Gunmen seized the Kenya-bound MV Faina, carrying 33 tanks, grenade launchers and ammunition, on 24 September.
A pirate spokesman said releasing the ship was "a matter of time", but gave no details of a ransom payment.
Maritime security sources stressed that while owners should not rush to get trigger happy, they need to be aware that simple three-man squads equipped only with non-lethal equipment were no longer enough to counter increasingly sophisticated and brazen pirate tactics.
The commander of French frigate Nivose Jean-Marc Le Quilliec told Agence France Presse that the attack was mounted by five Somalians in a fishing boat. He said the three security guards jumped overboard and were subsequently picked up by a German helicopter.
Hamburg Süd establishes own country organisation in Colombia
Hamburg, 27 November 2008. With effect from 1 January 2009, Hamburg
Süd will establish an own country organisation in Colombia. Hamburg
Süd Colombia Ltda., with head office in Bogota and a branch office in
Cartagena, will be responsible for all the shipping group's container
shipping operations from and to Colombia in the future.
Together with its long-standing partner Messrs Eduardo L. Gerlein
S.A., Hamburg Süd operates further offices in Medellin, Cali,
Baranquilla and Buenaventura.
With the establishment of Hamburg Süd Colombia Ltda., the shipping
group is taking into account the growing importance of the Colombian
market. At the same time it will further improve and strengthen the
relations with Hamburg Süd's Colombian customers.
Al Shabab announced it opposed the taking of ships owned by Muslims and promised to behead those who did.
Al Shabab "made it dead clear that any ransom that is collected they will take it; they will take away their money and kill them," Ballarin said.
My goal is to unwind all 17 ships and all 450 people they've been holding," she said.
Ballarin said the involvement of the Somali Islamist group, Al Shabab, had helped turn the tide in her favor by putting the fear of death into the young pirates. She claimed the Islamist group had captured, tortured and killed a young male relative of one of the pirates in the last few days.
“We had to bear many expenses to hijack it and $500,000 was paid for information and expenses for the people who hijack ships,” said the 35-year old pirate, who identified himself as Jami Adam.
“We have countries that give us information about the ships in the sea, if there are commercial ships sailing our way,” he told the Arabic newspaper.
Asked how the pirates followed these ships, he replied that they had “collaborators” who provided information on vessel movements.
An average of 12.1 vessels were owned and operated during the third quarter of 2008, earning an average Time Charter Equivalent, or TCE rate of $62,156 per day. Adjusted to exclude the effect of the amortization of time charters attached to vessels acquired at above or below market rates, the TCE rate for the third quarter of 2008 was $45,756. We refer you to the information under the heading "TCE rate and adjusted TCE rate" later in this release for further information regarding our calculation of TCE rate.
New Charter Party Agreement
The Star Beta has entered into a short term period employment with Brazil's Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (Vale) for a minimum of two and a maximum of four months at the gross daily rate of $15,500 for the first 50 days and $25,000 for the days beyond 50 plus a repositioning ballast bonus of $525,000.
In a follow-up interview with American Shipper, Clark described how Cargo-Master made a deal with the chief financial officer of a customer that owed about $400,000 in back payments. Under the new terms, the customer agreed to pay $25,000 per week of the outstanding debt and pay on time for booked freight going forward. After a couple of weeks the payments dropped to $12,000 per week and Cargo-Master decided to cut off the customer.
Wall Street is still governed by fear and, especially, greed today in the wake of the collapse of the securities, real estate and automotive industries. "I'll give you my 'Wall Street 101' lecture," Helyar said. "Then, the M&A artists were over-the-top in some cases but were still tethered to real corporate America."
Fast-forward to today: "Wall Street became more of a blue smoke-and mirrors" environment, Helyar said.
Helyar saw the Internet bubble-burst nearly a decade ago as a result of analysts acting as "carnival barkers." He assesses the current crisis as the work of "quants" inventing ways to exploit the financial markets.
