SinoShip Winter Issue 2012 CN by Splash

钻井船宏愿邮轮调查结果 2012年冬季刊

om 日在 s.c 每更新 new 文 hip 中 inos s w. ww

美国贸易事实

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调整航向中远马泽华独家采访

习近平领导下的运输业重点东盟连接 “中国的航运业正面临着严峻的考验” —张守国,中国船东协会 SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

ClassNK 伴随海事产业而成长不断进取，积极应对随着全球经济发展与结构转变，当今的海事产业正面临各种前所未有的挑战。日本海事协会（简称ClassNK）注册船舶总吨约占世界商船总吨的20%，是全球知名的船级社。我们充分理解海事产业的需求，并根据海事产业对安全航运的需要，积极开展全新的服务与技术研发。在ClassNK主页上，您可以了解到更多我们为保障各种船舶安全、防止海洋环境污染所作出的努力。www.classnk.or.jp

■ ■ ■ 定期报道 3 编者语 4 经济 6 班轮 9 船厂 10 离岸 13 金融 15 商品 16 物流 17 邮轮

■ ■ ■ 人物专访 19 马泽华 21 忻坚敏 22 张守国 23 王坤秀

■■■

我认为，造船市场在未来三年内很难有所起色

—胡问鸣, 中国船舶工业集团

我认为干散货市场已经触底

—马泽华，中远集团

我们专注于为客户提供门到门服务，因而比竞争对手做得更好 —忻坚敏,上海安盛汽车船务有限公司

■ ■ ■ 专题 4 保险 2 27 动力 30 港口

■ ■ ■ 枢纽 32 上海 33 台北 34 香港

中国航运业正面临极端严峻的考验

—张守国，中国船东协会

中国仍缺乏高端化学品船运力

■ ■ ■ 评论

—王坤秀, 大连港航基金

35 书籍

■ ■ ■ 意见 36 Max Hong 37 Bei Hong 38 Andrew Craig Bennett

效率将成为港口企业能否抵御行业寒冬的关键

—常德传青岛港集团 SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

Anchored by excellence. Out-of-the-box doing requires out-of-the-box thinking. BBC Chartering’s industrialized global transport capabilities provide clients with the right people, skills, local expertise and hardware to deliver cargo, service and safety with greater reliability, quality and productivity.

与众不同的要求造就了突破常规的思维。 BBC产业化的全球运输能力为客户端提供了合适人才，技能，以及当地的专业技术和硬件提高了运输货物以及相关服务的可靠性，安全性，确保质量和生产效率.

www.bbc-chartering.com

编者语

■■■

中国航运的国际平台 www.sinoshipnews.com ASM刊物编辑主管 Sam Chambers sam@asiashippingmedia.com 首席通讯记者司湘

katherine@asiashippingmedia.com 通讯记者姜浩

jason@asiashippingmedia.com 北京上海香港大连广州台北

Li Deng Bai Engen Tham Alfred Romann Mark Downing Wang Fanglei Joshua Samuel Brown

供稿人

Bei Hong, Charles De Trenck, Matthew Flynn, Paul French, Max Hong, Li Dong, Manish Singh 摄影

André Eichman, Basil Pao, 封面: NHST Events 所有编辑资料请发送至sam@asiashippingmedia. com 或邮寄到中国大连中山区人民路9号701办公室，邮编116001 商务主管 Grant Rowles grant@asiashippingmedia.com 中国销售主管 Tom Wu

sales@asiashippingmedia.com SinoShip同时也在东京、首尔和奥斯陆设有广告代理机构。欲获取当地代理联系信息请发送邮件到grant@asiashippingmedia.com。媒体信息可在www.asiashippingmedia.com下载。所有商务资料请发送至 grant@ asiashippingmedia.com 或邮寄到 Asia Shipping Media, 20 Cecil Street, #14-01 Equity Plaza, Singapore 049705。设计 Lamma Studio Design 印刷香港雅联印刷有限公司订阅总部设在中国的所有海运公司都可以免费获取 S i n o S h i p 期刊。对于所有其他公司，订阅 SinoShip2012年 4期需要收费100美元。订阅每月发行两次的PDF格式的SinoShip电子新闻（包含独家新闻、数据和分析）需收费50 0美元。订阅咨询请发送邮件到subs@asiashippingmedia.com。版权 © Asia Shipping Media Pte Ltd (ASM), 2012 为确保本刊物所包含信息的准确性，尽管作出了所有努力，但出版社对可能出现的任何错误或疏忽不承担任何责任。版权所有。未事先获得版权拥有人的书面批准，不得对本刊物的任何部分进行复制、储存于检索系统或以任何形式或方式传输。

Eco代表经济，而非生态尽管不想让人听起来觉得是老生常谈，但这已经是我在我们杂志的这个特定页面上连续第二次撰写有关报废的内容。对我而言，所谓的生态船舶的到来和大量商船队可能消亡的问题已成为本年度报道的热点之一。 10 月份，我们在新加坡浮尔顿 (Fullerton) 酒店举办了一次 Eco-Dollars 商务早餐会。该活动由 Ideocean 和劳氏船级社 (Lloyd’s Register) 赞助，引发了大量反响。新加坡东方海皇集团 (Neptune Orient Lines) 的副总裁 ShajThayil 致开幕词。他指出： “某些部分必须废弃或改变，这不可避免，是个简单的数学问题。2009 年 1 月以来，燃油价格上涨了 153%，而且没有改变的迹象。老旧船舶不再有竞争力，行将淡出交易场所。” Ideocean Holdings 集团的董事总经理 Manish Singh 指出，劳氏船级社最近开展的行业调查表明，约 75% 的受访者认为超大油轮 (VLCC) 将在 15 年后或更早的时间内报废。 “供应情况将决定相关事宜，”他表示， “技术报废的速度也将变得更快。” “市场决定一切。因为如果存在吨位短缺，那么生态争论的相关性就比较低；反之，如果生产能力过剩，则船舶必须报废，”劳氏船级社亚洲区的船务部经理 Iain Wilson 表示。来自致力于降低燃油成本的专业船舶工具提供商 Eniram 公司的 No.l Jelsma 评论说： “见证生态技术最快发展的行业是公众眼中的那些行业，如邮轮业和集装箱行业；那些落后的行业是油轮和散货船行业，因为它们有点远离审查，但投资和财务收益方面存在更大的脱节。” 芬兰 Eniram 的最大客户基础是邮轮业 “现在我们面临的挑战，”Jelsma 表示， “是如何对油轮和散货船业施加更大压力，加快其发展。这主要受经济驱

动。我们一直在使用术语‘绿色’，使用术语‘eco’，但我认为这里的‘eco’代表经济，而不是生态。这一切都受到了经济利益的驱动。” 劳氏船级社的 Wilson 坚持认为，对于监管环境的适应非常缓慢，除非迫不得已，船东不会进行投资。 “人们不会投资于没有回报的东西，而且除非监管环境使然，大多数船东都会摇摆不定，”他表示。请密切关注明年该地区的大量主题商务早餐会。

SamChambers Editor sam@asiashippingmedia.com SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

■ ■ ■ 经济

美国的贸易关系与政客们大选期间鼓吹的情况大相径庭

公平买卖，并非窃取美国大选对中国问题的鼓吹再次甚嚣尘上。Paul French对其中绝大多数谎言都进行了抨击在今年竞争激烈的美国总统大选中，两位总统候选人抛出的棘手难题层出不穷，尤其是中国问题和美国工作机会流失到太平洋国家的问题。其中许多说辞并无说服力，这一点我们审视美中贸易关系就能清晰看出。首先，我们应该知道，美国的所有商品并非都是中国制造。 2010 年，在美国商品和服务方面的个人消费支出中，花在中国制造的商品和服务的部分仅占 2.7%。

大家纷纷把中国形容成“ 恶意出口国”(demon exporter)，但 2000-2011 年间的统计数据表明，美国对华出口额狂涨 5 4 2 %（同期美国对世界上其他国家 / 地区的出口增长率仅为 81%）。很遗憾，这一事实却鲜有人提起。第三点，从通常的经济情况来看，美国有些州在经济方面显然比其他一些州做得好得多，不过一谈到对华出口问题所有人都要指指点点。根据美中贸易全国委员会的数据统计，自 2000 年以

自2000年以来，美国50个州中有48 个州的对华出口增长都达到了三位数

国的农民由此也找到了新的市场。无论是农业还是服务业，美国都保持着对华的贸易顺差：从 2000 年至 2010 年，美国对华服务出口（教育、版权和培训等）增长了 290%，中国从美国的农业进口的年均增幅也达到 31%。到 2010 年，中国已成为美国农产品的第 2 大市场，仅次于加拿大。因此，中国已成长为美国非常重要的市场，不仅为美国提供消费品，而且还从美国购买数量相当可观的商品、食品与服务。美国政府的许多机构似 2000-2011年间美国前10大出口市场的增长情况 600

WWW.SINOSHIPNEWS.COM

400 300 200

国荷加兰拿大法国韩国墨西哥英国台湾日本

国

100

德

来，美国 50 个州中有 48 个州的对华出口增长都达到了三位数，其中 20 个州的增长更是高达 4 位数。第四点，美国制造业的工作岗位的确在流失，转移到中国（和墨西哥、土耳其、越南、毛里求斯、孟加拉国和其他多个国家 / 地区），不过美

中

其次，所谓中美贸易是单行线，中国根本不进口美国产品的这种说法绝对是不攻自破。中国是美国增速最快的出口市场，也是美国商品和服务的第三大购买国，仅次于加拿大和墨西哥（这两个国家显然是美国的邻国）。虽然

增长率 (%)

500

资料来源：美中贸易全国委员会(US-China Business Council)

乎正慢慢开始认识到这一点。例如，美国国土安全部目前正将越来越多的签证发放给高消费的中国游客，而且大量提速。这些中国游客一向出手阔绰，增加了香港、新加坡和西欧等地奢饰品的零售额。让我们接下来看一下令美国对华政治愤慨的其他经常性理由，例如人民币不能完全自由兑换或其他问题，以及指控中国政府操纵货币。中国目前仍被指控保护本国货币。诚然，目前人民币在国际上不能自由兑换，因而在一定程度上得到了中国政府的保护。不过，人民币的确顺应了市场潮流，有涨有落，自从北京在 2005 年取消人民币与美元挂钩政策以来，人民币已大幅升值。根据国际结算银行 (Bank for International Settlements, BIS) 的数据统计，2005 年 1 月至 2012 年 8 月期间，人民币实际升值了 31%，名义升值了 25%。政客们可能对此仍有争议，不过（可能）相对公正的美国财政部在今年 5 月份曾表示， “中国的汇率已大幅升值，如果将通胀差异因素考虑在内，人民币对美元汇率自 2010 年 6 月至今已升值约 13%，从 2005 年算起更是升值达 40%。” 更具挑衅性的是，米特·罗姆尼 (Mitt Romney) 坚称中国是货币操纵国。果真如此？从人民币与美元挂钩来看，中国政府确有操纵人民币之嫌。但事实上，全球有大约 60 个国家或地区（包括港币）都是这样做的，而且这种做法并不违反世界贸易组织 (WTO) 或国际货币基金组织 (IMF) 的有关规定。对于华盛顿的政策智囊来说，从现在起往后的四年间中国都会是关键的竞选话题，不过，这对于那些更关注日常生活问题的美国普通选民来说可能关系不大。美国总统大选期间总要不可避免地大肆鼓吹中国问题，罗姆尼誓将中国列为“货币操纵国”的做法似乎也属此类。正如我们屡次看到的那样，无论是哪位总统候选人最终入主白宫，他们的态度都会趋于温和，直面现实政治问题并对中国示好。

■ ■ ■ 班轮

将在 2020 年前联手订购多达 80 艘油轮，总价值达数十亿美元。大连远洋运输公司 (Cosco Dalian) 已率先签下 10 艘油轮的订单。

SinoShip 了解到的是各方深入合作计划第一阶段的情况。中远和中海已于 10 月份宣布，双方将在某些国内集装箱贸易航线上进行首次合作。中海集装箱运输股份有限公司 (China Shipping Container Lines, CSCL) 在一份声明中表示：“该举措仅为中海集运和中远在国内集装箱运输业务方面进行广泛合作的开端。” SinoShip 从北京的消息源了解到，这两家航运巨头都面临着中央政府要求其紧密合作的压力，否则将不会对其进行更多资金投入。

在堪称本年度的航运新闻大事中，SinoShip 曾在 8 月份报道了超大油轮联营体 (VLCC pool) 的详细进展，中国远洋运输集团 (Cosco)、中国海运集团 (China Shipping) 和中国招商局集团 (China Merchants)

由中国能源巨头中国石油天然气集团公司 (CNPC) 和委内瑞拉国家石油公司 (PDVSA) 组建的合资企业已从渤海船舶重工有限责任公司 (Bohai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Company, BSIC) 订购 2+2 艘超大型油轮。中委航运公司有限公司（CVSC）或称中委航运，总部位于新加坡。

本地公用事业公司浙江省能源集团 (Zhejiang Provincial Energy) 对中型散货船运营商宁波海运股份有限公司 (Ningbo Marine) 的收购在一再拖延之后，终于在 10 月份正式敲定，比原计划延迟了 3 个月时间。

中远集团当家人魏家福表示，他渴望摆脱单一的航运业务模式，走业务多元化之路，希望能像马士基公司那样试水离岸业务。中远的旗舰上市企业中国远洋控股有限公

司在本年度的前 9 个月巨亏 8.41 亿美元。

而在另一项举措中，全球最大的集装箱制造企业已成为船东，旨在缓解全球顶尖集装箱运输公司所面临的资金压力。中国国际海运集装箱（集团）股份有限公司 (China International Marine Containers, CIMC) 正在大连建造10 艘运力为 9,200 标准箱的集装箱船，这些船舶将租给法国的 CMA CGM 开展经营。

法庭诉讼继续向着不利于台湾海运大亨苏信吉 (Nobu Su) 的方向发展。经济低迷令原先雄心万丈的 TMT 深陷困境，这家企业的所有者发现自己有大量船只被扣押，韩国的新造船订单也纷纷被取消。

中国东北有一家得到当地政府支持的新兴船东。大连合众

船务有限公司 (Dalian Hezhong Shipping) 成立于 10 月份，在收购上海三瀚海运有限公司 (Shanghai Sanhan Shipping) 后将专注于国内化学品运输船业务。公司的目标是在三年内打造一支由 20 艘船舶组成的船队。

长荣 (Evergreen) 表示，将推迟建造 60 艘中小型集装箱运输船的计划，直到巴拿马运河的扩建工程于 2015 年竣工为止。

香港的太平洋航运 (Pacific Basin) 在最新交易资讯中披露表示，上一季度已达成购入日本建造的灵便型散货船的协议。这是该香港散货船巨头自 2011 年 10 月至今进行的首次采购，不过接下来有可能会进行多次采购。该公司在一份声明中表示：“我们正在积极寻求更多的船只购买机遇，力争以极具吸引力的价格扩充我们核心船队的规模。”

铁路多式联运调查 FPSO蓄力增长海昌的船队调整 2012年夏季刊

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接触正确客户群体的机会

拆船专题中国船员梁振英领导下的香港海事业

大中华区每一家主要船东和造船厂都在读这本杂志邮轮大亨

独家采访中国首位邮轮巨头

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第四期杂志的专题包括保险,港口和动力广告咨询请联系 grant@asiashippingmedia.com

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船厂

■■■

欧洲引领全球前瞻性设计

技术追求广州记者Wang Fenglei关注中资收购欧洲船舶设计公司意向

壹

些对造船业前景陷入空前悲观的分析师表示，造船厂的萧条期可能会一直持续到2020年，因而深处业务寒冬的造船业很有可能进入冰河时代。从年初到现在，中国造船厂接到的新订单数量比同年同期锐减50%，其中有超过三分之一的造船厂甚至在2012年未有任何斩获。即便是有订单在手的中国造船厂，订单数量也下滑了 30%。造船业市场迅速萎缩。中国国有大型企业中国船舶工业集团公司(CSSC)董事长胡问鸣可谓一语中的，他对通过建造渔船来填补市场空白的想法非常感兴趣。在今年11月参加在北京召开的中国共产党第十八次全国代表大会期间，胡董事长表示： “ 我认为，造船市场在未来三年

内很难有所起色。” 不过，机遇往往与危机相伴相生。对于中国企业，特别是有国企背景的企业来说，他们正好可以趁这段市场低潮期来提升技术水平。中船集团的胡董事长已经认

的首席执行官 Rem i E r i k s en 日前在接受《中国日报》 (China Daily)采访时表示，中国造船厂应考虑通过收购欧洲同行或与他们联手的方式来增强自身的竞争力。 E r i k s e n 特别指出，增

中国造船厂必须有效应对日益严格的环保法规所带来的挑战识到这一点，记者从他那里了解到，中国企业获取新技术已经成为当务之急。放眼全球最前沿的造船技术，再探讨一下船舶设计，不难发现欧洲在这方面优势明显，中国企业也将收购目标锁定在了这一市场。挪威船级社 ( D e t N o r s k e Veritas)航运与油气业务部门

强船舶设计竞争力能帮助中国造船厂有效应对日益严格的环保法规给全球造船业带来的挑战。其中一些中国企业已开始采取行动。以中国航空工业集团(AV IC)为例，作为中国最大的航空工业公司之一，其最近收购了芬兰船舶设计公司 D elt a m a r i n。近年来，中国航

今年前十个月，中国造船厂的订单数量比去年同期减少 50%

空工业集团在造船业稳步扩张，目前已经控制了中国的几家造船厂。目前，它还希望收购小众造船厂，范围不限于中国，而是放眼整个世界。与此同时，位于中国北方的国有造船企业集团中国船舶重工集团(China Shipbuilding Industry Corp.)的高层也表示，集团目前正在市场中寻求收购船舶和海洋工程设计公司，以便为其造船厂的概念设计提供大力支持。该集团最近在对钻井平台设计公司Gusto MSC的竞标大战中败北。Gusto MSC 是荷兰SBM O f fshore的子公司，已由私募股权公司 Parcom Capital以1.85亿美元的价格成功竞购。预计2013年将有更多中国企业竞购欧洲船舶设计公司。 SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

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重中之重 Katherine Si关注中国的钻井船雄心就造船厂订单而言，钻井船绝对是最受青睐的，合约金额始终能稳稳占到五亿美元以上。这个行业一直是韩国造船业大牌企业的天下，但中国已明确显露出希望从该业务中分一杯羹的决心。今年秋天，大连船舶重工集团 (DSIC) 与挪威的 Norshore 签署了小型多用途钻井船的 1+3 选择权协议。该钻井船可在深达 3,000 米的水下工作，钻探深度达到 10,000 米。大船重工是在击败了全球 12 家造船厂后，才赢得这一重要订单的。该船舶专为在北海进行无立管上部井眼钻井和油井干预作业而设计。大船重工采用了自有设计，与 Norshore 几年前在印度尼西亚建造的钻井船没有太大不同。继钻井船在上海船厂船舶有限公司 (Shanghai Shipyard) 完成令人瞩目的业内首次亮相后，大船重工又成为新闻头条。六月初，上海船厂开始建造中国首次设计的钻井船。新加坡的 Opus Offshore 于 2011 年 9 月订购了这艘 45,000 总吨、长 170 米、宽 32 米的钻井船，是一个 2+2 选择权订单。第一艘钻井船定于 2014 年第一季度交付。Tiger 系列钻井船可在深达 1,500 米的水下作业，钻探深度达 10,000 米。

南通中远川崎船舶工程公司 (Nantong Cosco KHI Ship Engineering, NACKS) 也开始推

在全球作业的钻井船 150

力拔头筹？ “技术竞争力、项目合同能力和成本增加不会延缓中国海工行业的发展，”中国船级社 (China Classification Society) 技术处处长徐立表示。上海外高桥造船有限公司 (SWS) 副总经理陈军也认同这一观点，并指出： “国家决定加强海洋勘探，国内的能源需求日益增加。与此同时，非洲也有尼日利亚等一些新兴市场，这将为钻探行业提供大量机会。” 为开发自有钻井船设计，上海外高桥造船已投入大量资源。同时，从大连远洋(C osco Dalian) SinoShip 也了解到， 10

WWW.SINOSHIPNEWS.COM

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2012

2016

介其钻井船资质。此外，STX 大连造船有限公司 (STX Dalian) 也为 Noble 建造并交付了两艘 Huisman 设计的 Globetrotter 钻井船，目前已被 Shell 投

入使用。船体和航运系统都是在中国完成试运行的。随后，Globetrotter 以自有动力航行到荷兰，在 Huisman 的船厂对钻探系统进行了安装。但是，上海外高桥造船的陈军也非常坦诚地表示， “建造钻井平台很困难。大部分配套设施都是进口的，而且现在的技术要求也提高了，特别是在发生墨西哥湾石油泄漏事故之后。” 这也是德国劳氏船级社 (Germanischer Lloyd) 中国地区海洋工程业务开发经理张广浩的观点。 “对于中国钻探行业而言，我觉得最大的困难在于中国还不能完成整体建造以及后续的工作，例如独立安装和维护。中国必须从其他国家进口许多设备、材料和零件，中国的配套服务也不够强大。”此外，张广浩指出，欧洲设计仍占主导地位。政府已认识到进口材料过多的问题，已开始着手确保中国

在未来十年内成为真正的海工设备制造商。业内普遍认为，中国造船厂在详细工程和项目管理领域经验不足。这包括根据国际公认的标准安装钻探设备及相关船载设备。中国的钻井船雄心尚处早期阶段，但许多人已感到，就像造船业的其他许多分支一样，中国必将熟练掌握这种技术要求严苛的船型，这只是时间问题。 “我认为，一旦中国造船厂有机会建造一系列采用相同设计的船舶，且船东实施严格的制造、质量和安全流程，那么中国造船厂就会成为业内首选，因为它们具有劳动力和钢材成本优势，”一位在中国私营造船厂工作的新加坡业内人士表示。 “只要中国国有石油巨头开始在中国建造钻井船，信心和成功业绩纪录就会接踵而至，”一位挪威消息人士认为。

The only collaborative software solution to manage commercial chartering activities 唯一可以分享租船信息的平台

Chartering tools – Vessel Database – Brokers – Operators – Tanker – Dry Bulk – Containership – Chartering positions – Port library – Distance tables – Vessel Manager – Cargo Manager – Voyage Calculator... 租船工具 - 船舶数据库 - 经纪 - Operators - 油轮 - 干散船 - 集装箱船 - 船舶位置 - 港口信息库 - 距离船舶管理 - 货管理 - 航次计算...

我们是亚洲最大的独立海洋船舶经纪及海事咨询集团之一我们的服务包括 M3 MARINE 离岸经纪 • 租船（定期租船和光船租赁） • 销售和采购（包括新造船） M3 MARINE 专业服务 • 市场调研 • 船舶估价 • 项目分析 • 专家鉴证 • FMEA 制作&审计 • DP咨询/年度DP Trials • IMCA CMID和潜水系统审核 • 预购调查检验 • 海事人才安置 • 技术/商业尽职调查专家们为您的海洋船舶需求增添技术及商业竞争力

全球海事招聘业的领导者无论您的业务发展到哪，我们都提供您需要的保障

Faststream Recruitment Group

Tel: (+65) 653 27 201 Shipping: Seagoing: Oil & Gas: Marine:

seagoing-sg@faststream.com shipping-sg@faststream.com oilandgas-sg@faststream.com marine-sg@fastrstream.com

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25年来，凯林集团为世界各地的海事事业客户提供支持，确保他们可以应付所面临的各种海上风险。通过在新加坡和香港的海事承保团队及劳合社中国的平台，凯林集团在亚洲的劳合社联盟中具有最广泛的海事业务覆盖面。我们新加坡专业的理赔团队使客户享受到和伦敦总部一样的专业理赔服务和赔款支付能力。凯林的海事团队可以根据您的需求，为您量身定制各类保险方案，包括： ● 船壳以及机器设备保障险 ● 战争险 ● 船建险

● 全损利益

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● 比例和超赔水险责任

Sailors’ Society Shipping Dinner Hong Kong Wednesday 21st February 2013, Island Shangri-La Hotel, Pacific Place In aid of merchant seafarers in need.

