Newsletter – February 15, 2018

OCEAN FREIGHT UPDATES

NYK faces loss of ¥2bn and probes embezzlement claims at car-carrier subsidiary

source: theloadstar.co.uk

Shipping line NYK faces a ¥2bn ($18.5m) financial hit after allegations that former managers were involved in illegal spending and embezzlement.

The Japanese carrier said today it had formed a committee to investigate the actions of “locally hired” management at Chinese subsidiary NYK Car Carrier. Read more here (login required).

Ocean carriers hit by costlier fuel, now face spike in charter hire rates

source: theloadstar.co.uk

Already facing higher fuel costs, ocean carriers could now be hit by a rise in charter hire rates.

Container shipping lines are being obliged to pay higher daily hire rates for chartered vessels as the availability of tonnage falls to a new low. Read more here (login required).

HMM notches up billion-dollar loss, but carrier still plans to order more megaships

source: theloadstar.co.uk

Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) slumped to a KRW1.2trn ($1.1bn) net loss in 2017. And this follows a KRW484bn loss the year before, bucking the industry trend of improved profitability.

However, seemingly undaunted by the magnitude of its continued losses, the South Korean carrier is to invest $95m in 30,000 new containers and is reported to be on the verge of an order for a dozen 22,000 teu vessels and eight of 13,000 teu. Read more here (login required).

Maersk hits out at severe levels of corruption across maritime

source: splash247.com

Maersk has publically hit out at the “severity of corruption in the maritime sector” and has called on greater cross-industry collaboration as well as help from governments to stamp out the plague of facilitation payments and extortion hitting shipping lines across the world. Read more here.

OOCL cancels Trans-Pacific sailing after the Chinese New Year holiday

source: shippingazette.com

HONG Kong’s Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) has announced a Trans-Pacific sailing cancellation after the Lunar New Year holiday period.

OOCL said in a statement that the cancellation has been made “in response to the expected low demand following the Lunar New Year holiday”.

The carrier says the withdrawal of the Asia-North America sailing is in addition to those cancellations announced on January 11 and January 22. Read more here.

THE Alliance fine tunes port rotations and adds new Red Sea service

source: shippingazette.com

FOLLOWING the announcement of the 2018 service network in December, members of THE Alliance – Hapag-Lloyd, Yang Ming and Ocean Network Express (ONE), which comprises “K” Line, MOL and NYK), has refined its product offerings with several services seeing additional enhancements to improve transit times, boost reliability, and deliver more choice to the marketplace. Read more here.