Will the assault on Northern Range Ports from the south
be stymied by low oil?

DETERMINING the true nature of the oil price plunge - is it chronic or a hiccough? - has made it hard to determine trends in the Asia-Europe trade.
One big surprise came in January with the failure of UN's emission control areas (ECAs) crisis to have an impact. It was widely expected to increase bunker costs 50 per cent in the English Channel, the North and Baltic Seas as well as the entire North American coast except for Mexico.
Which it did - but with crude falling 54 per cent, it hardly mattered. While there has been rebound since, many feel "black gold" has lost its lustre now that so many countries sprout oil these days.  >More
 

Megaship paradox resolved by re-thinking the situation
as Malcom McLean might have done

THE damned if you do, damned if you don't paradox in megaship building may well be resolved if we think outside the box - that is, look at the factors and not in ways we so frequently do - closing off promising channels because they seem impossible in light of our experience.
We all know the basic dynamics - one must build bigger box ships to bring down slot costs to compensate for falling rates brought on by overcapacity that more and bigger boxships create.
The way out is typically seen as kick-starting European growth and/or having a more consistently robust US recovery. But let us instead contemplate the current situation as a "new normal", together with "low oil" in which not much changes in the two consumer powerhouses.  >More
 

Sino-Euro rail may not cost out today, but contains a tale of
two differing transport policies

ON February 22, a freight train from Madrid arrived in Yiwu, a city of 1.2 million, 175 miles southwest of Shanghai, which has been growing at an exponential rate, and in 2014 its combined imports and exports were valued at US$23.7 billion, a 28.6 per cent year-on-year increase.
The train, bearing a cargo of wine and olive oil on its backhaul return leg, joins four other rail routes offered between China and Europe by consortia of European, Eurasian and Chinese companies, writes Mike Flanagan, CEO of Clothesource, a garment industry consultancy outside of London.
They all claim to be faster than ocean freight and cheaper than air on cost and on paper least they appear to be just what apparel companies need in today's fast-fashion era, said Mr Flanagan in New York's Sourcing Journal Online.   >More
 

Humanitarian challenge must be overcome before
momentous opportunity can be exploited

THE shipping community has long been told about treating challenges and opportunities as the same thing, but in the case of the Mediterranean one must be overcome so that the other can thrive.
The challenge is the humanitarian crisis of refugees streaming across the Mediterranean south to north trying to escape the Islamic strife of North Africa by taking whatever boat they can to get to Europe.
The opportunity is the absence of burdensome emissions controls, brought about by the very same Islamic strife because no one dares enforce carbon emissions rules off the North African coast, a fact which has helped promote a transshipment boom in the Med and will likely to produce trends of stupendous significance in future.   >More