Sinoship Summer Issue 2014 CN

船舶拆解焦点 2014年夏季刊

om 日 在 s.c 每 更新 new 文 hip 中 inos s w. ww

中国的页岩气革命

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Posidonia 特刊

船员投票

准备起航

王友贵谈Seaspan的计划以及为 何班轮业应该更像航空业

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

目录 ■ ■ ■

■ ■ ■ 定期报道 3 编者语 5 经济 7 班轮 9 船厂 11 离岸 12 金融 13 商品 14 物流

■ ■ ■ 人物专访 15 王友贵 16 卢宗俊 17 Kingsley Koo 18 吕靖

中国的船舶融资成为可行的替 代方案需要很长一段时间 — Paragon Shipping主席 Michael Bodouroglou

银行业近期变化很大，他们 正在回归

12

— 渣打银行全球船舶融资总监 Nigel Anton

这个行业很简单，如果你不 发展你就会落后 — Seaspan总裁，王友贵

■ ■ ■ 专题 19 船员 22 拆船

■ ■ ■ 枢纽 24 上海 25 台北

26 香港

■ ■ ■ 评论 27 书籍

■ ■ ■ 意见

3

16

15

中远与中海在国内航线上的 合作为规范国内市场树立了好 榜样 — 中谷海运总经理卢宗俊

作为主席，我的目标是推动 香港航运业走向世界 — 香港船东协会主席 Kingsley Koo

28 Max Hong 29 A ndrew Craig-Bennett

17

中国船员替换其他国籍船员 的速度很慢

19

— Bjørn Højgaard, ceo, Univan Ship Management Sinoship 2014年夏季刊

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编者语 ■ ■ ■

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 Colin Shek Alfred Romann Mark Downing Wang Fanglei David Green

供稿人

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

André Eichman, Basil Pao 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 销售主管 Helen Ong helen@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 Tigersoft Pte Ltd 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SinoShip 期 刊。对于 所 有 其 他 公 司，订 阅 S i n o S h i p 2 014 年 4 期 需 要 收 费10 0 美 元 。订 阅 每 月 发 行 两 次 的 P D F 格 式 的 S i n o S h i p电子 新 闻（包 含 独 家 新 闻 、数 据 和 分 析）需 收 费5 0 0 美 元。订 阅 咨 询 请发 送 邮 件 到 su b s@ asiashippingmedia.com。 版权 © Asia Shipping Media Pte Ltd (ASM), 2014 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。

希中关系 本 期 Si no Sh ip 将 在全球最著名的海事 展览会 — 希腊 波 塞 冬国际 海 事展览会 (Posidonia)上分发。希中海运合作关系已达 到前所未有的紧密程度，双方强强联合的 时代已经来临。 去年希腊总理Antonis Samaras访华之 际，中国国务院总理李克强曾表示， “希腊 和中国都是海运大国，我们可以加强各个 领域的合作”。 毫无疑问— —希腊和中国都是当今 海运强国。然而，认为希腊会在短时间内 将“全球最大的船东国”这一头衔拱手让 给中国，或许还言之过早，不合时宜。 去年 年底，我们的 姊妹刊物Ma r it ime C E O 开展了一项全 球民意 调 查。其中一 个调查的问题是“从总吨位来看，到2020 年，哪个国家将成为最大的船东国”。中国 以65%的票数遥遥领先；希腊位居第二，但 得票远远落后，仅17%。 然而，希腊人擅长后来居上。据船舶经 纪公司Golden Destiny编制的数据显示，单 是第一季度，希腊船东就已在131艘二手船 上投资逾33亿美元。2013年同期的投资仅 为10亿美元。新船方面他们也不甘落后， 尽管许多订单流入中国，但他们在头三个 月仍获得35亿美元的订单，比2013年同期 增长126%。 在经过多年惊人的财务业绩增长后，中 国仍在努力保持平衡，而希腊船舶已走进 增长时代。中国船东拆船依然十分普遍， 部分是因为新实施的政府补贴（有关详细 信息，请参阅第22页）。 与香港、台湾及相关希腊船东不同，中 国内地的船东尚无法预测航运周期。

希腊船东已在中国船厂订购大量船舶， 通常还涉及中国融资。中国造船厂将全体 出动，参加希腊波塞冬国际海事展览会。然 而，并非每个人都相信获得中国资金是轻 而易举的事。Paragon Shipping 总裁 Michael Bodouroglou最近告诉我，他发现中国融资 过程相当慢，手续非常繁复。他说， “中国 船舶融资成为可行的替代方案需要很长一 段时间”。 对于中国的投资，希腊政府依然喜闻乐 见。当中国航运巨头中远集团买入比雷埃 夫斯港时，希腊迎来了一笔最大的外国直 接投资。自买入以来，该集装箱港口的吞吐 量已翻倍，中远及其他中国公司现正在讨 论进一步投资希腊铁路、公路、地方机场 及其他港口。 雅典已为迎接红彤彤的人民币铺好了火 红的地毯。在实施新的房地产投资法后， 去年八月获得希腊居住权的第一个人就是 中国公民，也就不足为奇了。 Sinoship 2014年夏季刊

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■ ■ ■ 经济

世界工厂减速慢行 Paul French撰文称，北京必须接受一个事实，即2008年以前的制造业辉煌 已一去不返 在将近30年的时间内，中国出 口额一直受到制造业的驱动。 全球金融危机确实造成出口订 单减少，但几乎与此同时，中国 国内市场迅猛发展，渴望花钱 的中国购物客在萧条时期频繁 出击。造成这一差异的原因，是 因为中央政府推出了鼓励相关 行业发展的经济刺激计划。 但是，由于海外订单尚未恢 复至2008年前的水平，且国内 的消费需求基本保持稳定，因 而制造业目前正遭受重创，发 展速度将减缓。 中 央 政 府 已 宣 布，不 会 再 推出新一轮经济刺激计划，但 可能重新思考这一决定。实际 上，中国已宣布推出所谓的“迷 你刺激计划”— — 国务院4 月份概述了一项侧重于铁路、

低收入家庭住房建设及减税的 支出计划，旨在为经济增长提 供支持。作为稳定产能扩张并 调整国家能源结构的相关举措 的组成部分，许多重大能源项 目将纷纷上马，随着可能的投 资需求，将来可能出现更多的 激励措施。 制造 业减 速的连锁 反 应揭

随着可能的投资需求，将来 可能出现更多的激励措施 4

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示出：对中国而 言，制造 东西 是 多 么 重 要 — —人 民币兑 美 元汇率已下滑，4月份 达 到 2012年12月以来的最低值。不 过，增长仍是大势所趋— — 根据国家 统计局发布的数 据，2014年第一季度中国经济 同比增长7.4%。国务院总理李 克强认为，7.5%的数据有两层 含义。一方面，它指的是中国可 以实现的增长率；另一方面， 它预示着中国不会再推出新一 轮经济刺激计划。目前北京使

用频率极高的一个词汇（也许 令人回想起戈登·布朗担任英 国财政大臣和首相的时期）是 “谨慎”。 对中国经济来说，长期更令 人担忧的事情是，尽管欧美经 济正在复苏，但新增订单仍持 续减少。据估计，只有等到中国 的主要出口市场完成复苏，出 口订单才会恢复至经济衰退前 的水平。但这似乎又与现实情况 不符。根据中国海关总署的数 据，中国出口额4月份同比下滑 6.6%。这可能是暂时的— — 欧美经济的复苏，可能看到的 是商店在清理未出售的存货， 然后再予以补货；但也可能 说 明订单正流向东南亚和南亚、 拉丁美洲地区以及欧洲周围的 国家（北非、土耳其），这些国 家目前的制造和物流成本都要 低于中国。 这一切均说明，目前我们要 面临新的现实。中国一直期望 订单 能 恢 复 至 之 前 的强 劲 势 头，但考虑到中国高企不下的 成本、各种替代性采购运营以 及略显疲弱的国内市场，全球 金融危机后，中国的形势已经 剧变，再也不会重现2008年前 的美好旧时光了。

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泛太平洋海运 会议亚洲年会 OCTOBER 15-16, 2014 | SHENZHEN, CHINA

WHAT CAN I EXPECT AT THE TPM ASIA CONFERENCE?

Over the course of the two day conference program, TPM Asia presents a series of

in-depth sessions with top-level speakers focusing on container trade and logistics in the Europe-Asia, Trans-Pacific, and Intra-Asia markets, from an Asian perspective. This conference will address these issues head-on, with keynote speakers,

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roundtable discussions and formal presentations. The objective is to give shippers, carriers, 3PLs, terminals and other industry professionals a detailed briefing on a range of urgent issues affecting container shipping and logistics in Asia.

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经济 ■ ■ ■

航油运的新加坡子公司进行洗 钱、在多起船运合同中受贿、 操纵财务业绩以及违反信息披 露规定等。

中国外运长航集团即将完成所 有船运部门的整合，处境艰难 的四年合并期快要画上句号。 中国外运集团和长航集团于 2010年合并后，集团的航运分 支长航油运和长航凤凰即进入 一个严峻的时期，遭遇非常严 重的亏损，后者更是濒临倒 闭。目前集团已在上海成立一 个战略性船运业务部门，目标 是于明年底之前成立一家控股 公司控制其所有船运分公司， 其中中外运航运有限公司有可 能居于主导地位。

长航油运是中国外运长航集 团下属的子公司，今年四月成 为首家被退市的国营企业后， 严重蒙羞。该公司连续四年债 务缠身后，已从上海证券交易 所退市。坏消息接踵而来，许 多投资者均向中央纪律检查委 员会和最高人民检察院发函， 检举长航油运董事长朱宁的违 法行为。投资者指控朱宁犯有 一系列违法行为，包括通过长

Trucking consolidation Exclusive repair data SPRING 2013

中国最大国有航运集团的旗舰 上市企业中国远洋控股有限公 司公布一季度净亏损 18.8 亿 元人民币。中远集团2013年实 现净利润，要归功于一次性收 益。这一举措可防止被上海证

作为中国船运业巨头之一，河 北远洋运输有限公司将退出 油轮行业，目前完全专注于干 散货运输业务。1995年建造的 邮轮 Hebei Mountain 已待价而 沽，有可能进行拆解。这艘运 力为 307,000 载重吨的超大型 油轮是香港船东旗下船队中最 后一艘油轮。过去两年来，河 北远洋运输有限公司一直在抛 售自己的油轮。其散货船队由 26艘运输船组成，其中17艘为 海峡型运输船。

招商局集团四月底宣布，傅育 宁博士已从集团离任，担任华 润集团的董事长，华润集团的 前任董事长已于三月份因腐败 案被抓。招商局集团总裁李建 红升任董事长一职。招商局集 团旗下企业包括在香港上市的 港口子公司招商局国际有限公 司，以及在上海上市的油轮企 业招商局能源运输股份有限公 司和招商局工业集团有限公 司。它还是世界上最大的集装 箱制造商 - 中国国际海运集装 箱（集团）股份有限公司的最 大股东。

中国船舶工业集团公司表示， 旗下香港船舶租赁分公司中 国船舶（香港）航运租赁将与 母公司签署总价值高达70亿元 人民币的造船订单。订单将包 括散货船、集装箱船、油轮、 近海油田钻井平台和近海支 援船。

t om ily s a s.c Da ate new d hip up os in w.s ww

Eye on jack-up rigs

天津市海运股份有限公司是大 新华物流集团的附属公司，近 日刚与大连船舶重工集团有限 公司签署意向书，建造四艘容 量为160,000立方米至175,000 立方米的液化天然气运输船。 借助这一订单，天津海运将成 为进入液化天然气行业的第三 大中国船东，意义重大；对于 大连船舶重工集团而言，也是 一项极大利好刺激，它将成为 继上海外高桥造船有限公司之 后，能够建造此类液化天然气 运输船的第二大船厂。

券交易所退市。中远集团2011 和2012年累计总亏损达200亿 人民币。它重返亏损的情况， 导致巴克莱资本的分析师做出 如下尖刻评价： “我们认为，鉴 于公司缺乏在 2014 年再创盈 利业绩的刺激计划，预计亏损 将持续。

www.sinoshipnews.com

Wah Kwong

接触正确客户群体的机会

Sabrina Chao takes the chair

大中华区每一家主要船东和造船厂都在读这本杂志 Project shippers focus on Africa Henna sets sail: HNA Tourism head speaks Hosco’s Gao Yangming: China’s scrapping champion E-commerce: How Chinese online retail will lead the world

关于2014年计划的媒体包已经可以在 www.asiashippingmedia.com查阅 广告咨询请联系 grant@asiashippingmedia.com

Sinoship 2014年夏季刊

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船厂 ■ ■ ■

钻井 中国知名造船企业若想与韩国企业在钻井船建造领域开展竞争，就必须更加严格地遵守时间表， Sam Chambers撰稿 对造船企 业而言，钻井船代表 着最丰厚的利润，最高规格的钻 井船的价格接近10亿美元。这 一领域一直由韩国企业主导，但 最近包括烟台中集来福士和大 连船舶重工集团在内的中国船 企纷纷试水这一行业，尽管只是 规格较小、较低的船型。 钻井船的优势在于，能够在 深度超过2,50 0米深的水域进 行钻探，以及在全球近海油田 间节省航行时间。钻探设备需 要穿过船舶的月池，并通过立 管连接至油井设备。一旦水深 超过锚泊限值，钻井船将依靠 动力定位系统确保在作业的同 时固定住船舶。 钻 井 船属于高度 专业的 设 备。因此，要想按时并 按预算 交船，高质量工程及项目管理 都是至关重要的因素。 过 去 几 年 来，业 内 对 钻 井 船的需求一直在迅猛增加，这 主要受到两个因素的推动：一 是墨西哥湾钻探许可的增加，

二是巴西、西非和北极地区对 这 些 船 舶 的 需 求日益 增 多。 截至2013年11月1日，全球现役 钻 井 船 船队 的船 舶 数 量 达 到 83艘，与20 09相比增加了一倍 多，此外订单上还有50艘船舶 等待交付。 中国造 船企 业 过去 仅参 与 钻井船部件的建造。其他几乎 不涉及。中国正加快步伐，进 军造船行业的许多其他领域， 与韩国企业在要求最严格的海 上工程建设领域展开竞争。不 过，显而易见，这一高科技环境 也存在一些暂时性的问题，中 国要想真正在这一船型方面赶 超韩国企业，还需要很多年的 时间。 上海船厂率先行动，为华彬 集团下属企业、新加坡的Opus Offshore建造两艘钻井船，开始 在这一领域进行探索。该船厂 已承担所有方面的建造工作， 包括项目设计、船舶建造、主要 设备采购以及所有设备的安装

和调试等，在中国造船业属于 真正的行业首创。这一钻井船 系列名为"Tiger"，其中第一艘 原定于今年早些时候交付，但 尽管几个月前就已经启动了项 目建设，目前进度滞后。 不过，Opus Offshore明显不 太担心这一轻微延误，4月份宣 布，又与该船厂签订了两艘钻 井船选择权的协议。 Tiger系列钻井船的设计吨 位为45,000吨，长170.3米，宽 32米，作业深度30,000英尺。 今年一月份，烟台中集来福 士获得建造一艘多功能钻井船 的订单。该钻井船将为Norshore Holdings建造，定于2016年下 半年交付。这笔交易还包括另 外三艘类似钻井船的建造选择 权。它是小型多功能钻井船，专 为无立管钻井和油井干预作业 设计，包括北海海域。 挪威的Norshore对中国船企 不太陌生，2012年向大连重工 (DSIC)订购了一艘类似的小型

钻井船，外加三艘船舶的选择 权，在业内引起了不小的反响。 韩国企业超级高效，仍然是 钻井船建造领域的绝对霸主。 由于效率 极高，他们的价格极 具竞争力，全包价格约为6亿美 元，另外建 造时间较短，在按 时高质量交付方面也有成功的 业绩。 一位钻井专家评论说： “我 对中国船企能否接受这一价格 并按时交付持不确定态度。” 部分问题在于，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，对船载钻探设备 及相关设备的安装。 正如中远船务的经历，确保 钻 井 船 按 时 交 付至 关 重 要。 去 年 八 月，总 部 位 于 美 国 的 Vantage Drilling做出决定，终止 大连中远船务工程有限公司一 艘钻井船的订单，理由是船舶 交付出现延误。至今，中远船务 的财务业绩仍深受拖累。

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离岸 ■ ■ ■

在丰盛的早餐聚会中，中国的 多样化能源结构成为热门话题 Sam Chambers主持与渣打银行共同举办的新加坡离岸商业早餐会。中国成为活动的核心辩论话题之一。 会 址 依 然 是以前的新加坡 奢华地标性建筑富勒顿酒店 (Fullerton)，不过这次由我们 的母公司Asia Shipping Media 主办的离岸商业早餐会，谈话 却主要围绕中国市场展开。这 一活动由Asia Shipping Media 和渣打银行在 3 月底共同举 办。4 4 名 与 会 人 员中，大 约 5 0 %是 船 舶或钻进 平台所有 者，大家就离岸市场进行了坦 诚的主题探讨。 总的来说，大家普遍对钻井 平台和海洋工程船(OSV)的长 期价格持乐观态度，尽管本年 度可能会略有波动，但总体稳 定。 渣打银行全球船舶融资总 监Nigel Anton将船东无缩减扩 张计划的迹象与现金需求不断 增加联系了起来。 能够表明市场信心的一个迹 象是投机性订单的明显下降， 出席早 餐 会 的马 来西 亚 N a m Cheong等造船厂指出，船东们 日益倾向于签署按订单建造船 舶的合同。Nam Cheon目前已向 中国造船厂下了大量订单。 渣打银行油气 股 票 研 究总 监Duke Suttikulpanich发表演讲 时表示，过去三年来，生产商的 股东回报率一直在下降。油价 一路下跌，许多人都认为每桶 油价会在90美元左右徘徊，但 渣打银行并不同意2014-2017 年间每桶 油价将 维 持在10 8 115美元的说法。 Suttikulpanich表示，独立石 油企业的开采资本支出已从去 年的5%下降到今年的1%，而且 明年有可能根本不会增长。但

他强调说，这一下跌趋势主要 表现在陆上市场。他表示， “离 岸市场的表现仍然非常强劲”, 今 年有望实现7%的增长。 Suttikulpanich指出，目前大多 数 亚 洲 生 产 商 正 从 浅 水领 域 进军深 水领域；并补充说，该 地区对半潜式钻井平台有充分 需求。Suttikulpanich表示，亚 洲的增长主要源自国有石油企 业，它们大约占本年度支出增 幅的70%。 受中国海洋 石油总公司 (CNOOC) 产能扩大的推动，中 国离岸支出将于2014-2015年间

大幅增长。为实现中海油20112015的产能指导目标，从当前 发展速度来看，该公司在2015 年必须实现20%的产量增幅。 分析师认为： “我们预计中海 油的勘探和开采支出在2014年 将增长24%，2015年增长至少 10%。” 在早餐会上，页岩气成为反 响热烈的主要话题— —在场 的许多人士均对有关美国和中 国潜在产量的各种乐观预测持 怀疑态度。 Suttikulpanich表示，过去六 个月来，中国在页岩 气开发领 域 有“巨大的”进 展。他 补充 说，单单是四川的页岩气就能 满足中国2035年前30%的能源 需求。中国的页岩气储量位居 全球首位。 新加坡 Jaya Holdings的首席 执行官Shesh Venkatraman是页 岩 气异见者之一，他 对页岩生