Guest speaker Alan ‘Wilko’ Wilkins, ESPN Star Sports Commentator and former England County Cricketer. Drinks reception, fine dining, spectacular auction and music. To reserve your table please contact Catherine Slade on +44 (0)23 8051 5905 or cslade@sailors-society.org

Tables of 10: HK$31,100/US$4,000 Supported by Hong Kong Shipowner Association:

Drinks Reception Sponsor:

Sailors' Society t/a Sailors’ Beneficial Enterprises Ltd. to benefit from UK gift aid. Company No. 3652955 Sailors’ Society Registered Charity (England and Wales) No. 237778

金融

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倍受诟病的libor Engen Tham 关注中国对英国最大的银行业丑闻的反应伦敦银行同业拆借利率（即“L I B OR”）深陷大面积丑闻。该丑闻是今年 6 月份曝光的，作为提交用于确定LIBOR 的利率依据的银行之一，巴克莱银行早在2 0 0 5 年就开始虚报数据。它在6月份也承认曾为了自身利益而试图操控 LIBOR。巴克莱银行承认操控利率的丑闻不胫而走，社会反响剧烈，巴克莱银行的行政总裁被迫引咎辞职。此后，包括劳埃德银行( Lloyds)、苏格兰皇家银行 (RBS)和德意志银行 (Deutsche Bank)在内的其他多家国际银行也纷纷承认操纵利率。美国、加拿大和瑞士的主管部门也开始抓紧对身陷丑闻的其他银行进行质询和问责。 L I B OR涵盖一整套每日发布的基准利率，在丑闻曝光前，一直由英国银行家协会 (British Bankers’Association, BBA) 负责管理。各利率旨在反映一组银行在特定借贷期内借入特定货币的无担保资金所需支付的融资成本。每天，业内一流的银行都会提交各种货币各个贷款期的利率。除去最高利率和最低利率，根据剩余的提交利率就可以计算平均数据。据称，300 万亿美元的金融工具就是以该基准利率为基础的。巴克莱银行的违规操作曝光后，英国政府要求对LIBOR进行审核。许多人预计，9 月份公布的审核结果将宣告名誉扫地的这一基准利率的终结。不过，最终审核结果只是建议对L I B OR的计算方法做大幅修订，并提出新的制衡机制，以防今后再次发生类似的操纵情况。

中国角度与国际银行签订船舶融资文件的中国银行往往要接受英国法律的管辖。根据这些协议，L I B O R 常常被列为参考数据，用于计算应收的利息。尽管该利率对提供贷款资金的中国银行的实际成本造成的直接影响并不大，但因为

伦敦市正在慢慢遗忘这桩丑闻

LIBOR 是国际公认的计价基准，因而会被写入受英国法律管辖的船舶融资文件。使用 L I B O R 在一定程度上能实现财务文件的标准化，而且在某些情况下，更便于中国银行吸引外方参与其贷款业务，吸引国际借贷方。由于是要对L I B OR 进行改

地位。如果中国银行和借贷方决定全盘替换LIBOR，则必须做出更大的改动。不过，尽管 L I B O R 名誉扫地，中国银行仍不太可能弃用该基准。“据我预测，短时间内中国银行不会弃用具有参考作用的LIBOR。通常来说，大家都采取观望态度—看看

中国银行弃用该基准的可能性不大良而非全部替换，因而需要对现有船舶融资协议进行修改的地方很少。可能需要对提及 BBA的条款做微小改动，因为它已经丧失了利率主管部门的

业内其他领先银行的做法，同时密切关注英国政府LIBOR 计算的尝试和努力，”Ber win Leighton Paisner LLP专门从事船舶和飞机融资的高级合伙人

Sharon Ho表示。如果要说 L I B OR丑闻对中国银行的船舶融资业务造成的最大影响是什么，那就是中国银行对英国金融监管体系的信任受损。从另一方面来看，鉴于缺乏切实有效的替代方案，丑闻可能只会被当做促进老旧系统改良的动力，该系统以前在仅涉及少数银行和人员时曾发挥过作用。它可能成为全球范围内增强基准问责的活动浪潮的一个脚注。 Ho介绍说： “全球各地的银行业协会都有各自的LIBOR版本，大家一直坐立不安，质疑其能否确保各自的基准精确反映市场状况，并且免受某些银行的影响和操纵。”具体结果如何，有待时间检验。 SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

Our readers include:

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商品

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增长不可避免大连记者Mark Downing提供有关国家乙烯用量增加的内幕对于世界最大的能源消费国中国而言，石油是仅次于煤炭的经济命脉。它大部分被加工成卡车、拖拉机和发电机使用的柴油，或用于车辆不断增加所需的汽油，但其中有一部分在很大程度上被人们忽略，即每八桶石油中有超过一桶的量将被转化为石脑油，作为生产乙烯的裂解原料。作为石化行业最重要的商业组成部分之一，全世界超过四分之一国家/地区的100多家公司都在生产乙烯，乙烯在纺织、汽车和建筑等主要行业的应用非常广泛。从全球来说，它的产量超过其他任何有机化合物，通常被视为化工行业动态的晴雨表，它的生产成本与原油价格息息相关。国际能源署预测，中国到 2013年每天将消耗约1000万桶石油。除去自有石油储量，中国将日益依靠国外石油。根据中华人民共和国国务院新闻办公室的统计，目前中国每年消耗

的石油中，有57%需要进口。此外，中国业已成为石脑油的净进口国，今年预计将进口约240 万吨，随着本国原油产能的增加，其呈现下降趋势。中国的乙烯年产能约为全球最大生产国美国的一半，略低于沙特阿拉伯。中国石油和石化工程研究会的高级工程师张福琴认为，中国目前的乙

为弥补国内需求的不足，中国正在努力提高产量，明年的乙烯产能有望达到1,700万吨。中石化和中国石油天然气集团公司(CN P C) 这两家主要生产商目前正计划建造两座新乙烯厂，许多现有的工厂也将进行更新换代。为减少中国对国外技术进口的依赖，中石油刚刚在大庆石化基于国内技术扩建了

中国的年产能有望从目前的1,500 万吨增加至2015年的2,600万吨烯年产能为1,500万吨，约占全球总产能的1%；预计这一数据将在“十二五”计划期间以每年 5%-7%的速度增长，到2015年增加到近2,600万吨。乙烯的国内需求也在不断增长，但由于经济减速，需求量增幅已从去年的5%下降到今年的3.8%至3,300万吨，中石化的首席化工分析师舒朝霞在近期于新加坡举行的会议上表示。

中国首家乙烯厂，初始年产能预计为600,000吨。值得注意的是，此类扩建项目正不断受到来自公众的压力，例如最近在位于宁波的中国最大的炼油厂之一生的抗议活动。结果是，居民似乎已迫使地方当局暂停规划中的89亿美元的扩建项目，原因是害怕中石化工厂炼油产能和乙烯产量的增加会加剧空气污染。

舒朝霞预测说，尽管经济减速，但中国对石脑油的需求量将在未来三年内继续增长，即使它在原料组合中所占的统治地位可能已从70%下滑到 65%。中国生产商将选择合成煤气、煤炭液化等更为廉价的替代性原料，甚至可能利用页岩气。咨询公司Chemical Market Resources的总裁Balaji Singh 认为，中国在页岩气这一低成本原料的开采利用方面可能成为世界第二，仅次于北美。北美第一台页岩气相关的裂解装置最早有望于2 016 年投入运行，中国的开发进展可能会更晚。许多人都怀疑其实用性，考虑到中国用于裂解工艺的水资源不断减少，加之需要进行相当大的基础设施投入才能利用中国西北部研究最充分的页岩气田，因此，尽管政府鼓励此类内陆开发计划，但最终步入市场的成本也会价值不菲。 SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

■ ■ ■ 物流

丛林中正在修建许多用于连接东南亚地区的道路

连接南部国之间的互通。

金额高达10 0 亿人民币。该基地建成后，将终结广西沿海地区无现代造船企业的历史。 “现在，中国和东盟各国的贸易增长迅猛。北部湾地区迎来了巨大的机遇，”CSSC董事长胡问鸣如是说道。此外，广西省防城港市、钦州市和北海市也分别制定了大型基础设施开发项目的规划。

港口

公路

作为通向东盟国家的大门，广西壮族自治区已牢固确立起自身作为本地区重要物流枢纽的核心地位。今年六月份，中国和马来西亚政府在广西新兴港口城市钦州启动了中国－马来西亚工业园，旨在促进两国之间的贸易往来。该工业园靠近港口经济发展区和港口保税区，是中国西部沿海地区唯一的保税区，也是距东盟最近的保税区。这一工业园启动不久，两国政府就签署了设立中国－马来西亚第二个合资工业园的合同。该工业园位于关丹 (Kuantan)— 马来西亚东部沿海地区最大的城市。九月份，中国船舶工业集团公司(CSSC)签署相关协议，在钦州建设新的造船基地，合同

目前，中国与东盟之间 65% 的贸易额是通过海运实现的。陆地交通运输相对来说比较滞后，这主要是因为交通基础设施薄弱，贸易促进水平较低。不过，中国已经决定努力改变这种状况。在最近举行的中国－东盟商业投资峰会上，中国国家副主席习近平详细阐明了改进陆地交通的几项建议。一位广西本地官员表示， “ 中国－东盟陆地交通运输系统的整合与促进是一个复杂的过程。”他补充道： “必须综合考量地区的整体利益以及各个国家的单独利益。该地区内的政府和企业应加强沟通和协作，制定一个符合共同利益的完整计划。我们愿意打造一个共同的投融资平台，加强和东盟之

Jason Jiang认识到中国和东盟之间的交通基础设施正在日益发展中国－东盟自由贸易区(ACFTA) 于2010年1月1日正式全面启动。就人口和名义GDP而言，它是世界第三大自由贸易区。ACFTA的发展生机勃勃，充满活力，促进了区域经济的整合。 2 0 1 1年，中国和东南亚国家的双边贸易成交额增长逾 20%，达到创纪录的3,629亿美元。中国现在是东盟最大的贸易伙伴，东盟是中国第三大贸易伙伴。目前中国希望降低自由贸易区内的关税。到2015年，90%的贸易商品将实行零关税政策，有望覆盖东盟的四个新成员，即柬埔寨、老挝、缅甸和越南。随着贸易增幅的不断扩大，综合物流合作已经变得不可或缺。中国希望加快物流领域的发展，而且一直在积极参与，为重要基础设施的建设提供资金支持，旨在改善东盟成员 16

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间陆地交通运输的发展。” 八月份，南宁- 河内国际公路运输线正式开通，初步形成了规划已久的南宁-新加坡经济走廊的交通网络的雏形，连接了中国、越南、老挝、柬埔寨、泰国、马来西亚和新加坡，包括全长约3500公里的现代化公路和铁路以及跨境经济计划。在过去的十年中，中国还建成了大量连接云南省和越南、缅甸以及老挝的新公路。

航空云南省正在发展面向东盟区域的所谓“空中经济走廊”。该省宣布，未来三年内计划新建和升级改造四座机场，同时将往返该省的国际航班数量增加一倍。长水国际机场位于云南省的省会城市昆明，于今年六月开始运营，目前是中国第四大机场，年设计货运量为 950,000 吨。到 2040 年，年货运量将进一步扩展到 230 万吨。该机场计划将国际航线的数量从当前的 18 条增加到 40 条，其中大部分均服务于东盟各国的目的港。因而，连接这两个充满活力的经济区的交通纽带无疑将更加紧密的结合。

邮轮

■■■

还有很多事情要做迄今，国际邮轮公司是否恰当地迎合了中国度假迄今，国际邮轮公司是否恰当地迎合了中国度假

迄今，国际邮轮公司是否恰当地迎合了中国度假迄今，国际邮轮公司是否恰当地迎合了中国度假者特有的品味，需求和文化？有400多人参加了我者特有的品味，需求和文化？者特有的品味，需求和文化？者特有的品味，需求和文化？们就中国邮轮航运市场的潜力举行的网上 21.7% 21.7% 是是投票活动。 21.7% 78.3% 21.7% 78.3% 是是

否否

78.3%

中国的哪一个城市有最好的邮轮设施? 中国的哪一个城市有最好的邮轮设施? 中国的哪一个城市有最好的邮轮设施? 中国的哪一个城市有最好的邮轮设施?

香港香港

上海上海香港香港

上海上海

78.3%

SinoShip 有史以来举行的首次网上投票获得热烈响应，投票结果十分有趣。投票显示无迄今为止，国际邮轮公司将他们的国际理迄今为止，国际邮轮公司将他们的国际理迄今为止，国际邮轮公司将他们的国际理迄今为止，国际邮轮公司将他们的国际理论是中国本土邮轮公司还是国念带到中国并应用于中国的游客。这是有念带到中国并应用于中国的游客。这是有念带到中国并应用于中国的游客。这是有念带到中国并应用于中国的游客。这是有效果的，但是或许更应该提供新的商业模式，更效果的，但是或许更应该提供新的商业模式，更际邮轮公司，如果想在中国大效果的，但是或许更应该提供新的商业模式，更效果的，但是或许更应该提供新的商业模式，更专注于中国客户的需求和以中国为中心的理念，专注于中国客户的需求和以中国为中心的理念，陆培育邮轮航运行业，都需要专注于中国客户的需求和以中国为中心的理念，专注于中国客户的需求和以中国为中心的理念，尤其是在来自于中国本土竞争上升的时候。尤其是在来自于中国本土竞争上升的时候。克服重重困难。尤其是在来自于中国本土竞争上升的时候。尤其是在来自于中国本土竞争上升的时候。 S i n o S h i p 的编辑 S近期公主邮轮和皇家加勒比邮轮在其船上做出了极 am 近期公主邮轮和皇家加勒比邮轮在其船上做出了极近期公主邮轮和皇家加勒比邮轮在其船上做出了极近期公主邮轮和皇家加勒比邮轮在其船上做出了极 Chambers评论说： “尽管中国大的为中国地区定制的服务。大的为中国地区定制的服务。大的为中国地区定制的服务。大的为中国地区定制的服务。邮轮市场蕴含的巨大潜力显而易见，但我们的调查结果也表明，无论是在基础设施、目前，中国的旅行社是否有能力适当的进入中国客目前，中国的旅行社是否有能力适当的进入中国客目前，中国的旅行社是否有能力适当的进入中国客监管、专业技术还是人力资源目前，中国的旅行社是否有能力适当的进入中国客户市场？户市场？户市场？户市场？管理等方面，仍有许多事情要 39.1% 39.1% 39.1% 60.9% 39.1% 60.9% 做。” 否是否是 60.9% 60.9% 否是香港力挫上海，摘取中国最否是佳邮轮设施城市的桂冠，厦门和三亚分列第三、四名。更多关于加强潜在的中国邮轮客人兴趣更多关于加强潜在的中国邮轮客人兴趣更多关于加强潜在的中国邮轮客人兴趣更多关于加强潜在的中国邮轮客人兴趣的工作要做。适应邮轮度假，时间和心的工作要做。适应邮轮度假，时间和心的工作要做。适应邮轮度假，时间和心的工作要做。适应邮轮度假，时间和心态是关键。态是关键。态是关键。态是关键。他们可能有某些分销渠道和方法，但是在邮轮产品他们可能有某些分销渠道和方法，但是在邮轮产品他们可能有某些分销渠道和方法，但是在邮轮产品他们可能有某些分销渠道和方法，但是在邮轮产品的技巧和专业性上就不尽然了，品牌或者目的地— 的技巧和专业性上就不尽然了，品牌或者目的地— 的技巧和专业性上就不尽然了，品牌或者目的地— 的技巧和专业性上就不尽然了，品牌或者目的地— —在现有的市场知识方面有很大差距， —在现有的市场知识方面有很大差距， —在现有的市场知识方面有很大差距， —在现有的市场知识方面有很大差距，需要快速地进行培训。需要快速地进行培训。需要快速地进行培训。需要快速地进行培训。

上海天津上海天津厦门厦门三亚三亚香港香港大连大连

29.4% 上海上海 3.9% 29.4% 天津天津 3.9% 9.8% 厦门厦门 9.8% 7.8% 三亚三亚 7.8% 47.1% 香港香港 47.1% 2.0% 大连大连 2.0%

29.4% 29.4% 3.9% 3.9% 9.8% 9.8% 7.8% 7.8% 47.1% 47.1% 2.0% 2.0%

香港是上列城市中最好的邮轮目的地, 它香港是上列城市中最好的邮轮目的地, 它香港是上列城市中最好的邮轮目的地, 它香港是上列城市中最好的邮轮目的地, 它如今并没有必要拥有最好的邮轮设施,然如今并没有必要拥有最好的邮轮设施,然如今并没有必要拥有最好的邮轮设施,然如今并没有必要拥有最好的邮轮设施,然而它是一日游的理想目的地。该城市的风景和体而它是一日游的理想目的地。该城市的风景和体而它是一日游的理想目的地。该城市的风景和体而它是一日游的理想目的地。该城市的风景和体验可以满足各种喜好的游客。上列的所有城市将验可以满足各种喜好的游客。上列的所有城市将验可以满足各种喜好的游客。上列的所有城市将验可以满足各种喜好的游客。上列的所有城市将在未来几年内大力地升级邮轮设施，但是当地的在未来几年内大力地升级邮轮设施，但是当地的在未来几年内大力地升级邮轮设施，但是当地的在未来几年内大力地升级邮轮设施，但是当地的相关管理部门也会随之升级并让游览变得更享受相关管理部门也会随之升级并让游览变得更享受相关管理部门也会随之升级并让游览变得更享受相关管理部门也会随之升级并让游览变得更享受以及毫无压力吗？以及毫无压力吗？以及毫无压力吗？以及毫无压力吗？四个主要的邮轮母港-上海，香港，天津和三亚，四个主要的邮轮母港-上海，香港，天津和三亚，四个主要的邮轮母港-上海，香港，天津和三亚，四个主要的邮轮母港-上海，香港，天津和三亚，占全部邮轮游客流量的80%。预计这些地占全部邮轮游客流量的80%。预计这些地占全部邮轮游客流量的80%。预计这些地占全部邮轮游客流量的80%。预计这些地方有最好的设施。方有最好的设施。方有最好的设施。方有最好的设施。中国的邮轮目的地在向西方消费者宣传乘坐邮轮中国的邮轮目的地在向西方消费者宣传乘坐邮轮中国的邮轮目的地在向西方消费者宣传乘坐邮轮中国的邮轮目的地在向西方消费者宣传乘坐邮轮到中国旅游方面做的足够好吗? 到中国旅游方面做的足够好吗? 到中国旅游方面做的足够好吗? 到中国旅游方面做的足够好吗?

是是否否

是是

6.5% 93.5% 6.5% 93.5%

6.5% 6.5% 93.5% 93.5%

否否

中国的邮轮目的地一直做的很多, 也许需要也许需要中国的邮轮目的地一直做的很多, 中国的邮轮目的地一直做的很多, 中国的邮轮目的地一直做的很多, 也许需要也许需要一个更清晰和放宽的监管环境会增加成功。一个更清晰和放宽的监管环境会增加成功。一个更清晰和放宽的监管环境会增加成功。一个更清晰和放宽的监管环境会增加成功。这些目的地在发展邮轮母港产品和国际宣这些目的地在发展邮轮母港产品和国际宣这些目的地在发展邮轮母港产品和国际宣这些目的地在发展邮轮母港产品和国际宣传方面落后于发展趋势。传方面落后于发展趋势。传方面落后于发展趋势。传方面落后于发展趋势。

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广告详情请咨询 grant@asiashippingmedia.com SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

人物专访

■■■

几年内加强合作，而且不仅仅局限于集装箱运输领域。

调整航向

理性的思考者专访中远集团总经理马泽华

壹

个为困境而生的人；过去二十年来，马泽华一路大放异彩，完成与众不同的人生轨迹，现在担负起为中国远洋运输集团 (Cosco Group) 勾画发展蓝图的掌舵人角色。 2011 年 8 月被任命为中国最强大的航运企业集团的总经理时，马泽华在中国航运圈中已享有盛誉，这与他所接替的前任总裁魏家福有所不同。空降到充满风暴的甲板上后，马泽华最初的角色是 – 并且将始终是 – 调整在经济低迷中已经巨亏数十亿人民币的这一国有巨头的航向；他的最终使命或许是更多猜测的缘起—中远集团和中国第二大航运公司中国海运集团 (China Shipping) 合并的猜测早已传的沸沸扬扬。要是有任何类型的合并可能的话— 传闻认为，两家公司将从提倡更密切合作的中央政府那里获得更多资金，那么马泽华会是该工作的完美人选。马泽华毕业于上海海事大学，1977 年加入中远集团，和魏家福一样，在中国海运集

团最近五年的紧缩期之前，曾担任过多个境内外高级职位。今年十月中旬，双方发布了具有历史意义的公告：中远集团和中海集团将在一些国内集装箱贸易航线上首次进行合作。中海集装箱运输股份有限公司（China Shipping Container Lines）和中远集装箱运输有限公司 (Cosco Container Lines) 将共同运营从中国东北到福建和广东的贸易航线。 “这一举措仅仅是中海集运和中远集团在国内集装箱运输方面进行密切合作的开始，”中海集运在一份声明中表示。但是，马泽华不愿意就中国两大海运巨头集团之间的合并猜测发表评论。在UBM于深圳主办的泛太平洋海运亚洲会议 (TPM Asia) 上，马泽华发言时表示： “近年来，两家公司的领导层进行了很多互动和交流。目前，市场上对于我们今后的发展有很多揣测。我无法告诉大家我们是否会合并，不得不给大家留下猜想余地。” 但是，马泽华表示，两家公司将在今后

正如已经提到过的，马泽华最重要的工作是让该巨头集团重新盈利。 “作为公司总经理，”马泽华在一次专访中告诉 SinoShip， “我的主要目标是帮助公司渡过现在的困难。” 虽然赤字比前几个季度略有减少，但仍在延续。中远集团在香港上市交易的旗舰企业中国远洋控股有限公司公布第三季度净亏损 15.3 亿元人民币（2.45 亿美元），与去年亏损 20.7 亿元人民币的业绩相比，略有改善。该散货船/集装箱船运营商今年前九个月已巨亏 52.5 亿元人民币（8.41 亿美元）。公司的财务报告指出， “由于航运业产能过剩以及干散货运费的暴跌，我们预计 2012 全年都难以盈利。” 干散货在这次经济低迷中重创中远集团，但马泽华很乐观，认为最黑暗的日子已经结束。 “我认为干散货市场已经触底，”他告诉 SinoShip 并坚持自己的看法， “不会变得更糟了。” 总体而言，马泽华估计中国航运市场可能还需要两到三年才能达到供需平衡。他在今年 TPM Asia 会议的一次主题发言中承认，要想实现集装箱前沿行业的均衡，还有很长的路要走。 “明年，市场仍必须解决产能过剩的问题，”他补充说， “但长期形成的结构问题无法在一夜之间解决。” 他批评整个集装箱运输业长期专注于追逐市场份额，同时也慨叹某些承运商紧盯现在较低的新造船价格不放，进一步延长了集装箱行业的低迷局面。 “过多的产能需要很长时间才能消化，”马泽华说， “船舶订单应基于实际需求做出，而不是预测需求。” 马泽华表示， “我们必须改变自己的发展模式，”航运业需要“更理性地思考”更多的船舶订单。更理性地思考正是马泽华的风格。

中远集团中国远洋运输集团公司 (Cosco) 成立于 1961 年，是全球第二大航运公司，拥有超过 800 艘船舶。旗下资产包括集装箱船、油轮、散货船、造船厂、物流运营和码头。它是一家国有企业，有许多子公司已在亚洲各交易所上市。

我认为干散货市场已经触底 SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

人物专访

抵御经济衰退影响的秘诀 SinoShip采访上海安盛汽车船务有限公司总经理忻坚敏，听他介绍公司如何抵御航运业务衰退的冲击，带领企业走成功之路，以及对企业未来的规划

