Daily news - 30 Jan

Cosco announces second delivery reschedule
Cosco Corp (Singapore) yesterday announced another rescheduling of delivery dates for four 57,000 dwt bulk carriers, in what looks increasingly like a bizarre reversal of the way the contract wins were announced over the 18 months. Whereas the concern at the time was whether there would be sufficient capacity to fulfil surge of orders coming in, the fear now is whether the reschedulings will keep Cosco's yards busy enough. Cosco said last Friday that it has agreed to reschedule the delivery of seven ships from two sets of contracts signed in August and September 2007. And earlier this month, it announced a variation order under which two of an order for four vessels will be cancelled and the remaining two vessels will be delivered six months later than scheduled. The latest reschedulings are part of a 14-vessel contract worth US$525 million from shipowners in Turkey, Portugal, Greece and India, sealed in June 2007. These vessels were originally scheduled to be delivered between August 2008 and March 2010.

NOL container volume dives
Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) says container volume plunged 24 per cent year-on-year in its six-week Period 12 as demand fell on all major trade lanes. Container volume from Nov 15 to Dec 26, 2008 fell to 218,100 forty-foot equivalent units (FEUs) from 288,600 FEUs in the previous corresponding period. 'The decrease was a result of the rapid deterioration in demand on all major trade lanes and proactive capacity management to reduce costs,' NOL said. Average revenue per FEU, however, rose a marginal 3 per cent to US$2,921 from US$2,834. This was largely due to recovery of bunker fuel costs, NOL said. For full-year 2008, container volume rose 5 per cent to 2.46 million FEUs from 2.36 million in 2007. Average revenue per FEU for the whole year increased 11 per cent to US$3,033 from US$2,740 previously. Average revenue per FEU, however, started dropping off in the last quarter of the year, from a peak of US$3,186 in Period 10.

Source: Kim Eng