产成本及其对环境的影响均表 示质疑。 辩 论 主 要围 绕中国 进 行， 包括中国的能源需求和造船能 力两方面。讨论 者们表 示，只 要船东们努力工作，保持业务 发展，中国就是造船的理想选 择。Dynamic Offshore Drilling 的总监Manav Kumar认为，中 国造船的质量、时间安排和价 格都非常有吸引力。他建议任 何建造项目都应额外追加几个 月的时间，以消除某些建造缺 陷。 另 一 名讨 论 者、迅 速 发 展 的海洋工程船专业公司Pacific Radiance的董事总经理 James Pang对此深有同感。他表示， 在中国 造 船 需 要开展 大 量 的 监督工作，他的公司就有30名 监理人员常驻中国。Pang还透 露，慷慨的10:90融资条款的天 数正在中国“快速消失”。 Sinoship 2014年夏季刊

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■ ■ ■ 金融

银行归来 Alfred Romann带来本年度Marine Money香港活动的精彩亮点

随 着 新 船 订单量的迅 猛 飙 升，在长时间缺席市场之后，银 行再度回归船舶融资领域。 在 金融 危 机 发 生前的几年 里，新船订单量达到高点。但随 着全球贸易下滑，船运需求骤 降，导致随后几年内大部分船 型严重产能过剩。 新船订单逐渐销声匿迹，部 分原因是产能过剩，致使船舶 日运费大幅下滑；还有就是融 资的突然缺失。 雷曼兄弟于2008年破产后， 在船舶融资业中居主导地位的 欧洲银行纷纷转向内部，小心 维护自己的财务状况和资本需 求。根据渣打银行船舶融资全 球主管 Nigel Anton 的说法，他 们留下了很大的市场空白。 2 0 0 7 年 ，与 船 舶 融 资 相 关的债务金额达到94 0 亿美 12

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元。Anton在本年度的Ma r ine Money香港活动期间表 示，到 2010 年，债务金额已下降至 380 亿美元。 “毋庸置疑，我们要填补大 量市场空白。那么到底怎样填 补呢？”他陷入沉思。 去年，随着价格和全球贸易 的增长，新船订单量已开始复 苏。 “去年一整年，新散货船建 造意向的确开始迅猛回升，11 月的 新 订 单 量 达 到 近 1 , 3 0 0 万载重吨的峰值，”Banchero Costa Group 研究主管Ralph Leszcynsky 表示。 据 报 道，2 013 年 全 年大部 分尺寸干散货船的新订单量为 968艘。Supramaxe大灵便型运 输船的需求极高，在新订单中 占390个席位。2014年1月和2月

的订单量已达到155艘，这预示 着今 年可能 是同 样 繁 忙的 一 年。 油轮的情况与此类似，产能 已经回升到了Leszcynsky所谓 的“危险水平”。2013年订单量 为 317 艘，是 2012 年的三倍。 所有这些新订单加到一起， 再次敲响了产能过剩的警钟。 新船将在未来一两年内交付， 很多已经退役或降低航速的旧 船又开始投入定期服务。 我们面对的现实就是，融资

再次日益唾手可得，且造船厂 不断造出新船。 五年前融资撤离留下的市场 空白，以其中一种方式大体上得 到填补。 在需求方面，许多新船订单 被取消，减少了对新融资的需 求。 在供给方面，新的融资来源 从各个方向纷至沓来。私募基 金也投身其中。中国国家开发银 行和中国进出口银行等政策性 银行也进军这一领域，中资银 行旗下的租赁公司紧随其后。 韩国的融资来源也加大了参与 力度，而一度曾遭受欧洲大银 行或 全 球 同 行 挤压 的亚 洲区 域性小银行，忽然间也兴趣大 增。 截 至 去 年，与 船 运 融 资 相 关的债务金额攀升至560亿美 元，仍 低 于 2 0 0 7 年 的 峰 值， 但与2 010 年相比实 现大幅 增 长。Anton称债务金额将在今年 增加更多。 他说， “目前业务活动非常 多。” 业务活动增加，也吸引银行 重返这一业务。银行对本行业 有着更深入的了解，而且有能力 提供更多资金，因而可以更轻 松地为船东提供融资。 Anton表示： “银行业近期变 化很大，他们正在回归。” Leszcynsky认为，存在历史重 演的危险。 “大部 分行业的大 多 数 问 题 都 来自订单 过 多 和 交 付 过 多……我们绝不能犯同样的错 误，切记切记。”

商品 ■ ■ ■

到 2020 年，预计美国的日出口量将超过 795,000 桶，同时中国的日总进口量将达到500,000 桶。

中国领跑页岩气进口 Mark Downing 详细解析中国正将天然气采购从中东地区转向美国 美 国 页岩 气即将迅猛发展， 为中国 石化 供 应 链 的 上 游 输 送重要资源。作为中国最大的 国 有石化 精 炼 企 业以 及收 入 位居全球第五位的公司，中石 化(Sinopec)最近刚刚与Phillips 6 6 达 成 购 买 液化 石油 气的一 项重要长期交易。中石化将在 2016 年前按当前市价每日进口 34,000 桶液化石油气，价值 8.5 亿美元，这是中国从去年开始 的从美国进口量的十倍。中国 正在根据下游行业日益增长的 需求，加大 进口美国更洁净、 成本更低的石化燃料的力度， 挑战老牌的中东地区供应商。 液化石油气是丙烷和丁烷的 压缩混合气体。在供暖和交通 运输行业中使用时，是更为洁 净的燃料；对石化业务而言， 则是一种最基本的原料。它产 生于化石燃料的精炼过程或在 开采涌出地面的石油或天然气 流时采集。水力压裂开采技术 的突破，加之水平钻井技术的 进步，极大释放了美国页岩气的 储量，迎来低成本页岩气产量

的迅速增长，同时压低了全球价 格。中国2013年液化石油气的日 进口量达132,000桶，尽管卡塔 尔、阿联酋和沙特阿拉伯三国占 了80%，但美国也正在迅速崛起 为重要的液化石油气供应国。 据路透社报道，中国是世界 上最大的液化石油气消费国， 目前每日消耗874,0 0 0 桶液化 石油气，其中石化行业仅使用 5%。液化石油气是石脑油等中 国石化原料的替代品，成本更 低，中国目前正面临石脑油短 缺局面。中国的大部分液化石 油气均作为精炼副产品在国内 进行生产，但在作为原料使用 的情况下，其中蕴含的杂质不仅 会加剧环境污染，而且成本高

昂。因此，鉴于水力压裂技术可 以生产纯度更高的丙烷，成本 更低的美国液化石油气就变得 更具吸引力。 美国生产的液化石油气无需 遵守适用于原油和液化天然气 的能源安全出口限制，因而美 国于 2012 年成为液化石油气的 净出口国。根据费氏全球能源 咨询公司(FACTS Global Energy) 的数据，到2020年，预计美国 的日出口量将超过795,000桶， 同时中国的日总进口量将达到 50 0,0 0 0 桶，超 过 新加坡和印 度尼西亚等亚洲其他主要进口 国。中国已获得约每日100,000 桶 的 美 国 液化 石油 气长 期 进 口，主要供应中石化和多家制 造塑料产品的私营丙烷脱氢工 厂。交易将在一两年后开始，目 前正在等待美国出口设施以及 巴拿马运河扩建工程的竣工。 巴拿马运河扩建项目竣工后， 超大型液化气运输船 ( VLGC) 可顺利通行，将前往亚洲的时 间缩短两个星期。有五家公司 原定于今年上半年投产丙烷脱

氢装置，但考虑到上述工程延 误的情况，有两家公司可能被 迫推迟。鉴于这些公司大部分 已签订原料供应长期合同，因 此在正式运营前可能不得不转 售其原料货物。 中国各 企 业 正在 扩展液化 气运输船队的运力，以满足围 绕 液化 石油 气 原 料设 计 的主 要新建石化厂的需求。拥有强 大的国内船队，就可以按照离 岸价格更为经济地运输货物。 此外，中国还采取从更多不同 来源进行采购的政策，最为明 显 的 是 绕 开 对 伊 朗 的 制 裁。 来自调查公司Platts的Ramthan Hussa i n 表 示，过去几年来， 中国国内运力的发展已超出沿 海船舶船队的范畴，达到 6 艘 二手超大型液化气运输船的规 模，可运营洲际航线。由于二手 船日益稀缺，东华能源(Oriental Energy)等国内企业已发出新船 订单，这些订单带有更多选择 权。在全球范围内，大约 50 艘 新超大型液化气运输船预计将 在接下来的三年内进行交付。 鉴于美国大量廉价页岩资源的 供应、前往亚洲的船运通道不 断改善以及中国不断增长的需 求，液化气运输船船东们对液 化石油气市场的未来前景持乐 观态度。 Sinoship 2014年夏季刊

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■ ■ ■ 物流

狂野西部 Jason Jiang讲述在新疆运输货物的难处

在中国，几乎没有比新疆更荒 凉、更难穿越的地区。新疆地域 广袤，地处中国与中亚地区的结 合部，中亚目前已成为中国越来 越重要的原材料来源地之一。 茫茫戈壁与塔克拉玛干沙漠构 成了新疆的主要地形地貌，后者 又被当地维吾尔人称为“死亡之 海”。这一地区曾是古丝绸之路 的重要组成部分，当时勇敢的商 人不畏沙暴，将诸多精致商品从 东方运往欧洲。 中国有句老 话： “要 想富， 先修路。”尽管为了发展这一偏 僻闭塞的地区，中国政府已投 入数十亿元人民币的资金，但 与中国其他大多数地区相比， 新疆仍有很长的路要走。中国 国家主席习近平近日刚刚结束 对新疆的访问，并督促加快这 一矿产丰富地区的发展。新疆 陆上疆界线超过5,600公里，占 中国陆上疆界线总长度的四分 之一。 当地物流行业深受不利的地 理环境和气候条件的制约。 为响应中央促进西部经济大 14

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开发的号召，目前落户新疆的投 资项目数量正不断增加，因而 新疆维吾尔自治区政府一直在 努力升级自身的供应链能力。 3月底，新疆维吾尔自治区政 府宣布将物流列为该地区经济 发展的优先事项之一。 新疆维吾尔自治区物流协会 副秘书长葛炬表示，目前新疆 当地的物流设施还非常不足。 葛炬表示： “新疆经济属于典 型的绿洲经济，”主要资源均位 于沙漠中，因而物流公司难以建 立网络。由于大多数交通运输 活动均以输出为导向，因而新疆 物流行业的发展严重失衡。 葛炬认为： “鉴于新疆特殊 的地理环境，我们没有任何类 似的物流市场可以参考，因而 必须打造自身的物流体系。” 新 疆 两 大 经 济 开发 区 喀 什、霍尔果斯最近已获得每年 5,000万元人民币的投资，用于 发展当地的物流基础设施。 今年，韩国物流公司极东物 流 集 团与泰 雄 国 际 货 物 运 输 公司已和霍尔果斯订立协议。

这两家韩国企业将成立一家合 资公司，在当地建设一个物流 园区，开始提供连接新疆与中 亚、西亚及中国其他地区的物 流服务。项目投资总额达2亿元 人民币。 新 疆 宝 达物流园今 年四月 竣工，它是新疆最大的铁路物 流园。该物流园位于南疆库车 县，设计货物处理能力为每年 300万吨。根据发展规划，该物 流园主要运输钢铁制、非金属 矿物和本地棉花，回程主要运 输化肥。 4月份，规 模 更大的一家铁 路物流园也开始在乌鲁木齐破 土动工。项目计划投资总额达 50亿元人民币，预计于2015年 开始投入运营，竣工后将成为

新疆主要物流枢纽。它还是乌 鲁木齐市首个专门的铁路物流 园，乌鲁木齐可谓是世界上距 海最远的城市。 今年来，新疆与中亚地区各 国家以及俄罗斯的边境贸易发 展迅速。实际上，在中国九个边 境省份中，新疆已几乎连续十 年在边境贸易方面名列首位。 4月23日，新疆维吾尔自治区 政府和俄罗斯车里雅宾斯克州 签署协议，将在贸易、技术和物 流领域开展合作。根据这一协 议的规定，两地政府将携手合 作，在南乌拉尔斯克建设一个 大型物流中心，并建立从乌鲁 木齐到阿斯塔纳、进而抵达车 里雅宾斯克的物流纽带。该物 流中心计划于11月份竣工，设计 货物处理能力为每年1亿吨。 新 疆 伊犁恒信国际贸易物 流有限责任公司的总经理陈智 表 示： “尽管 新疆的物流基础 设施近年来取得一定发展，但 仍 缺乏高效的信息平台。”陈 智所在企业为新疆地区领先的 物流公司。

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王的路途 Seaspan的CEO，王友贵与编辑Sam Chambers探讨集装箱运输业以及航空业

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何见过Seaspan老总王友贵 的人，都可以深切的感受 到他对他所在的集装箱运 输业的热情。对于这个他 热爱的行业，他总是很快的参与，讨论，以 及争论各种观点。 作为过去十几年来集装箱行业最成功的 人之一，王的世界观决然乐观。 “集装箱行业是个全球性的基础设施 行业，将生产商与全球化的基石消费者连 结起来，”他坚持说。 “没有集装箱运输就 没有全球化，就没有沃尔玛。集装箱船打 造了连结中国与世界其他地方的新丝绸之 路。” 当我们见面时，王很快结束了关于行业 内运力过剩的话题。 他指出总订单量占船队规 模的22%， 分散到3年，每年仅有7%多一点。 “这并不 多，”这家全世界最负盛名的集装箱运输 公司说。王说现今的订单量实际上接近史 上低谷。进一步说，当你将典型集装箱船 的有效载荷纳入考虑，这个数字还可以削 减五分之一，他坚持说。 “某些贸易路线不太平衡，但总体来说 没有运力过剩，”他强调说。 那么，如果没有运力过剩，为何运费处 于低谷？在这，王快如闪电的解释了行业 的痛处以及手头的解决方案。 “ 这个 行 业有必 须 解 决 的 结 构 性 问 题，”他说。对于由马士基，达飞轮船和地 中海航运组成的P3联盟，王说这种合作是 前进的道路。 “这个行业正在走向一个更 加具体的经营方针，”他说。 “集装箱运输

不像干散货和油轮，它更像航空公司，”他 指出航空公司在处理运力以及联盟经营方 面做得更好。 王认为集装箱行业目前正在复制航空业 已经完成的过程，并且应该解决目前的结 构性问题。 “班轮公司需要精诚合作并且从过去吸 取教训，”他说， “他们需要更紧密的团结起 来以获得更好的经济回报，这个行业不能存 活下去如果他们还像现在一样亏损。” 王与1962年在中国的安徽省出生。曾在 上海海事大学以及伦敦 经济学院念书， 他在香港的招商局集团开始他得职业生 涯。199 0 年他搬 迁去往温哥华并在几年 之后加入由亿万富翁Ted Washington掌控 的Seaspan。在这里他与中国海运集团连 结，后者从Seaspan租入了集装箱船。从那

以后，他建 立的租赁 模 式 如滚雪 球般 增 长。Seaspan在2005年上市，融资7亿美元。 S e a sp a n的船队 现 有8 7艘 船，总 运力 606,300标准箱。在他们的订单中最大的船 达到14，000标准箱，王认为更大船是必要 的，是“不可阻挡的趋势。” “你没有选择,” 他说。 “你必须得到它 们，因为它们给你更经济的方式。谁有更 经济的方式就意味着赢得战斗。” 这场为了经济规模的战斗也为行业带来 了一个整合的时代，这一点也不令王惊奇。 “最关键的就是每标准箱的最低成本并 获取生存，”他说。 “如果你可以与给你带来 更低成本的公司合作，尽管去做。” 关于Seaspan本身, 不要以为他会停滞不 前。 “我们将继续增长，”王说。 “这个行业 很简单—如果你发展，你就会落后。我们 的投资方向是任何让我们变得更强大以及 更有利润的资产。” Seaspan在过去十年坚守着同样的哲学， 他说，主要是与可靠，财政安全的客户签署 长期合同并且寻求最新，现代，燃油效率高 的船舶。 “这是成功的秘方。”王笑着说。

Seaspan 总部位于温哥华的集装箱船东 以及管理者。向主要班轮公司 长期租赁固定费率船只。这家 纽约上市的公司的船队目前有 87艘船。

香港拥有全部支持功能，是理想的海事中心 Sinoship 2014年夏季刊

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■ ■ ■ 人物专访

运能激增冲击国内 集装箱航运业 Jason Jiang与中谷海运老总晤谈

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国际航运萧条和国内消费 增长放缓的影响，国内集 装箱航运市场也面临着运 能过剩、运价低迷和融资 困难等一系列问题。在现阶段，对于业内 航运公司来说，至关重要的就是保持稳健 的财务状况。 中国国内主要的集装箱航运公司之一 中谷海运总经理卢宗俊认为，在此困难时 期，成本控制对船运公司非常重要。 卢宗俊自1990 年毕业于武汉理工大学 后就一直从事船运业。 中谷海运原名为洋浦中谷新良海运， 是中国主要的粮食贸易公司之一国有中国 粮油集团（中粮集团）的航运分公司。该 公司于2003年被私有化，并改为现用名。 中谷海运现经营着一支由 40 多艘船 组成的船队，总运能约为30,000标准箱。 其中12 艘为自有船舶，其余的是短期包 租船。 “船运业是资本密集型行业。我们主 要以租赁货船开展营运，这使我们的融资 压力较小，我们租用的大部分船只租约期 都是三到六个月，这在国内沿海集装箱航 运市场是常见的。＂卢宗俊表示。 “我们不喜欢赌博；我们将财务安全

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置于经营的首位。我们一直保有稳定现金 流。虽然目前市况不景气，但只要市场上 有合适的资产，我们仍然会进行投资。＂ 卢宗俊指出。 今年二月，中谷海运向舟山五洲船舶 修造有限公司订造了十艘2500标准箱的集 装箱船，这批船只将从明年起交付使用。 公司现下辖多家分公司，分别经营航 运、船舶管理、船舶租赁及船舶加油业 务。中谷海运集团于去年成立，统管公司 所有业务。去年，中谷海运新设了十个办 事处，其船队新增了十艘船。就国内集装 箱吞吐量而言，公司去年在青岛港、上海 港、太仓港、厦门港和广州港等主要港口 都占据首位。 卢宗俊认为，在国内航运市场，船舶 吨位将会越来越大，运能激增来势迅猛。 “国内海运市场与国际海运市场息息 相关。在国际海运市场，船越来越大，在 国内海运市场这也同样是势不可免的。”

我们不喜欢赌博； 我们将财务安全置于 经营的首位

卢宗俊说。 为了应对当前的经济衰退，中谷海运 同时还在努力与其他集装箱航运公司和港 口开展合作。 “中远和中国海运在国内航线上的合 作为规范国内海运市场树立了一个好榜 样，这是解决产能过剩问题的好办法，” 卢宗俊表示。“体量相近的公司之间建立 稳定的合作关系是一个好方法。” 中谷海运已与大连港集团签订战略合 作协议。根据协议，两家公司将在航线拓 展、港口作业、物流基地开发和融资等领 域进行全面合作。 卢宗俊还建议说，政府可通过行政手 段解决国内集装箱航运市场产能过剩问 题。 “交通运输部已经通过禁止新运能 入市，为国内沿海油运市场设置了门槛。 他们可以在国内集装箱航运市场引入类似 政策。”他呼吁说。 他透露说，中谷海运的现定目标是， 未来五年在中国10个主要港口的集装箱吞 吐量要达到一百万标准箱。