正

如天堂鸟惊鸿一瞥难得一见，上海安盛汽车船务有限公司 (Shanghai Ansheng Auto Shipping)堪称少有的成功企业—在经济衰退的大背景下，这家船东成功抵御了不利的经济影响。该公司成立至今已有 18 年的历史，在业内拥有多项第一的纪录，令公司引以为豪。它是中国的首家汽车船务公司，其船队在国内也是最先兼具海运和河运双重能力。安盛公司总经理忻坚敏掌管着由12艘汽车运输船组成的船队，计划在今年年底再买入三艘船。 “到今年年底，我们将随时都能够运输1,50 0台整车。这位总经理介绍说： “我们将从日本购入一艘二手船，另外还将购买两艘由江东船厂建造的船舶。”

正是因为这支船队的专业特性，使得安盛公司成功抵御了重创其他企业的经济衰退。忻总解释说：“ 我们所处的行业在中国刚刚起步。今年，中国的汽车产量已经高达 2,0 0 0万辆。其中 70% 都是乘用车— 绝大部分都是我们公司运输的。” 忻总认为，对汽车运输船的需求将持续增长，因为汽车制造商运送汽车的方式将逐步从卡车运输向船只运输转移。目前，80%的车辆是通过陆路运输，剩余 2 0 %的运输中火车和船只各占一半。不过，忻总特别指出，用于运输汽车的大卡车中，至少有85%都是非法营运。根据中国相关法规的规定，卡车的长度最长不得超过16.5米，目前上路运输小轿车的大卡车中，绝大多数的长度都超过了2 5米。

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目前，政府对这项法规的监管力度越来越大。忻总表示： “如果这种非法营运活动能够得到整治，用船舶运输的汽车数量就会逐步增加。即便选择使用船舶来运输汽车的汽车制造商只增加12%到13%— 我们便有足够多的业务。” 安盛免受经济衰退冲击还有另一个原因，就是该公司在范围更大的公司集团内部扮演特别的工作职能。忻总在其中担任副总裁的上海安吉物流有限公司(A nji Logistics)是安盛公司的母公司，每年负责运输的汽车超过500万辆。上海汽车工业总公司是上海安吉物流有限公司的母公司，是中国最大的汽车制造企业，旗下有上海通用汽车和上海大众汽车等多家子公司。安盛公司负责打理其母公司的所有船运需求。关键在于它无需自己出去开拓需要使用其船只的客户—它的母公司就是现成的客户。忻总介绍说： “中国政府制定了五年规划，我们公司也有自己的五年规划。”安盛公司计划到 2015 年逐步增加船舶运力，在保持船舶数量的情况下，将吨位较小的船舶换成较大的船舶。其目标是将仅有250 台至300台车运载量的运输船更换为运载量超过1,000台车的运输船。忻总认为，关键在于企业的强强联合。安盛将寻求在更有效的基础上与集团内的其他公司进行协作，为客户提供门到门的物流服务。尽管安盛公司不打算进军其他运输领域，但它将专注于发展自己的IT和KPI系统，为汽车制造商提供更出色的一致性服务。 “我们是专门从事汽车运输船业务的公司。这是我们专门从事的方向。我们没法与中国海运集团(China Shipping)和中国远洋运输集团(Cosco)这样的大公司在航运方面展开竞争，他们的规模比我们要大得多。不过问题在于：我们该如何发挥自己的优势呢？我们专注于为客户提供门到门服务，因而比竞争对手做得更好。 “这不只是航线的问题，还是物流的问题。”

安盛上海安盛汽车船务有限公司是一家国有企业，成立于1994年，是中国最大的汽车制造集团上海汽车工业总公司的下属企业。该公司的船舶航线覆盖全国各沿海港口和长江各沿线港口。此外，它还为丰田、尼桑、宝马和保时捷等多家汽车企业提供运输服务。

我们专注于为客户提供门到门服务，因而比竞争对手做得更好 SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

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船东的保护者想了解中国航运业的方向？中国船东协会秘书长张守国提供了答案

船

东协会的角色是反映和保护其成员的利益，这是理所当然的。对于中国船东协会 (CSA) 秘书长张守国而言，随着中国船东过去五年内在规模和全球知名度方面的快速增长，以及当前经济不景气对大多数成员的严重影响，肩上的任务可不轻。十年前，中国船东协会还处于发展初期，但随着中国在世界海运业的崛起，现

中国船东协会中国船东协会 ( C S A ) 成立于 1993年，其会员包括在中华人民共和国注册的船东、运营商和管理人。目前它有2 0 8家会员，运营着一支超过6000万以上载重吨的船队，约占全国总运载能力的80%以上。

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在正发挥着越来越重要的影响力。为了在最恶劣的金融时期保护自己的会员，当前，中国船东协会有许多工作要做。根据《证券日报》的报道，中国九家最大的航运企业在上半年共亏损近 80 亿元人民币。 “中国航运业正面临极端严峻的考验，”张守国坦言道， “一些知名航运企业已出现了赤字。许多规模更小的公司的船只目前则无货可运。” 根据中国船东协会的统计，五星红旗船队规模在世界排名第九，而中国船只的运载量仅占中国进出口总额的五分之一多。而在设备、运营管理和船队结构方面，张守国承认中国和更发达的国家间依然存在很大差距。那么如何使中国航运业走出赤字纷扰呢？张守国敦促本地船东更理性地寻求发展。 “他们不应盲目建造船只，”他表示。老旧船只，特别是需要消耗更多燃料和排放更多污染的那些船只应尽早淘汰。他指出，目前中国是全世界老旧船只数量最多的国家。在融资方面，张守国建议会员利用船舶产业基金和各种融资租赁平台。售后回租交易相对而言仍未被充分利用，这对盘活企

业固定资产、提高资金的利用率非常有益。张守国还希望政府参与并提供一系列产业政策和措施促进航运业的可持续发展，提高境内船东的国际竞争力。张守国表示，政府还应通过参考其他国家处理征税难题的做法， “探索”船舶税改革。这位中国船东协会的领导认为有实力的航运企业，可以积极去进行海外并购，将海外企业的技术、品牌或营销服务网

我们认为，有实力的航运企业，可以积极去进行海外并购，将海外企业的技术、品牌或营销服务网络直接为我所用络直接为我所用；也可以在国内选择合适的对象进行并购，实现1+1大于2的效果。中小型航运企业应当培养自己的核心竞争力，加强话语权。看看未来会发生什么：中国船东协会的建议常常会变成现实。

人物专访

北方资本大连有了自己的第一支航运基金，掌舵人是资深金融家王坤秀

大

连是航运业的栖居和呼吸之地，任何来到辽宁这个沿海城市的游客都会看到无数造船起重机和很多泊位。大连北面的长兴岛，正在开发成中国重要的石化和造船基地。如今，作为航运组合的补充，这座最初由俄罗斯人建立的大城市因拥有中国东北的首支航运基金而深感自豪。大连港航产业基金(PFS)成立于今年6 月，总规模50亿元人民币，侧重于物流、航运和港口等方面的投资。10月份，PFS成立了一家化学品运输船公司—大连合众船

务有限公司(Dalian Hezhong Shipping)。合众在成立时收购了上海三瀚海运有限公司 (Shanghai Sanhan Shipping)，今后将继续专注于三瀚的液体化学品运输船业务。 PFS还得到了王坤秀这样的理想人选，作为其航运投资的掌舵人。王坤秀的专业背景包括曾担任上海国有资产管理公司的高级经理以及中国船舶产业基金的副总经理。她曾参与过许多重要的资产重组交易，随着航运业的继续低迷，各种重组交易在今后几年内也将继续上演。 “合众船务将在化学品物流领域扮演重要的角色，并为大连逐步发展成为国际航

中国仍缺乏高端化学品船运力

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运中心提供支持，”王坤秀向SinoShip透露。 PFS已经投资了众多港口和物流基础设施项目。此外，她还表示，公司目前正在研究长兴岛的一个大型石化码头项目。王坤秀称，除了中国最大海运商业巨头的下属油轮企业—大连远洋运输集团 (Cosco Dalian)以外，辽宁的石化航运行业“ 相对落后”，因而合众船务的成立可满足“ 日益增长的需求”。她表示，与散货运输相比，化学品航运市场相对稳定。合众船务侧重于量小但价值更高的高端市场，部分原因在于其更为严格的船舶要求。这个利基市场的高端运力所占的份额不到中国整个化学品船运力的10%。王坤秀说， “国内航运市场受到严格监管，并且由于安全问题，政府对新化学品船运力的审批有着非常严格的规定，”她发现即将投入的新运力远远赶不上需求的增长。她认为， “尽管低端化学品船运力可能存在过剩，但中国仍缺乏高端化学品船运力。这也是我们投资合众船务的主要原因。”合众船务的目标是通过新造船舶和采购，建立一支由20艘化学品运输船组成的船队。公司已经与中国船舶工业集团公司(CSSC)下属的重庆川东船重工有限责任公司(Chongqing Chuandong Shipbuilding)签署了一份四艘化学品运输船的订单，定于 2014年前交付。其中，高达 60%的融资将来自银行，其余来自PFS。合众船务还会租用一些船舶。 PFS还计划创建一支离岸基金—中国港航基金(CPSF)，专注于散货运输和海洋工程领域。 CPSF即将启动，其组织形式为一家在英属开曼群岛注册的境外有限合伙制基金，第一轮基金融资规模将高达1.5亿美元，存续期为10年。 “尽管当前的散货航运市场受疲软的全球经济影响而跌至谷底，但从长期来看，铁矿石、粮食、石油等散货仍是中国国民经济的基石，属刚性需求。我们将其视为周期性行业，我认为它在今后五年内将实现缓慢增长，”王坤秀认为。

大连港航产业基金大连港航产业基金 (PFS) 成立于 6 月份，是中国东北首支政府主导（政府持股 49%）的产业基金。该基金侧重于物流、航运和港口等投资领域。目前，基金规模达 50 亿元人民币。10 月份，PFS 成立了一家化学品运输船船运公司—大连合众船务有限公司。

SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

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不实索赔面临更严格审查 EngenTham为当前航运业低迷环境下的保险市场把脉

对

于许多航线不明的船只来说，海上保险堪称救星。正如狂风暴雨般的经济形势将改变船东的业务发展那样，它也会对海上保险公司市场产生深远影响。尽管各保险公司对当前市场趋势众说纷纭，不过大家普遍都担心：船东在艰难时期为度过难关，会更加倚重保险。此外，保险公司也日益成为船东必须撑过危局这种潜滋暗长的情绪的避难所。许多保险公司有目共睹的一个趋势就是保险价值不断贬值缩水，鉴于船舶价格下降，这不足为奇。2012 年，根据国际海运保险联合会 (International Union of Marine Insurance, IUMI) 9 月份发布的数据，续保船只的保险价值下跌了 7.3%。今年的降幅比上一年更大，去年的保险价值比 2010 年下降了 3.2%。不过，并非所有类型船只的保险价值都大幅下降，有些船只的保险价值依旧坚挺。 Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty 旗下 Marine Hull 公司的首席核保官 DrVolker Bergeest 表示： “海工支持船和巡航船的需

求依旧旺盛，投保金额维持不变。” 在遭遇财务困境时，船东更有可能以战争风险、船体和机械或 P&I 保单为名来违反保证。因此，预计与抵押权人船舶利益保险 (MII) 有关的索赔数量会增加，这非常正常。因为这一险种是融资人为防范由于船东违反保证而导致海运保险遭拒或无效而投保的保险。Bankserve 是为银行提供 MII 服务的专业公司，其董事总经理 Peter Mellett 表示，索赔量的确有所上升，但 MII 的价格并未上涨。 “如果说有什么区别的话，那就是 MII 的成本在过去几年中略有下降，但潜在索赔量却在增长。索赔需要花费相当长的时间才会有定论，往往要经过一年乃至两年的长期谈判和讨论，不会对保险公司的账面造成影响。索赔量可能会增长，但最终还是要取决于索赔能否被最终认定，”Mellett 说道。 MII 保单的措辞也取决于经济形势的复杂性。Markel 公司的核保经理 Matt Cannock 介绍说： “当市场状况顺风顺水，MII 业绩良好时，措辞会越来越宽泛。

当市场状况不佳、出现大量索赔时，我们只能诉诸法院的最终判决结果 24

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保险

随着保险公司负担的加剧，他们往往会对索赔持更为审慎的态度

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反之，当市场状况不佳，出现更多索赔时，我们只能诉诸于法院的最终判决结果，但这必须通过法院判决才能实现。目前而言，有些措辞的范围宽泛得令人难以置信，例如对于单艘船提出的 MII 索赔可能导致对整个船队都要赔付，这简直是太疯狂了，不过这就是当时的市场状况。” 随着船舶运营商的利润被挤压，他们更有可能减少在维护上的投入。在这种情况下，保险公司可能会以“不适航”为由拒绝索赔。不过，这一假设并不成立，因为保险公司很难证明“不适航”。 Cannock 表示： “我们很难以船只保养不良这一理由拒绝赔付，因为我们必须说明其中的因果关系，结果是我们只好赔付更多。” 此外，保险公司反映船东从事违法或高风险交易的级别越来越高，因为他们竭力想保持自己的利润。因此，保险公司会将制裁条款列入他们的保险单条款中，确保自己无需赔付涉及到违反制裁条款的索赔。鉴于美国和欧盟今年早些时候对伊朗施加制裁措施，这一问题特别值得关注。随着保险公司负担的加剧，他们往往会对索赔持更为审慎的态度，并对收到的索赔进行更详尽的调查。Mellett 表示： “收到的索赔从来不可能无懈可击，我们总能在索赔内容中找到一些破绽。如果看一下经

中国出口信用保险公司中国出口信用保险公司是受中国政府政策指导的国有保险公司，成立于2001年，旨在促进中国的国际贸易。中国政府委托该公司促进中国在商品和服务方面的出口和投资。该公司的保险责任由国家承担，业务经营采取收支平衡的模式。该保险公司可接受船舶融资人、造船厂和出租人的投保，帮助他们抵御支付风险。它们可能会经常要求提供保单，作为与他方签署协议的条件。可购买两种形式的短期保险。买方违约保险：为造船厂进行交付前的建造期提供保险，时间最长可达三年，防范买方在造船合约中违约。特定合约保险：为造船厂交船后提供保险，防范买方在造船合约中违约。两种中长期保险中常常购买的是第一种— 买方信用保险，该险种可以为银行提供最长12年的交付前和交付后保险，防范贷款人在贷款协议中发生违约。第二种是海外租赁保险，可为出租人提供最长12年的保险，防范承租人在租赁协议中付款违约。2011年，在中国出口信用保险公司的中长期保单中，有45%是为与集装箱船有关的协议提供保险，有31%是为散装船提供保险，有14%是为油轮提供保险。经济低迷时期的保险索赔面临更严格的审查 SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

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理或船东的办公室，一定会发现一些不对头的地方。” 收入损失或租赁保险损失的情况已经减少。当船东生意兴隆时，他们希望保护自己的收入流，因此愿意为此买单。当收入减少时，租赁或收益损失的业务威胁也相应下降，因而就极不情愿支付昂贵的保单。根据 IUMI 的统计数据，2010 年至 2011 年间，全球海运保险的保费增加了 7%，总额达到 319 亿美元。不过，接受 SinoShip 采访的一些保险公司感觉海运保险并不算是赚钱的生意。他们表示，市场中保险公司过剩，它们之间的恶性竞争导致保费下降。在行业的盘整期间，往往会听到怨声载道。Cannock 预计： “很多今年投保的公司到了明年就不会投保了。这并非是因为他们在财务上有困难，无法承受，而是因为管理层决定退出投保。” 尽管经济低迷，Allianz 的 Bergeest 仍然看好海运保险市场，坚信有些领域已经做好发展的准备。他认为，随着全球对近海供给船的需求越来越大，对自然灾害保险的需求也相应增长。近海供给船主要是在遥远或危险大的水域进行作业。在低迷的经济环境下，海上保险公司无疑面临更大的风险。不过，那些能够顺应船东和融资人不断变化的需求的保险公司将首先走出困境。

歌诗达康柯迪亚号Costa Concordia的代价自爱克森瓦拉兹海难即阿拉斯加港湾漏油事件(Exxon Valdez)至今，行业仍然饱受最严重灾难的影响今年1月 13日，歌诗达康柯迪亚号大型邮轮在接近意大利海岸处触礁翻沉。由此造成的损失高达10亿美元，是自1989 年爱克森瓦拉兹海难即阿拉斯加港湾漏油事件以来损失最惨重的海事事故（未根据通货膨胀进行相应调整）。整个海运保险行业反响强烈。其中涉及多家保险公司，包括 Generali、Allianz、RSA和XL。据估计，清除失事船只残骸的费用高达 2 亿美元。保赔(P&I)成本达3.5亿美元储备金，加上5亿美元的船体损失，预计损失总额高达8.5亿美元。很多公司期待P&I的续约条件能有优惠条件，续约的时间是明年2月。国际保险公司的保费很有可能会大幅上涨。正当我们要交付印刷之际，有些保险公司已经公布了2013年计划，保费平均涨幅为7.5%。

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重在船尾据Katherine Si报道，中国的发动机行业在经济低迷中发生了巨大的改变，但相关机构希望中国成为这一领域的领导者的决心保持不变。

过

去七年来，中国船用发动机的生产和全球造船业的繁荣是共生关系。在过去十年激烈的货运角逐中，船队发展的最大阻碍之一是有限

的发动机制造能力。每个船东都要求尽快交付船舶，一段时间内数量压倒了质量，没有足够的发动机可以供应。时至今日，情况发生了逆转。中国政府已将船舶设备制造视为连续两个五年计

划的一项重要原则，而且鼓励外国企业在境内设立车间。一时间发动机工厂如雨后春笋般出现。但是，随着全球金融危机来袭，船舶订单骤然减少。形势刹那间完全不同—从盛宴变成了饥荒。 SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

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市场上可能出现合并，有些制造商甚至会退出市场，在此之前竞争的势头仍会非常激烈新设立的光鲜工厂均无法开足马力生产，而且不得不改造机器，尽力生产不同的非船舶产品。 “没人能预见今后的情况会有多么糟糕，”一家中国船用发动机合资制造企业的欧洲高管表示，“ 我们不得不转向其他产品，保持缓慢运行。这包括巴士发动机，甚至和发动机根本无关的机械。我们真正担心的问题是，业内的生产能力过剩可能要持续数年之久。” “从去年开始，复杂经济形势对造船业的滞后效应已完全显现，”本地发动机制造商熔安动力总裁邹志明说， “市场需求已减少，业内企业处于困难的时期。今年，熔安动力的主发动机订单比去年减少了 30%。” 公司董事长邓辉预计，经济衰退的形势仍将持续一段时间，人民币的升值也不会有太大帮助。 “到处都是交付延迟、付款延迟，等 28

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等，”邓辉表示， “国内主发动机制造商的运营成本压力变得比以往更加沉重。” 合资企业青岛齐耀瓦锡兰菱重麟山船用柴油机有限公司(QM D)的首席执行官 Rien Hoogerbrugge坚称，国内供应商存在生产能力过剩的情况。基于全球造船业的复苏以及中国保有的市场份额的情况，他预计，不太可能很快实现供需平衡。 “和对造船业自身的预期类似，发动机行业也可能出现合并，某些制造商甚至可能由于破产被迫或自愿退出市场，但目前尚未出现这样的迹象。在此之前竞争的势头仍会非常激烈，”该发动机制造企业的老板说。通常而言，在这样的情况下的确可能发生大面积停工或合并，但这是中国和中国政府雄心勃勃的目标，无论经济形势如何，都会努力去实现。根据中国造船业“十二五” 规划的目标，中国不仅要成为世界排名第一的造船大国，而且还要在2015年前实现以下目标：船用低速柴油机产能达到2,000 万马力；更重要的是，中国制造的全部船舶的 85% 均要配备中国生产的发动机。从乐观的角度来看，M A N Die s el & Turbo的高级副总裁Ole Groene比较看好中国内河运输的增长。 “中国有巨大的国内水运市场，其中有大量船舶需要更新，”他说。 MAN正在利用更小发动机型号来扩展自己的低速发动机产品组合，目的是为更

新换代后的船舶配备现代环保型机器，就像它们用于海运的同类产品一样。 ABB（中国）副总裁姚晔东坚信中国的离岸建设将继续强劲增长。他指出，传统机械发动机仍是中国主要的发动机类型。 “但是，随着油价的升高以及环保法规的日趋严格，越来越多的船东正在寻找新方法，以便降低运营成本和环境排放。无疑这将为电动发动机系统打开更大的市场。”姚晔东表示。

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关于液化天然气作为船用燃料的争论

十

月份，S i n o S h i p 的母公司 AsiaShippingMedia在新加坡浮尔顿(Fullerton)酒店举办了一次Eco-Dollars商业早餐会（如图），由Ideocean和Lloyd’sRegister赞助。对于液化天然气能否用作船用燃料的问题引发了很多争论。与会的专家小组成员一致认为，要想把液化天然气用作船用燃料并获得全球认可，还有很长的路要走。劳氏船级社亚洲区的船务部经理 Iain Wilson表示： “这完全是由燃料天然气的价格驱动的。目前的问题是缺乏一个能对天然气定价进行监控的全球机制，因此现在有太多未知数，这涉及到了经济学层面的问题。” Wilson认为，能否接受将天然气用作船用燃料，很大程度上是受到了相关法规和排放控制区(ECA)的推动，但它不是整个行业要面对的、针对环保难题的唯一解决方案。新加坡东方海皇集团(Neptune Orient Lines) 的副总裁Shaj Thayil表示，公司目前正寻求采用双燃料技术。 “尽管投资巨大，但我们目前

正在进行审核，”他透露说。 Ideocean Holdings集团的董事总经理 Manish Singh提出的质疑是：确保液化天然气供应链的所有方面全部到位需要多长时间。 “能否对液化天然气的供应进行预计，仍是一个问题，”他指出。劳氏船级社的Wilson对供应链问题更为乐观一些，他指出： “目前，全球10个港口中有70%的燃料仓已经完工，因此基础设施建设的完成就相对简单。” 更让Wilson担心的是，缺乏将液化天然气用作船用燃料的全球标准和法规，是否可用于船对船转移，如何界定禁区。 “有大量程序上的事情需要完成，另外还有培训资格的问题，”他思考道， “船上是否需要配备一位持有天然气资质的工程师？” Ideocean的Singh指出，另一个大问题是在船上贮存燃料天然气的实际影响。 “和传统燃料相比，天然气的体积超出三到四倍。” 东方海皇集团的Thayil同样认为，液化天然气的定价比船用燃油贵15%，而且因为需要更大的燃料箱，还会减少货物存放的

空间，这意味着对于整个行业而言，接受天然气作为船用燃料还需要很长时间。劳氏船级社8月底发布的一份报告表明，这家英国船级社认为，全球能否接纳液化天然气作为船用燃料主要取决于价格。该研究发现，相对于替代性燃料，建立能为全球大多数消费者提供支持的液化天然气燃料仓基础设施对液化天然气的价格高度敏感。该研究的基础情况预计，到2025年可能有653艘深海液化天然气燃料船舶服役，每年消耗2,400万吨液化天然气。这些船舶很可能是集装箱船、邮轮或油轮。当该研究采用相对便宜的液化天然气进行建模时，例如比当前市价低25%，预计使用液化天然气燃料的船舶数量到2025年将增加到约1,960艘。如果液化天然气的成本比当前市价提高25%，该模型显示，几乎不会有任何以液化天然气为动力的新船舶下水。

SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

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经济减速迫使企业另辟财源 Katherine Si和Sam Chambers关注港口如何度过罕见的负增长期

