TOP STORY
A mysterious low-profile tanker player that only started taking in vessels in February this year is said to have signed a newbuilding order for up to eight aframax product tankers worth almost half a billion dollars. The ambitious move is believed to be Kurow Shipping’s debut newbuilding deal and a first for any of the nascent operators to have joined the tanker sector since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Vessel databases link Kurow Shipping to a similarly low-profile group of companies at a time when a so-called “shadow fleet” of ships has grown to carry Russian oil exports while staying off the radar of mainstream shipping. There was no detail on how the newbuilding deal would be financed or where the vessels would be deployed, but one tanker that it recently purchased has been linked to the Russia trades.
NEWS
Broker merger | UK broking giant Clarksons is in talks to acquire rival Maersk Broker, in the latest consolidation move to hit the sector. According to sources in the shipbroking and shipping markets, a deal could be close, with Clarksons undertaking due diligence on a move that is being widely discussed in industry circles. The two shipbrokers form two-thirds of a panel that handles business for AP Moller-Maersk, the world’s second-largest liner operator.
IMO election | Panama’s Arsenio Dominguez will be the International Maritime Organization’s next secretary general after defeating five other candidates in a secret ballot. The 52-year-old trained naval architect, a well-regarded figure within the organisation, will take over from South Korea’s Kitack Lim at the start of 2024. Dominguez told journalists after the vote that he was not afraid of shaking up the organisation to open it to wider scrutiny.
Black Sea grain deal | Russia announced that it will not extend the United Nations-led Black Sea corridor for the export of Ukrainian grain until the UN and the West meet demands over its own trade. Following the breakdown of the initiative, Russian forces hammered the ports of Odesa and Chernomorsk with dozens of missiles and attack drones, damaging grain export infrastructure.
Shipbroking | Experienced broker and vessel manager Ross Fothergill has founded a new shop aimed exclusively at low-carbon shipping. He has set up registered offices in Hong Kong and London to offer chartering services to modern, high-performing vessels, including energy-efficient retrofits and ships with innovative designs.
Green Seas | This week’s environmental newsletter explores how the cruise sector hopes to change the IMO’s Carbon Intensity Indicator, a regulation that an industry group believes leads to perverse incentives for vessels focused on travel experiences rather than just transport.
IN DEPTH
‘We were treated as crazy,’ says wind propulsion entrepreneur
Cristina Munoz never imagined that she would become an engineer, never dreamed of working in shipping and certainly never pictured that she would run a business one day.
Today, she is a self-described “engineer at heart” and co-founder of Bound4Blue, a start-up that has developed wind-assisted suction sails designed for the clean propulsion of vessels.
TradeWinds’ Holly Birkett caught up with her as part of our new series of One to Watch interviews.
AND FINALLY...
San Miguel Corp, best known for producing one of Asia’s most popular beers, has bought a supramax bulker from Japan’s Fair Field Shipping, according to broker reports. The Manila-headquartered conglomerate was said to have acquired the 50,800-dwt Couga (built 2010) for $16m.
Read more
- Managing risk: Braemar beefs up screen service with live bunker swaps
- Collapsed Chinese bulk carrier builder Yangzhou Guoyu back in business
- Evangelos Marinakis’ Capital Maritime splashes $145m on world’s biggest CO2 carriers at Hyundai Mipo
- US lightering companies ‘afraid’ to touch Iranian oil on Greek tanker Suez Rajan
- Croatia’s Tankerska Plovidba said to be exiting suezmax sector
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