中谷海运 中 谷 海 运 原 为 国 有 粮 食 巨头 中粮集团成员，于20 03年被私 有化，现为国内沿海最大的集 装箱航运运营商之一。公司船 队拥有40多艘船，总运能约为 30,000标准箱。

人物专访 ■ ■ ■

香港领军人物 Kingsley Koo身为香港船东协会主席，正在其两年任期内全力推动香港航运业走向世界

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港：去年年底，拥有104年 历史 的 万 利 轮 船 有 限 公 司 (Valles Steamship) 董事 Kingsley Koo当选为香港 船东协会 (HKSOA) 新任主席，该协会是这 一地区最有话语权的组织之一。Koo并未满 足于现状，而是明确表示，在两年任期内 要实现的一大目标就是要重振香港海事雄 风，这一点与现任香港特区行政长官梁振 英的计划不谋而合。 他对 SinoShip 说： “作为主席，我的目标 是推动香港航运业走向世界。”Koo曾走访 过世界各地多个不同的航运中心，推介香 港的优势。今年六月，他和香港政府成员还 将参加希腊最大的展览，希腊波塞冬海事 展 (Posidonia)。 “我们这个海事中心举足轻重，”Koo 说，同时他也承认，同区域内的竞争对手新 加坡和上海同样实力雄厚。 “每个公司都明白什么才最适合自己的 业务需求，”他说。 “香港是个优秀的海事 中心，”他强调说， “因为它具备所有支持 功能：船东、管理人员、银行家、律师和优 秀的本地劳动力。” Koo表示，现任香港政府越来越意识到 航运业对本地经济的贡献，现在，香港船 东协会正与政府机构紧密合作，推动海事 计划。而且，目前北京正将香港作为航运 中心加以推广。对于当地政府去年拨款 1 亿港币专门用于航空和海事培训，培养本 地人才的决定，Koo 尤其高兴。 除了将香港推向世界之外，Koo 还在寻 求解决困扰香港船东协 会成 员的常见问 题，尤其是环境、压舱水和避难港等方面 的监管问题。

“环境是本地航运界最关心的一个问 题，”Koo说，同时指出明年将会出台法 律，要求船舶在香港停泊时更换燃料。 Koo与其弟Eric一样是受家族控制 的万利轮船的董事，而其兄长David 则 是总经理，也是前任香港船东协会主 席。Koo 的父亲 KM Koo，是香港船东 协会最后一批保守派创始人之一，已于 四年前过世。而万利轮船下一代接班人 已经开始投身于航运界，David的儿子和 Eric的女儿现正在公司工作。 “目前他们 正在努力学习相关业务，”Koo评价道。 “作为家 族性航 运企 业，我们非常保 守，”Koo说， “我们不会花不必要的钱。 多年来，我们始终保持着适度的船队规 模。我们选择替换船舶吨位，而 不是扩张。” 如今 船队由两艘巴拿马 型散货船、八艘阿芙拉型 油轮、三艘 MR 成品油轮 组成，另已订购两艘 LR 成品油轮。船队平均使 用年限不超过六年。 Koo对于运费率环境 不甚乐观，他特别提到供需仍然过于不平 衡。 “造船能力过剩，船东们带着投机性订 船。他们的投机性太强，订购了很多不必要 的吨位，”他总结说。 Koo毕业于麻省理工学院，获船舶设计 与轮机工程硕士学位以及造船和航运管理 硕士学位。他曾就职于美国船级社 (ABS)， 在纽约任审图工程师，并在多地的 ABS 分 部工作过。加入万利轮船之前，Koo 曾领导 ABS 大中华区的运营。

万利轮船 1910年成立于上海，1949年迁 到香港，由Koo家族所有。如今 船队由两艘巴拿马型散货船、 八艘阿芙拉型油轮、三艘MR成 品油轮组成，另已订购两艘LR 成品油轮。

香港拥有全部支持功能，是理想的海事中心 Sinoship 2014年夏季刊

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如何才能成为国际航运中心 吕靖是中国首屈一指的海洋经济学家之一。他对众多中国城市力争成为国际航运中心不以为然

作

为航运世界的大国之 一，中国将航运业视为 一种支柱产业。过去十

年，中国一直在不遗余 力地发展航运业。它已指定包括上海、宁 波、大连和厦门在内的多个主要港口城市 发展国际航运中心。许多沿海城市也已制 订了各自发展国际航运中心的计划。 作为一名航运经济学家，大连海事大 学交通运输管理学院院长吕靖自上世纪 80 年代以来，一直致力于航运研究。他 还是国际海洋经济学家协会 (International Association of Maritime Economists) 会员和 中国交通运输协会理事。 他对 SinoShip 说，盲目发展国际航运 中心也许无助产业发展。他说，这反而可 能造成资源浪费。 “目前，中国许多城市都说要发展所 谓的国际航运中心，”他说。“我认为这 是一种误导，真正的国际航运中心应当具 有先进的港口基础设施，并且将国际航运 中心当成促进本地区和内地经济发展的一 种纽带，而且还应当基于市场机制来加以 运营，”吕先生说。 吕先生认为，港口是国际航运中心的 基础，但并不代表一切。现在，许多城市 仅仅强调发展港口本身，而忽视软基础设 施的发展。吕先生指出，国际航运中心的 概念也在随着时间的推移而发展，在不同 的发展阶段具有不同的含义。 大连坐落在中国辽东半岛的南端，东 面黄海，西临渤海，背后是辽阔的中国东 北腹区。大连海岸线长达 1,906 公里，其 航运网络将渤海湾和中国东北地区与世界 各地的港口连接在一起。目前，大连港经 营着中国最大的原油码头之一，年吞吐量 达 8,000 万吨，是中国东北地区最重要的 油品及液体化工品集散地。它还是中国东 北地区最大的集装箱港口，其国际集装箱 吞吐量占该地区总吞吐量近 97%。这座

城市目前正在力争成为东北亚地区的国际 航运中心。 吕先生说，“大连具有成为国际航运 中心的很大优势，”但他同时认为，大连 还应当强化其软环境，其中包括航运领域 的政策、文化、法律和教育。他指出，在 发展过程中需要改变的是，要更加注重理 论而不是实际操作。 吕先生说，“若要成为真正的国际航 运中心，大连仍有很长的路要走。” 为了应对当前的航运低迷困境，减速 航行已经成为普遍的做法，但吕先生认 为，这并不是解决产业产能过剩问题的聪 明办法。 他说，“我并不认为减速航行是一种 可持续的解决方案，”理由是它无法满足 市场需求。 吕先生说，“班轮公司需要赶计划好

盲目发展国际航运中心无助产业发展 18

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的船期，而减速航行同样要求航运公司部 署更多的船只和船员，这样也会增加公司 的成本。” 吕先生认为，中国主要航运公司应对 当前低迷困境的最佳途径是通过资本运作 和并购。吕先生最后说，“如果中远集团 和中国海运等中国主要航运公司仅仅通 过航线合作谋求发展，则发展步伐相对 缓慢。”

大连海事大学 大连海事大学是国内唯一享受 中央政府拨款的海事大学和享 誉全球的海事培训机构。校友 包括中远集团前总裁魏家福和 河北远洋董事长高彦明。目前 在校学生约 17,000 人。

船员 ■ ■ ■

中国在人事代理行业中的地位 SinoShip访谈顶尖船舶管理人，了解中国人事代理行业的优势及劣势 全球顶尖 船舶管理人每年都会收到一份 问卷调查；他们对相关问题的回答，往 往可以让人深入了解中国船员的现状， 非常耐人寻味。本年度调查的主要结果 表明，中国船员一直以来的成本优势已 迅速减弱，船员代理公司在中国的业务 经营仍不明朗。 倒退到10年前，当时大家都预计国 际远洋船舶上将出现大量中国船员的身 影。那么，为何没有出现十年前人们大 胆预测的景象？ 优尼万船舶管理有限公司(Univan Ship Management)首席执行官 Bjorn Hojgaard 表 示，中国未能按照大家的预计，成为全球 船员输出的源头，存在几个方面的原因。 首先，对于大多数国际船东来说，中国职 员仍被视为新兴供应来源；中国要想比印

度或菲律宾等传统供应国更具竞争力，就 必须提高职员的素质，尤其是英语水平。 “这可能不尽公平，因为近年来相关 标准和英语能力水平要求不断提高。但

人民币地位的增强， 弥合了中外船员间工资 水平的差距 是，这种看法确实有合理之处，中国职 员的工资水平相对较高。作为其他国家 船员的替换者，中国船员的发展确实比 较缓慢。” 其次，过去十年来，中国经济快速 增长，为拥有国际远洋船舶工作经验的

职员带来了大量待遇优厚的陆上工作机 会。因而，能够在职业生涯中坚守船舶 岗位的职员极为罕见，因为他们往往在 职业的早期就受到吸引，转而从事陆地 上的好工作，使得船东很难留住船员， 尤其是高级职位船员。 中英船务有限公司(Anglo-Eastern)首 席执行官Peter Cremers认为：“非中资实 体仍然难以直接招募中国职员，这一情 况可能是中国职员的数量未能按照预期 走出国门的主要原因之一。” 香港 Fleet Management 公司的董事总 经理 Kishore Rajvanshy 在讨论中补充了 重要的两点。他评论说，人民币地位的 增强，弥合了中外船员间工资水平的差 距；《海事劳工公约》(MLC)已经提高了 工资结构透明度的相关标准。 Sinoship 2014年夏季刊

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船员代理公司的收费结构不够透明 Wallem Ship Management 海员人事总 经理 Kinny Pun 认为，10年前对中国船员 输出潜能的诸多预测是有根据的，但在 发展中市场的背景下，必须认识到中国 要想与其他领先的船员输出大国平起平 坐，仍需要一些时间。 目前，在 Wallem 12,000 名船员的人 才库中，就单一国籍而言，中国人数量 居首，占某些职衔的 40%。 Pun 表示：“我们发现，如果试用的 均为中国船员，那么客户随后会选择在 其他船上也使用中国船员。” 贝仕船舶管理有限公司(Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement)首席执行官 Rajaish Bajpaee 评论说：“我们过去未曾 预料到的是，迅猛发展的中国船队对船 员有巨大需求，不仅吸收了正在培养的 大多数新人，甚至还吸纳了外国船只上 的现有中国船员。” Bajpaee表示：“目前的情况似乎趋于 稳定。我们未看到早前出现的人才严重 短缺局面。相反，我们船上中国船员的 数量正在稳步增长。” 你们如何让中国船员为自己犯下的错

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误承担责任？如何确保这些错误不再发 生？ 回答这一问题的受访者都尽力强调， 中国船员的反应与其他国家的人士并无 不同，对来自所有国家的职员均一视同 仁。 中英船务有限公司的 Cremers 表 示：“与其他国家的人士相比，我们未 发现中国船员的反应有任何根本不同： 一旦犯了错误，无论是哪个国家的船 员，敢于站出来并承担责任，总是需要 一点勇气的。” Fleet 的 Rajvanshy 认为：“只有坚持 不懈的工作，才能让他们敞开心扉，只 有通过更多互动才能实现这一目标。” Wallem 的 Pun 认为，关键是要打造相 互支持和理解的船上文化，确保所有海 运工作人员都填写事故未遂报告，并将 安全和运营问题上报至管理办公室内的 高级职员。 在质量和可靠性方面，船员代理公司 和船员培训机构与菲律宾或印度相比如 何？ 优尼万的经验是，中国与菲律宾的 类似机构相比，培训设施的硬件略胜一 筹，但教职员工和课程是最有改进潜能 的方面。 丹麦人Hojgaard 表示：“有了最好 的设备和模拟器，目前只能保证实现‘ 盈利’。”他补充说，“中国机构可以 国际上现有的最佳方法和教学原则为基 准，挑选一些易于实现的目标。” Fleet的Rajvanshy表示，平均来说，中 国与其他地区相比，船员培训具备可比 性，甚至更好，因为获得培训学校许可 并非那么容易。他认为，所面临的挑战 仍然是英语沟通技巧。 贝仕船舶管理有限公司(BSM)的 Bajpaee 评论说，中国的接收标准非常 高，而且通过全国性的入学考试进行严 格控制，而菲律宾的个别机构可以自行 设定标准。 此外，学生入学后，中国政府将严 格监督培训机构的教学大纲和培训，因 而所有学校培养的毕业生都有较高的水 准。 虽然中英船务有限公司的 Cremers 对 船员能力和培训评价极高——至少与 印度相当，优于菲律宾，但也指出中国 的船员代理公司存在重大问题。 他表示，收费结构不够透明，而且本

地市场优先，让局面更加困难。 不过，Fleet 的 Rajvanshy 发现了本行 业的最新变化。他表示：“《海事劳工 公约》要求所有人事代理公司都必须更 加透明。业务开展方式正在去旧迎新， 发生变化。” 对于获准进入人事代理行业的更多私 营实体，Bajpaee 认为，虽然船员代理公 司的服务质量确实不好，但这正在发生 变化。他表示：“人们开始理解，无法 强迫客户接受不合标准的服务，因而必 须提供许多其他选择。”

船员 ■ ■ ■

你们在增加中国船员的人数方面有何 计划？ 对于这一问题，鉴于中国的工资水平 迅速提高，接受访谈的一些资深船舶经 理人持谨慎态度。业内人士多次呼吁中 国放开相关行业，确保经理人能够更为 自如地将时间、资本和精力投入到人力 资源开发上。 Rajvanshy 表示：“由于成本优势一再 缩小，我们计划维持现有 1,000 名船员的 规模不变。” 优尼万的 Hojgaard 也赞同这一观点，

人力供应充足，素质很好 他表示：“我公司船舶上中国船员供应 的增长取决于这些船员的竞争力。” 也有一些公司更为野心勃勃。BSM 的 Bajpaee 告诉 SinoShip，“我们将继续扩 展超过 1,000 名中国船员的人才库，而 且希望中国政府采取行业自由化政策， 继续开放市场，使我们将来能直接招募 我们已投入许多培训课时的船员，发展 他们的航海职业。”

与此同时，中英船务有限公司计划继 续将当前 765 名中国职员和船员的队伍 每年至少增加 20%，其中大部分新增人 员集中于近海部门。 Hojgaard在总结时表示，增长将最终 取决于客户想要什么。他表示：“最 后，等式的需求一侧比较重要，因为人 员供应很充足，素质很好，船东也愿意 进行投入，以招募到最优秀的人才。” Sinoship 2014年夏季刊

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绿色但并不精益 中央最近出台船舶报废政策，但 Jason Jiang 了解到地方拆船业正步履维艰

为

确保中国的船运业和造 船业 重返 正轨，保 持 供 需均 衡，中央 政 府 今 年 一月推出新的船舶报 废

政策。 目前，政府将按照 1,500元人民币/总吨 的标准，对提前报废老旧船并在本国订购 新船的船运公司进行补助。报废完成后， 支付一半补助；新船完成后，支付剩下一 半。政府为上述补助留出了近 50 亿元人民 币的备用金。 借助这一优惠政策，中国主要船运公司 纷纷加速老旧船舶的报废步伐。 中国远洋控股有限公司已选定今年要 报废的 41 艘船舶，总吨位达 252 万载重 吨。继 2013 年报废 18 艘船后，中海发展 股份有限公司已确定今年要报废的 10 艘 船。此外，包括中国外运长航集团和招商 局集团在内的其他国营船运公司均宣布了 各自船队的优化计划。 这对严峻商业形势下的本土拆船业来 说是一个好消息。救星是中国政府对本国

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船厂的支持。 希腊船舶经纪人 Shiptrade Services 在 最近发布的报告中指出，在今年的大部分 时间内，中国造船厂完全依赖于地方国有 船运公司，同时充分利用了政府提供的补 助。 “我 认为，这是 一项非常 好的刺激政 策，赋予了船东报废老旧船舶、订购新船 的动力。江南造船集团的副总经理胡可一 表 示： “但是，船东们应对即将报废的船 舶进行仔细审视，某些船舶可能仍有盈利 空间。” 根据中国拆船协会 (CNSA)的统计，2013 年中国各 拆船 公司收 购的 报 废 船 舶 中，62.6%为散货运输船。江苏和广东两省 占了 80% 的拆船业务份额。中国拆船总吨 位在 2013 年大幅增加，较 2012 年几乎实

中国和印度次大陆之 间的价差创下新高

现翻番。不过，进口船舶拆解总吨位同期 下降了 10%。 中国拆船协会副秘书长吴军表示： “拆 船总量今年可能超出预期。”

利润下滑 但是，2013年拆船量的快速增长，并未给 中国各拆船公司带来更多利润。相反，由 于中国废钢市场呈疲弱之态，他们的亏损 额进一步扩大。 吴军表 示： “ 2 013 年废 钢价格下跌了 10%，加之积压库存以及日益增加的劳动 力成本，使得中国大多数拆船公司在 2013 年都遭遇亏损。” 他认为，2014 年拆船市场的前景仍不太 乐观。 吴军告诉 SinoShip： “随着钢铁业产能 的进一步压缩，对废钢的需求仍在走低。 拆船业今年可能继续亏损。” 中国拆船协会开展的一项调研表明， 过去一年来，钢铁厂对废钢的需求降幅巨 大，达 60%。

拆船 ■ ■ ■

我们宁愿将废钢储藏 起来，待价而沽 吴军认为： “新拆船政策主要对船东有 利。政府还应制订能为拆船行业提供支持 的政策。” 中国拆船业的倡导者 Grieg Green 的首 席执行官 Petter Heier 承认： “对钢材的 需求不断下降，尤其是中国废钢的需求下 降，已导致中国和印度次大陆之间的价差 创下新高。”他补充说： “当然，在缺乏有 关安全和环境的特定要求的情况下，船东 难以克服这一价差。” 不过 Heier 表示，越来越多的船东正改 变自身政策，倾向于采用更可持续的拆船 方法。 挪威咨询公司 Metizoft 的首席运营官 Clem Chang 对此深表赞同。Chang 表示： “ 一般来说，如果大量船东关注企业社会责 任，同时努力满足强制性要求，需求就会 增加。” 业内有许多渴望以环保方式拆船的船 东，挪威的 Höegh Autoliners 就是其中 之一。首席执行官 Ingar Skiaker 表示， 公司始终秉持关爱人类和环境的信念。 “ 因此，我们选 择对人 类和环境 都安 全的 方 式，以此 来 结束 老旧船 舶的服役期，

这才是爱护自然。”Shipyards 称，迄今为 止，Höegh Autoliners 已在中国各造船厂 拆解了 15 艘船，未产生废物，也未使用不 符标准的劳动力。