目

前是全球范围内众多港口普遍面临的艰难时期；甚至强大的中国港口增长也开始显现少有的放缓迹象。随着货运量的日益萎缩，中国大陆的港口，尤其是日益增多的上市港口公司，必须知道如何获取额外的收入。这些港口也开始效仿航运企业，用全新的方法来获取资金。例如，交通银行推行了一种极富创意的泊位租赁结构模式，将已由港口企业运营的泊位和水力结构用作租赁资产，这种作法类似于船舶采用的基本销售和回租交易。例如，将泊位出售至租赁公司。这样，港口就能够回笼资金，用作港口的现金流，实现港口的发展。然后，再将泊位回租给港口供其使用，租赁费用由停泊在港口的船舶支付。平安证券在近期发布的报告中指出，沿

海岸线方向的航运交易量迅猛增长，处理商品交易成为另一个重要的收入增长点。不过，根据齐鲁证券的统计数据，今年前三个季度，中国上市港口公司的利润比去年同期减少5%左右，其中中国南部的港口最不景气，主要是由于这些港口的集装箱业务在港口的总货运量中所占比例更大。

提高效率将成为港口企业应对行业寒冬的关键与此同时，中银国际预测，2 012 年和 2013年沿海港口的货运吞吐量同比增长分别为9%和8.6%左右，其中集装箱吞吐量

增长下降至6%。上海国际航运研究中心发布的第三季度中国航运景气报告显示，自开始进行这项调查至今，这是港口首次遭遇真正的衰退期。它发布的港口景气指数为97.42点，比六个月前下降20.72点。低于100点就表明港口运营商普遍缺乏信心。调查结果显示，泊位利用率和获得融资的便利性均出现大幅下降。该调查显示中国大港口的悲观主义情绪更为严重，相比之下，规模较小的二、三级城市的港口却保持了喜人的发展。今年第三季度，绝大多数主要港口的业务均出现负增长，而规模较小的港口则继续保持强劲的增长业绩，双方的差异越拉越大。随处都可以察觉到对于2013年业务的悲观情绪。青岛港集团董事长常德传先生强调说： “效率将成为港口企业能否抵御行业寒冬的关键。”

规模较小的集装箱港口业务兴旺根据法国分析机构Alphaliner最新公布的数据，2005年前一直是全球最繁忙集装箱港口的香港，今年有可能将第三名的位置拱手相让给深圳。此外，特别值得注意的是营口港的迅速崛起，基于今年前9个月的表现，它已经成功跻身前25强之列。今年前9个月中，世界最大的25个港口共处理了2.38亿标准箱的货物，与去年同期相比增长4.5%，是2011年同期实现的8.7% 增幅的一半左右。香港今年前9个月的货运量减少了3.9%，在前25大港口中表现最差，而毗邻的深圳则实现了3.1%的增长。上海再次击败新加坡荣登榜首位置，其今年前9个月的集装箱货运量增长50万标准箱左右，从2,370万标准箱增加至2,420 万标准箱。在全球最大的25个港口中，中国港口占据了11个席位，其中大连港的增速最为迅猛，凭借26.2%的业务增幅在榜单中跃居第 17位。

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香港今年的集装箱吞吐量在各大主要港口中最为惨淡

辽宁省的营口港赶超东京、巴伦西亚、那瓦西瓦、塞得港和科伦坡，从第30位一举跃升至第25位，首次跻身全球前25强。到今年9月底，营口港的集装箱货运量达到360万标准箱，同比增长16.5%。

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中国新一代领导人可能出台哪些举措？

om Behrens-Sorensen是中国咨询

公司Navisino Advisors（北京）的联合创始人和合伙人，他向10月份在深圳参加泛太平洋海运亚洲会议(TPMAsia)的与会者介绍，以习近平为首的中国新领导集体诞生后，中国的运输业可能会发生哪些变化。 Behrens-Sorensen此前曾在马士基公司任职30年时间，是中国最具权威的航运咨询专家之一。如果说邓小平的南巡为深圳港的发展铺平了道路，江泽民当政期间与上海港的发展息息相关，胡锦涛和温家宝对于天津滨海新港项目的发展居功至伟的话，那么

与福建省关系密切的习近平很有可能加大厦门和福州港的基建投资，并大力发展与台湾之间的海峡两岸航运业务往来。 Behrens-Sorensen还认为，传统的铁道部“很有可能”将被并入交通运输部，这绝对有利于联合运输的发展。Dane表示： “交通运输部将成为权力更大的政府部门，而且有机会提高运营效率。” 据估计，10个抵达或者离开中国海岸的集装箱中只有一个通过铁路运输，而美国的比例为40%。展望未来的港口发展，B e h r e n s Sorensen预计中国会迅速加强支线集装箱港口的建设。

第5代领导人习近平将延续中国贸易主导的发展模式

上海描绘未来30年港口发展蓝图

上

海市有关部门已经规划出世界第一大港上海港未来三十年的发展计划，由于临近区域可供规划的地块极为有限，最终选定横沙浅滩区域进行大范围挖泥和清淤。该区域位于上海市的东部（见地图），将兴建能够容纳大型矿砂船(V LOC)、超大型油轮(V LCC)、甚至高达5 0 0,0 0 0 载重吨位的超级巨型油轮(ULCC)。

您从来不用怀疑上海市兴建基础设施的决心横沙浅滩是宝山东部东海的一片滩涂。据有关部门估计，新港口吞吐能力将是上海港的两倍。有关当局表示，上海港的许多泊位的实际运营现已超出其设计容量。 “尽管项目工程难度很大，不过，鉴于其出海的有利位置，你从来不用怀疑上海兴建基础实施的决心，”一位港口咨

上海洋山港已圈下远离市中心的另一片区域，用于建设新码头

询顾问这样告诉 SinoShip。上海是七年前开放其寄予厚望的洋山深水港的，该港口位于上海市中心西南

约32公里处，能够极大缓解外高桥泊位紧张的压力。如今，横沙浅滩将承载上海港口建设未来发展的使命。 SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

■ ■ ■ 上海

厚积薄发 EngenTham考察上海市的海事教育情况 “为政以德，譬如北辰，居其所，而众星拱之，”教育先贤孔子在论述教育的意义时曾如是说。20世纪80年代以来，中国的海事业日益发展壮大，海事专业人员的重要性日益凸显。为了将可造之才培养成能够“ 为政以德”的专业人士，中国政府在海事教育方面投入了巨资。尽管中国的各大航运城市，如大连和青岛，都设有海事院校，但要说到中国海事教育的发源地，还是应该首推命名巧妙的“在海之上”，中文名字便是“上海”。中国的海事高等教育始于 1 9 0 9 年。当时，在晚清邮传部的指导下，上海高等实业学堂(Sha n g ha i I ndust r ia l C ol le ge) 设立了船政科。上海海事大学(Shanghai Maritime U n i v e r s i t y, S M U )目前下设 1 4 个学院，其中包括成立于1928年的吴淞商船专科学校 ( Wo s o n g M e r c h a n t Marine College)，以及1959年由交通部主持设立的上海海运学院(Shanghai Maritime Institute)。 32

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从2000年开始，上海海事大学实行交通部和上海市双重领导。该大学开设有大量课程，所有课程均与航运有关，从航海技术到海事法，应有尽有。该大学约有20,000名全日制学生，配备有1,000名专职教职员工。尽管该大学早在清朝时期就已创立，但是由于中国长期闭关锁国，与世界其他国家缺乏交流，导致本国海事教育的发展长期停滞不前。该大学已认识到这一问题，正在奋力迎头赶上。上海海事大学于去年发表一篇文章，名为“通过机构合作实现海事教育国际化：上海海事大学案例研究”(Internationalization of Maritime Education through Institutional Collaborations: A Case Study of Shanghai Maritime University)，表明其认识到自身所提供的教学计划实现国际化的重要性，并分析了自己向国际标准发展的途径。近年来，许多国际航运公司和船用设备制造商也纷纷出资赞助上海海事大学。

随着该大学步入世界舞台，造、贸易、操作和管理。随着全球航运业向中国迁它寻求与国外教育机构进行合作的力度也越来越大。9月份，移，随着上海的教育和科研机该大学与纽黑文大学(University 构继续提升其国际声誉，作为 of New Haven)签订协议，就一中国大陆海事教育的发源地，项本科项目开展合作。此前，上海必将成为培养全球未来数该大学已与其他海外院校达代海事专业人才的中心。成多项合作项目，包括马萨诸塞海事学院(Massachusetts Maritime Academy) 和哥本哈根海上海国际航运研究事工程师学院中心(SISI) (Copenhagen Marine Engineer College)。上海也是众多航运科研机构的所在地，这尽管当地政府机构些机构可为海事院校和范围更广的航运生和航运公司为该态系统提供大力支持。成立于2008 年的上大学提供了财务支海国际航运研究中心(Shanghai International 持，不过，2011年报 Shipping Institute, SISI)就是其中一家权威的告显示，资金不足仍科研机构，由上海海事大学和虹口区人民政是阻碍该大学进一府等多家单位共同发起设立。该研究中心步实现国际化的一的科研成果经常被中国国内媒体和国际媒大障碍，因为到西方体引用。该研究中心由中国海运集团(China 发达国家的学习费 Shipping)、中国远洋运输集团(C osco)、用价值不菲。上海国际港务集团(Shanghai International 该大学熟谙航运业的发展动态，而且 Port Group)和中国外运集团(Sinotrans)等航能够迅速推出新项运公司联合创办，主要针对特定船舶类型目，满足多样化领域发布国际和国内市场分析报告。此外，该研的需求。究中心在与上海相关的航运法令分析方面上海海事大学近也是权威机构。它还发布了业界知名的《中期还推出了一项两年国航运景气指数》(China Shipping Prosperity 制的MBA项目，专业 Index)，该指数被视为衡量行业健康程度的方向是邮轮管理。学可靠标准。习重点是邮轮的建

台北

■■■

高雄的混合十年 12

吞吐量(百万teu)

0 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

来源: 克拉克森研究

的物流港口，这些港口需要实现增加价值和提高货运量的双重目标。众多本地企业已承诺以强大的资本为相关计划提供支持。11月中旬，TIPC宣布，包括长荣(Evergreen)和中油股份有限公司(CPC)等蓝筹公司在内的 18家台湾企业已承诺为港口开发提供高达18.9亿美元的资金支持。 “全新投入涉及各个领域，包括物流设备和服务、能源、食品加工和石化等，”TIPC的一位官员告诉本地媒体。此外，还为邮轮和乘客设施提供了足够的支出预算。中国石油化学工业开发股份有限公司(China Petrochemical Development)计划投资超过350 亿新台币，也是有史以来金额台湾经过重组后的的港口业已放开手脚，准备提升货运量最大的单笔投资，在台湾中部台中港的石化工业园区内建立人造纤维和塑料生产设施。与此同时，中油股份有限公司也将在台中的一家甲基丙烯酸甲酯(MMA)工厂投入100亿新台币。长荣将注入一笔未透露金额的资本，用于开发高雄的码头十多年来当局首次在可持续港口开发方面取得真正进步。Joshua Samuel 和物流设施。高雄曾是世界第 Brown报道三大集装箱港口，但目前已暴跌自单词 “契机”和“台湾港口” 在福建省的背景能够在中国能性。陈冲表示，台湾港口应关至全球第十二位。规划中的投开始在同一句子里一起使用和台湾之间促成更大的贸易可注海外港口，了解先进的发展资对于抵御来自上海、宁波、釜理念。目标是让岛内的总集装山和香港等转运货物的激烈竞至今，已经过去了十多年的时能性。行政院长陈冲告诉台湾运输箱吞吐量达到1,800万标准箱，争至关重要。间。但过去几个月的发展表岛内码头将借助投资的东风明，台湾岛的港口目标既稳健交通部(MOTC)，十月初将与台并在2016年前将总收入提升至湾港务股份有限公司(TIPC)合超过3百亿新台币。为实现2016 获得新生，当局的坚定发展蓝又可行。此外，随着习近平开始在北作实施一项五年计划，让岛内年的目标，TIPC已划拨了22亿图也不会就此止步。MOTC副京执掌中国新一代领导集体，的港口重获新生，并实现在海美元。2011年，岛内共处理了约部长叶匡时认为，最终目标是让TIPC发展成与新加坡的PSA 时机的选择也很理想。习近平峡两岸开展航运业务的最大可 1,150万标准箱的货运量。 TIPC是新成立的、负责监督类似的企业，即同时投资海外台湾所有港口的机构，设立的和岛内。TIPC已明确了最初的宗旨是扩展台湾岛各港口的经海外目标，同时关注在中国南济腹地，将台湾各海港打造成部寻找规模较小的三级城市进能提供全方位服务和高附加值行投资。

又一个PSA正在形成中？

投资高雄对抵御转运货物的激烈竞争至关重要

SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

■ ■ ■ 香港

耀眼的明星

商务区的核心地带，还邻近其他许多旅游景区，就规模而言，也可以接待更多参观者。此外，新馆址将举办一系列长期展览，对中国海事遗产、现香港记者Alfred Romann提前参观了即将重新开放的海事博物馆代香港的建立以及香港港口的演进等众多领域进行探索。预明年初重新开放后，一度曾四下，然后由一位匿名捐赠人出资，林集团(Wallem Group)、万邦计新博物馆每年的参观者将达面楚歌的香港海事博物馆将终运往香港进行整修。集团( I MC Group)、金星船务到约200,000人。博物馆的宗旨是在探索香港博物馆的开放将使得多年的 (Goldstar Shipping)和金山轮船于有一个可以称之为家的去处了。香港海事博物馆此前的临时传奇达到顶峰。尽管航运和海公司(Island Navigation)等许多经济的发展趋势以及航运对香馆址为赤柱(Stanley)的美利楼事活动对香港的发展非常重要，本地企业的加入，推动了这一项港经济的重要性的同时，记录中国、亚洲地区和西方国家船舶、 (Murray House)，今后将落户于中但却很少有人愿意资助博物馆。目的发展。自 2 0 0 5 年至今，大约有海洋探索、贸易和海军福利发环8号码头(Central Ferry Pier 8) 最终，香港政府投入了1,500万，正好位于香港标志性中央商务美元资助该项目，许多航运公 287,000人参观该博物馆，每周展的进程。海事博物馆的搬迁是香港滨区的滨水区，紧邻世界上最繁忙司也纷纷加入。每年新设施的不到1,000人。澳门比香港小，但运行费用大约需要150万美元。拥有海事博物馆的历史已超过水区规模更大的再开发项目的的海港之一。组成部分，该项目正对着世界上 “ 它的规模可能是原博二十年。物馆的八倍，”博物馆主管新馆址或将彻底改变博物馆最繁忙的港口之一。新博物馆 Richard Wesley表示， “香港存的规模和人气。它不仅地处城市定于明年的2月25日正式开放。在的前提是贸易和航运。我们正在提醒大家这座城市的繁荣之道。这也是我们存在的理由。” 香港的其他博物馆均不展出类似内容，或真正关注此类内 10月3 0日对新博物馆先睹为快的是来自香港航运界的自去年 6月至今，因为搬迁容，确保其完美契合香港作为 200多名资深人士，他们参加了华光海运(Wah Kwong)成立60 需要，香港海事博物馆暂时关世界上最大的一个航运枢纽的周年的庆祝活动。闭。完成搬迁后，它将于2013年地位。具有讽刺意味的是，直到华光海运是一家由赵氏家族经营的散货船和油轮公司， 2月重新向公众开放。新博物馆最近博物馆才获得用于改善自已委托香港最著名的摄影师之一Basil Pao创作一本精美的拥有16个全新的陈列室，全部身状态的足够支持，就如同事后庞大的画册，展示香港的铁矿石和船舶建造等活动。位于亚勒维京号(Jahre Viking)/ 诸葛一样。 Basil Pao的画册将分发至香港的所有学校。该摄影师是博物馆最初于2 0 0 5 年在赤海上巨人号(Seawise Giant)超级油轮改造后的船体上，该油轮柱美利楼开放的时候，只有两 SinoShip团队的成员，本杂志中心页面上刊登的就是他拍摄曾是全球最大的船只。该油轮个陈列室。真正知道它的位置的关于华光海运的精彩图集。先是在印度的古吉拉特邦被买的人寥寥无几。此后几年中，华

我们正在提醒大家这座城市的繁荣之道

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华光海运60周年庆

书籍

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姗姗来迟的出版商正通过索马里海盗故事大肆吸金

大麻烦，小书架 Paul French突然发现关于索马里的书稿增加了很多都会发现成书架关于阿富汗地区的书籍，可能还有更多关于伊拉克的书籍，一些关于伊朗的书籍，以及少量关于利比亚和叙利亚的书籍，甚至还会有一两本关于朝鲜的书籍，但是唯独几乎没有关于索马里的书籍。这可能令人不可思议，因为关于“热点地区”和“流氓国家”的书籍往往比较畅销。问题是，这些国家通常不为人所知，或者鲜有人接触，因而总是远离新闻工作者的地图，直到突然产生头版新闻，进入这些国家才成为值得考虑的问题。对于全球航运界来说，几乎没有任何其他国家能比索马里更恐怖。试着去寻找一本描述这个地方的书籍，包括危机的根源，以及如何终结经过落后的、不发达国家的海域需要多国海军舰船护航的历史，如何避免武装劫持、RPG火箭筒、高额赎金甚至是悲惨的船员死亡事件。因此，任何关于索马里的书籍都是有用的。Mary Harper是英国广播公司(BBC)全球服务非洲栏目编辑，也是新书《迷失索马里？一个分裂国度的忠诚、战争和希望》的作者，(Zed Books)。Ha r per 热爱旅行，经常访问索马里，从非洲的其他

冲突地区也发回了不少报道，包括阿尔及利亚、刚果民主共和国、利比里亚、塞拉利昂和苏丹。在《迷失索马里？》一书中，Harper最为全面地描述了这个国家遭遇的混乱状况，以及美国为解决问题所做出的持续努力。与此同时，Ha r per 也认为，通过基地组织的棱镜观察索马里只能加剧这个国家以及整个“非洲之角”的动荡。他指出，尽管这是一个失

(Hurst & Co Publishers)。Lewis 是伦敦经济学院的一位人类学教授，他对索马里文化的视点，以及索马里如何将海盗行为视为赖以生存的策略，都是非常有用的背景资料。此外，专门研究索马里的学者Afyare Abdi Elmi 对构建于派系之上的索马里社会也表现出浓厚兴趣，著有《了解索马里冲突：身份、政治化的伊斯兰信仰与和平重建》[Pluto Press]。

通过基地组织的棱镜观察索马里只能加剧这个国家以及整个 “非洲之角”的动荡败的国家，但远不是一个失败的社会。事实上，其他形式的商业、司法、教育和当地政治活动仍然得以保存甚至十分繁荣。市面上关于索马里的书籍屈指可数，其中Harper的书籍最好、最新，除此以外，值得一提的还有其他几本。索马里近代史上长期动荡、派系林立、部落冲突不断，这些都在Ioan Lewis 的《了解索马里和索马里兰：文化、历史与社会》一书中详细呈现，使我们得以明白为什么现代索马里会变得如此四分五裂

那些与索马里海盗直接打过交道的人们看法如何？书架上面的回忆录越来越多，

索马里海盗袭击 200 150 袭击次数

走遍世界各地的书店，你随时

100 50 0

2009

2010

2011

2012*

*截至10月30日

资料来源：欧盟海军驻索马里舰队

讲述的都是那些被劫持为人质或参与过打击海盗活动的人员的故事。Jay Bahadur的《死水：索马里海盗的隐秘世界》 (Profile Books)可能是探索索马里海岸和邦特兰(Puntland)地区黑暗隐秘的海盗世界的全方位最佳指南。Max Hardberger 讲述了在自己担任船长期间，遭遇海盗劫持并在海盗的眼皮底下成功夺回船只的故事。《惊魂！一个船长在世界上最不平静的海域勇斗海盗并夺回被盗船只的冒险经历》 (Nicholas Brealey Publishing) ，读起来更像是一部惊悚小说，但也提供了很多关于海运薄弱环节的有用资料。此外，还有一个非常不走运的人—Colin Freeman（有些讽刺意味，但真实姓名确实如此），他的《遭遇劫持！》 (Monday Books)回忆了自己被索马里海盗劫持之后，在等待支付赎金的 40 天内噩梦一般的经历。Paul和Rachel Chandler 是在塞舌尔附近的游艇上遇袭的，被关押了一年之久。《人质：在索马里劫匪的枪口下度过的一年》( M a i n st re a m Publishing)讲述了他们如何被劫持以及如何与劫持者建立关系的故事。而《生命的价格》 (Penguin)一书则讲述了澳大利亚人Nigel Brennan在“非洲之角”度过的15个月的囚禁生活，这可能是最佳人质故事。尽管书架上关于索马里的书籍仍然不多，但是增加速度很快。 SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

■ ■ ■ 意见

现金为王 Max Hong认为，在现今我们生活的世界里，可给予信贷的交易往往是一种矛盾体。有多年交易经验、经历过许多船运业发展周期的资深船东对于趋势的把握往往有着天生的嗅觉。真正的领导者和潮流人物做出的船运投资决策几乎总是与直觉相悖的。这常常意味着，他们眼中的最佳投资时机往往是该行业投资回报最差的时刻。远见卓识的人士可以从一家或多家值得信赖的银行处获得支持，获得允许其利用股本杠杆、采取行动的金融支持。但这些都已是“昨日黄花” 了。今天，情况已完全不同。以往很配合的银行现在变得对任何形式的风险都非常敏感。即便新项目在两年半后交付时价值很高，也只能依据项目是否有“良好的定期租船契约”来获得银行融资，但目前你的新梦想诞生的时间是市场周期的最低谷，这会使你陷入不利的低价局面，错失所有专家、市场报告以及船队船龄和更新换代状况清楚显示的上升机会。案例情形本身就是如此。在某些领域，长期租船价很低，甚至都不及新船舶的合同价格，使得银行无法接受。这可不是好消息，鉴于您无法获得融资，因而再完美的天才创意也注定无法实现。但这对市场而言，却是天大的利好。目前，造船合同价格的直线滑落，导致新船的建造量大幅减少，而且还会随着信贷紧缩期的推移而变得日益严重。这意味着拥有现金、无需银行融资的人士会获得更丰厚的回报。

现在，如果你拥有重大的市场份额（比如“达飞轮船 (CMA CGM)”和“长荣 (Evergreen)”）、身处某个战略性领域（比如“ 集装箱”）且无法满足市场“紧

投入现金才能将绝妙创意和稳健战略转变为实实在在的新船舶 36

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跟包装”容量增加的需求，您的银行很紧张且已用完授予法国集装箱承运商的信贷额度，或者您只是希望从长荣的资产负债表中去掉价值数十亿美元的全新更大运输船，你会怎么办？您会发现某些人财大气粗，尽管您当前处于困境，他们仍然相信你，愿意与风险共舞，实际上是把风险视为商机

（这与迅速减少的航运银行群体相比正好相反，航运银行对于风险管理的创新响应仅为“ 晴天借伞”）。长荣选择的道路是一路向西，一直到达伦敦 / 雅典才找到了船东 NS Lemos 的雄厚资金。NS Lemos 家族的座右铭是买高卖低，即在大家都认为你出价太高时买入，在大家都觉得你可以获得更多收益时卖出。在这一理念的指引下，该家族在航运业最繁荣时出售了大部分船队，包括以 1.4 亿美元的价格转售原价 4,200 万美元的海峡型船舶。作为对长荣为期 12 年的租船契约的交换，Lemos 为其在现代重工订造 10 艘运力为 13,800 标准箱的集装箱船的合同提供了 12 亿美元的资金支持。此后发生的一个案例恰恰相反，马赛的 CMA CGM 一路向东，找到了愿意投资 8.25 亿美元订造 10 艘运力为 9,200 标准箱的集装箱船的中国集装箱制造商中集 (CIMC)，该法国航运公司将长期租赁经营这些船舶。很遗憾，伙计们，靠贷款你将一无所获。就像查理·帕克 (Charlie Parker) 在其 1944 年的经典曲目“没有资金的浪漫毫无意义”(Romance without finance don’t make no sense) 里写道的那样，今天，是只有现金才能将绝妙创意和稳健战略转变为实实在在的新船舶。在造船价长期徘徊于周期性低谷且最佳造船厂渴求业务的情况下，那些蓄势待发、手握资金的买家会有更多选项，对预期回报也非常有信心。欢迎来到现金为王的新冒险世界。

