Daily Briefing July 29 2020
Free to read: Legal battle for control of Hin Leong assets heats up | PIL to get funding lifeline from Heliconia | Box carrier capacity deployments show increasing confidence
Good morning. Here’s our quick view of everything you need to know today.
The Lloyd’s List Daily Briefing is brought to you by the Lloyd’s List News Desk.
What to watch | Analysis | Markets | In other news
What to watch
The latest twists in the legal saga of collapsed Hin Leong Trading’s restructure look set to heat up this week as the battle for control of the company’s assets, including the 140-strong tanker fleet, heads to court.
Pacific International Lines has revealed more details about its efforts to resolve its financial issues, telling Lloyd’s List that discussions with sovereign wealth fund Temasek’s affiliate Heliconia Capital Management are progressing.
Analysis
This year has so far offered continued optimism for maritime’s decarbonised future, but the sector must address lingering and new challenges if it wants to succeed.
The Pacific Merchant Shipping Association reports that US west coast ports’ container trade numbers for June are down 8% from the same period a year ago, but by margins much “less ghastly” than May's collapse of 15%.
From the News Desk: Nearly a month on from an international summit to find a solution to the issue of crew changes, there has been little in the way of forward progress and some countries have tightened rules again as new coronavirus cases emerge.
Markets
There are increasing signs of confidence that demand on the major east-west trade lanes is improving, with container carriers reinstating a number of previously blanked sailings.
A drop in consumption of oil products as a result of the economic downturn amid the coronavirus outbreak will have a knock-on effect in terms of demand for seaborne transportation and tanker freight rates.
Containership owner Costamare sealed new charters or charter extensions for no less than 24 of its vessels in a busy second quarter of the year that saw the market show signs of picking up.
In other news
Shipping companies are contingency planning in the event of their vessels being placed into quarantine by port state control because of coronavirus measures.
A capesize bulker has run aground on a reef off the coast of Mauritius and is believed to be damaged.
The Baltic Exchange is seeking feedback from the tanker market about potential changes to the calculation used to derive the dollar-per-tonne figure from the Worldscale spot assessment, which is used in settling derivatives.
Ports of Genoa has booked sharp declines across all types of cargo in the first half of 2020, blaming coronavirus as the main cause of the loss of business at the northern Italian gateway.
Singapore continues to boost digitalisation efforts, with the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore signing a memorandum of understanding with five international stakeholders to develop and adopt common data standards and Application Programming Interface specifications.
The UK has launched a review of port connectivity that is designed to bring home the need for concentrated infrastructure investment to boost economic recovery once the coronavirus crisis subsides.
CMA CGM, NYK, the Port of Rotterdam and TechnipFMC are among the latest cluster of companies to sign up to the Hydrogen Council, a global coalition working to enable the global energy transition through hydrogen.