Daily Briefing November 30 2020
Free to read: Asia-Europe container freight spot rates hit new highs | China agrees $1.5bn deal for additional Indonesian coal | Urgent consensus needed over decarbonisation | The Lloyd’s List Podcast: Is shipping still a Luddite sector?
Good morning. Here’s our quick view of everything you need to know today.
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What to watch | Analysis | Opinion | Markets | In other news
What to watch
Container spot freight rates from Asia to northern Europe have broken the $2,000 per teu level for the first time in a decade after rising by more than a quarter last week.
China has signed a memorandum of understanding to increase coal exports from Indonesia.
Shipping needs to climb a mountain pass before it can make it through to a decarbonised future, but there are opportunities on the other side once the transition is made.
The Lloyd’s List Podcast: We take a sneak preview of what’s to come at next week’s Lloyd’s List Outlook Forum with founder and chief executive officer of innovation hub and accelerator Optima-X Angelica Kemene.
Analysis
Economic diversification underpins the visions unveiled by Gulf states a year ago. Some funding should still be made available to explore the potential of exporting cleaner energy around the world.
The week in charts: The rapid growth in Libya’s oil exports since the resumption in October has provided some support for suezmax tankers in recent weeks, but crude tonne-mile demand from the Middle East Gulf is lagging behind the year-ago level.
Opinion
Shipping stakeholders talk the talk about key workers but they appear to have little sympathy for calls to limit working hours. A World Maritime University study points to systemic failures and industry connivance in malpractice.
Markets
Break-bulk liquefied natural gas trade tied to off-grid demand is on the verge of taking flight, fuelling demand for import infrastructure and potentially hundreds of small-scale tankers.
Record high volumes and freight rates between the Far East and the US west coast have caused a spike in the number of containers leaving the port of Los Angeles empty in a rush back to the Far East, as freight rates are easily five times higher going from east to west than the other way around, shipping association BIMCO highlights.
In other news
Shipowners should look beyond mere compliance with the International Maritime Organization’s upcoming cyber requirement to protect themselves from threats.
DFDS, the Danish ferry operator, will start a new freight ro-ro service between Rosslare and Dunkirk from January.
Pacific Basin, a Hong Kong dry bulk owner and operator, has agreed to buy four ultramaxes from Scorpio Bulkers for a total consideration of $67m.
Malaysia’s main container terminal operator Westports saw throughput increase 6% year on year to 2.93m teu in the third quarter as global economic activities resumed after the earlier coronavirus-related lockdowns.
Shipmanager association InterManager has named Mark O'Neil, chief executive of Columbia Shipmanagement, as its new president.
Keppel Offshore & Marine has picked up a S$100m ($74.7m) floating production storage and offloading vessel fabrication and integration job from an unnamed repeat customer.