意见

■■■

业务之门依然敞开 Bei Hong认为，尽管有许多造船厂将被关闭，但仍不足以修正供需失衡的问题我是一个收藏狂人。我不会扔掉任何东西，因为你永远不知道它什么时候能用得上。这使得B夫人很抓狂，因为女性一般都更有条理性和逻辑性，但我的脑海中不时会产生疯狂的想法。最近出现的此类情形是，有人让我处理一堆旧杂志，我又像任何明智的家伙会做的那样，坐下来把这些杂志全部读完了。我翻阅了几年前的一本航运杂志，当时SinoShip在出版商的眼中只不过是萤火之光。我碰巧看到了一篇我写的文章，描述的是一个虚构的新兴造船厂的抱负，以及如果他无法售出计划中建造的船舶，他会如何建立一家航运公司，成为一家“ 一站式物流供应商”。我从来没想到，这种半开玩笑式的文章会如此令人扼腕地准确预测了短短几年后中国许多造船厂的现状。与前些年收到的纷至沓来的船舶下水仪式邀请相比，我2013年的日记真

可谓是门可罗雀，看来中国的造船泡沫真的要破裂了。据报道，超过70%的中国造船厂全年都未收到一笔订单，但这一事实并不意味着散货船和油轮市场长期供过于求的状况即将得到纠正。在某些船厂中，可能只剩下

更是对一家造船厂做出了令人恐惧的评论，针对某些栓系在造船坞、已被取消订单的船舶，该造船厂打算开始接受“更为现实的”（即“新低”）价格。这仅仅是因为他们还有更多船舶即将下水，因而需要腾出空间来装配并停泊这些新船。对于这些已

随着生态设计的出现，转售船舶虽然船龄不长，但在设计上已经落伍了风滚草在锈迹斑斑的烂尾结构中瑟瑟舞动。此外，最近对中国造船核心区进行的一次访问发现，此前一家新兴造船厂的砖砌大门几年前曾在锣鼓喧天的舞龙表演中盛大开业，但目前已被废弃。但是，在我们开始实施“ 自我修正”过程、使供过于求的市场重归平衡之前，仍然需要交付大量的新造船舶。近日，有人

被取消订单的船舶而言，无论是由于经验不足的造船厂制订了过于紧张的交付日期但却最终延迟，还是因为股本和/或银行贷款未能到位而被无奈抛弃，现在都不得不以造船厂能收到的任何价格予以出售。那么，对于那些正在刺激日益活跃的转售吨位市场的买家而言，这些被抛弃的船舶是否

具有良好价值？随着生态设计的出现，这些船舶虽然船龄不长，但在设计上已经落伍了。最初的船东可能在订单被取消或放弃前早就知道形势不妙，因而可能削减了监造成本；另外，一旦船舶归造船厂所有，就必须以最低成本完成船舶建造，最终的装配就可能达不到顶级标准。再加上新买家几年内不得不在租船市场上补贴其收购价（这甚至不足以补偿贱卖的收购价），突然间下单订购一艘新船看起来就更有吸引力。天哪，又来了。因此，预计会围绕一家造船厂如雨后春笋般出现大量新的航运公司。这将为船舶经纪公司和船舶管理公司提供大量新客户，这些管理者可能会跳槽，以前是为最初的船东监造船舶，但现在是为其竞争对手造船厂管理船舶。现在，它真的要成为“全方位服务供应商”了。 SINOSHIP   2012年冬季刊

■ ■ ■ 意见

燃油成本面临的严峻事实新专栏作家Andrew Craig Bennett关注燃料舱、引擎和船舶设计消耗大量燃油有时会产生惊人的成本。船用燃油经纪人无疑很高兴看到这种情况的出现，但船舶运营商必须决定如何应对。第一步是努力预测未来”— 这一状况是否会持续下去？尽管燃油价格可能有很大变化，但大部分人都认为长期趋势是“上涨”，因此基于燃油将逐步变得稀缺和昂贵的假设对船舶进行设计就非常合理，而且事实上我们也非常确定，现行排放控制措施仍会延续下去。如果一家公司正在建造一艘对定期租船人极具吸引力的船舶，那么该公司就可以合理假设：如果他们的船舶比大部分其他方面都近似的其他船舶一天少用两吨燃油，他们就可以和定期租船人分享节省的费用，因为只要租船人认为船东所 38

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言不虚，就会同意更高的价格。麻烦在于“大部分其他方面都近似”—如果船舶只是动力不足或建造船材过轻，节省就只能是虚拟存在，而并非是在现实世界中。因此，将显然更高效的动力和服务系统放入本质上相同的船体中就的确是个问题。这就是令人失望之处。可安全地假设发动机设计师会将他们的新产品提供给每个人，确保“竞争环境”的“公平”。除此之外，还有一系列众所周知的小配件，有些可追溯到上次油价飙升期，例如伴流管，它们具有一些优势。在此基础上，我们可以增加智能的油耗监控软件，提高港口国控制检查员对于船舶能源效率管理计划的满意度，尽管它的其他作用不大。

失望来自两个方面 — 首先，缺乏大的构想。大家都围绕问题的表面打转，试图在这里或那里节省一点，但没人提供能真正实现改观的办法— 例如颠覆性的全新主发动机，使用陶瓷材料在连续的更高温度下进行操作。失望的第二个原因，似乎没有哪家制造商对在理论上非常庞大的改造市场中真正实现改观感兴趣。假设我们有一艘船速为 24 节、带 30% 的海上裕度的集装箱船（这样的船有很多），我们希望削减 50% 的燃油费用，同时以 18 节的船速运行。那么，更换发动机或改造现有发动机并改变动力系统是否合算？看起来这是市场上的巨大差距，考虑到集装箱船的

船运业严重缺乏整体思考

预计长期使用寿命，为何动力系统设计师没有蜂拥而上去填补差距？我猜想，其中一个原因是现有船舶或船队的改造实际上比建造新船更难获得融资。航运业对该问题严重缺乏整体思考；显然对于每个人而言，关注船舶油耗及其排放的正确方式，应该是在航程的所有阶段都将船舶的动力需求作为一个整体来进行考虑。建造散货船或油轮没有好处，更别说集装箱船，它在 90% 的最大持续功率下极为高效。我们需要的是充足的储备功率，以及更低功率需求水平下的较高效率。这方面的数学和物理学可能属于“火箭科学”—不过，人们现在对火箭相当在行。行业对燃油价格做出响应的定论必须是“可以更好”。

CMY

庆祝六十年杰出航运成就

电话

Launching at Cruise Shipping Miami Covering the world’s fastest growing cruise market Distributed free to cruise firms, top travel agents, ports, shipyards in China plus the top 20 cruise shipping companies globally

Dual language

“China will be the largest cruise market in the future” Huang Weijian, China’s first cruiseship owner

Drillship aspirations Cruise survey results WINTER 2012

t om ily s a s.c Da ate pnew d hi up nos si w. ww

US trade realities

www.sinoshipnews.com

Righting the ship Exclusive interview with Cosco’s Ma Zehua

Transport priorities under Xi Jinping ASEAN links “The Chinese shipping industry is facing an extremely severe test” — Zhang Shouguo, CSA

CONTENTS ■ ■ ■

■ ■ ■ Regulars 3 Editor’s Comment 4 Economy 6 Lines

The shipbuilding market won’t have a significant recovery in the next three years

— Hu Wenming, China State Shipbuilding Corp

9 Yards 10 Offshore

I think the dry bulk market has already reached the bottom

13 Finance 15 Commodities 16 Logistics 17 Cruise

■ ■ ■ Profiles 19 Ma Zehua 21 Xin Jianmin 22 Zhang Shouguo 23 Wang Kunxiu

— Ma Zehua, Cosco Group

We are focused on providing a door-to-door service to out-do our competitors — Xin Jianmin, Shanghai Ansheng Automotive Shipping

■ ■ ■ Features

The Chinese shipping industry is facing an extremely severe test

24 Insurance 26 Propulsion 30 Ports

■ ■ ■ Hubs 32 Shanghai 33 Taipei 34 Hong Kong

■ ■ ■ Reviews

There’s a dearth of high-end chemical shipping capacity in China — Wang Kunxiu, Dalian Port & Shipping Fund

35 Books

■ ■ ■ Opinions 36 Max Hong 37 Bei Hong 38 Andrew Craig Bennett

— Zhang Shouguo, China Shipowners’ Association

Efficiency will be the key for port companies to cope with the winter of the industry — Chang Dechuan, Qingdao Port Group SINOSHIP   WINTER 2012

UP FRONT ■ ■ ■

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An ASM publication EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Sam Chambers sam@asiashippingmedia.com CHIEF CORRESPONDENT Katherine Si katherine@asiashippingmedia.com CORRESPONDENT Jason Jiang jason@asiashippingmedia.com BEIJING Li Deng Bai SHANGHAI Engen Tham HONG KONG Alfred Romann DALIAN Mark Downing GUANGZHOU Wang Fanglei TAIPEI Joshua Samuel Brown CONTRIBUTORS Bei Hong, Charles De Trenck, Matthew Flynn, Paul French, Max Hong, Li Dong, Manish Singh, Andrew Craig Bennett PHOTOGRAPHERS André Eichman, Basil Pao, Cover: UBM All editorial material should be sent to sam@asiashippingmedia.com or mailed to Office 701, 9 Renmin Lu, Zhongshan District, Dalian, China 116001 COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR Grant Rowles grant@asiashippingmedia.com CHINA SALES DIRECTOR Tom Wu sales@asiashippingmedia.com SinoShip advertising agents are also based in Japan, Korea and Scandinavia — to contact a local agent email grant@asiashippingmedia.com for details. MEDIA KITS ARE AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD AT:

www.asiashippingmedia.com All commercial material should be sent to grant@asiashippingmedia.com or mailed to Asia Shipping Media, 20 Cecil Street, #14-01 Equity Plaza, Singapore 049705 DESIGN Lamma Studio Design PRINTERS Allion Printing, Hong Kong SUBSCRIPTIONS

Any shipping-related company headquartered in the People’s Republic of China can receive SinoShip magazine for free. For all other companies a US$100 subscription is charged for 2013’s four issues of SinoShip. Email subs@asiashippingmedia.com for subscription enquiries.

Copyright © Asia Shipping Media Pte Ltd (ASM), 2012 www.asiashippingmedia.com Although every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this review is correct, the publishers accept no liability for any inaccuracies or omissions that may occur. All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the copyright owner. For reprints of specific articles contact grant@asiashippingmedia.com. Twitter: @sinoship Linked In: SinoShip China Shipping Network

Eco stands for economics, not ecology WITHOUT WISHING TO sound like a broken record, for the second time in a row on this particular page of our magazine I am writing about obsolescence. For me the arrival of the so-called eco-ships and the potential demise of a huge swathe of the merchant fleet has become one of the biggest stories of the year. In October we hosted an Eco-Dollars Business Breakfast at the Fullerton Hotel in Singapore. Sponsored by Ideocean and Lloyd’s Register, the event created plenty of debate. Shaj Thayil, a vice president at Singapore’s Neptune Orient Lines, got the ball rolling, noting: “Certain segments have to scrap or change – that is inevitable, it is simple maths. Fuel prices have increased 153% since January 2009 and there is no indication of change. Older ships are no longer competitive and will have to move from the trading place.” Manish Singh, group managing director of Ideocean Holdings, pointed to a recent Lloyd’s Register industry survey that saw around 75% of respondents say VLCCs would be scrapped at 15 years or younger. “The supply situation will dictate matters,” he said, adding: “There will also be a faster rate of technological obsolescence.” “The market will dictate a lot of these things because if there is a shortage of tonnage then the eco debate is less relevant where as if the overcapacity remains then ships will have to be scrapped,” said Iain Wilson, regional marine manager for Lloyd’s Register Asia. Noël Jelsma from Eniram, a firm specialising in providing tools for ships to reduce fuel bills, commented: “The sectors that have seen the most rapid uptake of eco technology are those ones in the public eye, the cruise sector and the container industry, and those that are lagging behind are the tanker and bulker sectors as they are a bit more isolated from that scrutiny but also there is a bigger disconnect between investment and financial benefit.”

Finland’s Eniram’s biggest client base is the cruise sector “The challenge for us now,” said Jelsma, “is how to put more pressure into the tanker and bulker sectors to increase the uptake there. It will be driven by economics. We use the term green and we use the term eco all the time but I think in this sense eco is for economics and not ecology. It is the money that drives all this.” LR’s Wilson maintained slow take up was down to the regulatory environment, with owners not investing until they had to. “People will not invest in something that does not pay back and the majority of shipowners will hang back until they have to thanks to the regulatory environment,” he said. Watch out for plenty more topical business breakfasts across the region next year.

Sam Chambers Editor sam@asiashippingmedia.com SINOSHIP   WINTER 2012

■ ■ ■ ECONOMY

FRIEND OR FOE America’s trade relationship is vastly different than how politicians play it up at election time

The panda’s here to buy, not to steal The US election once again had a surfeit of China sabre rattling. Paul French smotes most of these falsehoods

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2010 China was the number two market for American agricultural products after Canada. So, China is shaping up as a very important market for America – one that does supply some consumer goods but also buys rather a lot in the form of goods, food and services. Slowly many parts of the US government do seem to be realising this – for instance, Homeland Security is now issuing a lot more visas a lot faster to high spending Chinese tourists who’ve done so much to boost retail sales of luxury goods in Hong Kong, Singapore Growth of US exports to top 10 markets, 2000-2011 600 500 Growth in exports %

the world during that period) is not heard often unfortunately. Third, while in general economic terms some US states are clearly doing better economically than others, in terms of exporting to China everyone’s got a finger in the pie. According to the US-China Business Council, 48 of America’s 50 states registered at least tripledigit export growth to China since 2000, with 20 states experiencing quadruple-digit growth. Fourth, it is true that American manufacturing jobs have been lost through relocation to China (and Mexico, Turkey, Vietnam, Mauritius, Bangladesh and a couple of dozen other places) but America’s farmers have found a new market. In both agriculture and services the US runs a trade surplus with China: from 20002010, US exports of services (education, copyrights, training etc) to China increased by 290% and China’s agricultural imports from the US rose by an average annual rate of 31%. By

400 300 200 100 0

Ch Ge ina Ne rma th ny er la n Ca ds na da So Fran ut h ce Ko re M a ex ic o U Ta K iw an Ja pa n

AMONG THE MANY hot potatoes tossed around by America’s two presidential candidates in this year’s fiercely fought campaign was China and the jobs drain across the Pacific. Much of the rhetoric just did not add up as this look at the US-China trade relationship makes clear. First, let’s get some perspective - not everything in America is made in China. Just 2.7% of US personal consumption expenditure on goods and services in 2010 was on madein-China goods and services. Second, let’s knock on the head the idea that it’s all a oneway traffic and China buys nothing from America. China is America’s fastestgrowing export market and the country’s third-largest buyer of US goods and services after Canada and Mexico (obviously neighbours). With all the talk about China as a “demon exporter” the stat that between 2000-2011, US exports to China rose 542% (compared to export growth of just 81% to the rest of

Source: US-China Business Council

and Western Europe of late. Now let’s turn our attention to that other regular source of political outrage in America with China – the convertibility or otherwise of the RMB and accusations of currency manipulation. China is still accused of protecting its currency. True, it is not convertible internationally and so is protected somewhat. However, it does fluctuate and the RMB has appreciated significantly since Beijing broke its currency peg in 2005. According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), between January 2005 and August 2012, the RMB appreciated 31% on a real basis and 25% on a nominal basis. The politicians can still argue about this but the (supposedly) impartial US Treasury stated back in May this year that: “China’s exchange rate has appreciated and is up about 13% against the US dollar when accounting for differences in inflation since June 2010, and 40% since 2005.” More confrontational was Mitt Romney’s assertion that China is a currency manipulator. Is it? Well, Beijing does manipulate its currency in the sense of pegging it to the dollar. Actually, about 60 nations and states (including the Hong Kong dollar) globally do this and this does not violate WTO or IMF rules. For the policy wonks in Washington China will remain a key campaign issue four years from now but perhaps not so much with the ordinary voter in America more concerned about day-to-day issues as ever. Invariably in presidential campaigns there’s a lot of hot air about China, and Romney’s pledge to list China as a “currency manipulator” probably falls into this category. As we’ve seen time and again, once whoever takes their seat in the Oval Office they tend to calm down, face the realpolitik and make nice to Beijing.

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■ ■ ■ LINES

order up to 80 tankers worth billions of dollars by 2020. Cosco Dalian got the ball rolling with a ten-ship order.

In what SinoShip understands is the first part of a greater joining of forces Cosco and China Shipping announced in October they will collaborate on some domestic container trade routes for the first time. “This move is just the start of an intensive cooperation in domestic container shipping between CSCL and COSCO,” China Shipping Container Lines said in a statement. Sources in Beijing tell SinoShip that both shipping giants have come under pressure from government to work together before any further capital is handed to them

In arguably the shipping news story of the year SinoShip broke details in August of a mammoth VLCC pool that will see Cosco, China Shipping and China Merchants club together to

A joint venture between China’s energy major CNPC and Venezuela’s PDVSA have joined forces ordering two plus two VLCCs at Bohai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Company (BSIC). China Venezuela Shipping Co (CVSC), or Zhongwei Shipping, is headquartered in Singapore.

Mid-sized bulker operator Ningbo Marine’s protracted takeover by local utility firm Zhejiang Provincial Energy finally went through in October, taking three months longer than initially planned.

Cosco boss Wei Jiafu said he is keen to diversify away from pure shipping and would like to get into offshore like Maersk. Cosco’s flagship listed vehicle, China Cosco Holdings, has lost a whopping $841m in the first nine months of the year.

October and will focus on domestic chemical tanker operations having acquired Shanghai Sanhan Shipping. The aim is to build up a fleet of 20 ships within three years.

The world’s largest container manufacturer has become a shipowner in a move to help ease the funding crunch facing one of the world’s top containerlines. China International Marine Containers (CIMC) is building ten 9,200 teu boxships in Dalian to go on charter to France’s CMA CGM.

Court cases continued to rack up against Taiwanese shipping tycoon Nobu Su. The owner of TMT has seen a number of his ships arrested and newbuild orders cancelled in Korea as the downturn has found the former high-flyer struggle.

There’s a new local government-backed owner in the northeast. Dalian Hezhong Shipping was established in

Evergreen said it will delay plans to build up to 60 more medium-small sized boxships until the expansion of Panama Canal is completed in 2015.

Hong Kong’s Pacific Basin has bagged a bargain Japanesebuilt handysize in the past quarter, it revealed in a trading update. The Hong Kong bulker major’s acquisition is the first since October 2011, but is likely to be followed by a number of other purchases. “We are actively looking at more ship buying opportunities to expand our core fleet at attractive prices,” the company said in a statement.

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YARDS ■ ■ ■

FUTURE SHIP Europe leads the world in forward thinking designs

Technology pursuit Guangzhou correspondent Wang Fenglei studies Chinese intentions on European design houses SHIPBUILDING’S WINTER IS likely to be an Ice Age with the most pessimistic analysts saying that yard doldrums could persist all the way through to 2020. New ship orders for the Chinese have plummeted by 50% year-on-year so far with over one third of yards failing to receive a single order in 2012. Orders in hand at Chinese yards have also dropped by 30%. Shiyards are folding fast. It has even got to the point where the boss of giant staterun China State Shipbuilding Corporation, Hu Wenming, has got excited about constructing fishing vessels to fill the gap. “I think the shipbuilding market won’t have a significant recovery in the next three years,” Hu said, on the sidelines of the 18th Party Congress Conference in Beijing this November.

However, as with all crises opportunities present themselves. For the Chinese, especially those backed by the state, the quiet times give them chances to vault up the technology ladder at the expense of others. CSSC’s Hu realises this, telling reporters of the urgency for the Chinese to gain access to new technology.

and oil & gas division, said that Chinese yards should consider buying or teaming up with European yards to strengthen their competitiveness. Stronger ship design competence would help Chinese yards tackle the challenges posed by growing levels of environmental regulation being imposed

Chinese yards must tackle the challenges posed by growing levels of environmental regulation A glance across the world’s most futuristic and talked about ship designs shows a heavy preponderance to Europe, and it has here that the Chinese have set their sights on acquisitions. In a recent interview with China Daily Remi Eriksen, chief executive officer of Det Norske Veritas’s maritime

on the global industry, Eriksen maintained. Some Chinese companies have already started making moves. Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC), one of the largest state-owned aerospace companies, for instance, recently acquired Deltamarin, a Finlandbased ship design company.

Percentage decline year-on-year in orders at Chinese yards in the first ten months

AVIC has expanded steadily into shipbuilding in recent years, and currently controls several shipyards in China. AVIC now wants to acquire niche yards – and not just in China but across the world. Meanwhile, China State Industry Corp, the northern state-run umbrella of shipyards, is also in the market for ship and offshore design firms to aid concept designs across its stable of builders, top management has indicated. It recently lost out in a bidding war for rig designer GustoMSC, a subsidiary of Dutch SBM Offshore, which has just been sold to private equity firm Parcom Capital for $185m. Expect plenty of Chinese buyers for European design houses in 2013. SINOSHIP   WINTER 2012

■ ■ ■ OFFSHORE

Top of the pile Katherine Si on China’s drillship ambitions DRILLSHIPS REPRESENT THE absolute cream of the crop when it comes to shipyard orders, with contracts consistently north of half a billion dollars a pop. The rarified sector has been the preserve of the biggest names in Korean shipbuilding, but the Chinese have made plain it is yet another slice of business they are keen to swipe. This autumn, Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co (DSIC) signed with Norway’s Norshore for one plus three options of small-sized multipurpose drillships, which can work in waters as deep as 3,000 m while the drilling depth could reach 10,000 m. DSIC beat out 12 yards from around the world for the prestigious order. The ship is designed for riserless top-hole drilling and well intervention operations in the North Sea. DSIC has developed its own design, not too dissimilar to the ones that Norshore had built in Indonesia a couple of years ago. DSIC’s news comes hot on the heels of Shanghai Shipyard’s impressive debut in the sector. At the beginning of June Shanghai Shipyard started construction of China’s first designed drillship. The 45,000 gt drillship, 170 m in length and 32 m in breadth, was ordered by Singapore’s Opus Offshore in September 2011 and is a two plus two option order. The fist ship is set to deliver in the first quarter of 2014. The socalled Tiger series can operate in water depths of up to 1,500 m and are capable of drilling up to 10,000 m.

First of many? “The technology competitiveness, project contract ability and the cost increase will not slow the development of the offshore industry in China,” 10

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says Xu Li, director of the technology department at China Classification Society. Quite so, agrees Chen Jun, deputy general manager of Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding (SWS). He notes: “The nation has decided to strengthen the exploration of the ocean, and the domestic demand for energy is great. Meanwhile, there are some new emerging markets in Africa, such as Nigeria, all of these will bring lots of opportunities for the drilling industry.”

Drillships in operation worldwide 150

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SWS has put plenty of resources into developing its own drillship designs, as has Cosco Dalian and SinoShip understands that Nantong Cosco KHI Ship Engineering (NACKS) also has started marketing its drillship credentials. Separately, STX Dalian has built and delivered two units of

Huisman’s design Globetrotter drillships for Noble, now currently working for Shell. The hull and marine systems were commissioned in China. The Globetrotter then sailed, on its own power, to the Netherlands, where its drilling systems were installed at Huisman’s yard. Nevertheless, SWS’s Chen is honest when he says, “Constructing drilling platforms is difficult. Most of the supporting facilities are imported, plus the technology requirements are higher now, especially after the oil leak accident in the Gulf of Mexico.” This is something picked up on by Zhang Guanghao, business development manager, offshore China, for Germanischer Lloyd. “For the China drilling industry, I think the biggest difficulty is that China cannot complete the whole construction plus the follow up works such as installation and maintenance independently. Much of the equipment, material and the parts China must import from other countries, the supporting services in China are not strong and big enough.” In addition, Zhang points out that European designs still dominate the scene. The problem of importing so much material is one that

government has acknowledged and has set about ensuring China becomes a serious offshore equipment manufacturer in the coming decade. By common consent Chinese yards are not too experienced in detailed engineering and project management. This includes installation of the drilling equipment and related equipment onboard the vessels as per internationally recognised standards. It is early days for China’s drillship aspirations but many feel that like so many other strands of the shipbuilding industry it is only a matter of time till the country gets on top of this technically demanding ship type. “I think that once Chinese yards are given the opportunity to build a series of same design vessels, plus they have a strict owner dictating proper fabrication, quality and safety processes, we should see Chinese yards being preferred due to lower costs in labour and steel,” says a Singaporean source working at a private Chinese yard. “When the China state oil majors start to build drillships in China, then the confidence and track record will follow,” concludes a Norwegian source.