环保推动力 为增强中国拆船业的竞争力，保护沿海环 境，中国一直在倡导环保拆船，并制订了 许多制度，禁止使用传统方法进行冲滩拆 船。此外，政府还将拟订合格环保拆船厂 的名单，发送至船东。环保拆船政策为拆 船业带来了额外的成本，使得其相对于印 度次大陆的竞争对手来说，价格缺乏竞争 力；在南亚次大陆，冲滩拆船更多是一种 惯例。 Metizoft 的 Chang 表示： “与南亚船厂相 比，中国无法提供有竞争力的定价。” 但是，Chang 和中国拆船协会的吴军 均认为，环保拆船是中国拆船业的唯一出 路，也是全球拆船业的未来。 大船集团海洋服务公司的销售和营销 总监 Jia Dalong 表示： “新的拆船刺激政 策仅限定于政府选定的一些环保造船厂。 我们是入选的造船厂之一，这将提升我们 的市场竞争力。”大船集团海洋服务公司 是由大连船舶工业公司、新加坡太平船务 有限公司和鞍山钢铁共同出资设立的一家 新拆船公司。Jia 表示，公司的目标是每年

修理 60 艘船舶，拆解 300,000 轻 吨 。 江苏新长江实业集团投资成立的舟山 长宏国际船舶再生利用有限公司是进入 拆船业不久的企业。公司拥有全国最大、 最先进的环保拆船设施之一。目前，长宏 已与许多全球顶尖船东结成合作关系，包 括马士基和壳牌。它在 2013 年报废了 18 艘船舶，包括壳牌最大的液化天然气运输 船之一；目前公司 2014 年的工作日程已经 排满。 这家造船厂已成立两年，总经理戴纪明 坦率表示： “我们目前尚未盈利。” 他不无担心地说： “目前我们这里堆积 了近 200,000 吨废钢，今后还要报废很多 船舶，库存一直在增加。” “与 2008 年拆船业最后的繁华时光相 比，废钢价格已下跌近一半。现在，我们宁 愿将废钢储藏起来，待价而沽。” 国际海事组织和船舶经纪公司 Clarkson 的研究统计表明，目前全球船队 中大约 23% 的船舶将在今后十年内进行 报废。 戴总经理表示： “目前拆船业正处于艰 难的发展阶段，但从长期来看，这个行业 的前景和潜能很好，仍大有可为，环保拆 船也符合国家可持续发展战略的要求。 如果政府能在这一阶段提供一些刺激政 策，拆船公司就能更轻松地完成过渡。” Sinoship 2014年夏季刊

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■ ■ ■ 枢纽：上海

焕然一新的租赁业务 上海正在引领融资租赁的发展

随 着上 海 市各家银行一齐捂 紧钱袋，现金短缺的客户正日 益 将 注 意 力转 向融 资 租 赁公 司，寻求为自己的船只获取融 资，融资租赁也是上海市渴望 培育的一种贷款模式。 简而言之，融资租赁指的是 金融公司根据客户指令购船。 在租赁期内，客户拥有船只的 使用权，但需支付租 金。租赁 公司 将通 过 租 金 收回购 船 成 本。 自2008年金融危机至今，中 国领导人一直在努力保增长， 并应付各种利益冲突。金融危 机导致中国政府针对船运业推 出了效果惨淡的刺激计划，但 是为防止供过于求，目前正在 控制船舶融资业务。国务院 11 月份 通知国内各家银行，暂停 向长期产能过剩的五个行业发 放贷款，其中包括船运业。 根据要求，上海市各家银行 已大致停止放贷。上海浦东发 展 银行的一名内部人士说： “ 实际上，我们在2012年就已大 幅削减了船 运融资业务。我们 的相关部门已基本解散，大多 数员工已分流至其他部门。” 24

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交 通银 行上海 分行的 情况 与此相同。一位原先在中国第 五大上市银行交行负责船舶融 资业务的内部人士表示： “目前 我主要负责信托结构性贷款业 务。” 中国银行和中国进出口银行 的内部人士表 示，两家银行目 前仍在放贷，但已提高放贷标 准，主要是为目前与它们保持 着良好关系的公司或政府支持 的国有企业提供融资。 这一贷款紧缩形势，迫使客 户转向其他融资方式。Howse Williams Bowers 的船运融资合 伙人 Jonathan Silver 表示： “由 于从国内各银行获得融资的难 度加大，目前融资方式已发生 巨大变化，从原先的直接负债 转向融资租赁。” 融资租赁的推动力似乎来自 于最高层。中国银行业监督管 理委员会去年 12 月份宣布，将 放宽对融资租赁行业的限制， 促进融资租赁业务的开展。 在国家 发 出准 许 信号的同 时，上海已面向在自贸区内设 立的船运企业推出刺激计划， 强化了其融资租赁的资质。上

海市政府表示，设立自贸区的 目标之一，就是通过税收优惠 政 策 鼓 励融 资 租 赁业 务的开 展。 此外，上海市在吸引租赁企 业方面的优势由来已久。英士 律师事务所 (Ince & Co.) 合伙 人 Vincent Xu 表示： “自 2006 年至今，上海一直致力于要发 展成为国际船运和融资中心。 上海市拥有得天独厚的地理位 置及政策等优势，融资租赁的 繁荣是自然而然的结果。许多 一流的造船厂和船东都在上海 开展业务。” 因此，上海已发展成为融资 租赁业务的增长中心。交银金 融租赁有限责任公司去年 10 月份宣布，计划在新挂牌的上 海自贸区设 立一家子公司，上 海银行也紧随其后，于 2014 年

1 月宣布将采取相同举措。 上海自贸区于去年 9 月份刚 刚挂牌成立，在短短四个月内 即汇聚了 57 家融资租赁公司， 成绩相当辉煌。 融资租赁之所以大受追捧， 是因为其具有原先债务融资结 构所不具备的灵活性。它使得 各企业得以维持宝贵的现金储 备，在企业应纳税利润走低的 经济衰退期尤其广受欢迎。 考虑到资产所提供的安全保 障，费率可能与债务融资一样 具有竞争性，甚至略胜一筹。 浦银金融租赁股份有限公司 业务部的 Xiang Yiye 表示： “ 我 们已 经 收 到 本 年 度 的业 务 目标。我想我们很快就会忙起 来。” 此外，造船厂也期待能够达 成更多融资租赁交易。江苏开 元船舶有限公司行政部的 Qian Yujie 表示： “我们过去在这方 面做 得不多，但今后会加大力 度。 中 化 船 务有限责任 公司船 运资产管理部的 Yu Jing 说： “ 这无疑是非常吸引人的一个领 域。”

枢纽：台湾 ■ ■ ■

三月份，大学生们涌入台湾立法院，对最近通过的服贸协议表示反对

两岸关系更近一步 尽管反对的呼声很高，但海峡两岸的贸易关系依然不断前进，David Green报道 台湾与大陆签署了一系列经济 合作协议，将使台湾的海运行 业大大受益。 二月底，来自海峡两岸的事 务代表在湖南省长沙市举行座 谈，商定协议条款，内容涉及新 集装箱运输航线的设立、海关 程序的简化以及开放选定港口 用于快递运输服务。 台湾港 务股份有限公司 (TIPC) 的 Andrew Chen 表示： “ 开设新航线将使海峡两岸的船 运物流更加便捷，但沿海贸易 系统中的关键问题并未得到解 决，未来我们将继续就沿海贸 易权与大陆政府进行协商。” 沿海贸易系统禁止国外运输 公司在台湾港口运输转运的货 物，并将货运量限制为台湾和 大陆运输公司平等参与，这必 然会阻碍台湾港口和货物贸易 的发展。 按照香港理工大学物流及航 运学系客座教授 Girish Gujar 博

士的观点，除了沿海贸易权 未 通过，长沙协议可以称作大陆 向台湾伸出的橄榄枝。 “大陆在慢慢开放船运贸易 和整合，这是 一 个 开端，将最 终引发更积极的改观。我认为 它会朝着 [放松沿海贸易权规 则] 的方向发展，我们无法预期 时间，也许一年，也许两年，这 取决于政治气候。”他说。 按照 TIPC 的说法，新集 装 箱 航 线 仅 限于 选 定 港口， 最初从上海到基隆、台中和高 雄。Andrew Chen 表示： “德翔 航运 (T.S. Lines) 已经在申请新 航线，并已获批配置一艘 832 标准集装箱货船。” 无论如何，协议还是开了先 河，供更多港口和运输公司申 请运营类似服务，尽管设有一 系列限制。 “协议仅涵盖特定 商品，而且必须是起运地为台 湾的货物，所以无法通过新航 线转运起运地在台湾之外的商

品。”Gujar 解释道， “将逐一 审批有能力运营航线的运输公 司，仅许可特定公司开展相关 业 务。我 认为，最 开始可能是 长荣海运、中远集团和中海集 运。 在 海 关 程 序 方 面，我 认 为 他们正寻求推出某种类型的豁 免，某些运输公司有资格享受 豁免。因此没有一下全都放开， 只是特定港口、特定商品和特 定船运公司。” 长沙协议还包括加快特定港 口发展的条款，即台湾的台北 和安平，大陆的平潭和厦门。 根据 Gujar 的说法，安平港 的开发将着重于货物和集装箱 运输，但也可能包括停靠运送 中国游客从香港通过台湾回大 陆的大型游轮。 去年，台南市港口被选为台 湾第七个自由贸易港，意在 乘 着海峡两岸经济合作框架协议 (ECFA) 的东风，促进大陆与台

湾之间的农产品运输。港口还 旨在将非铁金属、石油化工产 品和体育设备运输至大陆的厦 门和泉州。 与此同时，厦门也在二月份 启动了强化与台湾航运纽带的 计划，打造海峡两岸海运物流 中心，为开设包裹快递服务铺 平了道路。 厦门航运交易所与上海航交 所合作，实验性地推出了新的 台湾海峡两岸间集装箱运价指 数，旨在衡量海峡两岸的集装 箱运输供需并促进贸易发展。 指数将公布从中国大陆沿海到 台湾的三家主要运输公司的运 价，以及回程服务的运价。 尽管今年春天针对实施海峡 两岸服贸协议，台湾大学生领 导占领了立法院的行为引发了 广泛报道，但长沙回合的谈判 应被视为日益频繁的外围对话 之一，将继续强化两岸的航运 纽带。 Gujar预计： “这不会马上就 一帆风顺，每个阶段都会遭遇 巨大阻力，也会验证每个举措 的政治正确性。一旦摆平了所 有障碍，就能够预期进展的步 伐加快了。” Sinoship 2014年夏季刊

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■ ■ ■ 枢纽：香港

怀抱希望，期待未来 多项研究均呼吁增加海运投资，现任梁振英政府可能会对此加以关注，作者：Alfred Roman

关

26

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伦敦

专业服务

于香 港 海运 业未来的诸 多研究声势 浩 大 ，如 果 它们能够全部产生效果，那么 香港作为杰出航运中心的衰落 进程可能会有所减缓。梁振英 领导的特别行政区政府非常支 持航运业发展（已提议设立专 门的航运长官），现在正是提供 各种必要条件，让香港航运实 力得以展示的好时机。 今年四月，BMT Asia Pacific 在 完 成一 项 为 期 两年 的 研 究 后，发布了相关结果。该研究由 特别行政区政府委托开展，旨 在审视香港在严峻的区域竞争 形势下，如何作为国际航运中心 (IMC) 继续繁荣发展。 BMT 提议了新组织结构，包 括涵盖多个领域的 12 个新职 位，即政策、研发；营销推广； 人力和培训；以及沟通等。 咨询机构称，新的航运机构 应该与手握重权的特别行政区 机场管理局类似，可由极为成功 的香港船舶注册处提供资金。 海运业2010 年产生了约 90 亿美元的收入，占香港 GDP 的 2.1%。与新加坡相比，这一数据 甚为惨淡，新加坡的海运收入 是香港的两倍，占本国GDP的 7%。 作为船东运营和管理地点， 虽然香港依然有很强的优势， 但其金融、经纪、租赁和仲裁

香港 新加坡

奥斯陆 鹿特丹 上海

体力活动 来源：BMT亚太

等业务的发展已落后于伦敦和 新加坡等城市。本地区多个城 市的蓬勃发展，也让香港这一 港口城市失色不少。 土地成本居高不下，政府也 无法规划清晰的海运愿景，这 都被认为是阻碍香港 IMC 实力 增长的原因。 BMT 认为，香港应成为进出 中国大陆的门户。香港应把自己 定位为“海运服务中心和中转 站，促进大陆船运公司开展国 际业务，也让 外国船 运公司进 入大陆市场。” 鉴于对面邻居深圳和其他地 方的集装箱港口的崛起，以及

香港运量的下滑，尽管一些评 论 人 士称 香 港 将 会 变 成 地 产 开发项目，但香港的港口运营 商仍坚称，港口前景非常 好， 要保持运营高效，还需要更多 土地。 香 港 集 装箱码 头运营 商协 会 (HKCTOA) 已向特别行政区 政府提交关于提升葵青集装箱 港口竞争力的白皮书，解释了香 港这个曾经在全球举足轻重的 集装箱港口目前面临的挑战和 限制。 协 会 认 为，政 府 需 要 采 取 措施，促 进靠近港口、用于集 装 箱 存 储 的现 有土 地 的 最 佳

利用，并开发更多专用驳船泊 位，提高港口的生产力。此外， 卡车司机许可制度十分繁琐， 导致业内劳工短缺，这也是个 需要进行评估的问题。 协会坚持认为， “政府如果 能够解决这些问题，就能为港 口提供保障，确保港口为香港 的经济和社会发展做出重大贡 献。” 根 据 H KC T OA 的 解 释，在 高峰时段，港口的泊位和存储 区十分拥挤，原因就在于停靠 港口的 远 洋 船只 越 来 越 大； 而与此同时，每次船舶停靠的 集装箱搬运增长量与占用的额 外码头长度不成比例。过去10 年来，香港的珠江三角洲驳船 转运交付量实现30%的增长， 对更多专用驳船泊位的需求也 大幅增加。协 会强调，紧邻南 CT、北CT9、西CT8集装箱码头 (CT)的地块，以及靠近CT5 的码 头区，都应分配给专用驳船泊 位使用，能够直达港口。 驳船流量日益增加，远洋船 舶到远洋船舶的转运量增长， 都需要更大的港口存储区，因 为转运箱在港口存放的时间更 长。这都是协会的调查结果， 它要求使 用附 近 7 0 公 顷的土 地。港口的建 造标准为每4 0 0 米泊位平均占用 14 公顷土地， 而依照当前的国际标准比率， 如果要让每个泊位发挥最佳效 益，需要 25 公顷土地。

书籍 ■ ■ ■

四月，“岁月”(Sewol)号客轮沉没成为连续几周来的头版新闻

海上悲剧的巨大 吸引力 挑选了几本他最喜爱的航运灾难相关的书目 今 年 四 月 ，韩国渡轮于韩国 南 部 海 域 沉没（照片），酿 成 悲剧。这次事故再次突显了水 手、乘客和船运业所面临的危 险。时至今日，安全规程、海事 法和行为准则等不断完善和改 进，意味着灾难性的船运悲剧 极 少发 生；而一旦发 生，则犹 如坠机事故一样令人震惊。但 是，只要人类离不开水，灾 难 就会发生。 《沧海无情》(The Cruel Sea) 一书由作者Nicholas Monserrat 精 心 撰 写，是 1 9 51年 的 畅 销 书。书中记录了作者的亲身经 历，刻画了几名英国水手在二 战期间的大西洋海战中英勇战 斗的英雄形象。直到今天，它 仍然是一部经典的航海文学作 品，重点描写职业海员冒着随

时会被德国U型潜艇击沉的危 险，在各种天气条件下为同盟 国船队提供护卫服务的惊险故 事。如果让我来挑选另一本描 写航海危险的著名小说的话， 那就是约瑟夫·康拉德(Joseph Conrad)1902年出版的《台风》 (Typhoon)，这部作品同样取材 于作者当职业海员时的亲身经 历。在书中，康拉德生动描写了 Nan-Shan号轮船驶入太平洋西 北部台风时的惊险场景。 当然，谈论航海灾难不可能 不提泰坦尼克号以及它1912年 与冰山的惊天一撞。似乎我们 一直在迷恋泰坦尼克的不灭魅 力。伊丽莎白·凯依(Elizabeth Kaye)的《8号救生艇》(Lifeboat No.8)是一部短篇，但感染力同 样强大，最近发行了电子书版

只要人类离不 开水，灾难就会 发生 本。凯依重点刻画了首批入水 的一艘救生艇及成功脱险的人 们，包括船上最富有的女性露 丝伯爵夫人(Countess of Rothes) 。有趣的是，这本书也讲述了 泰坦尼克号邮轮上英勇无畏的 无线电收发员杰克·菲利普斯 (Jack Phillips)的故事，他当时发 出了世界上首个SOS呼救信号。 一个多世纪后，尽管我们仍 然唏 嘘 或 沉 迷于 泰 坦 尼克 及 其 乘 客 的 不 幸 或 英 勇事迹， 但 其 他 客船上 发 生的悲 剧 也 不少，令人惋惜。在《遇难船》

(Doomed Ships)一书中，海军 历史学家威廉·米勒( William Miller)叙述了发生在多艘不幸 客船上的悲剧事件，首先是路 西塔尼亚号(Lusitania)1915年 被德国潜艇击沉、奥丽亚娜号 (Oriana)在中国海域的台风中倾 覆，其他的航海灾难还有摩罗 城堡号(Morro Castle)、诺曼底 号(Normandie)、安德烈亚·多里 亚号(Andrea Doria)以及欧罗巴 号( Europa)，还有许多船只的航 海生命也在灾难中彻底断送。 也 有书 籍 对个别悲剧 进 行 了描述。在《卡利班海岸》(The Caliban Shore)一书中，史蒂芬· 泰勒（Stephen Taylor）就讲述 了格罗夫纳号(The Grosvenor) 的 故 事，格 罗 夫 纳 号 是 当 时 最 好的“东印度人”贸易船之 一。1782年，她在非洲东南部 凶险的海岸搁浅。船上有很多 船员和 乘客，有男有女，大部 分都安然抵达海岸，但许多人 却顺水漂流了几百海里，流落 到了蓬多兰(Pondoland)的荒芜 海岸。随 后，乔 纳森·迈 尔 斯 (Jonathan Miles)出版了他的名作 《美杜莎海难及丑闻》(Medusa The Shipwreck, The Scandal),生 动描写了1816年法国一支驶往 塞内加尔的船队的旗舰美杜莎 号在非洲荒凉的西海岸附近海 域搁浅的故事。护卫舰的疏散 工作非常混乱— —有146名 男性和1名女性被集结在一个 临时拼凑的木筏上，但是后来 被曾保证要将他们拖曳至安全 地带的救生艇撞散，消失在茫 茫大海中。 这两 起 海 难 启发了著 名的 文艺作品。乔治·卡特(George Carter)的《格罗夫纳海难》(The Wreck of The Grosvenor)就是一 幅著作，乔治·卡特的代表作 是描绘库克船长的作品。反映 美杜莎 号 悲 剧 事 件 的 作品还 有泰奥多尔·席里柯(Théodore Géricault)的著名油画《美杜莎 之筏》(Théodore Géricault)，该 作品目前由法国卢浮宫收藏。 航海悲剧不断发生，令我们 警醒，促人深思。全球的海洋 仍然冷酷无情。 Sinoship 2014年夏季刊

