Daily Briefing February 11 2020
Free to read: Coronavirus: Tanker markets feeling the impact | Forecast crude tanker demand slump adds to bearish outlook | Australian LNG feels brunt of China’s force majeure declarations
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What to watch | Analysis | Opinion | Markets | In other news
What to watch
Tanker shipping is reeling from the onslaught of the coronavirus outbreak, with oil demand slashed and disruptions to logistical operations.
A glut of vessels in the crude tanker market waiting for employment and the curbing of demand created by coronavirus is leading forecasters to predict a weak freight rate structure in 2020, in turn pressuring owners’ earnings in the context of higher very low sulphur fuel oil bunker pricing.
Australia’s liquefied natural gas industry ranks as the most exposed to force majeure declarations linked to demand disruption in China spilling over from the coronavirus outbreak.
Carriers are removing capacity to match the falls in Chinese export demand. There is now an emerging threat to shipping lines of falling capacity on backhaul trades.
Analysis
Transpacific turmoil takes its toll as containerised trade growth brakes sharply to less than 1% in 2019 compared with about 4% the previous year. The figure is the lowest since the fallout of the global financial crisis in 2009.
Opinion
An IMO resolution on cyber risk management takes effect next January. It makes new demands of the industry, yet experts from several maritime disciplines suggest there’s much still to be done, writes Richard Clayton.
Lloyd’s List Podcast: Shipping seems to have initially underestimated quite how significant the impact of the coronavirus outbreak was going to be. This week we get the latest market analysis from BIMCO’s chief analyst Peter Sand, we talk to Andrew Rigden Green, a leading shipping lawyer from Stephenson Harwood, about charterparty risk and we have the inside track on the latest market disruption direct from our China editor Cichen Shen.
Markets
Indonesia will stop liquefied natural gas exports to Singapore in 2023 as the Southeast Asian gas producer diverts resources to cater to domestic demand.
In other news
Almost all large UK ports are expected to show interest in government plans to accord freeport status to ten areas in the next few years, even though political considerations and the cap on the numbers will inevitably leave some of them disappointed, according to industry sources.
Navios Maritime Partners has reported increased earnings for the fourth quarter of 2019, excluding the impact of vessel write-downs on the New York Stock Exchange-listed partnership’s bottom line.
UK local authorities need central government funding and support following the government’s declaration that coronavirus represents serious and imminent threat to public health, according to the British Ports Association.
Atlantic Gulf & Pacific, the gas-focused logistics solutions provider, has secured a floating storage unit to be converted from a tanker owned by ADNOC Logistics & Services for the development of an import terminal at India’s Karaikal Port.
BW LPG has firmed up its option for delivery of four additional liquefied petroleum gas dual-fuelled engine very large gas carriers, doubling the number of ships in its fleet to be powered by LPG.
CMA CGM, the French container transportation and shipping company, has joined a project to develop hydrogen as an alternative fuel for use in shipping.
CSSC (Hong Kong) Shipping has raised $800m from bond issuances as the yard-backed leasing house aims to continuously expand its business.
India has approved the development of a $9.2bn deepsea port on the west coast of the country about 120 miles north of Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai. The port will mostly cater to the spillover traffic from JNPT.
Boarding incidents have sprouted up again in the Singapore Strait, with the ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre reporting that two vessels were boarded in the eastbound lane of the traffic separation scheme within an hour over the weekend.
A Yang Ming-owned containership was arrested in Sydney on Sunday over a pollution debt of up to A$20m ($13.4m).
Japanese shipping company K Line has ordered two liquefied natural gas carriers. These will be backed by long-term contracts with Malaysia's energy giant Petronas.