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FINANCE ■ ■ ■

Belaboured libor Engen Tham looks at the PRC reaction to one of Britain’s biggest banking scandals THE LONDON INTERBANK Offered Rate, known as Libor, has been engulfed in a scandal of gargantuan proportions, since it came to light in June this year that Barclays, a bank that submitted rates to determine Libor, had been reporting false numbers from as early as 2005. The bank admitted attempting to manipulate Libor for its own benefit in June. Tremors from the admission have spread and compounded as Barclays’ chief executive resigned, other international banks — including Lloyds, RBS and Deutsche Bank — admitted rigging rates, and US, Canadian and Swiss authorities gear up to question other banks allegedly involved in the mire. Libor covers a set of benchmark rates, published daily and which, prior to the scandal, was managed by the British Bankers’ Association (BBA). Each rate is supposed to reflect the cost to a group of banks of borrowing unsecured funds for a certain currency for a specific loan period. Every day, each one of a group of leading banks submits rates for each currency for each length of loan. The highest and lowest quartiles are rejected and an average figure is calculated from the remaining submissions. The benchmark reportedly underpins $300trn worth of financial instruments. Following the uncovering of Barclays’ actions, the British government instigated a review of Libor. Many expected the review, published in September, to sing the swansong of the disgraced benchmark. Instead, it recommended a number of revisions to the way Libor is calculated and new checks and balances to prevent future manipulation.

STILL STANDING The City of London is putting the fixing disgrace behind it

The China angle Chinese banks that enter into ship finance documents with an international element will often be governed by English law. Under these agreements, Libor is often inserted as a reference figure for the purpose of calculating the interest to be received. Despite the rate having little direct bearing on the actual cost to a Chinese bank of funding the loan, Libor is drafted into English law governed ship finance

documents as it is an internationally recognised pricing benchmark. The use of Libor, in part, standardises a finance document and makes it easier, in certain circumstances, for a Chinese bank to court foreign participation in its loan and international borrowers. Since Libor is to be reformed rather than replaced, it is likely that few amendments will need to be made to existing ship finance agreements. Minor amendments

It is unlikely that there will be a major shift away from the use of the benchmark by Chinese banks

may have to be made to provisions which refer to the BBA since it stepped down as the rate administrator. More significant amendments would have to be made if Chinese banks and borrowers decide to replace Libor entirely. However, despite Libor’s fall from grace, it is unlikely that there will be a major shift away from the use of the benchmark by Chinese banks. “I don’t anticipate in the near future at least, Chinese banks dropping Libor as a reference. Generally, everybody is adopting a wait and see attitude – watching to see what other leading banks do whilst following closely the British government’s attempts to try and clean up the computation of Libor,” says Sharon Ho, a senior associate specialising in ship and aircraft finance at Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP. It may be that the most significant impact the Libor scandal has on Chinese ship finance is the erosion of Chinese trust in the British financial regulatory system. On the other hand, given the lack of true alternatives, the scandal may be remembered only as a refining force on an antiquated system that once worked when only a handful of banks and people were involved. It may become a footnote to a wave of activity that increased the accountability of benchmarks across the globe. “People have been sitting up and asking that the various banking associations around the world that have their own versions of Libor make sure that their benchmarks accurately reflect the market position and are not subject to nor open to manipulation by a couple of banks,” says Ho. Only time will tell. SINOSHIP   WINTER 2012

COMMODITIES ■ ■ ■

Inevitable increase Dalian correspondent Mark Downing provides a lowdown on the nation’s growing use of ethylene OIL IS SECOND only to coal as a lifeblood for China, the world’s largest energy consumer. Most is processed into diesel for trucks, tractors and electrical generators, or gasoline for its expanding fleet of cars, but a largely overlooked portion — more than one out of every eight barrels of oil — is converted into naphtha destined for the cracking feedstocks that principally produce ethylene. As one of the most commercially important building blocks of the petrochemical industry, produced by more than 100 companies across a quarter of the world’s countries, ethylene is widely used in such major industries as textiles, automotives and construction. Globally, its production exceeds that of any other organic compound to the extent that it is often viewed as a barometer of the state of the petrochemical industry, with production costs nearly tied lockstep to crude oil prices. China will consume 10m barrels of oil a day in 2013, forecasts the International Energy Agency. Despite its own substantial reserves, China is increasingly dependent on

foreign oil, now importing 57% of its annual consumption, according to China’s State Council Information Office. China has also become a net importer of naphtha, with some estimates of about 2.4m tonnes to be imported this year, trending downwards as more local crude production capacity is being added.

year to 3.8% this year to reach 33m tonnes, said Shu Zhaoxia, chief analyst for chemicals at Sinopec, at a recent conference in Singapore. To make up for this domestic shortfall, China is undergoing a national push to increase production, potentially reaching an ethylene production capacity of 17m tonnes by next

China’s annual capacity of 15m tonnes is expected to hit 26m tonnes by 2015 China’s annual ethylene production capacity is about half of the US, the world’s largest, and slightly less than that of Saudi Arabia. At roughly 1% of worldwide capacity, China’s annual capacity of 15m tonnes is expected to grow between 5 to 7% per year to reach nearly 26m tonnes by the conclusion of its latest five-year plan in 2015, according to Zhang Fuqin, a senior engineer at the China Petroleum and Petrochemical Engineering Institute. Domestic demand for ethylene is also growing, but owing to the economic slowdown has dropped pace from 5% last

year. Both of the major producers Sinopec and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) are planning two new ethylene plants, with many existing plants being earmarked for upgrades. Reducing China’s dependence on importing foreign technology, CNPC just powered up the country’s first ethylene plant based on domestically developed technology at Daqing Petrochemical, initially slated to produce 600,000 tonnes per year. Remarkably, such expansion projects are increasingly susceptible to public pressure, such as the recent protest at

one of China’s largest refineries in Ningbo. There, residents appear to have coerced the local authorities to halt the planned $8.9bn expansion for fears of worsened air pollution from an increase in Sinopec plant’s oilrefining capacity and ethylene production. Despite the economic slowdown, demand for naphtha will continue to grow over the next three years even while its dominance in the feedstock mix may slip from 70% to 65%, forecasts Shu. Chinese producers are choosing cheaper alternatives such as synthetic coal gas, coalto-liquid and may eventually tap shale gas. China may become second in the world, after North America, to exploit shale gas reserves as a low-cost feedstock, according to Balaji Singh, president of consultancy Chemical Market Resources. With the first North American shale gasrelated crackers expected to be operational no earlier than 2016, Chinese development is likely much later. Many doubt the practicality, considering both China’s dwindling water resources available for fracking coupled with the sizeable infrastructure investment to reach its most studied shale gas fields in the northwest — costly to bring to market despite the political drive for such inland development. SINOSHIP   WINTER 2012

■ ■ ■ LOGISTICS

MUDDY BEGINNINGS Many jungle roads are being built linking Southeast Asia

Southern links Jason Jiang identifies growing transport infrastructure between China and ASEAN THE CHINA-ASEAN FREE Trade Area (ACFTA) came into effect on January 1, 2010. It is the third largest free trade area in terms of population and nominal GDP, and the vibrant development of ACFTA has been pushing economic integration in the region. Bilateral trade volumes between China and the southeast Asian cluster of nations have been growing at more than 20% a year of late, achieving a record $362.9bn in 2011. China is now ASEAN’s biggest trade partner, and ASEAN is China’s third largest. China is now keen to lower tariffs within the free trade area. By 2015, the policy of zero-tariff rates for 90% of traded goods is expected to include four new ASEAN members, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. As trade growth escalates, integrated logistics cooperation is seen as essential. China hopes to speed up the development in the logistics sector, and has participated in and provided supporting funds to construct key infrastructure to improve the connectivity between ASEAN member states. 16

WWW.SINOSHIPNEWS.COM

Ports As a main gateway to ASEAN, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has firmly positioned itself as an important logistics hub to the region. In June this year, the governments of China and Malaysia launched the China-Malaysia Industrial Park in the fast emerging port city of Qinzhou in Guangxi with a strong focus to boost trade between the two countries. The park is located beside the port economic development zone and port bonded area, the nation’s only bonded area in the western coastal region and the near-

signed agreements to build a new shipbuilding base in Qinzhou costing up to RMB10bn. It will end the history of no modern shipbuilding enterprises along the coastal areas of Guangxi upon completion. “Currently trade between China and ASEAN countries has been growing rapidly. The Beibu Gulf region is facing big opportunities,” said Hu Wenming, CSSC’s president. Large infrastructure development projects are planned for Guangxi ‘s ports at Fangchenggang, Qinzhou and Beihai.

Roads Currently 65% of the trade volume between China and ASEAN is done by ship. Land transportation is relatively lagging behind due to inadequate transport infrastructure and low levels of trade facilitation. However, China is determined to make efforts to

The China-ASEAN Free Trade Area is the third largest in the world in terms of population and GDP est to the ASEAN region. Not long after the park launched, the contract for a second joint Sino-Malaysian industrial park was signed. The park will be based in Kuantan, the largest city on Malaysia’s eastern coast. In September, China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC)

improve the sector. At the recent China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit, China’s heir apparent Xi Jinping elaborated on a few suggestions to improve land connectivity. “The integration and facilitation of China - ASEAN land transportation systems is a complex

process,” reports a local Guangxi official, adding: “It requires a general consideration of both overall interest of the region and the separate interests of the countries involved. Governments and enterprises in the region should strengthen communication and coordination to develop a complete plan for the common interest. We are willing to build a common investment and financing platform to strengthen the development of land transportation with ASEAN.” In August, the NanningHanoi international road transportation route commenced operation, which established a preliminary network for the long planned NanningSingapore Economic Corridor connecting China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore with about 3,500 km of modern road and rail links, and cross-border economic initiatives. Extensive new roads linking Yunnan province with Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos have been built in the past decade.

Air Yunnan province is developing a so-called ‘air economic corridor’ with a special focus on ASEAN. The province has announced plans to build and upgrade four airports in the next three years and double the number of international flights in and out of the province over the same period. Changshui International Airport in provincial capital, Kunming, started operations in June this year becoming the fourth largest airport in China with a designed cargo capacity of 950,000 tonnes annually. Further plans will see capacity expand to 2.3m tonnes annually by 2040. The airport plans to raise the number of international routes from the current 18 to 40, with most servicing ASEAN destinations. Transport links between these two vibrant economic areas are clearly set to become properly intertwined.

CRUISE ■ ■ ■

Plenty still to do Have international cruiselines properly catered for

Have international cruiselines properly catered for More than 400 people the Have international cruiselines properly catered for Haveunique international cruiselines properly catered for tastes, demands and cultures ofcultures Chinese the unique tastes, demands and of Chinese thetastes, unique tastes, demands and cultures of Chinese the unique thusdemands far? holidaymakers thusand far?cultures of Chinese responded to our online holidaymakers holidaymakers holidaymakers thus far? thus far? poll on the potential of 21.7% 21.7% YES YES 21.7% 21.7% cruise shipping in China 78.3% YES YES 78.3%

NO NO

78.3%

Which cityWhich in China the best facilities? cityhas in China hascruise the best cruise facilities? cityhas in China hascruise the best cruise facilities? Which cityWhich in China the best facilities? Shanghai Shanghai 29.4% Shanghai 29.4% 3.9% Tianjin Tianjin 3.9% 9.8% Xiamen Xiamen 9.8% 7.8% Sanya Sanya KongSanya 7.8% Hong 47.1% Hong Kong Kong Hong KongHong 47.1% Dalian 2.0% Dalian Dalian Dalian 2.0%

Shanghai ShanghaiShanghai Tianjin Shanghai Xiamen Tianjin Hong Kong HongShanghai Kong Xiamen Hong Kong Hong Kong Sanya

78.3%

SINOSHIP’S FIRST EV ER online poll generated both a lot of response and fascinatSo far international cruise liners haveliners opted to opted to So far international cruise have So international far international cruise liners have opted to So farininternational cruise liners have opted to apply bring their concept and apply it to ing results. What became bring in their international concept and it to bring in their international concept and apply it to bring in their international concept and apply it to Chinese tourists. It works but probably it makes sense to come Chinese tourists. It works but probably it makes sense to come clear via the poll is that Chinese tourists. Chinese tourists. It probably works butitprobably itthe makes sense to come It works but makes sense to come up with new models that focus more on Chinese upbusiness with new business models that focus more on the Chinese upneeds, with new business models that focus more on is the Chinese both the Chinese and interup with new business models focus more on the Chinese consumer`s especially as local Chinese competition consumer`s needs, that especially as local Chinese competition is needs, especially as local Chinese competition is consumer`s needs, especially as Chinese competition and consumer`s working onworking China focused concepts. national cruiselines have rising rising and onlocal China focused concepts. is andon working on China focused concepts. rising and rising working China focused concepts. many hurdles if they are to nurture the industry in the to cater forto the ships that region. cater fordeployed the shipsto deployed to that region. cater fordeployed the ships to deployed to that region. to cater fortothe ships that region. People’s Republic. “Despite the clear enormous potential for the Are Chinese agents capable reaching Aretravel Chinese travel agentsofcapable of the reaching the Are travel Chinese travel agents of capable of reaching the Are Chinese agents capable reaching themoment? Chinese cruise market, whatChinese consumer market properly the moment? Chinese consumer marketat properly at the Chinese consumer market at properly at the moment? Chinese consumer market properly the moment? our survey shows is that 39.1% 39.1% 39.1% 39.1% there is still much to do 60.9% 60.9% NO YES NO YES 60.9% 60.9% NOYES YES NO whether it is on infrastructure, regulations, expertise or human resources,” commented SinoShip’s editor Sam Much moreMuch mustmore be done enhance interestthe interest musttobe done tothe enhance Chambers. Much more mustin doneItto the interest Much more must be done tobe enhance interest of potential tourists China. isthe aenhance matter of ofcruise potential cruise tourists in China. It is a matter of Hong Kong beat out time/mentality ofcruise potential cruise tourists It isofa matter of oftime/mentality potential tourists in China. Itin isChina. a matter to get used cruise holidays. toto get used to cruise holidays. time/mentality to get used to cruise holidays. time/mentality to get used to cruise holidays. Shanghai to win the crown of may have distribution channels and methods, They certain may have certain distribution channels and methods, best cruise facilities in They They may have certain in distribution channels and methods, Theynot may have certain distribution channels methods, but the skills and the cruise product, but not the expertise skills and expertise inand the cruisethe product, the but not the skills and expertise in the cruise product, the China. Xiamen and Sanya brands but notorthe skills and expertise in the cruise product, the the destinations - a big gap-in market brands or the destinations a big gap knowledge in market knowledge brands or the destinations a big gap in market knowledge brands or the destinations a big gap in market knowledge is required, were in third and fourth exists and training exists and training isquickly. required, quickly. and required, quickly. exists and exists training is training required,isquickly. position.

29.4% 29.4% 3.9% 3.9% 9.8% 9.8% 7.8% 7.8% 47.1% 47.1% 2.0% 2.0%

Hong KongHong is theKong best cruise of the above is the destination best cruise destination of the above Kong is the best destination of the above Hong KongHong isnecessarily the best cruise destination of the above list, it doesn’t have thecruise best cruise facilities list, it doesn’t necessarily have the best cruise facilities list, it doesn’t necessarily have the best cruise facilities list, it doesn’t necessarily have the best cruise facilities today but astoday a destination it is great foritaisone dayfor visit. It has but as a destination great a one daymany visit. It has many today but as atodestination itais great forvisit. a one daymany visit. It has many today but a destination itcater is great one day It has sights andas experiences forfor all tastes. All cities sights and experiences to cater for allthe tastes. Alllisted the cities listed sights and experiences to cater forAll allrequirements tastes. All theincities listed sights and experiences to cater forfacilities all tastes. the cities above will have cruise facilities well above their above will have cruise well above theirlisted requirements in above will cruise facilities well above requirements in above will have cruise facilities well above in to make the coming years, buthave will thebut local authorities adapttheir to make the coming years, will the their localrequirements authorities adapt the coming years, but will the local authorities adapt to make the coming years, but will the local authorities adapt to make visits in their cities stress free? visits inenjoyable their citiesand enjoyable and stress free? visits in enjoyable their citiesand enjoyable and stress free? visits in their cities stress free? The four major cruise homeports - Shanghai,- Shanghai, Hong Kong, The four major cruise homeports Hong Kong, The four major cruise homeports - Shanghai, Hong Kong, The four major cruise homeports - Shanghai, Hong Kong, This is an indication here the facilities are best. are best. This is an that indication that here the facilities This is an indication thatfacilities here theare facilities This is an indication that here the best. are best.

Are Chinese doing enough promote Aredestinations Chinese destinations doingtoenough to promote Aredestinations Chinese doing enough to promote Are Chinese doing enough to promote western consumers todestinations cruise in orinlines toor visit western consumers toChina cruise China lines to visit western consumers toChina cruiseor in lines Chinatoorvisit lines to visit western destinations? consumers to cruise in Chinese Chinese destinations? Chinese destinations? Chinese destinations?

YES YES

NO NO

YES YES

6.5% 6.5% 93.5% 93.5%

NO NO

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For full details of the online poll contact sam@asiashippingmedia.com

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PROFILE ■ ■ ■

Rational thinker An exclusive interview with Ma Zehua, the president of Cosco

man for straitened times; Ma Zehua cuts a very different dash to the showman who has come to define the Cosco Group for the past two decades. When he was appointed president of China’s most powerful maritime conglomerate in August 2011 Ma was well known in Chinese shipping circles, a polar opposite to the man he was taking over from, Wei Jiafu. Parachuted onto a stormy deck, Ma’s initial role was — and continues to be — to right the ship of the state-run giant which has been hemorrhaging billions of renminbi in the downturn; what his eventual mission may be is the source of much conjecture — with plenty of speculation of merger between Cosco and the nation’s number two line, China Shipping. Were a merger of any kind to be on the cards — the rumour mill posits that for either company to get more cash out of Beijing the mandarins are calling for closer cooperation — then Ma is the perfect man for the job. A graduate from Shanghai Maritime University, Ma joined Cosco in 1977 and, like Wei, held many senior positions at home and overseas before a five-year recent stint at China Shipping. In the middle of October this year there was a historic announcement: Cosco and China Shipping would collaborate on some domestic container trade routes for the

first time. China Shipping Container Lines (CSCL) and Cosco Container Lines will jointly operate trade routes from northeast China to Fujian and Guangdong. “This move is just the start of an intensive cooperation in domestic container shipping between CSCL and Cosco,” CSCL said in a statement. Ma, however, would not be drawn on merger speculation between China’s two largest maritime conglomerates. Speaking at the UBM-organised TPM Asia conference in Shenzhen, Ma said: “The leadership in recent years for these two companies has had much interaction. There is much speculation on what we will do together. I cannot tell you whether we will merge; I will have to let you guess.” Ma did say, however, that the two companies would strengthen cooperation in the coming years, and not just in container shipping.

Righting the ship Ma’s top priority, as already stated, is to get the conglomerate back in the black. “My main goal as the president of the company,” Ma tells SinoShip in an exclusive interview, “is to help the company to get through the current difficulties.” The red ink does continue to flow, albeit less than in previous quarters. Cosco’s flagship, Hong Kong-listed China Cosco Holdings, posted a third quarter net

loss of RMB1.53bn ($245m), an improvement on the RMB2.07bn loss a year earlier. The bulker/containership operator has racked up a whopping RMB5.25bn ($841m) loss for the first nine months of the year. “We will be a money-losing company for the whole of 2012 due to overcapacity in the shipping industry and the slumping freight price of dry bulk cargoes,” the company’s financial statement noted. It is dry bulk that has really hurt Cosco this downturn, but Ma is hopeful that the darkest days are over. “I think the dry bulk market has already reached the bottom,” he tells SinoShip, maintaining: “It won’t get worse.” Overall, Ma reckons China might need another two or three years to reach a balance in supply and demand for the shipping market. On the container front that equilibrium is a long way off, he admitted in a keynote speech at this year’s well-attended TPM Asia conference. “Next year the market will still have to handle the overcapacity problems,” he said, adding: “Longstanding structural problems cannot be solved overnight.” He slammed the container shipping industry as a whole for focusing for too long on chasing market share, while also bemoaning the fact that some carriers are taking advantage of low newbuild prices at the moment to order further prolonging the box downturn. “Excessive capacity will take a long time to digest,” Ma said. “Ship orders should be placed on actual demand, not forecast demand.” “We need to change our pattern of development,” Ma said, saying the industry needed to “think more rationally” about further ship orders. Thinking more rationally is very much the Ma way.

NEED TO KNOW NEED TO KNOW

COSCO FOUNDED IN 1961 China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company (Cosco) is the world’s second largest shipping company with more than 800 ships. Diverse holdings include boxships, tankers, bulkers, shipyards, logistics operations and terminals. State-owned, but with many subsidiaries listed at Asian bourses.

SINOSHIP   WINTER 2012

Dual language 12 correspondents across six cities Distributed to 300 Chinese shipbuilders

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PROFILE ■ ■ ■

Insulated from the downturn SinoShip catches up with Xin Jianmin, president of roro outfit Ansheng, to hear how he has succeeded in driving a course resistant to the shipping slump and his plans for the future

ike glimpsing a bird of paradise, Shanghai Ansheng Automotive Shipping is that rarefied thing - a shipowner unaffected by the omnipresent pathos of economic gloom. At 18 years of age, the company boasts several firsts. It was the first automobile shipping company in China and the first with a fleet that could command both river and sea waters. Steering a fleet of 12 car carriers, Xin Jianmin, Ansheng’s president plans to expand by an additional three vessels by the end of this year. “By the end of this year, the capacity will reach 11,000 units. We are purchasing one second-hand vessel from Japan and two vessels constructed by Jiang Dong,” says the president. The specialised nature of the fleet has inoculated the owner against the economic ills suffered by others. “The industry we are in has just taken off in China. This

year, car production in the country has reached 20m units. 70% of these units are passenger vehicles – and we transport mostly these,” Xin explains. Demand for automotive vessels will continue to grow, Xin believes, as car manufacturers switch from truck transport to ship. Currently, 80% of vehicles are transported by road, with the other 20% divided equally between rail and ship. However, Xin contends that at least 85% of the trucks that are transporting autos are doing so illegally. Chinese regulations state that the length of a truck can be up to 16.5 m in length, but most trucks in service are more than 25 m. The government is now increasing its supervision of this regulation. “If this illegal activity can be controlled, then transportation of cars by ship will increase. Even if there is a 12 to 13% increase in manufacturers choosing to use ships – we can all eat our fill,” Xin says.