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■ ■ ■ 意见

七年之痒 Max Hong解析航运周期 七年意味 着什么？是否存在某 种类型的周期？在好友家吃一 顿非常健康的饭菜时，身为素 食者的他告诉我，他戒肉已经 快满七个 年头了，对于即将到 来的七周年纪念日很是激动。 他说，这个纪念日意义重大，因 为人体的全部细胞每七年就全 部更换一次，这意味着他体内 最后一个曾吸收过肉类营养的 细胞即将消失，他马上就会成 为 100% 的素食者。这是一次 简洁、纯粹、优雅的蜕变。 肉都去哪儿了？由一组细胞 激发的性吸引力消失殆尽，归 结为零，而另一个身体所释放 出来的一组全新信息素则让我 们兴奋不已！在 1955 年的电影 《七年之痒》中，玛丽莲·梦露 饰演的妙龄女郎，对隔壁的已 婚男人心动不已，在诱惑的欲 望中苦苦挣扎。总是有更惹火 的话题。但我们在谈论船运业 务时，荷尔蒙和诱惑自然在我 们的决定中无足轻重。那么周 期呢？ 从 2007 到 2014 的七年， 我们如何形容这个周期？2007 年，金融危机刚发端的时候， 过于廉价的信贷掏空了市场， 让船运业达到狂热的高潮，但 租船费和资产价值随后掉头急 转直下，让 诸多业内巨头颜面 扫地，损失惨重。就像宿醉后因 为头痛欲裂而产生的信念和所 做的承诺一样，银行、船东和船 运生态系统中的所有其他人都 发誓这类过剩情况将永远不再 出现。 而 这 种 情况一直 持 续到资 产价值降到足够低，新船造价 不断下跌，嗷嗷待哺的船厂愿 意“为现金流而造船”才有所 改 观。在几年的时间里，行业 28

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似乎恢复了清醒，财务状况好 转，造 新船的步伐 放缓，订单 缩水，不少船只报 废，好 像出 现了全新的健康供需局面。然 而，此时中国的刺激措施卷土 重来，掀起阵阵热潮，连同“生 态船舶更换”，自然而然造成了 更廉价的信贷。但这次的主角 并不是银行的船舶融资部门， 他们已经懂得规避风险，变得 节制而聪明。这一次登台唱戏 的是美联储及其全球同等权力 机构，方法是 平衡利率的“量 化宽松”以及“航运基金”的出 现。 这些 基 金 纷 纷以树 木或岩 石的颜色命名，如今已经为航 运业注入了大量资金，让行业 的兴奋程度达到全新水平。他 们不需要银行，订单也不是一 两艘船，而是五到十艘船。他们 声称，只有资产在不久的将来 升值，资产才能体现出意义。这 正是他们在投入大笔资金时的 豪情壮志。注意，超大型油轮 (VLCC) 的现价已经重新突破1 亿美元。看到了吗，我说过，我 们签署十美元的合同时，达成 的却是92美元的交易。我们都 看新闻，知道如果显示为蓝色 字体，那就是真实消息。 那么我们得到了怎样的经 验教训（除了追逐金钱），我们 现在的形势又如何？每个周期 都有开始、中期和结束。20 07 年的时候，原本轻松就能拿到 的资金忽然断裂，让很多人措 手不及，深受其苦。如今，收益

再 度 增 长，人 们 觉 得 更 加 安 全，但是，2014 年下半年会发 生什么事情呢？中国政府试图 为本国的出口机器注入活力， 因而，人民币正在经历系统性 贬值，与此同时，政 府 还在推 动城镇化泡沫，以促进经济活 动。我们都问问自己，这意味 着什么。我们拭目以待，看看这 些“岩石”和“树”如何进一步

吸纳更多资金，不要忘了乌克 兰发生的事情。 是的，让航运业深受打击的 最严重金融灾难之一，已经过 去七年，但它已经结束，尘封在 过去。或者，如同承载我们全都 如此深爱的船舶的潮流一样， 这个 七 年周 期 的高 潮 就 在 这 里，必须想办法挠挠这个七年 之痒。

这些基金纷纷以树木或岩石的颜色命名，如今已经 为航运业注入了大量资金，让行业的兴奋程度达到全 新水平

意见 ■ ■ ■

“没有考核，怎能有效管理” Andrew Craig-Bennett将4月韩国渡轮沉没悲剧的罪魁祸首归结为船运业船员能力欠佳

岁月(Sewol)号渡轮（如图） 沉没惨剧震惊了韩国上下。我 希望它也能对所有人都产生警 示，特别希望它能警示本行业 的陆上员工，包括从管理人员 到行政总裁在内的所有人。 目前，岁月号渡轮的船长李 俊锡(Lee Joon-seok)已经和柯 斯达康柯达(Costa Concordia) 号邮轮的船长弗朗切斯科·斯 凯蒂诺(Francesco Schettino)一 起，成为声名狼藉的人物。而就 在 2010 年制作的员工培训录像 中，他还是一位明星人物，正在 向员工详细讲解渡轮的安全注 意事项*。 在 岸上 从事船 务和 船 舶 管 理 工作 的人 们 往 往 持 有一 种 观点，而且是非常普遍的一种 观点，即“我们的员工是 最棒 的！”与此同时，他们拒绝检查 这是否名副其实，因为害怕事 实正好相反。 很多人— — 包括你自己， 亲爱的读者，可能也是其中一 位— — 无 论如 何也 不会 奢 望船舶能在不进行船坞检修的

情况下，连续运行 20 年，而且 还希望轮船的各方面都保持完 好。但是，这些人 并不希望 对 职 员的实 际 能 力和 评 级 进 行 考核，因为他们害怕考核结果 会是不胜任，这样根据法律规 定，他们的船就不再适航。 计 划中的机 械 维 护是 硬性 要求；而计划中的人的因素的 维护，则似乎不可思议。 读到此 处的 律师 可能会立 即说出几个单词— — Hong Kong Fir。Hong Kong Fir是一 艘有26年船龄的轮船，由香港 船东 在19 5 6 年苏伊 士 运河关 闭 后 的 船 运 繁 荣 期内购 买， 随即与日本川崎汽船株式会社 (K Line)签订了为期两年的巴尔 的摩定期租船合同。该轮船轮 机舱内的员工缺乏相应能力， 因而不断发生故障。香港高等 法院上诉法庭于1962年做出裁 定，该 轮船已不再适航（但尚

未不适航到需要K Line终止包 船服 务的程 度— — 它们必 须 要求损害赔 偿）。与此有关 的其中一个示例是格温多林夫 人(Lady Gwendolen) 号 – 雾霾 中Guinness 油船，只要是在船 运业工作的人员（从勤杂工往 上），都必须了解这一案例。 目前 我们 可以断 定 的 情况 是，岁月号渡轮上的职员似乎 完全不称职。显而易见的是，他 们的雇主根本不知道这一点， 也从未花心思去考虑。 全球范围内的渡轮运营商及 其员工均因自鸣得意而声名不 佳。他们因为每天都在做相同 的事情，变得心不在焉。无论你 身处哪个国家或地区— —新 西兰、挪威、英国、希腊、菲律 宾或埃及，实际上，只要是存在 可航行海域的任何地方，迟早 都会发生渡轮灾难，因为自满 情绪无国界之分。 从他将经验不足的三副独自 留在驾驶室掌舵、允许其首次 驾船通过该片海域的那一刻， 到其此后未能洞察相关情况（何 时发出求救信号？）或未能正确 应对危机（为何船上没有放置 救生筏？）的连续失职，我们不 难看出：李俊锡，他的雇主心目 中的安全完人，给大家留下的印 象是完全不能胜任本职工作。 我想指出的一点是，他的雇 主对此根本一无所知。他们误 以为他很优秀，很完美。 您会选择搭乘机长很多年来 都未在模拟器中或不检查副机 长操作的航班吗？但是航空公 司根据自己的判断，会把谁奉

自满情绪无国界之分

若“天神”？ 正如全世界上所有会计师都 知道的那样，尽管我们的行业 选择去忘记，但没有考核，怎能 有效管理。那么，我们应该如 何对能力进行考核？ 为了履行给定的工作职责， 我们必须拥有履行该职责所必 需的知识、技能和行为属性。 这些都应在能力单元中进行定 义。为按照规定标准安全履行 相关工作职责，可能需要一个 或多个能力单元。 为管理绩效，我们必须在工 作场所中定期开展评估，根据 相关绩效标准进行考评。这样 可以发现任何差距和盲点。可 根据所发现的差距，非常有针 对性地推出学习计划，解决这 些差距和盲点问题，并随后开 展进一步评估，确认是否已弥 合差距。 这就是能力保证。计划中的 维护：机械、人员两相宜。 现在，请问自己两个问题： 1. 我是否曾夸耀过公司的海运 工作人员是多么优秀？ 2. 我是否感到幸运？ 脚注： *对客户关 系管理有兴趣的人 士，可回忆并与历史上最严重的 航空灾难——1977年的特内 里费(Tenerife)空难进行比较。当 时荷兰皇家航空公司的首席飞 行教官、机长雅各·维格胡岑· 凡·赞顿(Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten)，也是他们宣传材料中的 明星人物，在未得到授权的情 况下开始驾驶 747 客机起飞滑 跑，撞上了泛美航空公司的另 一架747客机，造成他自己及其 他582名人员死亡。这起事故促 成了航空业的极大改变。 Sinoship 2014年夏季刊

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Bringing maritime media out of the dark ages

Does your Chinese marketing for 2014 make the cut? www.sinoshipnews.com Sinoship 2014.indd 1

27/1/14 11:59 pm

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

China’s shale gas revolution Ship recycling focus SUMMER 2014

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Posidonia special

Crewing poll

Ready for takeoff

Gerry Wang on Seaspan's plans and why liners should be more like airlines

MaRInE LuBRIcants

Just tELL us whERE anD whEn

KPI BRIDGE OIL provides cost efficient lubrication solutions and expert technical services to the shipping industry.

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CONTENTS ■ ■ ■

■ ■ ■ Regulars 3 Editor’s Comment 5 Economy 7 Lines

It will take a long time before Chinese ship finance becomes a viable alternative

3

—Michael Bodouroglou, chairman, Paragon Shipping,

9 Yards 11 Offshore

The banking sector has changed a lot recently. Banks are coming back

12 Finance 13 Commodities 14 Logistics

■ ■ ■ Profiles 15 Gerry Wang 17 Lu Zongjun 18 Kingsley Koo

12

— Nigel Anton, global head of shipping finance, Standard Chartered Bank

This industry is simple – if you don't grow you will be left behind — Gerry Wang, ceo, Seaspan

19 Lv Jing

■ ■ ■ Features 21 Crewing 24 Ship Recycling

■ ■ ■ Hubs 26 Shanghai 27 Taipei 29 Hong Kong

■ ■ ■ Reviews 30 Books

■ ■ ■ Opinions 31 Max Hong

17

15

Cooperation between Cosco and China Shipping on domestic routes has set a good example for regulating the domestic shipping market — Lu Zongjun, general manager, Zhonggu Shipping

My aim as chairman is to promote Hong Kong shipping to the world — Kingsley Koo, chairman, Hong Kong Shipowners Association

33 Andrew Craig-Bennett

21

18

The uptake of Chinese crew as replacement for other nationalities is slow — Bjørn Højgaard, ceo, Univan Ship Management Sinoship summer 2014

1

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 Colin Shek HONG KONG Alfred Romann DALIAN Mark Downing GUANGZHOU Wang Fanglei TAIPEI David Green CONTRIBUTORS Bei Hong, Charles De Trenck, Matthew Flynn, Paul French, Max Hong, Li Dong, Manish Singh, Andrew Craig-Bennett PHOTOGRAPHERS André Eichman, Basil Pao 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 SALES DIRECTOR Helen Ong helen@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 Tigersoft Pte Ltd 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 2014’s four issues of SinoShip. Email subs@asiashippingmedia.com for subscription enquiries.

Copyright © Asia Shipping Media Pte Ltd (ASM), 2014 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

Sino-Greek ties This issue of SinoShip will be distributed at the world’s most famous shipping show, Posidonia. It comes at a time when SinoGreek shipping ties have never been stronger.

China’s premier, Li Keqiang, said this time last year on the occasion of the visit by his Greek counterpart, Antonis Samaras, to Beijing: “We are global shipping powers and we can cooperate in many areas.”

Indeed, they are – both Greece and China are the current shipping superpowers. However, perhaps we have all been a bit too presumptuous in assuming that Greece will hand over the mantle of world’s largest shipowning nation to the People’s Republic any time soon.

Our sister title, Maritime CEO, ran a global poll at the turn of the year. One of the questions asked which nation will be the largest shipowner by gross tonnage by 2020. China won that overwhelmingly with 65% of the votes; Greece was a distant second on 17%.

However, the Greeks have been on an amazing charge of late. According to figures compiled by shipbroker Golden Destiny, Hellenic shipowners spent more than $3.3bn on 131 secondhand vessels in the first quarter alone. In the same period of 2013 they spent just $1bn. They are not hanging about either when it comes to newbuilds, chalking up $3.5bn in orders in the first three months, a 126% increase over the same period in 2013, with many orders heading China’s way.

Greek fleet growth comes at a time when the Chinese are still trying to get back on an even keel after many years of horrendous financial results. Scrapping among Chinese owners is still common, thanks in part to a new government subsidy (see page 24 for more).

Mainland Chinese owners, unlike Hong Kong, Taiwan and pertinently Greek owners, have not been able to predict shipping cycles.

Greek owners have ordered vast amounts of tonnage at Chinese yards, often with Chinese financing too. Chinese shipbuilders will be out in force at Posidonia.

However, not everyone is convinced that taking Chinese cash is simple. Michael Bodouroglou, head of Paragon Shipping,

told me recently how he had found Chinese financing to be a slow process, and rather tedious. “It will take a long time before Chinese ship finance becomes a viable alternative,” he said.

Still, the Greek government is only too happy to take Chinese money. The country’s single largest foreign direct investment came in 2009 when Beijing’s shipping giant Cosco bought into Piraeus port. Having already doubled throughput figures at the boxport since taking it over, Cosco and other Chinese companies are now discussing further investment in Greek railways, roads, regional airports and other ports.

Athens has laid out the red carpet for ready red cash from China. Indeed, it was with no little irony that the first person to receive Greek residency last August following new real estate investment laws was a Chinese national.

Sam Chambers Editor sam@asiashippingmedia.com Sinoship summer 2014

3

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Economy ■ ■ ■

The world's workshop drops down a gear Beijing must accept that the pre-2008 glory days of manufacturing are over for good, writes Paul French For nearly 30 years now China has been driven by manufacturing for export. The global financial crisis did slow export orders but, around the same time, China’s domestic market boomed and eager PRC shoppers picked up much of the slack. The difference was made up by Beijing’s economic stimulus package prime pumping the sector.

However, with orders from overseas still not back to their pre-2008 levels and consumer demand in China levelling off, manufacturing is now taking a major hit and slowing down.

Beijing has declared that it will not introduce another stimulus package, but it may

China’s Exports Slump

Exports growth/decline January 2010 +21% January 2011 +4% January 2012 -1% January 2013 -4% January 2014 -20% Source: CEIC

have to rethink that one.

Indeed, what has been dubbed a ‘mini-stimulus’ has been announced – in April the State Council, or cabinet, outlined a package of spending on railways, lower income house construction and tax relief to support growth. More stimulus

hidden as investment is likely with the start of construction on a number of major energy projects as part of efforts to stabilise expansion and adjust the nation’s energy structure.

The knock-ons from the manufacturing slowdown reveal how fundamental to

More stimulus hidden as investment is likely

China making things is – the renminbi has slipped against the dollar hitting the lowest since December 2012 in April.

Still, growth is the trend China’s economy grew 7.4% in the first quarter of this year from a year ago, according to the China National Statistics Bureau and premier Li Keqiang believes that 7.5% both indicates a growth rate China can live with and one that does not presage a major new stimulus package announcement. The word Beijing uses constantly now (perhaps in a throw back to Gordon Brown’s days as UK chancellor and prime minister) is ‘prudence’.

More worrying for China Inc in the longer term is that, despite recovery in the EU and US, the contractions in new orders are continuing.

It was to be expected that economic recovery in China’s major export markets would see export orders return to pre-recession levels. But this does not appear to be the case. Exports declined 6.6% in April this year from a year earlier, according to China’s customs administration. This may be temporary – recovery in Europe and America may see stores clear unsold inventory before restocking – but may also indicate that orders are going to other countries around Southeast and South Asia, Latin America and the fringes of Europe (North Africa, Turkey), all of which are now often cheaper than China in terms of manufacturing and logistics.

All of this suggests that a new reality is now in play.

China had expected to see orders come back as strongly as before but rising costs in China, a wider range of alternative sourcing operations, a slight weakness in the domestic market are all showing that life post the global financial crisis for China will not just be a return to the good old days of pre-2008.

Sinoship summer 2014

5

LINES ■ ■ ■

Sinotrans&CSC is close to putting all its shipping units under one roof, bringing to an end a very difficult four-year merger period. When Sinotrans and Changjiang Shipping Co joined forces in 2010 it ushered in a severe period for the group’s shipping units with the likes of Nanjing Tanker and CSC Phoenix recording extraordinary losses, the latter close to extinction. A shipping strategic business unit has now been set up in Shanghai with a view to getting a holding company controlling all shipping divisions established by the end of next year with Sinotrans Shipping likely to lead the division.

Nanjing Tanker, a subsidiary of Sinotrans&CSC, suffered the ignominy of becoming the first Chinese state-owned company to be delisted this April. The firm was kicked off the Shanghai Stock Exchange having racked up debts for four consecutive years. The bad news continued with a number of investors sending a letter to the Central Discipline Inspection Commission (CDIC) and Supreme People’s

Procuratorate to report alleged illegal activities of Zhu Ning, president of Nanjing Tanker. The investors accused Zhu Ning of a series of illegal activities including money laundering through Nanjing Tanker’s Singapore subsidiary, taking bribes in several shipbuilding contracts, manipulating financial results and violations in information disclosure.

Tianjin Marine, a Grand China Logistics affiliate, inked a letter of intention with Dalian Shipbuilding Industry (DSIC) for the construction of four LNG carriers, with capacities ranging from 160,000 cu m to 175,000 cu m. Not only is the order significant for Tianjin Marine, becoming the third Chinese owner to enter the LNG trades, it is also a massive fillip to DSIC (pictured), which becomes the second yard after Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding to build such sized LNG carriers.

China Cosco Holdings, the listed flagship of China’s

biggest state-run shipping group, posted a first quarter net loss of RMB1.88bn. Cosco swung to a 2013 net profit thanks to one-off gains. The move prevented the stock from being delisted in Shanghai.

Cosco accumulated losses totalling RMB20bn in 2011 and 2012. Its return to the red led analysts at Barclays Capital to comment witheringly: “We expect the resumption of losses now that the company has no incentive, in our view, to ‘manufacture’ another profitable result in 2014."

Hebei Ocean Shipping Co (Hosco) is exiting tankers to focus on dry bulk. The 1995built Hebei Mountain has been put on sale, likely heading for demolition. The 307,000 dwt VLCC is the last tanker in the fleet of the Hong Kong-based shipowner. Hosco has been selling off its tanker fleet for the past two years. Its bulk fleet comprises of 26 ships, of which 17 are capesizes.

