New ferry route casts doubt on Eurotunnel plan
Plans by Eurotunnel, the Channel Tunnel operator, to back a new cross-Channel ferry operation will face greater competition after Denmark’s DFDS announced plans to launch a new service in conjunction…
Shipping costs fall to 25-year low
The depth of the crisis facing the economically vital dry bulk shipping sector was underlined on Wednesday when the key indicator of earnings for vessels carrying iron ore, coal and…
UPS takes hit from pension accounting change
UPS, the global package delivery company, reported strong underlying results for the fourth quarter of 2011, but profits fell 30 per cent as the company took substantial after-tax charges for…
China blocks Vale’s large iron ore carriers
China has issued a stinging statement questioning the safety of very large vessels that deals a blow to the aspirations of Brazilian iron ore miner Vale, which has been trying…
DP World surprises amid gloomy industry
Container throughput at terminals owned or part-owned by Dubai’s DP World was 10 per cent higher in 2011 than 2010, revealing the continuing strong growth in trade to and from…
Hanjin suffers after container shipping slump
South Korea’s biggest shipping company, Hanjin Shipping, became the first group to reveal the financial impact of last year’s slump in container shipping earnings on Monday when it announced a…
New battle for Torm amid tanker slump
Directors, advisors and banks working to restructure Torm, one of the world’s largest oil product tanker operators, are struggling to find either a significant new source of finance or agree…
Liverpool’s cruise line plans suffer setback over terminal
The Museum of Liverpool, designed by Manchester-based firm of architects AEW Liverpool has suffered a fresh setback in the contest with other ports to attract cruise business after it was…
Indonesian ship group halts payments
One of the biggest operators of specialist chemical-carrying tankers, Indonesia’s Berlian Laju Tanker, has announced a temporary halt to payments on most of its bank loans, bonds and other financial…
Focus shifts from ship’s captain to company
Rescue workers were still scrambling to find survivors from the ill-fated Costa Concordia this week when Pier Luigi Foschi, Costa Cruises’ chief executive, blamed the ship’s captain for the wreck…
Inadvertent lesson from a nautical scoundrel
The wreck of the cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Italian island of Giglio is a disaster on an extraordinary scale. The Costa Concordia is the largest ship ever built…
Storms threaten stricken cruise liner
Storms approaching the Italian island of Giglio could force rescue workers to abandon their search of the stricken Costa Concordia cruise liner, further delaying the start of salvage operations to…
Siphoning Concordia fuel to take weeks
One of the world’s largest marine salvage contractors, the Netherlands’ Smit Salvage, is to spend the next two to four weeks removing fuel from the stricken Costa Concordia in an…
China leads shake-up in distribution methods
An invisible change has come over the developed world’s container ports. Outwardly, the containers coming off ships and heading out of the gates on trucks and trains look the same.…
Retailers set for logistics slimdown
Large retailers across much of the developed world look set to slim down traditional distribution centres near their stores after local governments in many coastal parts of China made it…