Shipping News

The global shipping industry’s severe shortage of ship officers has reached its worst on record and shows signs of abating, according to Drewry’s latest Manning Annual Review and Forecast report released this week.The report highlights a widening officer availability gap in 2023, reaching a deficit of approximately 9% of the global pool of officers.This marks a significant increase from the previous year’s 5% shortfall and represents the highest level recorded in the 17 years since Drewry began analyzing the seafarer market.Projections based on the limited availability of new seafarer supply suggest that similar deficit levels will persist from 2023 to 2028. While these projections are based on vessel numbers and assumptions about crewing levels, they serve as a clear indicator of the incr...

Cambodia on Monday started the construction of a new container terminal at the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, aiming to transform this feeder port into the hub port by 2029. At a groundbreaking ceremony held here, Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen said the port development will respond to the kingdom’s economic growth and rising international trade. “The expansion project will allow large container ships to dock at the port and significantly reduce ocean freight costs for Cambodia,” he said. “It will help attract investors and accelerate our economic development.” Minister of Public Works and Transport Sun Chanthol said the new terminal will be constructed in three phases. The first phase includes the construction of an onshore general cargo terminal and a 350-mete...

Europe’s marine fuel supplies faced quality issues in the first quarter as the industry scrambled to replace Russian blendstocks with alternative fuel oil sources, according to data from Bureau Veritas Verifuel. Quality tests of 0.5% sulfur fuel oil, the prevailing marine fuel, showed up to 10% failed to meet specified parameters at key European bunker hubs in Q1.At the Greek port of Piraeus, some 10.6% of VLSFO sampled in Q1 did not meet International Standards Organisation ISO specifications 8217:2010 for 0.5%S residual marine fuel, the prevailing global standard for the fuel, according to Bureau Veritas data. In the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp area, 4.9% of the fuel was off-spec and at Las Palmas 6.8% was off spec, compared to a global samples rate of 2.1%. The recurring culpri...

The European Union’s deal with five of the bloc’s members for importing Ukrainian grain is yet to impact global agriculture markets, as market participants await further developments around the implementation of the deal, sources told S&P Global Commodity Insights. The commission announced a deal on late April 28 with five countries in the EU, after two weeks of negotiations on Ukrainian imports. The development comes amid some EU members announcing restrictions on importing Ukrainian grain in the past few weeks. Ukrainian grain — which was significantly cheaper than that produced in the EU — ended up staying in Central Europe mainly because of the high transport cost to traditional markets in Africa, trade sources said. “The neighboring member states will be withdrawing th...

Top global ship fuelling hub Singapore is unlikely to be ready for ammonia bunkering by the end of this year, Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) said, while industry players have also raised concerns about feasibility. The port authority’s clarification came after the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD) said on April 27 that Singapore’s first transfer of ammonia for bunkering could take place by the end of 2023. “These views do not represent the assessment of MPA and other government agencies – the timeline before end-2023 is not realistic,” the port authority said in a May 1 statement, a day after a deadline for would-be operators to submit an expression of interest (EOI) in a process launched last December. The MPA said the timeline should not prejudge t...

The Baltic Exchange’s main sea freight index, which tracks rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities, fell on Tuesday, pressured by lower shipping rates across all vessel segments. The overall index, which factors in rates for capesize, panamax and supramax shipping vessels, dropped 24 points, or 1.5%, to 1,552 – its biggest dip in two weeks. The capesize index lost 33 points, or 1.4%, to 2,268. Average daily earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 150,000-tonne cargoes carrying commodities such as iron ore and coal, fell by $271 to $18,809. The panamax index fell 23 points, or about 1.5% to 1,563 – its lowest since March 28. Average daily earnings for panamaxes, which usually carry coal or grain cargoes of about 60,000 to 70,000 tonnes, declined by $208 to $14...