China Merchants Group announced in late April that

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Dr Fu Yuning (pictured) has left the group to become chairman of China Resources, whose previous chairman was arrested in March on corruption charges.

Li Jianhong, China Merchants’ president, has been elevated to chairman. China Merchants has a port subsidiary, Hong Kong-listed China Merchants Holdings (International), as well as Shanghai-listed tanker firm China Merchants Energy Shipping, shipbuilder China Merchants Industry Holdings and it is also the largest shareholder of China International Marine Containers (CIMC), the world’s largest box manufacturer.

The ongoing consolidation via collaboration in Chinese shipping continues with SITC announcing it is teaming up Shanghai Hai Hua Shipping, the shipping line owned by Shanhai International Port (Group). The pair have entered into a strategic cooperation agreement whereby they will share cargo spaces and run joint container services between Shanghai and Taicang to Japan. Other routes in Asia are also being eyed. Cosco, China Shipping and Sinotrans have also just announced they will join forces on China - Japan box routes, one of the most competitive tradelanes in the world.

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YARDS ■ ■ ■

Well drilled If China’s top shipbuilders want to take on the Koreans at drillship construction they will need to adhere more strictly to schedules, writes Sam Chambers Drillships represent the cream of the crop for shipbuilders with prices for the highest spec drillships approaching $1bn – a domain that has been held largely by the Koreans, but latterly Chinese yards including Yantai CIMC Raffles and Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co (DSIC), have got in on the act, albeit for smaller, lower spec ship types.

The advantages of drillships lie in their ability to drill in water depths of more than 2,500 m and the time saved sailing between oilfields worldwide. The drilling equipment is passed through the vessel’s moon pool and connected to the well equipment below via the riser pipe. Once the water depth becomes too deep for mooring, drillships depend on dynamic positioning systems to keep the vessel in place while in operation.

Drillships are highly specialised pieces of equipment.

As such, quality engineering and project management are important factors when it comes to delivering on time

and on budget.

Over the last few years there has been a surge in the demand for drillships — driven by an increase in drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico and growing demand for these vessels in Brazil, West Africa, and the Arctic. By 1 November 2013 the worldwide fleet of operational drillships numbered 83, more than double its size in 2009 with another 50-odd on order.

In the past, Chinese shipyards only participated in the construction of parts of a drillship. Not any more. As with so much else in the shipbuilding space, the People’s Republic is stepping up to take on the Koreans at the most demanding of offshore constructions.

Nevertheless, teething problems are clear to see in this high tech environment and it will be a number of years before the Chinese can genuinely overhaul the Koreans in this ship type.

Shanghai Shipyard has taken the lead, ploughing on with a pair of drillships for Singapore’s Opus Offshore, part of the Reignwood Group. The yard

has taken on all aspects of the construction including project design, ship construction, key equipment procurement, and all equipment installation and commissioning, marking a real first for Chinese shipbuilding.

The first of the so-called Tiger series drillships was meant to have been delivered earlier this year, but is now behind schedule, although it was launched a couple of months ago.

Opus Offshore is not concerned by this slight delay clearly, announcing in April it had taken the two options for more drillships at the same yard.

With a designed tonnage of 45,000 tons, the Tiger drillship is 170.3 m long, 32 m wide and can drill to 30,000 ft.

In January this year Yantai CIMC Raffles won an order to build a multipurpose drillship. The drillship will be built for Norshore Holdings and is scheduled to be delivered in the second half of 2016. The deal also comes with options to construct up to another three similar drillships. It is a small-sized, multipurpose

drillship designed for riserless drilling and well intervention operations globally, including the North Sea. Norshore from Norway is familiar with Chinese yards, having created quite a stir in 2012 when it ordered a similarly small-sized drillship plus three options at DSIC. The super efficient Korean yards are still the out-and-out masters of drillship construction. Their efficiency has also led to very competitive prices of around $600m all inclusive, with short construction times and a track record to deliver on time and with good quality.

“I have a problem to see how the Chinese yards can compete on this price and at the same time deliver on time,” comments one drilling export.

Part of the problem is that Chinese yards are not too experienced in detail engineering and project management – this includes installation of the drilling equipment and related equipment onboard the vessels as per internationally recognised standards.

Getting drillships delivered on time will be critical as Cosco Shipyard can attest. Its financial results are still hurting from US-based Vantage Drilling’s decision last August to terminate an order for a drillship at Cosco Dalian Shipyard, citing delays in the vessel’s delivery.

Sinoship summer 2014

9

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OFFSHORE ■ ■ ■

China’s energy mix hot topic amid opulent breakfast spread Sam Chambers moderated an Offshore Business Breakfast in Singapore, held in association with Standard Chartered Bank. The People’s Republic formed a core of the debate The setting might have been the luxurious, iconic Fullerton Hotel in Singapore, but that did not stop an Offshore Business Breakfast, organised by our parent company, Asia Shipping Media, centering a great deal around China. The event was hosted in late March in association with Standard Chartered Bank.

Around 50% of the 44 people attending were vessel or rig owners leading to some frank and topical debate on the offshore markets.

In general, the mood from those attending was optimistic with long-term rates for rigs and OSVs looking solid despite a likely blip this year.

Nigel Anton, global head of shipping finance at Standard Chartered, related how there was no sign of owners cutting back expansion plans and calls for cash were increasing.

A sign of a confident market was the clear decline in speculative orders with yards such as Malaysia’s Nam Cheong in attendance noting owners were increasingly signing for build to order ships. Nam Cheong offloads a lot of its orders to Chinese yards.

In a presentation given by the bank’s director of oil and gas equity research, Duke Suttikulpanich, he said producers’ ROEs have been declining for the last three years, and while oil prices have been

dropping with many saying the price of a barrel might hover around $90, Standard Chartered disagrees saying a barrel will be worth $108 - $115 from 2014 to 2017.

Independent oil companies’ development capex has slowed down from 5% last year to 1% this year, and likely no growth at all next year, Suttikulpanich said, but stressed this decline is mainly onshore. “Offshore is still strong,” he said, with 7% growth expected this year.

Most Asian producers are moving away from shallow water to deep water,

24%

CNOOC’s exploration and development spending growth this year, according to Standard Chartered estimates

Suttikulpanich noted, adding that there was a need for plenty more semi-submersibles in the region. Asian growth is coming from national oil companies who are likely to account for around 70% of the spending increase this year, Suttikulpanich said.

Offshore spending in China should show strong growth in 2014-15 driven by CNOOC’s production ramp up, Suttikulpanich said. To achieve CNOOC’s production guidance for 2011-15, the current run rate implies the company has to deliver 20% production growth in 2015. “We expect CNOOC’s exploration and development spending to grow by 24% in 2014 and a further of at least 10% in 2015,” the analyst maintained.

Shale gas formed a lively plank of the debate at the breakfast – with many in the room doubting various bullish forecasts on potential outputs

in the US and China.

China’s progress in shale gas development had been “huge” in the past six months, Suttikulpanich said. Sichuan shale gas alone would give China 30% of China’s energy needs by 2035, he added. China has the world’s largest reserves of shale gas.

Shesh Venkatraman, ceo of Singapore’s Jaya Holdings, was among the shale gas dissenters, questioning both the cost of shale production as well as its environmental impact.

Much time was spent on China, both its energy needs and its vessel building capabilities. Panellists said the People’s Republic was a good place to build so long as owners are diligent. Quality, timing and price are all attractive in China, argued Manav Kumar, director at Dynamic Offshore Drilling, although he recommended to add in an extra couple of months for any construction project to iron out certain building wrinkles.

Quite so, agreed another panellist, James Pang, managing director of fast growing OSV specialist Pacific Radiance.

Building in China requires a lot of supervision, he said, noting that his company has 30 supervisors based there alone. Pang also revealed that the days of generous 10:90 financing terms are “fast disappearing” in China.

Sinoship summer 2014

11

■ ■ ■ FINANCE

Banks are back Alfred Romann brings highlights from this year’s Marine Money bash in Hong Kong

Long conspicuous for their absence, banks are coming back into ship finance as orders for newbuilds rocket upwards.

Orders for new ships spiked in the couple of years before the global financial crisis but that led to massive overcapacity in most categories a couple of years later, just as demand for shipping plummeted along with global trade.

And orders for newbuilds died down, partly as a result of this overcapacity that sent day rates for ships plummeting down and partly due to the sudden lack of financing.

In the years after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008, the European banks that dominated ship finance turned inwards looking to shore up their own balance sheets and capital needs. And they left a big gap, according to Nigel Anton, global head of shipping finance at Standard Chartered Bank.

In 2007, there was as much 12

www.sinoshipnews.com

of $94bn in debt related to ship finance. By 2010, that number had dropped to $38bn, said Anton during this year’s Marine Money Hong Kong event.

“Automatically, we had a big gap to fill. How was that gap going to be filled?” he mused.

But in the last year orders for new ships are recovering along with prices and global trade.

“Interest for new bulk carrier buildings really started to pick up exponentially throughout last year reaching a peak of almost 13m dwt of new orders in November,” said Ralph Leszcynsky, head of research at Banchero Costa Group.

Throughout 2013, there were a reported 968 new orders for dry bulk carriers in most sizes.

Supramaxes were in particularly high demand, amounting to 390 of those new orders. And the number of orders through this January and February, already at 155, suggests 2014 might be just as busy.

Something similar is happening with tankers, where capacity is climbing back up to what Leszcynsky called “dangerous levels”. The 317 orders in 2013 were three times as high as in 2012.

All these new orders are once again creating a danger of overcapacity. Even as new ships are delivered over the next year or two, a lot of old ships that have been sidelined or slow steaming are being brought back into regular service.

Still, the reality is that financing is increasingly available once again and shipyards are cranking out ships.

The gap in the availability of

317

Tanker orders last year, three times higher than in 2012

finance half a decade ago was generally filled in one of a couple of ways.

On the demand side, many orders for new ships were cancelled and that cut down on the need for new finance.

On the supply side, new sources of funding emerged from multiple quarters.

Private equity got involved.

Chinese policy banks like the China Development Bank and Export-Import Bank of China (China Exim Bank) stepped in followed by leasing companies often owned by Chinese banks.

Sources of finance from South Korea also upped their game and smaller regional banks in Asia, once sidelined by their larger European or global peers, were suddenly interested.

By last year, the amount of debt linked to shipping finance recovered to $56bn, still short of the 2007 peak but much higher than in 2010. And this year the amount of debt should be even higher, said Anton.

“There is a lot of activity right now,” he said.

And this increased activity is attracting the banks back into the business. Greater understanding of the industry and larger capital coffers is making it easier for them to finance shipowners.

“The banking sector has changed a lot recently. Banks are coming back,” said Anton There is a danger, however, of history repeating itself, said Leszcynsky.

“Most of the problems across most sectors were coming from excessive orders and excessive deliveries… It is very, very important that we don’t make the same mistakes again.”

Commodities ■ ■ ■

PRIMED FOR TAKEOFF By 2020, the US is expected to export upwards of 795,000 bpd, with China’s total imports reaching 500,000 bpd

China leading race for shale imports Mark Downing charts how the People’s Republic is changing its sourcing of gas from the Middle East to the US The stage is set for the US shale gas boom to feed the head of China’s petrochemical supply chain. Sinopec, China’s largest state petrochemical refiner — ranked fifth largest company worldwide by revenue — has just secured a major long-term deal to buy liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from Phillips 66.

Sinopec will import 34,000 barrels per day (bpd) worth $850m at current prices by 2016. That is tenfold China’s current US imports which had only begun last year.

China is ramping up to import substantially more of this cleaner and cheaper American petrochemical feedstock input in anticipation of increased downstream demand, challenging the established Middle Eastern LPG suppliers.

LPG, a compressed mix of propane and butane, is both a cleaner burning fuel for heating and transportation and a basic

raw material of the petrochemical business. It is produced by refining fossil fuels or sourced during the extraction of oil or natural gas flows emerging from the ground. Breakthroughs in hydraulic fracturing combined with advances in horizontal drilling have unlocked unprecedented quantities of US shale gas, resulting in a surge of lowcost production that is pushing down global prices. While Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia together supplied 80% of China’s LPG imports of 132,000 bpd in 2013, the US is fast becoming a major supplier.

874,000

Barrels per day of LPG consumed by China, the world’s number one LPG market

Using about 874,000 bpd, China is the world’s largest LPG consumer, with only around 5% being used by the petrochemical sector, according to Reuters.

LPG is a cheaper alternative to Chinese petrochemical feedstock inputs like naphtha, of which there is a current shortage. Most of China’s LPG is produced domestically as a refinery by-product but impurities make it more dirty and expensive to use as a feedstock. Hence cheaper American LPG is even more attractive because fracking produces purer propane.

Since American produced LPG is not subject to energy security export limitations, unlike crude oil and liquefied natural gas, the US became a net exporter of LPG in 2012.

By 2020, the US is expected to export upwards of 795,000 bpd, with China’s total imports reaching 500,000 bpd, overtaking other key Asian importers

like Singapore and Indonesia, according to energy consultancy FACTS Global Energy.

China has secured up to about 100,000 bpd of long-term US LPG imports predominantly to Sinopec and several private propane dehydrogenation plants (PDH) making plastics.

Trade will begin in a year or two pending completion of US export facilities and the expansion of the Panama Canal to accommodate very large gas carriers (VLGCs) which will shorten the passage to Asia by two weeks. However, two of the five companies scheduled to bring their PDH units online in the first half of this year may be forced to postpone pending delays. Since most of these companies have signed term contracts for feedstock supply, they may be forced to resell their feedstock cargoes until operational.

Chinese firms are expanding their gas carrier fleet capacity to accommodate the major new domestic petrochemical plants designed around LPG as a feedstock. A strong domestic fleet can move cargo more economically on a free on board basis.

Plus it empowers sourcing from more diverse sources, most notably skirting sanctions imposed on Iran. Over the past couple of years, China’s domestic capacity developed beyond a fleet of coastal vessels to six secondhand VLGCs capable of intercontinental journeys, according to Ramthan Hussain of the research firm Platts. As secondhand ships become scarcer, local companies like Oriental Energy have placed newbuild orders with options for even more.

Globally, around 50 new VLGCs are expected to be delivered over the next three years. Thanks to the opening up of the US’s vast cheap shale-sourced supply, an improved shipping passage to Asia and ever growing Chinese demand, gas carrier shipowners are bullish on the future of the LPG market.

Sinoship summer 2014

13

■ ■ ■ LOGISTICS

Wild west Jason Jiang on the difficulties of shifting cargoes around Xinjiang

Few areas in China are more desolate or tough to traverse than Xinjiang, the giant territory that yokes the People’s Republic with Central Asia, an increasingly important source of raw materials. The Gobi and the Taklamakan deserts form much of the terrain, the latter known as the ‘Sea of Death’ by the local Uighur population. The region formed an important part of the ancient Silk Road, with brave traders fighting sandstorms to bring marvels from the east to Europe.

An old Chinese phrase says, “If you want to get rich, you pave the road first”. While billions have been invested to develop this backwater it is still a long way behind most of the rest of the nation. Chinese president Xi Jinping just concluded a tour of the region and urged for faster development of this mineral rich area, which has land borders of more than 5,600 km, amounting to 25% of China’s total land borders.

The local logistics industry is constrained by the unfavourable geographical environment and climate.

Now with increasing volume of investment projects across Xinjiang in response to central government’s call to promote the economy in China’s west, the 14

www.sinoshipnews.com

autonomous region has been trying to upgrade its supply chain capabilities.

At the end of March, the Xinjiang autonomous government announced that it has put logistics as one of the top priorities for development.

Ge Ju, deputy general secretary of the Xinjiang Logistics Industry Association, says the current status of the local logistics set up is still very basic.

“The economy in Xinjiang is a typical oasis economy,” Ge says, with the main resources being in the desert making it tricky for logistics companies to set up networks. The logistics industry in Xinjiang is imbalanced as most transport activities are export-orientated.

“We don’t have any similar logistics market to follow considering the special geographical environment here, we have to create our own logistics system,” Ge says.

Two special economic zones, Kashgar and Korgas, have recently been handed an annual RMB50m each to develop logistics infrastructure.

Korean logistics firms Kukdong and Taewoong Logistics have signed with Korgas this year. The two Korean firms will establish a joint venture to develop a logistics park

in the area and start logistics services linking Xinjiang with Central Asia, Western Asia, Europe and other regions in China. Total investment on the project is RMB200m.

Construction was completed this April on Xinjiang Baoda Logistics Park, the largest railway logistics park in Xinjiang.

The logistics park is located at Kuche in southern Xinjiang and has a designed annual cargo handling capacity of 3m tons.

According to its development plan, the logistics park will mainly transport steel products, non-metallic minerals and cotton out of the region and transport fertilizers for backhaul cargoes.

An even larger scale railway logistics park also started construction in Urumqi in April.

Total planned investment on the project is RMB5bn. The project is expected to start operations in 2015 and serve as the main logistics hub in Xinjiang. It is

5,600

Kilometres of land borders Xinjiang has, one quarter of China’s total

also the first dedicated railway logistics park in Urumqi, a city that can lay claim to being the furthest away from the sea in the world.

In recent years, Xinjiang has witnessed a swift development of border trade with Central Asian countries and Russia.

Indeed, Xinjiang has ranked as the number one province for border trade among China’s nine land frontier provinces for nearly ten consecutive years.

On April 23, Xinjiang autonomous government and Chelyabinsk Oblast government in Russia inked an agreement to cooperate on trade, technology and logistics. Under the agreement, the two governments will work together to develop a large scale logistics centre in Yuzhnouralsk and establish an international logistics link from Urumqi to Astana and on to Chelyabinsk. The logistics centre is scheduled to be completed in November and will have a designed annual capacity of 100m tons.

“Although the logistics infrastructure in Xinjiang has gained some development in recent years, it still lacks an efficient information platform,” says Chen Zhi, general manager of Hengxin International Logistics Trade, a leading logistics firm in Xinjiang.

PROFILE ■ ■ ■

Wang’s way The CEO of Seaspan, Gerry Wang, talks containers and aviation with editor Sam Chambers

A

fnyone who has ever met Gerry Wang, the boss of Seaspan, cannot fail to have clocked his true enthusiasm for the sector he is in, container shipping. He’s quick to engage, discuss, and even argue points of view on the industry he is so passionate about.

As one of the most successful players in the container segment of the last dozen years, Wang’s world view is decidedly optimistic.

“The container industry is a global infrastructure industry connecting manufacturers with consumers, the cornerstone of globalisation,” he insists. “Without container shipping there is no globalisation, there is no Walmart. Container ships make up the new Silk Road connecting China with the rest of the world.”

Wang is quick to dismiss talk of overcapacity in the industry when we meet up.

The total orderbook is some 22% of the extent fleet, he points out, which spread over three years is little more than 7%. “That is not much,” says arguably the world’s best-known container tonnage provider. Wang claims the orderbook today is actually near a historic low. Moreover, when one takes into account effective loading of a typical boxship, a fifth can be knocked off that figure, he maintains.

“Certain tradelanes have an imbalance, but overall there is no oversupply,” he stresses.

So then, why the lousy freight rates, if there is not overcapacity? Here, Wang is in his element, quick as a flash, with a lengthy reply on the travails of the industry and the solutions at hand.

