A Maersk Tankers vessel barred from a Spanish port in a Russian sanctions dispute will now unload its cargo outside of Europe. The 51,600-dwt Maersk Magellan (built 2010) was heading towards Greece on Tuesday while Maersk Tankers awaited the charterer’s instructions. “Europe is not an option,” said a company spokesperson.
Our weekly finance newsletter looked at Ardmore Shipping’s long, strange trip from 10 years as a public shipowner. Stifel shipping analyst Ben Nolan began a client note this week with the observation that “after years of a challenging market, everything is going Ardmore’s way”. It is hard to disagree, argued TradeWinds’ Joe Brady.
Lorentzen & Co is slashing its Oslo shipbroking desk after showing the board a disappointing set of preliminary 2022 results. Six to eight of the 16 Oslo shipbrokers will have to go, but executive chairman Christian Andersen told TradeWinds he will not be eliminating any of the shipping sectors Lorentzen covers.
Fast-growing cargo data analyst Kpler has struck its latest deal to buy ship-tracking companies MarineTraffic and FleetMon. The cargo specialist has now completed five acquisitions in the last 18 months after securing more than $200m in funding from private equity firms.
As a United Nations-led initiative to ship Ukrainian grain nears its expiration date next month, the government in Kyiv is stepping up its campaign against Russia to renew the deal on more favourable terms for the invaded country. Russian ship inspectors working in Istanbul as part of UN-led teams are dragging their feet, leading to a queue of 140 inbound and outbound ships in the Bosphorus, two Ukrainian ministers said in a joint statement on Wednesday.
A massive build-up in US crude oil inventories could benefit the tanker market, Lorentzen & Co said on Thursday. The broker said oil markets were spooked after Wednesday’s report by the US Energy Information Administration showing a “mind-blowing” 16.3m barrel rise in commercial crude inventories. The jump to 471m barrels led to a brief sell-off and prompt recovery of crude prices.
Euronav is implementing a fleet-wide roll-out of compatriot vessel performance start-up Toqua’s voyage optimisation system that the companies said can more than double fuel savings in comparison to traditional ship-performance models. The fleet-wide deal has followed extensive tests of Toqua’s Ship Kernels system on one of Euronav’s VLCC tankers over 16 voyages, spanning four trades in both directions and different seasons.
In this week’s Green Seas newsletter, Eric Priante Martin reports on proposals by US, Canada, UK and island countries to lay out mile-marker targets, including slashing greenhouse gas by 96% in 2040.
