We take a look at what was said in the market in the past week.
“When I analyse myself, I’m ashamed. When I compare myself, I’m proud. What does this mean? Well, the level that I’m at today does not satisfy me. But I’m very proud to see the advances that I made compared to the level I was at a year ago. Which means I’m on the right path and I will reach my objective.”
Transpetro chief Sergio ‘Descartes’ Machado offers a window to his soul.
“Our benchmark is Korea. That’s the model we want to reach.”
Machado on the company’s shipbuilding activities (we assume he meant South Korea).
“You know that in political life, knowing is one thing but talking about what you know is always tricky.”
Machado knows politics is all about known unknowns.
“We had a meeting and I told the companies that we have three big issues to increase business here in Brazil - the first is shipyards, the second is shipyards and the third is shipyards.”
Short meeting, then. Paulo Roberto Costa, chief downstream officer at Petrobras.
“GNMTC is nominally stateowned, although Hannibal reportedly has a sizeable stake in and effectively controls it.”
A document leaked by Wikileaks on Muammar Gaddafi’s youngest son whose full name has gone a long way to endearing himself to the Libyan people over the past three decades.
“You can call either Libya or India now.”
One broker reckons turmoil in Libya has sent some employees of GNMTC scattering all over the place.
"European owners – with the exception of the Greeks – were relatively inactive in 2010, but more than 50% of the new orders came from Chinese owners into Chinese shipyards."
Clarksons says it’s all Greek and Chinese when it comes to ship orders as the broker reveals full-year profit ballooned to $38m.
“I think we have to be realistic that all companies with the position of their balance sheet that we have...that we have to look at the structure of our financing.”
Jacob Meldgaard as Torm ran up a loss of $135m last year and shareholders sent the stock plunging.
“This time around we are going through an exciting time with many newbuildings delivering from yards at all time high prices. It is kind of interesting how that will unfold. And maybe owners will have less cash available to support those deliveries as well as buying up the opportunities - and that might be interesting.”
Pac Basin boss Klaus Nyborg shows his sadistic side as he revels in others’ pain.
“We don’t see an Armageddon of prices in our sector unfolding.”
And Pac Basin can enjoy the misery from afar, Nyborg hints.
“Unless prices are at rock bottom - as was the case in 2009 - the Chinese won’t come chasing after secondhand vessels.”
A source on Chinese players who have shied away from many secondhand deals...unless you are willing to sell for a song.
“We saw in Dermatis someone who shares a lot of our business ethics. Maybe they are a bit more aggressive because we were always more conservative.”
Greek broker John Cotzias as his laid-back firm merges with go-getters Intermodal Shipbrokers.
“We believe that this is something that is happening for the first time in Greece, it’s never been done before. But we believe there will be more mergers in future, so there are not 40 offices but about 15.”
If Intermodal’s Kyriakos Dermatis thinks he can get away with ordering less subscriptions, he can think again!
“We herewith protest in the strongest possible terms that you are consuming our bunkers for your own convenience and that you have no rights to do so. We demand that you return the vessel to Narvik and perform the intended voyage.”
David Boxall of Oldendorff Carriers is looking for fuel from one of its ships on charter to KLC.
“We can only conclude that it is KLC’s intention to pay nothing. This is not correct and will not be tolerated. The negotiations have now come to an end and events will now take their course. You have been given due notice of the steps we will take.”
Boxall for some reasons seems to be holding out some hope of getting anything at all out of the bankrupted Korean operator.
“I hate those guys. But in reality, a lot of us envy them and would like to be in their position right now.”
A rival banker gives Standard Chartered the green eye.
“The situation in the area off the Horn of Africa is very serious, and it is completely unacceptable that such Danish ships are attacked by pirates. The risky waters have been significantly extended and the number of attacks has escalated dramatically. It has been shown that the use of armed guards currently provides effective protection against pirate attacks.”
Lars Barfoed, Denmark’s justice minister, as the country pumps more resources into fighting Somali piracy in the wake of the kidnapping of seven Danes onboard a yacht.
“People don’t put these materials in a ship for the fun of it. It is because you need them for safe operation.”
John Stawpert, senior advisor to the International Chamber of Shipping, on pre-cleaning of ships before recycling.
“Maybe you should hire some really strong technical people.”
Anil Sharma of cash buyer Global Marketing Systems to the NGO Platform on Shipbreaking about pre-cleaning.