Burrough's view is that the chaos and ruin on Wall Street is emblematic of history repeating itself. "It's exactly the same every time," Burrough said animatedly. "Wall Street produces a product that makes money. Then it is overused -- and by the wrong people."
SOUTH KOREAN dry bulk specialist Parkroad Corp confirmed that it has gone bankrupt and its vessels are being operated by Sinokor Maritime Co Ltd.
A spokesman Mr SK Chung from Sinokor in Seoul also confirmed that they are operating eight vessels owned by Parkroad.
Burk said that it appears that DryShips, Eagle Bulk Shipping (nasdaq: EGLE - news - people ), Excel Maritime Carriers (nyse: EXM - news - people ), and Genco Shipping & Trading (nyse: GNK - news - people )have technically breached their loan covenants.
Nonetheless Burk points out that all the companies have enough cash flow to cover their interest payments, which mean as long as their charters don’t default the companies themselves will be able to service their actual debt if their lenders aren't too insistent on the technicalities of the borrowing agreements.
Posted by PoorandUnemployed | 11/21/08 11:33 AM EST
Given the history of shipping finance, in times like these, owners make the interest payments but stop paying the crews, fuel suppliers, port costs and other suppliers. In it's uniqueness, all the debt is always incurred by the vessel regardless and the vessels can be arrested in different jurisdictions world-wide for a five dollar unpaid bill.
Expect banking style collapses, mergers, forced marriages and defaults. Given the past history, it is likely that the Publically held companies would not survive this storm. Once the market players have lost the interest in the sector, many will lose their NYSE or Nasdaq listings. Managements will purchase the stock at very low price (pennies) and eventually take them private in effect buying the underlying assets for pennies on a dollar. Same banks will refinance the assets to new owners at a discounted price with higher percentage ratio of private equity.
At this stage of the game, banks can neither foreclose on the ships and sell them at auction nor they can allow to companies to add on to debt to meet operating expenses. This calls for some ENRON type creative accounting!!!!!!!!!!!
Bulk commodity and equipment cargoes carried in large-capacity railcars fell 8.4 percent from a year earlier for major U.S. carriers in the week that ended Nov. 8, said the Association of American Railroads.
That is only one week, but it follows a 5.4 percent year-on-year drop the week before and 4.7 percent before that. The carload decline has only escalated since the September financial crisis began rippling through the overall economy.
A similar trend is at work on the intermodal side, where rail lines handle the long haul for highway trailers or containers that trucks carry from rail terminal to final destination.
The AAR said those U.S. rail lines saw intermodal loadings shrink 6.3 percent in the latest week, 4.9 percent as of Nov. 1 and 4.1 percent for the week ended Oct. 25.
Dryships’ Debut Shows Speculation,Liquidity Trumping Experience
“It was surreal. When someone asked why he was doing the deal, here–now, he actually said, basically, ‘Because Americans are the dumbest investors around, and there’s lots of liquidity in this market.’”
At a large warehouse in Shanghai the BBC Box is being loaded with the cargo from the factory in Ningbo.
It will travel from China to Los Angeles on the west coast of the United States, and from there by rail to Pennsylvania. There the goods will be distributed to a chain of homeware stores across the United States.
NYKU8210506 Container Size/Type 40'/DRY
Status As Of Event Location Mode
NOV-18-2008 01:00 Vessel Departure Shanghai, CHN NYK Starlight/065
The Sirius Star, which was commissioned in March and is owned by the Saudi oil company Aramco, is classed as a Very Large Crude Carrier, the second-largest classification. It was sailing under a Liberian flag and its crew includes citizens of Croatia, Britain, the Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia. A British Foreign Office spokesman said there were at least two British nationals on board.
Baltic Exchange members are at the heart of world trade, arranging for the ocean transportation of industrial bulk commodities from producer to end user. The bulk freight market relies on the co-operation of shipbrokers, shipowners and charterers to ensure the free flow of trade.
Baltic Exchange shipbrokers undertake to abide by a code of business conduct based on the motto “Our Word Our Bond” and those who breach the code are disciplined or expelled.
