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According to the International Maritime Bureau, the number of attacks on vessels off the Nigerian coast (Gulf of Guinea) could exceed those off the Somalian coast ( Gulf of Aden).
Armed robbery incidents could vary from robbers boarding with knives or with highly sophisticated weapons. As of Wednesday night there had been 48 attacks in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia reported since the start of the year. Five vessels were hijacked, 102 crew members taken hostage and a further 24 vessels fired upon. Seven ships and 118 crew were still in detention.
The number of vessels that have actually been hijacked has been steadily dropping. While in October last year the ratio of attacks to hijacks was one in three, this ratio has dropped to one in 19 by this month, as a result of the increased presence of naval forces patrolling in the gulf.
Suez Canal revenue and traffic levels last month both fell by around a quarter in comparison with February 2008, according to figures released by the canal authorities.The numbers mark the sixth successive decline, with canal revenues hitting their lowest point in the last three years.Vessel transits declined to 1,272 compared to 1,676 vessels a year ago. Also, the volume of trade passing through this canal fell to 53m tonnes, compare to 73m tonnes year on year.Some reasons to explain that can be the economic downturn and also the reroute around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the
Gulf of Aden, well-known for piracy attacks.
Recession has the potential to do a considerable amount to improve the safety aspects as ships get laid up, thereby reducing the number of seafarers required overall.
Owners and shipmanagers have been spread too thin in recent times in their efforts to control ever-increasing volumes of new ships in this frantic bull market.
This resulted in the spiraling wage bills as owners competed with each other for quality crews.
Insurers complain of a major rise in claims on new machinery as inexperienced engine room staff failed to deal with problems which occurred on ships spewing from the yards.
A period of moderation might allow the managers to restore the quality levels that have slipped over the last four years and who knows, the pricing may fall as well.
Bangladeshi ship recyclers and cash buyers from the scrapping industry have reacted with frustration to news that the Bangladeshi High Court has ordered the closure, within 2 weeks, of yards operating without environmental clearance.
The Court also banned end-of-life vessels from coming to
Bangladesh without having been pre-cleaned of hazardous materials, such as asbestos, heavy metals and oil sludges.
The ruling was unopposed because no industry experts knew the case was going to court. The Bangladeshi Ship Breaker’s Association reacted quickly to the ruling and filed a petition to appeal.
It is predicted that over 1,000 ships would be scrapped this year. If the order was implemented it would mean the end of ship breaking in
Bangladesh.
It is estimated that around 250,000 people are directly or indirectly employed by the ship breaking industry in
Gulf of Aden had resulted in an intensification of security in this region.For the last few months, successful attacks on vessels are running out of steam and the risk-reward balance could be tipping back in favour of the ship-owners.However, in this economic context, anti-piracy operations may not seems to be such an urgent priority for governments struggling to bail out their own economies.Without a strong naval presence in this region, all efforts can be lost.The hope is that a sustainable solution will be in place, with capacity-building projects on land, regional support and involvement from the United Nations to long-term support for
Somalia, but this can take a long time.Until we do, it is likely that both governments and pirates will keep a close eye on the risk-reward balance and keep asking themselves what they can get away with.
Safety and security are keys points. You must make sure that your crew has received a high level of safe instructions and your ship has no failure before going.
However, all these measures cost a lot of money. According to a leading classification society report, some owners are skimping on maintenance budgets.
Delaying such work is somehow understandable in this period of credit crunch, but it means endangering the life of your crew. If no effort is made on ships’ maintenance, the shipping industry as a whole will stand condemned.
At present, it is estimated that approximately 1,000 vessels are laid-up around the world’s anchorages. According to the Classification society Det Norske Veritas, the overcapacity of vessels could reach 10,000 with some 6,000 laid up by 2013.
However, this is not bad news for everyone. It can be a business opportunity. Indeed, in Southeast Asia, sheltered bays are being marketed as safe havens of unemployed tonnage. Bays in the Philippines are being touted as ideal low-cost locations to park vessels.
Great meeting - Duncan Buchanan DfT was the main speaker, he was talking on DASTS (Delivering a Sustainable Transport System) and is keen to get the industry involved in talking about the 16 themes for logistics.
Lets discuss and we can forward ideas/comments to him.
The break up of liner conferences on European trades provides an opportunity to further develop collaborative relationships in order to reduce supply chain uncertainty and therefore cost. This was one of the messages from a speech by David Mawer, Joint Managing Director, JF Hillebrand, at a meeting of the European Shippers Council today.
“Optimum efficiencyis achieved by collaboratively working to reduce uncertainty, which means improving reliability and responsiveness in the supply chain. Minim ising inventory whilst maximising availability,” Mawer explained.
From 17 October onwards, shipping lines will set their own freight rates based on service levels, internal costs and market conditions. Furthermore, individual lines will be responsible for determining their own surcharges such as THC (Terminal Handling Charges), BAF (Bunker Adjustment Factor) and CAF (Currency Adjustment Factor).
While it is unclear how carriers will react to operating individually, there are certain to be major changes for shippers and a lot more scope for negotiation. Certainly there are significant opportunities for both shipping lines and shippers alike, but there are also dangers. One of the major dangers is poor capacity planning leading to oversupply or undersupply. The lead time of putting a large containership into service from order to delivery is a matter of years, therefore the shipping industry is much less able to react quickly to changing market conditions. Oversupply of tonnage will push rates down and could put some lines out of business. On the other end of the scale, undersupply will push up freight rates and could affect global trade growth.
Whether for good or bad, life is going to get a lot more complicated for all involved. But the key consideration in the post-conference world is not to base decisions purely on freight rates as these are not the sole cost in a supply chain. Shippers could find that cutting costs on the carrier could end up costing them more elsewhere in the supply chain.
The Rail Britannia Campaign — some key points for further discussion …
Sea transport
is among the most economically and environmentally friendly transport modes. Retailers and importers want to increase its use in the supply chain, but there
is a current lack of sufficient infrastructure coupled with unreliable or underdeveloped service levels.In the new era of increased corporate responsibility, more and more major industries, businesses and retailers within the
UK are taking on the initiative to drastically improve their supply chain log
istics. Through more efficient shipping and movement of products via UK ports and rail freight, these companies are seeing vast reductions in their carbon em
issions and are effectively providing better service options.Unfortunately, efforts by these businesses to util
ise viable shipping alternatives are being squashed on a daily bas
is by the government’s own lack of direction when it comes to the use of the UK’s rail infrastructure. In the
UK, overcapacity
is becoming a real problem for many of the establ
ished ports, at a time when sea transport
is becoming more popular. The government needs to support new deep sea terminals to ease the pressure and respond to changing transport needs.PD Ports (PDP) terminal at Teesport North East England, currently handles around 13 trains per-day.However, following approval of the company’s plans for a deep sea terminal, known as the Northern Gateway Container Terminal (NGCT), rail transport at th
is key UK port
is set to greatly increase. When the NGCT begins planned operations in 2011, PDP wants to expand rail services.Th
is will lead to the handling of an additional 10 trains per-day when NGCT
is fully open.While these extra train paths are available using the current infrastructure, it will not be possible to transport the increasingly popular high cube containers on standard rail wagons.At present, the government seems to be making no progress toward reducing carbon em
issions from transport and
is blaming increased personal wealth for the r
ise in car use and increased personal travel. While th
is may be true, it should not be used as an excuse for doing nothing to reduce the UK’s transport em
issions footprint. Greater use of Northern UK ports, plus the use of rail
is a viable option for reducing carbon em
issions from the UK and reducing transport costs at the same time.
