News

Mermaid Marine completes Jaya takeover

Mermaid Marine completes Jaya takeover

Singapore: Mermaid Marine Australia (MMA) informed the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) yesterday that it has completed the acquisition of all subsidiaries of Singapore-based offshore services provider Jaya Holdings. MMA will add 27 offshore vessels to its fleet after the takeover and Jaya will also provide two onshore facilities in Singapore and Indonesia.

Wintermar to issue new shares

Jakarta: Wintermar Offshore Marine, an Indonesian offshore service provider, is planning to raise about IDR307bn for fleet expansion through issuing 340m new shares. Wintermar said the offshore sector is supported by a combination...

Myanmar getting to grips with updated maritime laws

Singapore: For the last year Singapore lawyer Jude Benny has been working with the government of Myanmar to help the country modernise its maritime laws. Speaking with our sister site Maritime CEO, the well known lawyer described pro...

Manila increasingly shipping’s BPO hub

Athens: The Philippines is growing as shipping’s back office hub, says the president of the nation’s top crewing provider. Marlon Rono, president of Magsaysay Maritime Corporation, spoke with our sister title, Maritime CEO, wh...

Vietnamese carriers affected by tensions with China

Vietnamese carriers affected by tensions with ChinaHanoi: Vietnam shipping firms have become more cautious about navigating in the disputed East Sea area, said a high ranking official from Vietnam’s largest state-owned shipping line, Vinalines. Vietnam calls the waters to its ea...

Thai tanker attack prompts security advisory

Portsmouth: The latest report of a tanker hijack in Southeast Asia has prompted the UK’s maritime operations firm Dryad Maritime to issue an advisory to its shipping clients, on the basis that the crime follows a pattern, which has...

Takeover speculation mounts for Tanjung Offshore

Takeover speculation mounts for Tanjung OffshoreKuala Lumpur: The mooted reverse take over of Tanjung Offshore by Singapore-based Bourbon Offshore Asia through an asset injection exercise is the likely reason for Tanjung Offshore's market suspension for up to three days which star...

Indonesia teams up with South Korea on LNG development

Indonesia teams up with South Korea on LNG developmentJakarta: Indonesia and South Korea will work together on coalbed methane projects, a floating LNG terminal, an onshore liquefaction facility and a $2.8bn synthetic natural gas plant in the Southeast Asian nation. The two countries re...

GasLog signs repair deal with Sembawang Shipyard

Singapore: Sembawang Shipyard, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sembcorp Marine, has secured a long-term Favoured Customer Contract (FCC) from GasLog LNG Services, to provide ship repair, refurbishment, upgrading and related marine servi...

Jakarta plans 14 new coal terminals

Jakarta: Indonesia will build 14 dedicated coal terminals on the islands of Kalimantan and Sumatra, according to the Minerals and Coal Director of Indonesia’s Ministry of Energy, R. Sukhyar. Each island will get seven new termin...

SGX forces Yangzijiang to disclose damaging allegations made against its chairman

Singapore: One of China’s largest private shipyards has been forced by the Singapore Exchange to provide reasons why its share price took such a battering on Friday in the Lion Republic.

Thai tanker ransacked by pirates

Bangkok: A diesel tanker, Orapin 4, owned by Thai International Tanker, with 14 crew aboard, arrived at Chon Buri’s Sri Racha on Sunday night after being hijacked and its cargo stolen by pirates on its way from Singapore to Indonesia.

Swiber sambas to $80m epic contract win

Singapore: Offshore firm Swiber Holdings has won an engineering, procurement, installation and construction contract for subsea development work including pipeline tie-in work in Latin America. The project is worth $80m to the group and will comme...

Danang port to launch IPO this month

Hanoi: The Port of Danang, the largest in central Vietnam, will sell over 8.3m shares in its initial public offering (IPO) in Hanoi on June 11. The offering accounts for 12.57% of thepaid up capital of the port. Each share is being offered at VND11,...

SembCorp Marine eyes gas terminal construction

Singapore: Pointing to a possible new business strand, Sembcorp Marine has entered into an agreement to acquire a 12% stake in Norway’s GraviFloat for $4m, with a right to increase its stake up to 20% by further equity injection. GraviFloat was for...

Precious fixes loan

Bangkok: Thai dry bulk owner Precious Shipping has secured an $81.5m term loan facility from the Export-Import Bank of Thailand to finance part of its massive newbuild plan. Precious has earmarked a total spend of $789m for 29 new ships in the coming...

Thai tanker goes missing in Indonesian waters

Singapore: A Thai tanker has gone missing with authorities across the region scrambling to locate the ship. According to the ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre, the Orapin 4 departed Singapore on Tuesday afternoon bound for Pontianak in Indonesia wi...

ASL Marine scores contracts for four support vessels

Singapore: ASL Marine Holdings has won shipbuilding contracts for four vessels from customers in Australia and Norway. The deals are worth close to S$91m and are for the construction of three ART-100-42 infield support vessels and one seismic sup...

MPA vows to crack down on navigational safety

Singapore: Following the three collision incidents resulting in oil spills which took place in Singapore port waters and the Singapore Strait earlier this year, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) conducted investigations to determine ...

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In Focus

The Seven-Year Itch

Max Hong discusses shipping cycles and Marilyn Monroe

The Seven-Year Itch

What is it with seven years, is there some kind of cycle? Over a very healthy dinner at the home of a good friend, a vegetarian, he tells me he is excited by the upcoming celebration of his seventh anniversary of becoming a non-meat eater. It is important, he says, because all the cells in a human body will be replaced over a period of seven years, meaning in his case that the last meat fed cells would be gone and his body will now be 100% veggie based. Nice, simple, clean conversion.   

Where's the meat? Libido attraction that was empowered by one set of cells, evaporates down to zero and a new set of pheromones from another body sets us off. In the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch, a married man struggles with the temptation to run off with the young woman next door, played by Marilyn Monroe. Always something more hot… but we are in the shipping business and, of course, hormones and temptations play no part in our decisions. What about cycles?

Seven years, 2007 to 2014, what do we call this cycle? Of course, it was the financial crisis that began in 2007 when markets became exhausted by the steroids of cheap credit which boosted shipping in an orgasmic frenzy to heavenly charter rates and asset values only to plunge and shatter both the egos and balance sheets of many an industry titan. Like the conviction and commitment that accompanies the ‘mother of all hangovers’, banks, owners and every one else in the shipping ecosystem swore that these excesses would never be repeated.

Until the next time, that is until asset values get so low and newbuilding prices recede with hungry yards willing to "do it for cash flow". For a few years it looked like sobriety and balance were returning, the pace of newbuildings subsided, orderbooks contracted, ships got scrapped and it looked like a new normal of supply and demand health, but then came the renewed surge of China stimulus, coupled with the &ls; ...   More>>