SIZE is a compounding factor in cruiseship safety.The whole tragedy of Costa Concordia has been followed by all types of media and will no doubt continue to play out for some time to come. It has brought back to me an experience on a sistership a few years ago that has worried me ever since.My wife and I boarded Costa Magica in Ft Lauderdale for a week’s cruise around the Caribbean, my wife as part of a group and me along for the ride.We had not been cruising before, although we had...
Putting the squeeze on ship finance
THERE have been many messages over the holiday period relating to banking and its future in today’s world.The primary concern has come from the sovereign-debt crisis faced by all countries in the eurozone and related losses from the Greek default, and from the huge funding problems that other eurozone countries face.As the credit ratings of many of these countries have been downgraded, so the value of their bonds held mainly by eurozone banks has declined and the cost of any new...
Results are a mess of our own making
THE results of public shipping companies for the year 2011 are about to be revealed, but there will be few positive surprises as the wet and dry charter markets have continued to be unprofitable through the fourth quarter of 2011 and, in many cases, have worsened since.Before we forget, the charter rates for fixtures made in Q4 2011 will appear in the owning company’s results for Q1 and Q2 of 2012. With all the BDI indexes dropping to their lowest levels in history and some shipowners...
SHIPPING, as I have stated many times, has little or no influence on the international trade that produces the cargoes that creates the demand for shipping services.However, shipping can open up new markets and provide the supply chain for raw materials and finished goods. This supply chain opened Asian trade in the 19th and 20th centuries and enabled oil to move from remote parts of the Middle East and Asia to the centres of industrial and economic growth in Europe and the US.Shipping...
Paul SlaterTuesday 29 November 2011A WEEK is a long time in politics and two weeks is an eternity in shipping. Certainly the last two weeks up to Thanksgiving.The workings of the US bankruptcy system are playing out in full public view as Omega and Marco Polo jostle with creditors in the courts of Houston and New York.Two new Chapter 11 filings were recorded. Trailer Bridge, a small barge operator founded by container pioneer Malcom Maclean, serving the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico,...
Spot market forces plague shipping groups
By Robert WrightWhen BW Maritime, one of the world’s biggest shipping groups, revealed early last week that it had laid up one of its oil tankers, it was a moment with many historical echoes.Folk memories in the world’s shipping industry of the worst industry slumps often revolve around lurid tales of how ships spent months or years moored in fiords or up rivers. Confirmation that owners were once again accepting that some vessels would be unemployed for the foreseeable...
The bitter medicine shipping must swallow
Changing management and dismantling outdated strategies is what is required if shipping is to recover. The decline in freight ratess from the dizzy heights of five years ago means many shipping companies are running at daily losses once operating expenses, overheads and dept service are taken into account. Click the link to download the full article. Article: The bitter medicine shipping must swallow Lloyds List
With cheap debt no longer available and demand for shipping services at risk from the downturn, the industry must brace itself for some turbulent weather. Download article here. Source: Lloyds List, 7th October issue.
Shipping is not a casino where the chips are ships The market correction has begun, and it will catch out all those owners and operators who failed to see shipping as a long-term game, with transportation at its core. Time has been called for those still at the casino When the going gets tough, observers fall into two camps. The analysts lapse into ‘told-you-so’ mode, and graph out long-term trends that reveal a market correction had been on the cards for several months....
Download speech by ship financier Paul Slater
Cut your overheads or risk going under
As the outlook worsens in all sectors and China takes a stranglehold on the market, only the strong will survive. As we go through this season of financial reporting the results for 2010 show a seriously worsening situation in all shipping sectors in the fourth quarter of 2010, continuing into the first quarter of 2011. Click the link to download the full article. Article: Cut your overheads or risk going under Lloyds List
Wall Street bearish about shipping
Companies planning a share offering will be pinning their hopes on a dramatic and lasting market recovery. The season of corporate reporting is upon us with final results for 2010 and first quarter of 2011. Click the link to download the full article. Article: Wall Street bearish about shipping Lloyds List
Paul Slater forecasts trouble ahead
Paul Slater forecasts trouble ahead. Watch his discussion with TradeWinds here: http://www.tradewinds.no/webtv/?id=1394
Why Wall Street overvalues shipping
Volatile nature of industry means long-term investors have mostly left, to be replaced by hedge funds and traders who distort valuations — so values of most public shipping companies bear little relation to their true value. Article: Why Wall Street overvalues shipping Lloyds List - February 2011 Click the link to download the full article.
The impact of New Financial Regulations in Europe & the USA
Following on from the near collapse of the International Banking System in 2008 it is hardly surprising that Governments in the USA and throughout Europe have been under pressure to institute new regulations and reforms designed to prevent a repeat of the 2008 crisis. Article: The impact of New Financial Regulations in Europe & the USA Ship Finance & Investment Conference 2010 - London, November 16th & 17th Click the link to download the full article. ...
Listen to Paul Slater on the Lloyds List Podcast
You can listen to the full discussion by clicking here.
Oil industry doesn’t need my defense
My recent articles about the Gulf oil spill have prompted some of your readers to resort to personal attacks on me which are both ill-informed and offensive. If spending more than 30 years financing and investing in cargo ships of all types, of which some have carried oil for various oil companies, and as a director of the world’s independent tanker owners association, Intertanko, makes me an insider, then the writers are more ignorant than their opinions...
The Oil Catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico
So much has already been written, televised and spoken about the blow-out of the oil well that BP was drilling in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, that one might ask, “what more can be said?” The well-head is still leaking more than 85 days after the initial explosion, although the latest cap seems to be working. The clean-up appears to be gaining ground but a large amount of oil still remains on the surface. The finger-pointing...
Download full article by Rajesh Joshi - Wednesday 16 December 2009, Lloyds List.
Leave the casino and get back to shipping
PAUL Slater has never warmed to the title of shipping’s Cassandra-in-chief, so perhaps the knowledge that people are finally listening will provide him some comfort. When the forthright chairman and chief executive of First International last dropped into Lloyd’s List for a casual chat, his prophecy that over half of all listed shipping companies were in danger of going bust garnered the level of internet hit rates more usually associated with news stories...
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