“The industry has structural problems that it must deal with,” he says. Pointing to the creation of the P3 alliance between Maersk, CMA CGM and MSC, Wang says such collaboration is the way ahead. “The industry is going towards a more systematic approach to business,” he says. “Container shipping is not like dry bulk or tankers, it is

more like the airlines,” he says, noting how airlines cope with capacity much better and how they work better through alliances.

Wang reckons the container industry is now in the process of copying what the airline industry has done and this should address the structural problems it has.

“Lines need to work together and learn their lesson from the past,” he says, adding: “They need to become more united to make better economic returns. This industry cannot survive if they continue to lose like money like they have.”

Wang was born in China’s Anhui province in 1962. Educated at Shanghai Maritime University and then the London School of Economics, he started out with China Merchants Group in Hong Kong. In 1990 he moved to Vancouver and a few years later joined Seaspan, owned by the billionaire Ted Washington. It was here that he linked up with China Shipping to get their containerline up and running by taking leases from Seaspan. From there, the leasing model he established snowballed. Seaspan went public in 2005, raising $700m.

Seaspan’s fleet now numbers 87 ships with a total capacity of 606,300 teu. The

largest ships on its books at the moment at 14,000 teu, and Wang acknowledges even larger ships are a necessity, an “unstoppable trend”.

“You have no choice,” he says. “You have to get them as they give you economical means. Whoever has the economical means wins the battle.”

This battle for scales of economy is also bringing in an era of consolidation for the sector, something that does not surprise Wang at all.

“It is all about per teu costs. It is all about survival, arriving at the lowest teu costs,” he says. “If you can partner with someone to reduce your costs then go ahead.”

As for Seaspan itself, don’t expect this Canadian firm to hang around.

“We will continue to grow,” Wang says.

“This industry is simple – if you don't grow you will be left behind. My investment theory is whatever works to become stronger, more profitable.”

Seaspan has stuck with the same philosophy over the past decade, he says, namely chasing long-term contracts with reliable, financially secure clients and always seeking the latest, modern, fuel efficient ships. “It’s a recipe for success,” says Wang with a knowing chuckle.

NEED TO KNOW NEED TO KNOW

Seaspan Vancouver-based owner and manager of containerships. Charters vessels on long-term fixed-rate time charters to major liner companies. Fleet of the New Yorklisted firm stands at 87.

Sinoship summer 2014

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Meet us at Posidonia, June 2-6, KVH Booth #1.218

PROFILE ■ ■ ■

Tonnage cascade hits domestic container trades Jason Jiang chats with the boss of Zhonggu Shipping

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ffected by the doldrums in international shipping and the growth slowdown of domestic consumption, the domestic container shipping market is also facing a series of problems including overcapacity, low freight rates and difficulties to secure financing. At this stage, maintaining a healthy financial status has become essential to shipowners in the market.

Lu Zongjun, the general manager of Zhonggu Shipping, one of the major domestic container shipping players in China, believes cost control is very important for shipping companies at this challenging time.

Lu has been in the shipping industry since 1990 after his graduation from Wuhan University of Technology.

Zhonggu Shipping was previously called Yangpu Zhonggu Xinliang Shipping, the shipping unit of state-owned China Grains and Oils Group (COFCO), a major grain trading company in China. The company was privatised in 2003 and changed to its current name.

Currently Zhonggu Shipping operates a fleet of more than 40 vessels with total capacity of about 30,000 teu. 12 of the vessels are self-owned and the rest of the vessels are on short-term chartering contracts.

“The shipping industry is a capital intensive industry. We mainly operate with chartered vessels which will gives us less pressure in financing, most of the vessels we chartered are on three to six months contracts and that’s common in the domestic coastal container shipping market,” Lu explains.

“We don’t like to gamble; we put financial safety at the top of our operations. We are always well prepared in cash flow. Although the current market is depressed, we will still make investments if there are suitable assets on the market,” Lu says.

In February, Zhonggu Shipping placed orders for ten 2,500 teu containerships at Zhoushan Wuzhou Shipbuilding & Repairing, and deliveries of the vessels will start from next year.

Now the company operates several subsidiaries with businesses in shipping, shipmanagement, ship chartering and bunkering. Zhonggu Shipping Group was established last year to oversee all its businesses. In the past year, Zhonggu Shipping has added 10 more offices and 10 vessels into its fleet. It ranked top last year in terms of domestic container throughput at several major ports including Qingdao port, Shanghai port, Taicang port, Xiamen port

We don’t like to gamble; we put financial safety at the top of our operations

and Guangzhou port.

Lu believes the domestic shipping market will see ships getting larger; a tonnage cascade is coming.

“The domestic shipping market is closely connected to the international shipping market, ships are getting larger in the international shipping market and the trend is also inevitable in the domestic shipping market,” says Lu. In order to deal with the current downturn, Zhonggu Shipping is also making efforts to cooperate with other container shipping companies and ports.

“The cooperation between Cosco and China Shipping on domestic routes has set a good example for regulating in the domestic shipping market, and it is a good way to solve the overcapacity problem,” Lu says. “A good way is to set up stable alliances between companies which have similar capacities.”

Zhonggu Shipping has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Dalian Port Group. Under the agreement, the companies will have full cooperation in the areas of route expansion, port operation, logistics base development and financing.

Lu also suggests the government could solve the overcapacity problem in the domestic container shipping market through administrative means. “The Ministry of Transport has already set up a threshold for the domestic coastal oil shipping market by forbidding new capacity entering the market. They could introduce a similar policy for the domestic container shipping market,” Lu urges.

According to Lu, the current goal of Zhonggu Shipping is to achieve container throughput of 1m teu at 10 major ports in China in the coming five years.

NEED TO KNOW NEED TO KNOW

Zhonggu Shipping Formerly part of state run grain giant COFCO, Zhonggu Shipping was privatised in 2003 and is now one of the largest domestic container shipping operators. Fleet stands at just over 40 ships with a total capacity of around 30,000 teu.

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■ ■ ■ Profile

Hong Kong champion Kingsley Koo is using his two-year tenure as chair of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association to promote the territory to world shipping

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ate last year Kingsley Koo, a director at the venerable 104-year-old shipping firm Valles Steamship, became chairman of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association (HKSOA), one of the most vocal shipping organisations in the region. He has not hung around, making very plain that a significant part of his twoyear remit will be to get Hong Kong firmly back on the maritime map, something that seemingly dovetails neatly with the plans of current chief executive of the territory, C Y Leung.

“My aim as chairman is to promote Hong Kong shipping to the world,” he tells SinoShip. Koo has travelled to various shipping centres around the world to highlight Hong Kong’s advantages. He and members of the Hong Kong government will also be at Posidonia, the big Greek show, this June.

“We are a major maritime centre,” Koo says, while acknowledging that local rivals Singapore and Shanghai both have plenty to offer too.

“It is up to a company to decide what is ideal for their own operational needs,” he says. “Hong Kong is a good maritime centre,” he stresses, “as it has all the support functions here – owners, managers, bankers, lawyers, as well as a very good local workforce.”

Koo says that the current Hong Kong government is more aware of shipping’s contribution to the local economy, and the HKSOA is working closely with the authorities to push maritime initiatives. Moreover, Beijing is now promoting Hong Kong as a shipping centre. Koo is especially happy with last year’s decision by the local government to earmark HK$100m for aviation and maritime training to develop local talent.

On top of promoting Hong Kong, Koo is looking to address common issues affecting HKSOA members, especially regulatory ones such as the environment, ballast water, and

ports of refuge.

“The environment is a major concern of the local shipping community,” Koo says, noting that next year a law comes in requiring ships to change fuel while at anchor and at berth in Hong Kong.

Koo is a director at family controlled Valles, as is his brother Eric, while elder brother David is the managing director, and also a former HKSOA chairman. Koo’s father, KM Koo, one of the last of the old guard of founding members of the HKSOA, passed away four years ago. The next generation at Valles is already being immersed in the world of shipping, with David’s son and Eric’s daughter working at the company. “They are trying to learn the business now,” comments Koo. “As a family shipping company, we are very conservative,” says Koo. “We do not spend unnecessarily. We maintain a similar fleet size over the years that we feel comfortable with. We go for replacement tonnage not expansion.”

The fleet today is made up of two panamax bulkers, eight aframaxes, three MR product tankers and there are two LR product tankers on order. The fleet has an average age of less than six years.

Koo is not optimistic about the freight rate environment, noting that supply and demand still remain too imbalanced.

“There’s too much shipbuilding capacity.

Owners are placing orders speculatively.

There’s too much speculation for what is unnecessary tonnage,” he concludes.

Koo graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a masters

Hong Kong is a good maritime centre as it has all the support functions here 18

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degree in naval architecture and marine engineering and a masters degree in shipbuilding and shipping management.

He joined classification society American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) as a plan approval engineer in New York, and worked with ABS in various locations. Prior to joining Valles, Koo headed up ABS’s Greater China operations.

NEED TO KNOW

NEED TO KNOW Valles Steamship Founded in Shanghai in 1910, moved to Hong Kong in 1949. Privately held by the Koo family. The fleet today is made up of two panamax bulkers, eight aframaxes, three MR product tankers plus two LR product tankers on order.

PROFILE ■ ■ ■

What it takes to be an international maritime centre Lv Jing is one of China’s foremost maritime economists. He is unimpressed with so many Chinese cities chasing IMC status

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s one of the major countries in the shipping world, China sees shipping as a cornerstone industry. In the past decade, China has been sparing no effort to develop the shipping industry. It has designated a few major port cities including Shanghai, Ningbo, Dalian and Xiamen for the development of international shipping centres.

Plenty of other coastal cities have also made their own plans to develop international shipping centres.

As a shipping economist, Lv Jing, the dean of the Transportation Management College at Dalian Maritime University, has been dedicated to the research of shipping since the 1980s. He is also a member of the International Association of Maritime Economists and a director of the China Communications and Transportation Association.

He tells SinoShip that blindly developing international shipping centres might not help the industry. On the contrary, he says, it could be a waste of resources.

“Currently lots of cities in China say they are developing so called international shipping centres,” he says. “I think it is misleading, a real international shipping centre should have advanced port infrastructures and use the international shipping industry as a bond that promotes the economic development of the region and the hinterland, and its operation should also be based on market mechanisms,” Lv says.

For Lv, the port is the basis for an international shipping centre, but by no means all of it. Now many cities only focus on the development of the port itself and ignore the development of soft infrastructures. The concept of an international shipping centre also advances with the times and it has different meanings at different development periods,

Lv points out.

Located on the southern end of China’s Liaodong Peninsula, facing the Yellow Sea on the east and Bohai Sea on the west, Dalian is backed by the vast hinterland of northeast China. With 1,906 km of coastline, Dalian's shipping network connects Bohai Bay and northeast China to ports across the world.

Currently Dalian port operates one of the largest crude oil terminals in China, with annual handling capacity of 80m tons and it is the most important distribution centre for oil products and liquid chemicals in northeast China. It is also the largest container port in northeast China, its international container throughput accounts for nearly 97% of total throughput in the region. The city is currently working to develop itself into an international shipping centre for northeast Asia.

“Dalian has great advantages to become an international shipping centre,” Lv says, however he reckons Dalian should also

Blindly developing international shipping centres does not help the industry

enhance its soft environment including policy, culture, law and education in shipping.

He points out what needs to be changed during the development is focusing more on theory than practical operation.

“To become a real international shipping centre, Dalian still has a long way to go,” Lv says.

In order to deal with the current shipping downturn, slow steaming has become common place, but Lv thinks this is not a clever solution for the industry grappling with overcapacity.

“I don’t think slow steaming is a sustainable solution,” he says, arguing it cannot meet market demands.

“The liners have their schedules to catch and slow steaming also requires shipping companies to deploy more ships and crew which will also add cost to the companies,” says Lv. Lv reckons the best way for major Chinese shipping companies to get through the current downturn is via capital injections and mergers and acquisitions. “The development pace is relatively slow if the major shipping companies in China, like Cosco and China Shipping, merely seek development through route cooperation,” Lv concludes.

NEED TO TO KNOW KNOW NEED Dalian Maritime University The only maritime university in the country to be funded by central government, DMU is one of the most prestigious names in maritime training worldwide.

Alumni include Cosco’s former boss Wei Jiafu and Hosco head Gao Yanming. Current student population is around 17,000.

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Crewing ■ ■ ■

Where China stands in the world of manning SinoShip contacts top shipmanagers to understand the strengths and weaknesses in the Chinese manning industry EVERY YEAR WE send out a questionnaire for the world’s top managers to fill in; the answers tend to provide intriguing insights into the state of Chinese crewing. Key takeaways from this year’s poll show that any cost advantage that Chinese seafarers used to have has been rapidly eroded and the operations of crew agents in the People’s Republic remain too murky.

Rewind 10 years ago and everyone was anticipating vast amounts of Chinese on international ocean-going ships. Why hasn’t this happened to the extent that was hyped a decade back?

There are a couple of reasons why China has not emerged as the panacea it was thought to be for global crew supply, says Univan

The strengthening of the renminbi has closed the gap in wages between the Chinese and other nationalities Ship Management ceo Bjorn Hojgaard.

The first one is that Chinese officers to the majority of international owners are still seen as an emerging supply, where quality and especially English standards need to improve for the nation to be competitive vis-à-vis the traditional supply countries like India or Philippines.

“This may not be entirely fair as

standards and English competency levels have moved up in recent years, but the perception is sticky and coupled with a relatively high wage level for Chinese officers the uptake of Chinese crew as replacement for other nationalities is slow,” says Hojgaard.

Secondly, the rapid Chinese economic growth in the past decade has led to vast opportunities at good pay ashore for officers with experience from international seagoing vessels. Career officers are thus rare, as many Chinese officers get lured ashore to good jobs early in their careers, leaving shipowners with difficulties in retaining staff, especially the senior ranks.

“The fact that direct employment of Chinese officers by non-Chinese entities remains difficult is probably one of the main reasons why we have not seen the numbers of Chinese officers going abroad as expected,” argues Anglo-Eastern’s ceo, Peter Cremers.

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■ ■ ■ FEATURE

Crew agents’ fee structures lack transparency Kishore Rajvanshy, managing director of Hong Kong’s Fleet Management, has two other important points to add to the discussion. The strengthening of the Chinese currency has closed the gap in wages between the Chinese and other nationalities, he observes, while the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) has raised the bar as far as transparency of wage structures is concerned.

Kinny Pun, fleet personnel general manager for Wallem Ship Management, suggests the hype a decade ago for China’s potential for providing seafarers was well founded, it just needed to be understood in the context of a developing market that would take time to be on par with other leading seafarer nations.

Today, the Chinese are the largest single nationality in Wallem’s 12,000-strong seafarer pool, making up to 40% of some ranks.

“We have found that if clients trial a full PRC crew, the client then opts to expand the Chinese crew to other vessels,” says Pun. “What was not foreseen was the huge demand for seafarers arising out of burgeoning Chinese fleets, that sucked in not only most of the new talent being churned out, but even existing Chinese seafarers from foreign owned vessels,” observes Rajaish Bajpaee, ceo of Bernhard Schulte

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Shipmanagement (BSM).

“The situation now appears to have stabilised,” says Bajpaee, “and we do not see the acute shortages we have faced earlier, rather, we are seeing a steady growth of numbers of Chinese crew on our vessels.”

How do you get Chinese to accept responsibilities for errors they make, and how do you ensure that these errors are one-offs?

All respondents to this question were at pains to stress that the Chinese do not react differently to other nationalities, and that every nationality was treated the same.

“We have not seen Chinese reacting fundamentally different from other nationalities: once they make mistakes, it takes seafarers of any nationality a bit of courage nowadays to come out with accepting responsibility,” says Anglo-Eastern’s Cremers.

“It needs constant work to get them to be open, which can only be built through more interaction,” says Rajvanshy from Fleet.

The key, according to Wallem’s Pun, is to build an on board culture of support and understanding which ensures all sea staff make near miss reports and bring safety and operational issues to the attention of senior officers or staff in the management office.

How do crewing agents and crew training institutes compare in quality and reliability to, say, the Philippines or India?

Univan’s experience is that the hardware in the training facilities compares favourably with similar institutions in the Philippines, but that the faculty and curriculum taught are the areas with most potential for improvement.

“Having the best equipment and simulators will only go so far in successfully implementing ‘learning,” says Danish national Hojgaard, adding: “The Chinese institutions could pick some low hanging fruit by benchmarking the best methods and pedagogical principles available internationally.”

Crew training on average is comparable or even better than elsewhere, according to Fleet’s Rajvanshy, as it is not easy to get training school licences. The challenge, he says, remains with the communication skills in the English language.

China’s standard of intake is kept very high and strictly controlled through the national entrance test, while in the Philippines the individual institutes are

left to set their own bar, observes BSM’s Bajpaee.

Additionally, once the students have joined, the oversight on the institutes’ syllabus and training is tight in China, which leads to a high standard of graduates in all academies.

While rating crew competence and training extremely high – at a par with India at least and better than the Philippines, Anglo-Eastern’s Cremers has major issues with crew agents.

Fee structures lack transparency and the priority to the local market makes things difficult, he says.

However, Fleet’s Rajvanshy detects change in the air in this sector. “Manning agents are being forced by the MLC to be

CREWING ■ ■ ■

more transparent. The old style of doing business is changing,” he claims.

While service quality of crew agents was indeed lousy, this is changing, concurs Bajpaee as more private entities are allowed into manning. “The realisation starts to sink in that the customer cannot be forced to accept substandard service and has many other options available,” he says.

What plans do you have to grow the amount of Chinese seafarers on your books?

To this question there was some caution from some of the senior shipmanagers interviewed on account of the rapidly increasing salaries in China. There were also repeated calls to liberalise the industry in

the People’s Republic to make managers feel more comfortable investing time, capital and energy in developing human resources there.

“Due to the dwindling cost advantage our plans are to maintain the existing pool of 1,000 seafarers,” says Rajvanshy.

Hojgaard from Univan is of a similar feeling, saying: “The growth in the supply of Chinese crew for our ships will depend on the competitiveness of these.”

Others are more gung-ho. BSM’s Bajpaee tells SinoShip, “We will continue growing our pool of more than 1,000 Chinese seafarers, and hope that the Chinese government’s liberal polices will continue to open the market, so that one day we can directly employ our seafarers on whom we have

Supply is ample and of good quality invested many training hours to develop their maritime career with us.”

Anglo-Eastern, meanwhile, intends to continue expanding its current intake of 765 Chinese officers and crew by at least 20% a year with a lot of expansion expected in its offshore division.

Concluding, Hojgaard says growth will ultimately depend on what the client wants.

“At the end of the day,” he says, “the demand side of the equation is the important one, as supply is ample and of good quality for the owners willing to invest to get the best.”

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■ ■ ■ FEATURE

Green but not lean Jason Jiang hears the local shipbreaking sector is struggling despite Beijing’s recent scrapping subsidies

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rying to get the nation’s shipping and shipbuilding industries back on track with a greater supply/ demand equilibrium, this January Beijing introduced a new ship scrapping policy.

Authorities are now handing out subsidies of RMB1,500 per gross tonne to shipping companies that scrap vessels ahead of their due demolition date and order new vessels on home soil. Half of the subsidy will be paid on completion of scrapping and the other half after the completion of the newbuildings. Nearly RMB5bn has been set aside for these subsidies.

With this carrot, major Chinese shipping companies have accelerated the scrapping of their older ships.

