We take a look at what was said in the market in the past week.
A strategy lesson for ship buyers from Donald Chao of China Steel Express.
(State run China Steel Express confirms cape buy)
“If volumes are still weak, then rates will plunge further south despite the service suspensions on this trade lane so far this year.”
It's always comforting when brokers such as GFI have such a sound grasp of markets.
(Vessels pulled ahead of slack winter)
“Crew wages have been growing a lot faster than the consumer price index. It’s something that is not sustainable but is not negotiable. If you have long-term contracts - which banks love - you’re stuck with the CPI and you know that crew inflation is much higher.”
Well we always knew that oil was unsustainable but perhaps not in quite the way that Geir Sjurseth of DVB Bank suggests.
(Crew costs and currency wobbles taking their toll)
“Getting not just the technology but the commercial business right were key aspects...But this is a journey, there is no destination. We will continue to evolve this business.”
Seems that Cleartrade Exchange chief Richard Baker is sailing in the wake of the great navigators. Venturing into the blue yonder without a destination never mind a port in mind.
(Screen team remains confident)
“Traditional tools used by private-equity investors, such as calculating the internal rate of return by using a terminal value for the vessel five years later, cannot be used in shipping because who knows what the value of the vessel is going to be in five years’ time.”
George Elliott of Naftilia Asset Management warns that there are problems in attracting institutional investors to back shipping ventures.
(Fund man says shipping plays have lost their pull)
“Perhaps it is ‘relatively’ easy for the biggest players to sit back and believe that the smaller carriers will go bankrupt this time around or will retrench to their regional markets and the industry will readjust itself...But a great deal of pain will be experienced even if this process does take place.”
Shipping consultants Drewry is expecting no improvement in liner trade supply demand for as long as five years.
(Carriers likely to slide into the red this year and next)
Costamare managing director Diamantis Manos faces the reality of the the Rena grounding off New Zealand.
"Before, the salvage industry was all about saving life, property and cargo but now the first thing we hear about is the environment... We cannot get away from that...If we help prevent a multibillion-dollar environmental calamity we should get paid fairly .... The revenue we are getting now will cover what we are doing today but nothing more...That is why I am asking underwriters for higher awards because if they pay more then we can reinvest.”
George Tsavliris the new president of the International Salvage Union gives notice that enhanced environmental awards are back on the agenda.
(Going green the big issue for Tsavliris)
“I would like to make seafarers aware that piracy is not a thriller movie but a dark comedy – dark for the captives and comedy for the pirates....One cannot understand how dreadful it is to encounter men with machine guns at sea unless you witness it.
Chemical carrier second engineer Chirag Bahri gives a victim’s view of what it is like to be hijacked by Somali pirates.
“Governments don’t like it when we say this, but the reality is that they have ceded control of the Indian Ocean to the pirates.”
Tough talk from Spyros Polemis of the International Chamber of Shipping as the industry reach the end of its tether over piracy.
(Pirates control Indian Ocean)
An opening shot across the bows of the protection and indemnity clubs ahead of the annual round of general increases from Malcolm Godfrey of Arthur J Gallagher.
(It’s payback time for cash rich clubs)
“It is fascinating to compare the approach of the Scandinavian clubs, run by chief executives who have come from a commercial background, to that of clubs run by those managers who have spent their lives in P&I and appear to believe the P&I industry is a protected species and immune from any change.”
Is that Martin Hubbard of Tyser’s rocking the P&I boat?
