Daily Briefing October 17 2019
Free to read: Cosco Shipping’s tanker unit denies vessels are ‘going dark’ | A lesson for China tanker investors | Scrubber installations could reverse slow steaming
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What to watch | Analysis | Opinion | Markets | In other news
What to watch
Sanctioned Cosco Shipping Tanker (Dalian) says reports that its vessels have turned off their Automatic Identification System signals are not true. It blames constraints and errors of the AIS receiving technologies for the lack of tracking information of some vessels.
Over a fifth of global containership capacity is expected to be fitted with scrubbers by the end of 2020. If high-sulphur fuel prices fall, lines could be tempted to increase service speeds.
Analysis
Trade tensions between the US and Europe are clouding the outlook for the transatlantic trade, according to analysis by MDST. The ongoing threat of tit-for-tat tariffs between the two trading blocs poses major questions over future capacity deployment, as carriers face the increasingly difficult task of juggling supply with demand.
Opinion
Chinese retail investors have boosted the share prices of sanction-affected Cosco Shipping Energy Transportation, writes Cichen Shen. But these mom and pop investors may pay the price for their impetuous investment in the same way that many other much wealthier non-shipping players have experienced in the past.
Markets
The latest round of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Turkey's steel exports to the US will have little impact on the dry bulk market, analysts say, as volumes have been dwindling.
Pakistan LNG was tendering for the supply of 33.6m tonnes of LNG over 10 years but this has been cancelled due to inadequate demand, Reuters reports.
In other news
Malaysian floating production, storage and offloading vessel specialist Yinson Holdings has won a $5.4bn, 25-year contract from Petrobras for an FPSO in the Marlim field offshore Brazil in the north-eastern part of the Campos Basin.
The Tor Olaf Troim-backed owner, 2020 Bulkers, is to pay its inaugural monthly dividend in November 2019 when four of its six ships will have started operations.
Gazprom Neft has set up shop for the sale of marine lubricants ahead of one major maritime regulatory deadline in Singapore.
The European Union is being urged to introduce a tax on shipping fuels as part of a push to rein in carbon emissions.
Proposals submitted by Greece to the International Maritime Organization to reduce the main engine power of ships for environmental reasons have been endorsed by the Union of Greek Shipowners.