We are focused on providing a door-to-door service to out-do our competitors

Another insulating factor is Ansheng’s function within the wider corporate group. Anji Logistics, of which Xin is the vice president, is Ansheng’s parent company, which handles more than 5m cars annually. Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation is the parent of Anji, and is the largest auto corporation in China, of which Shanghai General Motor and Shanghai Volkswagon, among others, are subsidiaries. Ansheng handles all the shipping needs of its parent companies. The crux is that it need not go out scouting for clients to use its vessels – they already have one ready made in the form of their parent. “China has five-year plans and we have our own five-year plan,” Xin explains. By 2015 Ansheng plans to increase its capacity, but maintain vessel numbers by substituting smaller vessels for larger ones. It aims to replace the vessels that only have a 250- to 350-unit capacity for ones that can transport more than 1,000. Xin considers integration to be key. Ansheng will be seeking to collaborate on a more efficient basis with other companies in the group to provide a door-todoor logistics service for their customers. Although it will not be expanding into other areas of transport, it will be focused on developing its IT and KPI systems to better provide a cohesive service for manufacturers. “We are a pure car carrier roro company. This is what we specialize in. There is no way for us to compete with China Shipping or Cosco just on shipping, as they are much larger. But the question is: How do we utilise our advantages? We are focused on providing a door-to-door service to out-do our competitors,” Xin maintains. “It’s not just about the line, it’s about the logistics.”

NEED TO KNOW NEED TO KNOW

ANSHENG SHANGHAI ANSHENG A utomotive Shipping is a state-owned company founded in 1994. It is a subsidiary of Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, the country’s largest car manufacturer. Network covers all domestic coastal ports and all Yangtze river ports. Also provides transportation services for Toyota, Nissan, BMW and Porsche among others.

SINOSHIP   WINTER 2012

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We suggest strong shipping companies should purchase foreign companies, and take that technology, brand or marketing service network to be used back home

Shipowners’ champion Want to know where Chinese shipping is headed? Zhang Shouguo, general secretary of the China Shipowners’ Association, provides insights

he role of a shipowners’ association is, unsurprisingly, to reflect and champion the interests of its members. For Zhang Shouguo, general secretary of the China Shipowners’ Association, this is no small task, given the rapid rise in both size and global recognition of Chinese owners in the past five years and the current malaise hitting most of his membership. A decade ago the CSA was a low profile organization, these days its statements are reported across the world, as befits

NEED TO KNOW NEED TO KNOW

CSA FOUNDED IN 1993, the China Shipowners’ Association (CSA) is composed of owners, operators and managers registered in the People’s Republic of China. Currently it has 208 members operating a fleet of more than 60m dwt, which accounts for about 80% of the country’s total carrying capacity.

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China’s maritime rise. For instance, no other body has weighed on so heavily against Brazilian miner Vale’s move to become a shipowner. At present, CSA has much to do to shield its membership from the worst financial period since the organisation was formed close to 20 years ago. The nine biggest Chinese shipping enterprises reported an aggregate loss of nearly RMB8bn in the first half of the year, according to a report by the Securities Daily. “The Chinese shipping industry is facing an extremely severe test,” admits Zhang. “Even the well-known big names in the Chinese shipping industry are all in the red. Many smaller sized companies’ ships have nothing to do at the moment.” The five-star flagged fleet ranks number nine in size in the world and Chinese ships carry just over one fifth of all the nation’s imports and exports, according to CSA. However, when it comes to equipment, operational management and fleet structures Zhang concedes the Chinese have a long way to catch up with more developed nations. How then to get out of the red inkstained mess that Chinese shipping finds itself in? Zhang urges local shipowners to

develop more rationally. “They should not build ships blindly,” he says. Also, shipping is essentially a game of survival of the fittest, Zhang reckons, and banks should distance themselves from those shipowners who are clearly in dire financial straits. Older ships, especially those that use more fuel and emit more pollution, need to be scrapped in greater numbers as soon as possible, he says, noting that currently China is the country with the highest number of old ships in the world. In terms of financing Zhang suggests his members take advantage of the ship industry fund and the various financial leasing platforms. Leaseback deals remain relatively untapped and could be important going forward. “They can be very useful to make an inventory of the company’s fixed assets and improve the utilization of the funds,” Zhang says. Zhang is also keen for government to step in and provide a series of policies and measures to promote sustainable development and improve local owners’ international competiveness. Government should also “explore” shipping tax reforms, Zhang says, by looking at how other countries have tackled this levy conundrum. Zhang applauds the government’s keenness to see mergers and acquisitions within the local shipping community, something that has been promoted since 2008. Likewise, the rise of pools in Chinese shipping is something to be encouraged, he says. Now, though, is the time for overseas acquisitions to help local expertise grow, argues the CSA boss. “We suggest strong shipping companies should purchase foreign companies, and take that technology, brand or marketing service network to be used back home and then they can also find suitable targets in China for acquisition,” Zhang recommends. Watch this space: what CSA recommends often becomes reality.

PROFILE ■ ■ ■

Northern capital Dalian has its first shipping fund, headed by experienced financier Wang Kunxiu. Jason Jiang finds out more

alian is a place that lives and breathes shipping – as any visitor to the Liaoning coastal city will attest with its myriad shipbuilding cranes and multiple berths. To the north of Dalian, Changxing island is being developed as a major petrochemical and shipbuilding base. Now to add to the maritime mix, the Russian-founded metropolis can boast northeast China’s first shipping fund. Dalian Port & Shipping Fund (PFS) was established in June this year. The RMB5bn fund focuses on logistics, shipping and port investments. In October, a chemical tanker firm, Dalian Hezhong Shipping, was formed by PFS. Hezhong acquired Shanghai Sanhan Shipping when it was established and will continue Sanhan’s liquid chemical focus. In Wang Kunxiu, PFS has got the ideal person to navigate shipping investments. Her background includes stints as a senior manager at Shanghai State-owned Assets Management Co and deputy general manager at China Ship Fund Management. She has been involved in a number of major

asset restructuring deals, surely something that will continue in the coming years as the shipping downturn continues to bite. “Hezhong Shipping will play an important role in the relevant chemical logistics chain and support the ongoing development of Dalian as an international shipping centre,” Wang tells SinoShip. PFS has already invested in a number of port and logistics infrastructure projects, and Wang reveals her company is currently studying a big petrochemical terminal project on Changxing island. With the big exception of state-run Cosco Dalian, the tanker arm of China’s largest maritime conglomerate, the petrochemical shipping industry is “relatively underdeveloped” in Liaoning, claims Wang, hence Hezhong’s establishment to meet “growing demand”. Compared to bulk shipping, the chemical segment is relatively stable, says Wang, who points out that Hezhong is focused on the high-end of the market which in China is small in quantity and much higher value, thanks in part to its far stricter vessel requirements. This niche segment accounts

There’s a dearth of high-end chemical shipping capacity in China

for less than 10% of the whole chemical shipping capacity in China, Wang says. “The domestic shipping market is strictly regulated, and the government has very strict rules on approving new chemical shipping capacities due to safety concerns,” says Wang, who observes that new capacity is coming onstream much slower than demand. “While there is probably overcapacity in low-end chemical shipping, there’s a dearth of high-end chemical shipping capacity in China,” she maintains. “That’s the main reason we invested in Hezhong Shipping.” Hezhong Shipping aims to build a fleet of 20 chemical tankers through newbuilds and second-hand purchases. The company has already placed an order for four chemical tankers with CSSC-affiliated Chongqing Chuandong Shipbuilding for delivery by 2014. Up to 60% of the financing will come from banks and rest will come from PFS. Hezhong will also charter some vessels. PFS is also planning an offshore fund, China Ports & Shipping Fund (CPSF), with interests in bulk shipping and the offshore engineering sector. CPSF, which is about to go live, will be organized as a BVI-exempted limited partnership, the first round funding will be up to $150m and the partnership term will be 10 years. “Although currently the bulk shipping market is at its bottom affected by the sluggish global economy, in the long term, bulk cargoes like iron ore, grain, oil are the milestones of China’s national economy, there is a rigid demand. We see it as a periodic industry, I think it will gain growth slowly in the next five years,” Wang argues.

NEED TO KNOW NEED TO KNOW DALIAN PORT & SHIPPING FUND DALIAN PORT & Shipping Fund (PFS) was established in June as the first government-led (49% government-controlled) industrial fund in northeast China. The fund focuses on logistics, shipping and port investments. RMB5bn has been allocated to the fund. In October, Dalian Hezhong Shipping, a chemical tanker shipping company, was established by PFS.

SINOSHIP   WINTER 2012

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Tricky claims face closer scrutiny Engen Tham takes the pulse of the insurance market in the current shipping downturn

arine insurance has proved itself a life jacket to many ships whose paths have not been clear. Just as the stormy economic climate is changing the course of shipowners, it is altering the market for marine insurers. Although opinions differ among insurers as to current trends, there is widespread disquiet that owners will lean more heavily on their insurance as a resort in trying times. Insurers are also harbouring a growing sentiment that they will have to evolve to survive. A trend that many insurers have seen is a depreciation in insured values, which is unsurprising, given the fall in vessel

prices. In 2012, the insured values on renewed vessels fell 7.3%, according to figures released by the International Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI) in September. A greater fall than the preceding year, when insured values fell 3.2% from 2010. However, insured values are not decreasing across the board and remain stable for certain types of vessel. “For offshore supply and cruising vessels, demand is ongoing and the sums insured are unchanged,” says Dr Volker Bergeest, chief underwriting officer at Marine Hull, a division of Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty. Shipowners, when experiencing financial difficulties, are more likely to breach

When the market is doing poorly and there are more claims, we go to final court judgment wording 24

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INSURANCE ■ ■ ■

NEED TO KNOW SINOSURE

NEED TO KNOW

CLOSER LOOK Insurance claims in a downturn face greater investigation

SINOSURE IS A policy-directed, wholly state-owned insurance company, which was founded to promote China’s international trade in 2001. The government has mandated the company to promote Chinese exports and investment in goods and services. It is underwritten by the state and operates on a break-even basis. The insurance company covers ship financiers, yards and lessors against payment risks. These parties may often request the provision of a policy as a condition to entering into agreement with the other party. Two forms of short term insurance can be purchased. Buyer’s default insurance, which insures a shipyard for the pre-delivery construction period of up to three years against a buyer’s default under the shipbuilding contract and specific contract insurance, which insures a shipyard post-delivery against a buyer’s default under the shipbuilding contract. The two forms of medium- to long-term insurance that are commonly purchased are first, buyer’s credit insurance, which insures a bank for up to 12 years pre- and post-delivery against a borrower’s payment default under the loan agreement. And secondly, overseas leasing insurance, which insures a lessor for up to 12 years against a lessee’s payment default under a lease agreement. In 2011, 45% of mid- to long-term Sinosure policies covered agreements connected to containerships, with 31% covering bulker vessels and 14% covering tankers.

SINOSHIP   WINTER 2012

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As underwriters are squeezed there is a tendency to be more circumspect with claims warranties under their war risks, hull & machinery or P&I policies. It is natural, therefore, to expect claims under mortgagees interest insurance (MII) to have increased, as it is taken out by financiers to cover, among other things, the risk of marine insurances being declined or declared void as a result of an owner’s breach of warranty. Peter Mellett, managing director of Bankserve, a firm that specialises in providing MII to banks, says claims have indeed gone up, but the price of MII has not risen. “Costs of MII, if anything, have been coming down slightly over the last few years, but potential claim activity has gone up. Claims take a long time to come to fruition and don’t hit insurers’ books for over a year, maybe two years, whilst they’re being negotiated and discussed. It may go up, but everything depends on whether the claims come in or not,” Mellett says.

The wording of MII policies is also dependent upon the throes of the economy. “When the market is doing well and MII performs well, the wordings get wider and wider. When the market is doing poorly and there are more claims, we go to final court judgment wording, whereby it’s only available following a court judgment. Some of the wording out there currently is incredibly wide, in that an MII claim on a single vessel will lead to a payment across a fleet which is madness, but that was the state of the market at the time,” says Matt Cannock, underwriting manager at Markel. As operators’ margins are squeezed, they are more likely to reduce spending on maintenance. In this situation, it might be expected that insurers will deny claims on the basis of ‘unseaworthiness’. However, this assumption does not hold true, as unseaworthiness is difficult to prove.

The cost of Costa Concordia Industry still reeling from largest disaster since Exxon Valdez THE COSTA CONCORDIA cruise liner ran aground near Italy’s coast on January 13 this year. The insured loss could reach $1bn, making it the largest in maritime history since the Exxon Valdez incident in 1989, without adjustments for inflation. Reverberations have been felt throughout the marine insurance industry. The army of insurers involved include Generali, Allianz, RSA and XL. An estimate for the removal of wreckage places the cost as high as $200m. Protection and indemnity (P&I) costs produce a total reserve of $350m, while the $500m total hull loss leads to an estimated total loss of $850m. Many wait with baited breath for the P&I renewals that will take place in February next year. It is likely that there will be a significant increase to the international groups’ cover rates. As we went to press the average increase for next year from those that had announced 2013 intentions stood at 7.5%.

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850

Estimated total losses in millions of dollars from Concordia’s demise

“It’s difficult for us not to pay a claim based on the fact that a vessel was poorly maintained because you have to show causation, so we just end up paying more claims,” says Cannock. Insurers are also reporting higher levels of illegal and, or, high-risk trade from owners, as they battle to maintain their margins. Insurers are consequently including sanctions clauses in their policies to ensure that they do not have to pay a claim that involves the breach of a sanction. This is of particular concern, given the sanctions imposed by the US and the EU against Iran earlier this year. As underwriters are squeezed there is a tendency to be more circumspect with claims and investigate ones received more thoroughly. “You’re never going to get a perfect claim, you’ll always find some hole in a claim somewhere, if you look through the manager or owner’s office, there will be something that isn’t quite right,” says Mellett. The popularity of loss of earnings or loss of hire insurance has declined. When owners are prospering, they want to protect their income stream, so are willing to pay to guarantee it. When they are making less, the threat to their business of losing hire or earnings is reduced, so they become loathe to spend on these expensive policies. Global marine premiums increased by 7% from 2010 to 2011, totalling $31.9bn in 2011, according to IUMI. Some underwriters SinoShip spoke to, however, feel it is not a profitable business to be in. They maintain there is excess capacity in the market, which is putting downward pressure on rates. Rumblings can be heard of a period of consolidation. “There are a lot of companies who are currently writing business who will not be writing business next year. Not because they are not financially able to, but because management decisions will be made to pull out,” predicts Cannock. However, despite the downturn, Allianz’s Bergeest remains bullish about the marine insurance market believing that there are areas which are ripe for evolution. He thinks the demand for natural catastrophe insurance will follow in step with the world’s increasing need for offshore supply vessels, which operate in remote or exposed areas. Marine insurers undoubtedly face greater exposure in this listless economic climate. However, those keeping abreast of the evolving needs of owners and financiers will be the ones that survive.

Propulsion ■ ■ ■

Full astern China’s engine scene has changed drastically in the downturn, but authorities are still determined to make the nation a leader in the field, reports Katherine Si

he evolution of marine engine production in China is arguably symbiotic with the fortunes of the global shipbuilding industry over the past seven years. During the great freight rally in the previous decade one of the greatest impediments to fleet growth was in limited engine manufacturing capability. As every

shipowner clamoured for urgent ship deliveries, a period where quantity overrode quality, there simply were not enough engines to go around. Fast-forward to the present day and the situation is reversed. Beijing placed ship equipment manufacturing as a key tenet of two consecutive five-year plans and encouraged foreign firms to set up shop.

Engine factories sprung up everywhere. However, ship orders suddenly abated as the global financial crisis kicked in. All of a sudden the situation was dramatically different – from feast to famine. Grand, shiny new factories are not operating at anywhere full capacity and have had to retool machines to churn out different non-marine products. SINOSHIP   WINTER 2012

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“No one could have seen quite how bad things were going to get,” one leading European executive at a Chinese joint venture marine engine manufacturer says. “We have had to turn our attention to other products to keep things ticking over. This includes bus engines and even machinery not related to engines at all. The real concern is that the overcapacity in the sector is likely to remain for years to come.” “Since last year, the lag effects of the complicated economic situation to the shipbuilding industry have fully emerged,” says Zou Zhiming, president of local engine make Rong An Power. “The market demands have decreased and the industry players are in a bad period. This year, main engine orders of Rong An are 30% less than last year’s.” The company’s chairman Deng Hui reckons the depression will last a while and the appreciation of the renminbi is not helping. “There are lots of delivery delays, payment delays and so on,” says Deng. “The operational cost pressures for domestic main engine manufacturers have become heavier.” Rien Hoogerbrugge, ceo of joint venture Qingdao Qiyao Wärtsilä MHI Linshan Marine Diesel (QMD), is adamant that there is an overcapacity of domestic suppliers. Depending on the recovery of the global shipbuilding industry and the share which China will keep he reckons it is unlikely that there will be a demand and supply balance soon. “Similar to what is expected for the shipbuilding industry itself it is likely that also in the propulsion area there will be either consolidation or even some builders withdrawing from the market either forced by bankruptcy or voluntarily but there are no signs of that yet. Until then the competition will remain fierce,” says the engine boss. Mass lay offs or consolidation would indeed normally be on the cards in a situation like this, but this is China and Beijing has ambitious goals, regardless of economic circumstances. According to the targets of the twelfth five-year plan of the China shipbuilding industry not only are there goals set to be the number one

shipbuilder but also to reach a point by 2015 where the nation is producing 20m hp of marine low speed diesel production capacity and importantly 85% of all vessels built in China will have Chinesemade engines. In terms of areas of optimism Ole Groene, senior vice president at MAN Diesel & Turbo, points to the growth in riverine traffic in China. “China has a huge domestic water transport market, where significant tonnage is in need of updating,” he says.

There will be either consolidation or even some builders withdrawing from the market. Until then the competition will remain fierce 28

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MAN is expanding its low speed engine portfolio with smaller models, so that replacement tonnage can be equipped with modern emission friendly machinery, just like its ocean going counterparts. Yao Yedong, ABB’s China vice president, is confident that offshore construction will continue to grow strongly in the People’s Republic. Conventional mechanical propulsion remains the major propulsion method in China, Yao notes. “However, with higher oil price and strict environmental regulations, more and more owners are looking at new methods to lower operational costs and environmental emissions. This will definitely open up larger markets for the electrical propulsion systems,” says Yao.

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LNG as a marine fuel debated

inoShip’s parent Asia Shipping Media hosted an Eco-Dollars Business Breakfast (pictured), sponsored by Ideocean and Lloyd’s Register, at the Fullerton Hotel in Singapore in October. LNG as a marine fuel took up much of the debate. LNG remains a long way from gaining global acceptance as a marine fuel, panelists at the event concurred. Iain Wilson, regional marine manager for Lloyd’s Register Asia, said: “It is driven by the price of bunker gas. The problem is there is no global mechanism to monitor pricing so there are too many unknowns at the moment. It is down to economics.” Wilson said gas acceptance would be driven by regulations and the emission control areas (ECAs), but it will not be a single solution to the green conundrums facing the industry. Shaj Thayil, vice president at Singapore’s Neptune Orient Lines, said his company was looking at dual fuel technologies at the moment. “It is a huge investment but one we are reviewing at present,” he revealed. Manish Singh, group managing director, Ideocean Holdings, questioned how long it

would take to get the supply chain aspects of LNG into place. “Predictable supply of LNG will be an issue,” he noted. LR’s Wilson was more optimistic about the supply chain issue, pointing out: “70% of bunkering is done today in 10 ports worldwide so the infrastructure can be done relatively simply.” What concerned Wilson more was the lack of global standards and regulations for LNG as a fuel, be it for ship-to-ship transfers, or defining exclusion zones. “There are a lot of procedural things that need to be done as well as the training qualifications,” he said, musing: “Will you need a gas-qualified engineer onboard?” Another big problem, Ideocean’s Singh pointed out was the practical implications of bunker gas storage onboard. “Gas will take three or four times conventional fuel holds.” NOL’s Thayil agreed noting that LNG pricing was likely to be 15% more expensive than bunker oil, which added with the loss of cargo space because of the larger fuel tanks needed means it will take a long time for the industry as a whole to accept gas a fuel. In a report published by LR at the end of August, the British classification society said

global acceptance of LNG as a marine fuel will depend on pricing. The study found that the establishment of LNG bunkering infrastructure capable of supporting most of the world’s consumers will be highly sensitive to the price of LNG relative to alternative fuels. The study’s base-case scenario predicted there could be 653 deepsea, LNG-fuelled ships in service by 2025, consuming 24m tonnes of LNG annually. These ships would most likely be boxships, oil tankers or cruise vessels. When the study modelled relatively cheap LNG— for example, 25% lower than current market prices — the projected number of LNG-fuelled ships rose to approximately 1,960 units in 2025. If the cost of LNG increased 25% against current prices, the model found that hardly any new LNG-powered tonnage would hit the water.

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Hard-hit ports go to Plan B Katherine Si and Sam Chambers detail how ports are handling a rare period of slowing growth

t is tough times for ports across the globe; even mighty China is experiencing a rare slowdown in growth. Ports on the mainland, now increasingly listed entities, have had to get savvy with how to garner extra revenues as cargo volumes dwindle. Ports are also beginning to mirror their shipping counterparts in accessing capital in novel ways. Bank of Communications, for instance, has implemented an innovative berths lease structure; using berths, which are already operated by port companies, as well as hydraulic structures as leased property similar to a basic sale and lease back deal used for ships. For example, the berths are sold to a leasing company. The funds go to the port and are used for cash flow and development of the port. The berths are then leased back to the port for their use and the lease payments are covered by the ships berthing in the port. Pingan Securities, in a recent report, points to an explosion of shipping

exchanges at ports up and down the coastline, handling commodity trading as another vital booster to depleted coffers. Nevertheless, profits are down in the first three quarters for China’s listed port companies by around 5% year-on-year, according to Qilu Securities, with southern Chinese ports the hardest hit, thanks to their higher fraction of containers to overall port volumes. BOC International, meanwhile, projects

launched. The port prosperity index stood at 97.42 points, a decline of 20.72 points from six months earlier. Below 100 points means there is no confidence among port operators. Berth utilization rates and ease of securing finance both showed big drops in the poll. The survey showed greater pessimism among the nation’s larger ports – the growth story of smaller, second and third tier cities does remain exciting. As the year has progressed this disparity has

Efficiency will be the key for port companies to cope with the winter of the industry the cargo throughput of coastal ports in 2012 and 2013 to be around 9% and 8.6% respectively, with box throughput declining to 6%. The third quarter shipping prosperity report released by the Shanghai International Shipping Institute shows that ports face genuinely downcast times for the first time since the survey was

grown with most major ports reporting slowing growth in the third quarter, while smaller entities continued to post robust results. Pessimism for 2013 is palpable. “Efficiency will be the key for port companies to cope with the winter of the industry,” urges Chang Dechuan, chairman of Qingdao Port Group.

SMALLER BOXPORTS THRIVE HONG KONG, UNTIL 2005 the busiest boxport in the world, is likely to relinquish third spot to Shenzhen this year based on numbers recently released from French analysts Alphaliner. Also of note is the rapid rise of Yingkou, which on the basis of the first nine months of this year, has crept into the top 25. The world’s 25 largest ports handled a total of 238m teu in the first nine months of the year, representing a year-on-year growth rate of 4.5%, nearly half the growth rate of 8.7% achieved in the same period in 2011. Hong Kong volumes dropped 3.9% in the first nine months, making it the worst performer on the list, while nearby Shenzhen has seen growth of 3.1%. Shanghai is still beating Singapore for top spot – by some half a million boxes in the first three quarters – 24.2m teu versus 23.7m. Chinese ports account for 11 of the top 25 ports with Dalian the strongest grower, clocking a whopping 26.2% growth to jump to number 17 in the rankings.

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BOWING DOWN Hong Kong’s box figures are the worst among the major ports this year The port of Yingkou in Liaoning province joined the top 25 list for the first time, as it overtook the ports of Tokyo, Valencia, Nhava Sheva, Port Said and Colombo to jump from number 30 to 25 in the league table. Yingkou’s container volumes reached 3.6m teu for a growth of 16.5% in the year-to-date to September.