Each working day the Baltic produces a dry cargo fixture list. Each fixture is carefully checked and verified and our report is regarded as the most comprehensive and independent such list available. This site also contains a database of over 25,000 fixtures.
A summary of the Baltic Dry Index (BDI), Baltic Capesize Index (BCI), Baltic Panamax Index (BPI), Baltic Supramax Index (BSI), Baltic Handysize Index (BHSI) and Baltic International Tanker Routes (BITR).
The Peter Georgiopoulos-chaired Genco Shipping & Trading last week said it was happy forfeiting a $53m deposit on six bulkers purchased for $530m, as against the current estimated market value of $300m.
Just as Genco’s decision to get out of its deal won praise from analysts, experts believe any cancellation ... would be seriously beneficial for Eagle Bulk.
Some experts have already issued projections of a an immediate doubling of Eagle Bulk’s net asset value if the cancellation reports are true, based on a market price of $375m as against the contracted price of $508m on the newbuildings.
According to Baltic Exchange assessments, the market value of its newbuildings is $32m each. The $42.3m price was seen as a coup when Eagle Bulk assumed ownership of the ships last year, as even secondhand values peaked at $75m.
DRYSHIPS boss George Economou has confirmed that his Nasdaq-listed company is in good health after a warning-laden share prospectus filing spooked the market, already jittery from the dry bulk crash.
DryShips ... register up to 25m new shares in a prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Among risk factors included in Thursday’s filing, DryShips said that even with a hefty injection of fresh equity from the sale of the new shares it “cannot be assured” that operating and capital needs would be satisfied, or that it would remain in compliance with debt covenants “if the low charter rates in the dry bulk market continue”.
Conjuring up a possible doomsday scenario, the company said: “If we are not able to comply with our loan covenants and our lenders chose to accelerate our indebtedness and foreclose their liens, we could be required to sell vessels in our fleet and our ability to continue to conduct our business would be impaired.”
However, Mr Economou told Lloyd’s List a day later that the grim tone that arguably could be discerned in the filing was a normal one for prospectuses.
“The underwriters put in a lot of risk factors to safeguard our back against litigation,” he said. “We are not breaching any covenants and we are not at risk of breaching covenants. Nor are we planning on breaching them.”
He said an analyst who downgraded the company’s stock had over-reacted.
The ILA pension funds for Southeast Florida and Tampa recently sued Eller, seeking what they claim is the company's failure to pay its required contributions to the funds.
In responses to the lawsuits, Eller denied the allegations and said it was the victim of a scam to inflate claims for ILA members' pay.
Eller said in court documents that it believes that current or former Eller employees and union members had schemed "to defraud (Eller Maritime) and certain shipping companies by an apparent ongoing 'kickback' protocol whereby the...employee or employees would intentionally overpay longshoremen and/or other union members for work not undertaken, or generate phantom union employees or categories of employees."
Eagle Global Logistics, has paid the United States $750,000 to settle allegations that the company, in violation of the False Claims Act and the Anti-Kickback Act, paid gratuities to employees of KBR, the prime contractor for the U.S. Army's LOGCAP III contract for logistical support of military operations overseas.
EGL, a Houston-based company, had a subcontract with KBR to facilitate shipments of military cargo to Iraq and Kuwait. From March 2003 through March 2005, EGL provided various meals, sporting event tickets and other gifts to KBR employees responsible for administering the subcontract.
Previously, EGL paid the United States $4 million to settle False Claims Act allegations that the company inflated invoices for military cargo shipments to Iraq. EGL also paid the government $300,000 to settle allegations that the company's local agent in Kuwait overcharged the military for rental charges on shipping containers to Iraq from January through June 2006.
This case is being prosecuted as part of a National Procurement Fraud Initiative. In October 2006, the deputy attorney general announced the formation of a National Procurement Fraud Task Force designed to promote the early detection, identification, prevention and prosecution of procurement fraud associated with the increase in government contracting activity for national security and other government programs.
DVD Bank head of shipping, Mr. Dagfinn Lunde, said the downturn in shipping would be “deep and long”.
