analysis

Shipowners are being told they may not legally be able to refuse to call at Chinese ports because the coronavirus threat is unlikely to render ports “unsafe”.

CMA CGM and Orient Overseas Container Line have joined other carriers’ moves to waive container use charges amid the prolonged holidays in China put into effect to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.

Shippers should be cautious about any sharp rate increases caused by supply chain disruption owing to the coronavirus outbreak, even though the disruption could lead to capacity tightness and price pressures, according to an industry group.

Agricultural and forest product shippers in the US have called on carriers to give guidance on exports of good to China as the coronavirus outbreak begins to take its toll on supply chains.

Opinion

Globalisation allows corporations to decide comfortably where to locate resources as they can move quickly from one place to another in response to a change in the geopolitical environment, writes Antonella Teodoro.

Markets

Twelve freight rates for containerised routes launched on the Baltic Exchange yesterday via a partnership with digital freight platform Freightos Group.

In other news

Iran is asking International Maritime Organization member states to review and update tanker safety following a study conducted by the University of Tehran into the conditions aboard Sanchi after it collided with a bulker two years ago.

Hapag-Lloyd has pledged better booking responses, bills of lading and invoices as the first three of 10 planned quality promises, to be backed by an online transparency platform.

Following the federal budget announcement last week, India has exempted very low sulphur fuel oil from import tax as the country struggles with insufficient availability of compliant fuel after the sulphur cap rules came into force at the beginning of 2020.

MOL's chemical tanker arm has named a replacement for retiring chief Tsuneo Watanabe. Akito Mitsuta, who has spent more than two decades in the tanker business, is to assume office after shareholders give the nod to his appointment.

The salvage team charged with removing Golden Ray, a ro-ro ship that capsized while departing the US port of Brunswick in Georgia last September, wants to surround the wreck with a giant mesh screen to contain any loose debris as the vessel is cut up for removal from the site.

Iran’s military may no longer be on a heightened war footing a month after the US airstrike that killed Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, but Washington is still braced for further retaliation, a senior military official said.

Ocean Infinity, the seabed search, salvage and sub-sea security company that located the sunken ore carrier Stellar Daisy early last year, has launched Armada, a new unit that will deploy unmanned surface ships, essentially robots, to collect data up to a depth of 6,000 m.