Ports ■ ■ ■

What’s on the cards under the new leadership?

he co-founder and partner of China consultancy Navisino Advisors (Beijing) Tom BehrensSorensen gave attendees of October’s TPM Asia conference in Shenzhen a flavour of what to expect in terms of transport changes under the new leadership of Xi Jinping. Formerly with Maersk for 30 years Behrens-Sorensen is one of the most respected shipping consultants in China. If Deng Xiaopeng’s Southern Tour paved the way for the development of Shenzhen port and Jiang Zemin’s time in charge can be associated with Shanghai’s port development, while departing Hu and Wen were champions on Tianjin’s New Binhai port project, then Xi’s strong

links to Fujian province could well usher in big capital spends on Xiamen and Fuzhou ports and greater cross-strait shipping initiatives with Taiwan. Behrens-Sorensen also believes there is a “strong possibility” that the antiquated Ministry of Railways will be absorbed into the Ministry of Transport, which must be deemed a good development for intermodal development. “It will become a much more powerful government agency and will have the opportunity to build efficiencies,” the Dane said. Estimates suggest just one in ten boxes arriving or exiting China’s shores is moved on rail, as opposed to 40% in the US. Looking at future port developments,

FIFTH GENERATION Xi Jinping will continue China’s trade-led focus Behrens-Sorensen reckons there will be a quick buildup of new feeder container ports.

Shanghai port maps next 30 years You can never doubt Shanghai’s willpower to get infrastructure projects done

ity authorities have mapped out the future 30 years development of the world’s largest port, and with an eye on limited draft availability in the vicinity, the area of Hengshaqiantan has

been earmarked for extensive dredging. The area, which is to the east of the city centre (see map), will house berths capable of handling VLOCs and VLCCs and even ULCCs up to 500,000 dwt. Hengshaqiantan is a series of tidal flats

in the East China Sea just to the east of Baoshan. Authorities reckon the new port area could double the capacity of Shanghai port. Authorities report that many berths in Shanghai are already operating beyond their design capability. “While this looks a tough engineering ask, given its exposed position out to sea, you can never doubt Shanghai’s willpower to get infrastructure projects done,” one ports consultant tells SinoShip. It was seven years ago that Shanghai opened up its ambitious Yangshan deepwater port, situated some 32km southeast from the city centre, to relieve the pressure from the more cramped berths at Waigaoqiao. Now Hengshaqiantan will mark the future development of the city’s port ambitions. SINOSHIP   WINTER 2012

■ ■ ■ HUBS: SHANGHAI

Gradual graduation Engen Tham looks at the city’s maritime education scene HE THAT RULES by mind is like the north star, steady in his seat, whilst the stars all bend to him,” said Confucius of the rewards of an education. The ascendance of China’s maritime industry since the 1980s has thrown into sharp relief the importance of shipping professionals. To develop nascent talent into those that can “rule by mind” the government has invested in maritime education. While there are maritime schools across China in shipping cities, such as Dalian and Qingdao; the aptly named “Upon-the-Sea” or in Chinese “Shang Hai”, was where it all began. The higher echelons of maritime education began in 1909 when the Shanghai Industrial College conceived of a shipping section under the direction of the Ministry of Post and Communications. Shanghai Maritime University (SMU) today comprises 14 colleges, including Wosong Merchant Marine College, which was set up in 1928 and the Shanghai Maritime Institute, set up under 32

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the auspices of the Ministry of Transport in 1959. From 2000, the Shanghai municipality and the Ministry of Transport have run the university. There are a multitude of courses available, all with a shipping bend ranging from navigation technology to maritime law. Around 20,000 fulltime students attend, herded by 1,000 full-time teaching staff. Although the university is of Qing dynasty stock, the country’s apartheid from the rest of the world stagnated the development of maritime schooling. The university is aware that it is playing catch up. Releasing a paper last year titled ‘Internationalization of Maritime Education through Institutional Collaborations: A Case Study of Shanghai Maritime University’ the university acknowledged the importance of internationalising the programs it provides, and analysing the university’s progress towards global standards. Many international shipping lines and marine equipment

needs of a diversifying sector. SMU has also recently launched a two-year MBA in cruise management. The focus is on cruise ship construction, trade, operation and management. As the world’s shipping industry pivots towards China and as Shanghai’s educational and research institutions continue to bolster their international repute; the city that birthed maritime education in the mainland could be set to become an epicentre for future generations of maritime students from around the globe.

manufacturers have also come to sponsor SMU in recent years. As the university steps onto the world stage, it has increasingly sought integration with non-domestic educational institutes. In September, the university signed an agreement with the University of New Haven to cooperate on an undergraduate program. This follows projects with other overseas colleges, including Massachusetts Maritime Academy and Copenhagen Marine Engineer College. THE SHANGHAI INTERNATIONAL Despite financial supShipping Institute (SISI), established port from local governin 2008, is a collaboration between ment organisations and SMU, the government of Hongkou disshipping companies, the trict and others. Cosponsored by big 2011 report cites lack of local shipping companies, the institute funding as an obstacle to conducts international and domestic further internationalisamarket analysis reports on certain tion, due to the expense types of vessels. It is also an authority of studying in western on analysis of government shipping countries. edicts relating to Shanghai. The instiThe university is tute also publishes the reputed China familiar with the pulse Shipping Prosperity Index, which is of the shipping industry considered a reliable measure of the and is quick to introduce industry’s health. programs that cater to the

NEED TO KNOW

NEED TO KNOW SISI

HUBS: TAIPEI ■ ■ ■

A PSA in the making? For the first time in more than ten years the authorities are making genuine progress for sustainable port development. Joshua Samuel Brown reports Kaohsiung’s mixed decade 12

Throughput (m teu)

IT’S BEEN MORE than a decade since the words ‘momentum’ and ‘Taiwan ports’ could be used in a single sentence together. However, developments over the past couple of months would suggest the island’s port intentions are both vigorous and achievable. Moreover, with the rise to power of Xi Jinping in Beijing the timing is ideal. Xi’s background in Fujian province could lead to ever-greater trade possibilities between China and Taiwan. Premier Sean Chen told the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) at the start of October to work alongside the Taiwan International Ports Corporation (TIPC) to implement a five-year plan to revitalize the island’s ports and maximize cross-strait shipping possibilities. Chen said Taiwanese ports should look at advanced overseas ports for ideas about how to grow. The aim is to have a combined box throughput across the island of 18m teu and increase overall revenue to more than NT$30bn by 2016. TIPC has earmarked US$2.2bn to achieve its 2016 targets. In 2011 the island handled around 11.5m teu in total. TIPC, the newly consecrated body overseeing all ports in Taiwan, wants to extend the economic hinterland of the island’s ports and

0 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Source: Clarkson Research Services Ltd.

UNTETHERED The reorganised ports industry in Taiwan has been given free rein to boost volumes build Taiwan’s harbours into full-service value-added logistics ports that achieve the twin targets of adding value and increasing volume. Local enterprises have backed the initiatives with strong capital pledges. In the middle of November TIPC announced that 18 Taiwanese companies, including bluechips such as Evergreen

Investment in Kaohsiung is vital to fend off steep competition for transhipment cargoes

and CPC, have pledged a total of $1.89bn to support port developments. “The new ventures cover a wide range of sectors, including logistics equipment and services, energy, food processing and petrochemicals,” a TIPC official told local media. There’s also plenty of outlay for cruise and passenger facilities. China Petrochemical Development is planning to invest more than NT$35bn, the largest single investment, to build artificial fibre and plastics production facilities

in a petrochemical park in the Port of Taichung in central Taiwan. CPC, meanwhile, will spend NT$10bn on a methyl methacrylate (MMA) plant in Taichung. Evergreen is pouring an undisclosed amount of capital into developing terminal and logistics facilities at Kaohsiung. Kaohsiung, once the world’s third largest boxport, has slumped to twelfth in the global rankings. Investment there is vital to fend off steep competition for transhipment cargoes from the likes of Shanghai, Ningbo, Busan and Hong Kong. With the island’s terminals revitalized with investment and a firm blueprint for growth the authorities are not stopping there. The eventual aim, according to Yeh KuangShih, deputy minister of the MOTC, is to make TIPC into something akin to Singapore’s PSA, namely investing overseas as well as at home. TIPC has already made plain its initial overseas goals, looking at small third tier cities in south China for investments. SINOSHIP   WINTER 2012

■ ■ ■ HUBS: HONG KONG

ADVANCED PREVIEW Th e new museum held a special early opening in late October

Star attraction Hong Kong correspondent Alfred Romann previews the soon-to-reopen Maritime Museum WHEN IT FINALLY reopens early next year, the embattled Hong Kong Maritime Museum will finally have a place to call home. From temporary digs at Murray House, in Stanley, the museum will drop anchor at Central Ferry Pier 8, right on the waterfront of the city’s iconic central business district and alongside one of the busiest harbours in the world.

We are reminding the city of why it has flourished The museum, closed since June for the move, will reopen to the public in February with 16 new galleries, all aboard the remodeled hull of supertanker Jahre Viking/Seawise Giant, which was once the largest ship in the world. The ship was bought in Gujarat, India, and brought to Hong Kong (with 34

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funding from an anonymous donor), where it was refurbished. The opening of the museum will cap a saga of years. Despite the importance of shipping and maritime activities to the development of Hong Kong, there was very little will to fund the museum. Eventually the government stepped up with $15m to fund the project and a number of shipping companies chipped in. It will cost about $1.5m per year to run the new facility. “It is probably eight times the size of the old museum,” says Richard Wesley, the museum director. “Hong Kong came into existence because of trade and shipping. And we are reminding the city of why it has flourished. That is our raison d’être.” No other museum in the city has a similar offering or such a pragmatic focus that is so fitting to one of the largest shipping hubs in the world. Ironically, it is only recently that the museum has received

enough support to raise its status up from something like an afterthought. The museum first opened in Stanley in 2005 with just two galleries at Murray House. Relatively few people knew it was actually there. A number of local companies such as Wallem Group, IMC Group, Goldstar Shipping and Island

Navigation all pushed the project forward over the years. Since 2005, some 287,000 people visited the museum, less than 1,000 per week. Smaller Macau has had a maritime museum for more than two decades. The new location will drastically change both the size and, likely, the allure of the museum. Not only will it be in Central, at the heart of the city’s business district and close to myriad other tourist attractions, but its size will allow it to accommodate many more visitors. Also, the new location will hold a number of permanent exhibitions exploring a range of areas from China’s maritime heritage, the foundation of modern Hong Kong and the evolution of Hong Kong’s port. The new museum is targeting some 200,000 visitors per year. The aim of the museum is to document how China, Asia and the West have developed boats, ships, maritime exploration, trade and naval welfare while exploring trends and the importance of shipping to the Hong Kong economy. The move of the Maritime Museum is part of a much larger redevelopment of the Hong Kong waterfront, which faces onto one of the busiest ports in the world. An official opening for the new museum is slated for February 25.

WAH KWONG’S 60TH GAINING A SNEAK PREVIEW of part of the new museum on October 30 were more than 200 of the top echelon of Hong Kong’s shipping community who tuned out in force to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Wah Kwong (pictured). The bulker and tanker firm, run by the Chao family, had commissioned one of Hong Kong’s most famous photographers, Basil Pao, to create a stunning – and huge – coffeetable book showing the movement of iron ore and the building of ships. Pao’s book will be sent to all schools in Hong Kong. The photographer is part of the SinoShip team and one of his many sensational Wah Kwong images can be seen on the centre pages of this magazine.

BOOKS ■ ■ ■

HOT TOPIC Belatedly publishers are cashing in on Somali piracy, just as the number of incidents abates

Big trouble, small shelf WALK AROUND A bookshop pretty much anywhere in the world and you’ll find a shelf of books on Afghanistan, probably more on Iraq, a bunch on Iran, a few new ones on Libya and Syria, a book or two on North Korea perhaps, but hardly anything on Somalia. This is perhaps surprising as books on ‘trouble spots’ and ‘rogue states’ sell quite well. The problem is that these countries are rarely well known or oft-visited, they’ve invariably been off the journalistic map before they suddenly erupt into front page news and then access to them is problematic. No country in the world has been more trouble for the global shipping community than Somalia, yet try finding a book that explains the place, the roots of the crisis and how we ended up having ships escorted along the coast of the impoverished, underdeveloped country guarded by multiple naval vessels fearing violent armed kidnappings, RPGs, massive ransoms and tragic crew deaths. So anything that sheds light on Somalia might be helpful. Mary Harper is the Africa Editor at the BBC World Service and

author of the new book Getting Somalia Wrong? Faith, War and Hope in a Shattered State (Zed Books). Harper is well-travelled, having visited Somalia regularly as well as having reported from other African conflict zones including Algeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Sudan. In Getting Somalia Wrong?, Harper presents the most comprehensive account of the chaos into which the country has descended and the United States’ renewed involvement there. In doing so, Harper argues that viewing Somalia through the prism of al-Qaeda risks further destabilising the country and the entire Horn of Africa, while also showing that though the country may be a failed state, it is far from being a failed society. In reality, alternative forms of business, justice, education and local politics have survived and even flourished. Harper’s is the best and most up-to-date of the few Somalia books available, but a couple of others deserve a mention. Somalia’s recent history has been one of upheavals, factions and clans and these are laid out in such a way so we can grasp just

how modern Somalia became so fractured in Ioan Lewis’s Understanding Somalia and Somaliland: Culture, History and Society (Hurst & Co Publishers). Lewis is a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics and so his insights into Somali culture and how it has adopted piracy as an economic survival strategy are useful background. Also interesting on how to understand Somalia’s clan-based society is Somali academic Afyare Abdi Elmi’s book Understanding the Somalia Conflagration: Identity, Political Islam and Peacebuilding [Pluto Press]. What of those who’ve experienced the sharp end of Somali piracy? There’s a growing shelf of memoirs of hostages and those who’ve been tasked with fighting piracy. Jay Bahadur’s Deadly

Somali pirate attacks 200 150

Number of attacks

Paul French on a sudden swarm of Somalia manuscripts

100 50 0

2009

2010

2011

2012*

* Up until October 30

Source: EU Naval Force Somalia

Waters: Inside the Hidden World of Somalia’s Pirates (Profile Books) is probably the best all round guide to the shadowy and secretive pirates of the Somali coast and Puntland. Max Hardberger tells his story of being a ship’s captain who suffered both kidnapping and also seizing back his own ship under the noses of the pirates. Seized! A Sea Captain’s Adventures Battling Pirates and Recovering Stolen Ships in the World’s Most Troubled Waters (Nicholas Brealey Publishing) is like reading a great thriller but with a host of useful facts too on the underbelly of ocean shipping. And then there’s the really unlucky – Colin Freeman (a somewhat ironic but true name) in Kidnapped! (Monday Books) who recalls his nightmarish 40 days in the hands of Somali pirates awaiting a ransom payment. Paul and Rachel Chandler were taken from their yacht close to the Seychelles and held captive for a year. Hostage: A Year at Gunpoint with Somali Gangsters (Mainstream Publishing) tells their story and how they built relationships with their captors. And, probably the best of the hostage narratives, Australian Nigel Brennan’s account of his 15 months in captivity in the Horn of Africa, The Price of Life (Penguin). The shelf on Somalia may still be small, but it’s growing fast. SINOSHIP   WINTER 2012

■ ■ ■ OPINION

Cash is king We are living in a world today where a credit-worthy deal is an oxymoron, suggests Max Hong YOUR EXPERIENCED OWNER, with years of deals and many shipping cycles already surfed and survived, has an innate sense of what is going to work. Investment decisions in shipping have almost always been counter intuitive by the real leaders and trendsetters. This frequently meant that those who saw that the best time to invest was usually when the returns from the sector were at their worst. People of vision could get support from one or more of their trusted bankers and get the financial support to allow them to leverage their equity and take action. Those were the ‘good old days’. Today, it is a whole different story. That friendly bank has now become allergic to risk in any form. The new project, which will be so valuable when it delivers in two-and-a-half years time, will only get bank finance based on the project having a ‘good time charter’, but committing your new dream baby out now at the bottom of the market cycle chains you into a low rate and locks you out of the upside that all the experts, market reports and fleet age and replacement profiles clearly illustrate are coming. And that is the good case scenario.

because you cannot get finance. That is also the best news possible for the market. The vertical drop in the rate

The consecration of cash turns good ideas and sound strategies into the reality of new ships In some sectors, the longterm charter rates are so low that they do not even cover the contract price for the new venture, becoming unbankable. So that is the bad news, your perfect genius idea will not happen 36

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of newbuilding contracts is now creating a true birth dearth, becoming more acute with each new credit-starved day. All this means even richer rewards for the guys who have the cash and do not need the banks.

Now what do you if you do if you have major market share (read CMA CGM and Evergreen) and in a strategic sector (read containers) and you cannot defer the ‘keep up with the pack’ capacity increases demanded by the market and your banks are nervous and in any event have already exhausted their credit quota for French container carriers or you just want the whole “X” billion dollars of new and bigger carriers off your evergreen balance sheet? You find someone with deep pockets, who believes in you in spite of your present predicaments and who

is willing to live with the risk, which they actually perceive as a business opportunity (compared to the rapidly decreasing pool of shipping bankers whose innovative response to risk management is to only lend umbrellas on sunny days). For Evergreen, the path taken was to go west, young man, all the way to London/Athens where they found the deep pockets of NS Lemos, a shipowner whose family motto is buy high, sell low meaning, buy when everyone says you paid too much and sell when everyone says you can get more. This philosophy guided the family to sell out most of their fleet into the high heat of the boom, including the $42m dollar capesize resold for $140m. In exchange for a 12-year charter to Evergreen, Lemos has bankrolled $1.2bn worth of contracts for 10 units of 13,800 teu at Hyundai. In a follow-on case of opposites attracting Marseille’s CMA CGM went east, and found Chinese container manufacturer CIMC willing to spend $825m on 10 units of 9,200 teu ships, which the French line will take on long term charter. Sorry boys, you ain’t gonna get in on credit. Like Charlie Parker wrote in his 1944 classic song, “Romance without finance don’t make no sense”, today it is the consecration of cash that turns good ideas and sound strategies into the reality of new ships. With newbuilding prices hovering at the bottom of the cycle and the best yards hungry for business, the buyer who kept his powder dry and now has money to spend is spoilt for choice and confident of his rewards. Welcome to the brave new world where cash is king.

OPINION ■ ■ ■

Still open for business However many shipyards are being shuttered, it is not enough to correct the supplydemand imbalance, argues Bei Hong BEING A MAN, I am a hoarder. I cannot throw anything away — you never know when it might come in useful. This drives Mrs B mad — women are generally much more organised and logical — but every now and then, there is method in my madness. One such instance came up recently when having been instructed to get rid of a pile of old magazines, I did what any sensible chap would do, which is sit down and read them all. Leafing through a shipping magazine from a few years back, when SinoShip was no more than a twinkle in the publisher’s eye, I came across a piece I had written about the ambitions of a fictitious ‘greenfield’ shipbuilder, and how if he was not able to sell the ships he planned to build, he would set up a shipping company and become a “one-stop logistics provider”. I never expected that tongue-in-cheek piece to turn out to be a painfully accurate forecast of the state of so many Chinese shipyards just a few years later. As my 2013 diary

looks increasingly blank compared to previous years in terms of invitations to ship launchings, the Chinese newbuilding bubble looks to have well and truly burst. But the fact that more than 70% of Chinese shipyards have reportedly not received an order all year doesn’t mean that the end of chronic oversupply in the bulker

the ‘self-correcting’ process, which is needed to bring any oversupplied market back into balance. A frightening comment was made recently about a shipyard which was going to have to start accepting ‘realistic’ (read ‘a new low’) price for some of the cancelled ships tied up alongside its building docks. This was because they had so

With the advent of eco-designs, resale ships may be young in age, but they are already old in terms of design and tanker markets is about to be redressed. Tumbleweed might be blowing amongst rusting half built structures in some yards. Moreover, a recent trip to China’s shipbuilding heartland revealed the bricked-up entrance to a former greenfield yard, opened with much dragon dancing a few years ago, and now abandoned. But there are still plenty of new ships to be delivered before we start going through

many more ships about to come down the slipway and quite simply needed the space to outfit and subsequently park these new additions. Those that had been cancelled, either through being a bit late on account of an overambitious delivery date set by an inexperienced builder or simply abandoned when either the balance of the equity or the bank loan (or both) didn’t come through, now had to be sold at whatever the yard can get.

So are these abandoned ships good value for the buyers who are fuelling an increasingly active market for resale tonnage? With the advent of eco-designs, these ships may be young in age, but they are already old in terms of design. The original owner probably knew he was in trouble long before the order was cancelled or abandoned, so probably cut back on the supervision, and with the need to finish the ship at the minimum cost possible once they became owned by the builder, the final outfitting was probably not to a top standard. Combine that with the fact that the new buyer is going to have to subsidise his acquisition for a couple of years in a chartering market which won’t even cover the distressed acquisition price, and suddenly placing an order for a new ship looks more attractive. Oh dear, here we go again. So expect to see plenty of new shipping companies, with a shipyard at the helm, springing up. It will provide plenty of new clients for shipbrokers, and indeed for shipmanagers who may find themselves jumping ship and managing ships for a builder having previously done battle with them supervising it for the original owner. Now that really is being a ‘full service provider’. SINOSHIP   WINTER 2012

■ ■ ■ OPINION

Fuel bill realities New columnist Andrew Craig Bennett looks at bunkers, engines and ship design HEAVY FUEL OIL has been costing an awful lot of money for some time. No doubt this makes bunker brokers very happy, but ship operators have to decide what to do about it. The first step is to try to predict the future – is this state of affairs going to continue? Most people will say that, whilst there may be big variations in the fuel price, the secular trend is ‘upwards’, so it makes sense to design ships on the assumption that fuel is going to be scarce and expensive, and we can be very sure indeed that emissions control is here to stay. If an owning company is building a ship to appeal to time charterers, that company can reasonably assume that, if their ship burns two tons a day less than a ship which is similar in most other respects, they will be able to share the saving with the time charterer because the charterer will agree a higher rate, so long as the charterer thinks the owner 38

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is telling the truth. The rub is in the ‘similar in most other respects’ – if a ship is simply underpowered, or built to scantlings that are too light, the saving is only going to exist virtually, not in the real world. So it is really a question of putting a demonstrably more efficient propulsion and service system into essentially the same hull.

which will make a port state control inspector happy about the ship energy efficiency management plan, even if it does little else. The disappointment stems from two things – first, the lack of a Big Idea. Everyone is tinkering round the edges of the problem, trying to save a bit here, a bit there, but nobody is offering something that will make a real difference – a radically new main engine, for example, perhaps one that uses ceramics to operate at consistently higher temperatures.

There is a serious lack of joined-up thinking in the industry This is where things get disappointing. It is safe to assume that the engine designers will make their new products available to everyone, so that part of the ‘playing field’ is ‘level’. Beyond that, there are a range of well-known gadgets, some dating back to the last oil price hike, such as wake ducts, which will offer some benefit. To these we may add clever fuel consumption monitoring software,

The second cause of disappointment is that no manufacturers seem interested in really making a difference in the theoretically very large retrofit market. Suppose we have a containership designed for 24 knots with 30% sea margin – there are an awful lot of these – and we want to cut the fuel bill by 50% whilst running at 18 knots – will it pay to re-engine, or to rebuild the

existing engine, and change the prop? This looks like a huge gap in the market, given the long life expectancy of a boxship, so why are the propulsion system designers not rushing to fill it? I suspect that one reason is that this sort of rebuild of an existing ship, or fleet of ships, is actually harder to finance than a newbuilding. There is a serious lack of joined-up thinking in the industry about the problem; it is surely obvious to everyone that the proper way to look at a ship’s fuel consumption and her emissions is to consider the ship’s power demand as a whole, at every stage of a voyage. It is no good building a bulk carrier or a tanker, let alone a containership, which is wonderfully efficient at 90% maximum continuous rating and at no other point. What we need is plenty of reserve power, combined with high efficiency at lower levels of power demand. The maths and physics of this probably are ‘rocket science’ – but people are pretty good at rockets, now. The verdict on the industry response to fuel prices must be, ‘Could do better’.

■ ■ ■ PHOTO FINISH

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PHOTO FINISH ■ ■ ■ WHIRRING INTO ACTION A new Wah Kwong ship is put through its paces 一艘新的华光船舶完成试航

SINOSHIP   WINTER 2012