In two years’ time “we will have a crisis very similar to that of the mid-1980s”, which some experts believed was the worst ever experienced by shipping, he said.
“There will be many more bankruptcies,” Mr Lunde told the Lloyd’s Shipping Economist Ship Finance & Investment Conference in London.
“You can see this from the leverage of the companies and the charter rates. It is a question of weeks and months.”
Some bankruptcies were “very close around the corner” and could involve big names in the industry.
Collapses would not only involve dry bulk operators, but also other sectors such as containership operators.
ADMINISTRATORS were called in on Friday (Oct 31) to deal with Britannia Bulk Plc, which went into administration under the Insolvency Act 1986 of England and Wales.
In a letter seen by Lloyd’s List, BDO Stoy Hayward advised those who had existing contract or charter obligations with Britannia to take “all necessary steps to mitigate any claims arising under your contract or charter with the company”.
On Friday the New York Stock Exchange said it had agreed that the company be de-listed. The NYSE had already suspended trading of Britannia Bulk Holdings.
NEWARK, N.J. -- A Mafia figure in prison for avoiding prosecution in a 1977 mob murder has been charged in a federal indictment that accuses him of extortion and conspiracy to extort members of International Longshoremen's Association Local 1235 in Newark, N.J.
Prosecutors said that three days before his arrest, Coppola was intercepted in a telephone conversation admitting organized-crime control over the leadership of Local 1235, one of the ILA's largest units, since the Seventies. The U.S. attorney's office said that during the call, Eddie Aulisi, son of the local's then-president, Vincent Aulisi, told Coppola that tribute payments to the Genovese family had recently "almost doubled."
In a detention memo filed with the court after Coppola's arrest last year, prosecutors alleged that Coppola and his stepson were involved in the murder of Larry Ricci, a mobster who disappeared in the middle of a 2005 ILA racketeering trial where he was a defendant along with three of the union's top leaders.
Ricci was found shot to death in a car trunk outside a Union, N.J., diner shortly after he and two of his co-defendants, ILA officials Harold Daggett and Arthur Coffey, were acquitted of racketeering charges. No charges have been filed in that murder.
Former New York City Police Commissioner Robert McGuire has overseen the affairs of ILA Local 1588 since 2003, when he was appointed to end what prosecutors said was decades of organized-crime control of the local.
A federal judge has extended by 18 months the government supervision of a formerly mobbed-up International Longshoremen's Association local in Bayonne, N.J.
...the administrator said more time was needed to complete disciplinary action against local members who have continued to associate with organized crime figures, and that he had become aware of "intensified efforts in recent weeks and months by elements associated with organized crime figures to reassert their influence in the local."
"These concerns are sufficiently serious that the parent union, the ILA, as well as Milton Mollen, the ethical practice counsel for the ILA, support this motion," McGuire's statement said.
McGuire said extending government oversight will thwart efforts by mobsters to undermine reform efforts, and will provide government supervision of the local's next election of officers in 18 months.
"A senior executive of APL has called on individual container lines to take decisive action to reverse the current market downturn.
Dan Ryan, APL’s Greater China president, speaking at the second Containerization and Liner Shipping China conference in Tianjin, said that a negative scenario of financial market turmoil, low consumer confidence as well as rising inflation and commodity prices, compounded by historically high fuel prices, requires lines’ urgent attention.
Suggested solutions included carriers moderating growth aspirations, returning excess tonnage to the charter market, rationalizing and even suspending some services, and having stronger resolve to pass along bunker costs to customers.
“If we fail to take action, the industry could see a more significant downturn than we have seen in many years,” he said."
The move follows the termination of the carrier's existing joint service on the route, operated with Singapore's Pacific International Lines.
The company said it will deploy five 3,000-TEU and six 4,250-TEU vessels on the new weekly service.
"By replacing some of current 3,000-TEU class vessels with larger and faster ships, MOL will provide stable cargo capacity and higher schedule integrity to meet customer demand in this growing market," the carrier stated.