China Cosco Holdings has chosen 41 ships totaling 2.52m dwt to be scrapped this year. China Shipping Development has earmarked 10 ships for the welder’s torch this year, following on from 18 in 2013.

Other state run shipping companies including Sinotrans&CSC and China Merchants Group have all announced fleet optimisation plans.

It is good news for the local recycling scene amid tough commercial times.

Chinese backing their own yards is some salvation.

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Greek shipbroker Shiptrade Services in a recent report noted how Chinese yards for much of this year have relied solely on local state owned lines, taking advantage of the subsidies offered.

“I think it is a very good incentive policy, it gives shipowners motive to scrap old vessels and order new ships. But the shipowners should carefully review the ships they are going to scrap, some old vessels might still have room to make profit,” says Hu Keyi, vice general manager of Jiangnan Shipyard.

According to statistics from the China National Shiprecycling Association (CNSA), 62.6% of the scrapped ships bought by Chinese shipbreaking companies in 2013 were bulk carriers. Jiangsu and Guangdong accounted for 80% of the shipbreaking business. The total shipbreaking tonnage in China has increased greatly in 2013, almost doubling over 2012. However, total import scrap ship tonnage dropped by 10% during

There’s a record high price difference between China and the Indian subcontinent

the same period.

“The total shipbreaking volume might exceed expectations this year,” says Wu Jun, vice general secretary of CNSA.

Profit slide However, the fast growing shipbreaking volume in 2013 didn’t bring more profit to the shipbreaking companies in China. On the contrary, their losses have widened due to the sluggish scrap steel market in China.

“The scrap steel price dropped by 10% in 2013, inventory backlog, and increasing labour costs have made most shipbreaking companies in China suffer losses in 2013,” Wu says.

Wu reckons the outlook for the shipbreaking market in 2014 is still not optimistic.

“The demand for scrap steel is still decreasing as the production capacity in the steel industry has been further squeezed.

The shipbreaking industry might continue to suffer from losses this year,” Wu tells SinoShip.

According to research from CNSA, the steelmakers’ demand for scrap steel has sharply decreased by up to 60% in the past year.

“The new shipbreaking policy mainly favours the shipowners. The government

Ship Recycling ■ ■ ■

We’d rather keep the scrap steel in stock than selling it should also make policies to support the shipbreaking industry too,” Wu suggests.

Petter Heier, ceo of China recycling proponents Grieg Green, admits, “The dropping demand for steel, and especially scrap steel in China has contributed to a record high price difference between China and the Indian subcontinent.” He adds: “This price difference is, of course, hard to overcome for shipowners without specific requirements with regards to safety and the environment.”

Nevertheless, Heier says there are more and more owners changing their policy towards a more sustainable recycling approach.

Quite so, agrees Clem Chang, chief operating officer for Norwegian consulting firm Metizoft. “In general there is an increasing demand with a lot of owners looking into corporate social responsibility while also trying to meet mandatory requirements,” Chang says.

Among one of the most keen owners to recycle in a green manner is Norway’s Höegh Autoliners. The ceo, Ingar Skiaker, says the company has always had a deeply held belief in taking care of people and environment. “It is only natural that we therefore chose to end the service of our old vessels in a manner that is safe to both humans and the environment,” he says.

Höegh Autoliners has recycled 15 vessels at shipyards in China so far with, Skiaker claims, no waste or substandard usage of labour.

Green push In order to enhance the competitiveness of the shipbreaking industry and protect the coastal environment, China has been promoting green ship recycling and has made rules to forbid the traditional method of beaching vessels. The government is also making a list of qualified green recycling yards, which will be sent to shipowners. The green ship recycling policy has added additional costs for the shipbreaking yards making them uncompetitive price-wise to their rivals on the subcontinent where beaching is still very much the modus operandi.

“The Chinese cannot offer competitive pricing compared to yards in South Asia,” says Metizoft’s Chang.

However, both Chang and CNSA’s Wu believe green ship recycling is the only way out for the Chinese shipbreaking industry and it will be the future of shipbreaking worldwide.

“The new ship scrapping incentive policy is limited to some green shipyards chosen by government. We are one of the chosen shipyards, which will make us more competitive in the market,” says Jia Dalong, director of sales and marketing of DSIC Marine Services, a new ship recycling company jointly established by Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co, Singapore containerline PIL and Angang Steel. Jia says the company’s goal is to accomplish 60 ship repairs and 300,000 ltd of demolition

per annum.

Zhoushan Changhong International Ship Recycling, invested by Jiangsu Xin Chang Jiang Group, is a new entrant in the shipbreaking industry. The company has one of the largest and most advanced green ship recycling facilities in China. Currently Changhong has formed partnerships with many top owners in the world including Maersk and Shell. It scrapped 18 vessels in 2013 including one of the largest LNG carriers for Shell and the company’s schedule for 2014 looks full.

“We haven’t made any profit yet,” Dai Jiming, general manager of the two-year-old yard, says frankly.

“We have nearly 200,000 tons of scrap steel piled up here, and there will be more ships coming into the yard for scrapping, our inventory keeps increasing,” Dai says with concern.

“Scrap steel prices have dropped nearly 50% compared to 2008 which was the last prosperous time for shipbreaking. Now we’d rather keep the scrap steel in stock than selling it,” Dai says.

Research statistics by the International Maritime Organization and Clarkson show about 23% of the current global fleet afloat will go to for scrap in the next 10 years.

“Currently the shipbreaking industry is in a difficult developing stage, but from a long term point of view, the prospect and potential of the industry is still promising and green recycling fits the country’s sustainable development strategy. If the government can offer some incentives at this stage, the shipbreaking companies might have an easier transitional period,” Dai says.

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■ ■ ■ HUBS: SHANGHAI

Lease of new life The city is leading the way in financial leasing

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s Shanghai’s banks collectively tighten their purse strings, cash strapped customers are increasingly turning to leasing companies to finance their vessels, a mode of lending that the city is keen to nurture.

Financial leasing, in its simplest form, means that a finance company will purchase a vessel under instructions from a customer. The customer will use the vessel during the lease and will pay rent in return. The leasing company will recover the cost of the vessel from the rent.

Since the crash of 2008, China’s leaders have struggled to maintain growth and juggle conflicting interests. In the aftermath of the crisis, China activated eye-watering stimulus packages for the shipping industry, but is now reining in vessel finance to counter oversupply. The country’s State Council instructed Chinese banks in November to halt lending to five sectors suffering from chronic overcapacity, including shipping.

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In line with these demands, banks in Shanghai have largely stopped lending. “We actually significantly reduced our shipping finance in 2012,” says a source from Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. “Most of our department has been disbanded and have been reallocated to other departments.”

For the Shanghai branch of the Bank of Communications, the story is the same. “I’m mostly doing trust structured lending now,” says a source who used to deal with ship finance for China’s fifth largest listed bank.

Sources from Bank of China and China Export-Import Bank said the two banks are still lending, but have raised the bar, so are mostly financing those companies with which they have existing relationships or stateowned firms that are supported by the government.

This credit squeeze has led customers to pivot towards other modes of finance. “There is a massive shift from old straight debt to finance leasing, because it’s harder to get

finance from Chinese banks,” says Jonathan Silver, shipping finance partner at Howse Williams Bowers.

And the finance leasing push appears to be coming from the very top. The China Banking Regulatory Commission announced in December last year that it would loosen restrictions to finance leasing, making it easier to access.

While the state gives its mark of approval, Shanghai has beefed up its finance leasing credentials by offering incentives to firms in the industry for opening up in its free trade zone. The provincial government said one of the free trade zone’s objectives is to encourage financial leasing business

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Number of financial leasing companies that piled into Shanghai’s new free trade zone in its first four months

through tax deductions.

Also, the city has many longstanding advantages that are attractive to leasing companies. “Since 2006, Shanghai has aimed to be an international shipping and finance centre,” says Vincent Xu, partner at Ince & Co. “The heat of financial leasing is a natural result of the location and policy advantages.

Many first class shipyards and owners are operating here.”

As a result, Shanghai has become a centre of growth for financial leasing. In October last year, Bank of Communications Financial Leasing announced plans to open a subsidiary in the newly opened Shanghai Free Trade Zone, quickly followed by the Bank of Shanghai which announced in January that it planned to do the same.

Shanghai’s free trade zone, which opened in September last year, was able to boast the establishment of 57 financial leasing companies within four months.

The popularity of financial leasing is down to its flexibility relative to old debt finance structures. It allows businesses to preserve precious cash reserves, so is particularly welcome during a recession when firms have low taxable profits.

Rates can be as competitive as debt financing or even better, because of the security provided by the asset.

“We have received our targets for this year,” says Xiang Yiye from the business department of SPDB Financial Leasing. “So I think we’re going to be very busy.”

Shipbuilders are also looking forward to more finance leasing transactions. “We haven’t done that much in the past, but we’re expecting a lot more,” says Qian Yujie, in the administration department of Jiangsu Skyrun Shipbuilding & Trading.

“It’s definitely something that we find interesting,” says Yu Jing, in the shipping asset management division of Sinochem Shipping.

HUBS: TAIPEI ■ ■ ■

HEATED DEBATE Students stormed Taiwan’s parliament this March furious about the latest trade deal

Closer ties Cross-straits deals progress despite opposition, writes David Green

T

aiwan and China have signed a series of economic cooperation agreements that will prove a significant boon for the Taiwanese maritime industry.

Cross-straits affairs representatives from both sides sat down in Changsha in Hunan Province in late February to agree terms that will see the openings of new container shipping routes, simplified customs procedures and the opening of selected ports to express shipping services.

“The opening of the new routes will enhance the logistical convenience of cross-straits shipping, but falls short of resolving the key point of the cabotage system,” says Andrew Chen of Taiwan International Port Corp (TIPC). “We will continue negotiations with the Chinese government on cabotage in future,” he says.

The cabotage system forbids foreign carriers from carrying transhipped cargos in Taiwan’s ports, and limits cargo volumes to equal participation between Taiwanese and Chinese carriers, effectively stymieing the growth of Taiwan’s ports and cargo trade.

Despite the cabotage

impasse, the Changsha deal is something of an olive branch to Taiwan, according to Dr Girish Gujar, visiting lecturer at Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies.

“Slowly the Chinese are opening shipping trade and integration, so this is a beginning and it will eventually lead to something more positive. I think it will go in that direction [relaxing rules on cabotage], when we don’t know, maybe one year, maybe two—it depends on the political climate,” he says.

ports and lines to apply to operate similar services, though with a series of restrictions in place. “The agreement only covers specific commodities, and it has to be cargo originating in Taiwan — so you can’t have goods originating from outside Taiwan being transhipped across the new route,” explains Gujar. “The lines able to operate the route will be allocated on a caseby-case basis and only certain companies will be allowed. To begin with I think Evergreen, Cosco and China Shipping.

The opening of the new routes falls short of resolving the key point of the cabotage system The new container routes are limited to selected ports, and will initially run from Shanghai to Keelung, Taichung and Kaohsiung, according to TIPC. “T.S. Lines has applied for the new route and been approved to allocate an 832 teu vessel,” Chen says.

However, the agreement also opens the door for further

“As for the customs procedures, I think they are looking to introduce some kind of waivers, and certain shippers will qualify.

So they are not opening it right across – it will be certain ports, certain commodities, certain shipping lines.”

The Changsha deal also includes stipulations for accelerated development of certain

ports, notably Taipei and Anping in Taiwan, and Pingtan and Xiamen on the mainland.

Anping’s development will focus on cargo and container movement, but may also comprise accommodation for cruiseships ferrying Chinese passengers from Hong Kong to the mainland via Taiwan, according to Gujar.

Tainan City port was picked out last year to become the seventh free trade port in Taiwan, with an eye to promoting cross-straits shipments of agricultural goods and products under the Cross-Straits Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA). The port also targets nonferrous metals, petrochemicals and sports equipment for shipping to Xiamen and Quanzhou on the mainland.

Meanwhile, Xiamen itself launched plans in February to strengthen shipping ties with Taiwan by constructing a crossstraits marine transportation logistics centre, paving the way for the opening of express package delivery services.

The Xiamen Shipping Exchange is also partnering with its Shanghai counterpart to trial a new Taiwan Strait Containerized Freight Index, aiming to gauge supply and demand, and facilitate trade, for cross-strait container shipping. The index will post shipping rates across three typical lines from along the Chinese coast to Taiwan, as well as their return services.

So while the student-led occupation of Taiwan’s legislative Yuan over the implementation of the Cross-straits Services Trade agreement grabbed headlines this spring, the Changsha round of talks should be seen as one of an increasing frequent periphery dialogues that will continue to deepen cross-straits shipping ties.

“It won’t be carte blanche straight away – they will see how much opposition there will be to each stage and how politically correct it will be,” reckons Gujar.

“Once they are able to iron out the wrinkles then we can expect progress to pick up.”

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HUBS: HONG KONG ■ ■ ■

Hope springs eternal Various studies call for more investment in maritime, something the current Leung administration is likely to heed, writes Alfred Romann

Where Hong Kong should position itself

London

Profressional services

H

ong Kong’s maritime sector is awash with studies on its future, and were they all to come to fruition then the premature passing of this great shipping centre might well have been allayed.

With the local government led by C Y Leung appearing very pro-shipping (a dedicated shipping minister has been mooted), the time is right to get the ingredients in place to reassert the city’s credentials.

This April, BMT Asia Pacific released the results of a twoyear study commissioned by the local government to look at how the Special Administrative Region can continue to thrive as an international maritime centre (IMC) amid heavy competition in the region.

BMT proposes a new institutional line-up with 12 roles spread over areas, namely policy, research and development; marketing and promotion; manpower and training; and communications.

The consultants say the new shipping body, which should be akin to the powerful local airport authority, could be funded by the hugely successful Hong Kong Shipping Register The maritime sector generated approximately $9bn, or 2.1%, of the city’s gross domestic product in 2010, a paltry figure compared to Singapore where maritime generated twice as much and accounted for 7% of local GDP. While Hong Kong is still a strong place for shipowning, operating and managing, it has slipped behind the likes of

Hong Kong Singapore Oslo Rotterdam Shanghai

Physical activities Source: BMT Asia Pacific

London and Singapore when it comes to services such as finance, broking, chartering and arbitration, while the port has been overshadowed by a number of other cities in the region.

High land costs and a failure by government to offer a clear maritime vision were cited as reasons hindering the city’s IMC credentials.

Hong Kong should be a gateway to and from mainland China, BMT reckoned. It should position itself “as a maritime service centre and springboard that facilitates mainland shipping companies to operate internationally, and for foreign shipping companies to expand into the mainland market”.

Elsewhere, despite a number of wags in the city claiming the port of Hong Kong is a property development waiting to happen given the rise of container terminals across the border in Shenzhen and elsewhere

and declining volumes at home, the local port operators are, however, insistent there’s a strong future for the port, and more land is needed if operations are to remain efficient.

The Hong Kong Container Terminal Operators Association (HKCTOA) has submitted a White Paper on improving the competitiveness of Kwai Tsing Container Port to the local government explaining the challenges and constraints currently faced by the former world beating container destination.

Government action is required to facilitate the optimal use of the existing land sites adjacent to the port for container storage and to develop more dedicated barge berths that will increase port productivity, the association argues. In addition, the complexity in trucker licensing that has resulted in a labour

shortage in the industry has to be reviewed.

“By addressing these issues the government can protect the port’s significant contribution to Hong Kong’s economic and social development,” the association maintained.

Congestion at the port’s berths and storage areas at peak periods has resulted from the increasing size of oceangoing vessels calling at the port while container moves per vessel call are not increasing in proportion to the additional quay length being occupied, according to the HKCTOA. There has been a 30% increase in Pearl River Delta barge transhipment deliveries at the port in the past 10 years, resulting in a significant increase in the need for additional dedicated barge berths. The land parcels immediately adjacent to container terminal (CT) 9 South, CT9 North, CT8 West, as well as the waterfront site next to CT5, should be allocated for use as dedicated barge berths with direct access to the port, the association urged.

The increasing barge traffic and increasing ocean vessel to ocean vessel transhipment volumes require more port storage areas as the transhipment boxes require longer storage periods in the port, the association observed as it demanded the annexation of 70 ha of adjacent land. The port was built with an average of 14 hectares of land per 400 m of berth compared to the current international standard ratio for optimal performance of 25 hectares per berth.

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■ ■ ■ BOOKS

The sea and the damage done Paul French selects titles associated with maritime disasters The tragic sinking of the South Korean ferry off the southern coast of Korea in April highlighted once again the dangers faced by mariners, passengers and shipping. These days advanced safety procedures, improved maritime law and codes of conduct mean disastrous shipping tragedies are as rare and as shocking as plane crashes. But as long as men have taken to the water there have been catastrophes.

The term 'The Cruel Sea' was coined by the author Nicholas Monserrat, who’s 1951 bestseller of the same name was a novel (and two years later a movie, pictured), based on the author’s own experiences, following the lives of a group of British sailors fighting the Battle of the Atlantic during World War II. It remains a classic of seafaring literature and focuses on 30

www.sinoshipnews.com

the merchant seamen providing escort services to the Allied convoys in all kinds of weather and with the constant threat of being sunk by German U-Boats.

If I had to pick one other great novel highlighting the hazards of seafaring it’d be Joseph Conrad’s Typhoon, published in 1902, also based on the author’s own experiences as a merchant seaman. Conrad thrillingly describes how the steamer Nan-Shan sailed into a typhoon in the northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean.

an iceberg in 1912. It seems we never lose our fascination with the Titanic - Elizabeth Kaye’s Lifeboat No.8 is a short, but powerful, e-book recently published. Kaye focuses on one of the first lifeboats to launch and those who managed to escape, including the Countess of Rothes, the wealthiest woman aboard the ship. Interestingly the book also tells the story of the Titanic’s valiant wireless operator, Jack Phillips – the man who sent out the world’s first ever SOS signal.

As long as men have taken to the water there have been catastrophes Of course, it’s impossible to talk about maritime disasters without mentioning the Titanic and its infamous collision with

More than a century later, we’re still captivated by the Titanic and its passengers, but of course there have been

other tragedies involving passenger ships. In Doomed Ships naval historian William Miller recounts the dramatic stories behind a host of ill-fated passenger ships starting with the torpedoing of the Lusitania in 1915, the capsize of the Oriana during a Chinese typhoon, and others that have become maritime disaster legends such as the Morro Castle, Normandie, Andrea Doria, Europa, and many other ships whose maritime lives ended in catastrophe.

Individual tragedies are also well covered. In The Caliban Shore Stephen Taylor tells the tale of the The Grosvenor, one of the finest East Indiamen of her day. She ran aground on the treacherous coast of southeast Africa in 1782. An astonishing number of her crew and passengers, including women and children, reached the shore safely, but many castaways drifted hundreds of miles away to the wild coast of Pondoland.

Slightly later Jonathan Miles’s Medusa The Shipwreck, The Scandal, The Masterpiece is a riveting account of the Medusa, the flagship of a French expedition to Senegal in 1816 that ran aground off the desolate West African coast. The evacuation of the frigate was chaotic 146 men and one woman were herded aboard a makeshift raft that was then abandoned in mid-ocean, cut loose by the convoy of lifeboats which had pledged to tow it to safety.

Both shipwrecks also inspired great works of art.

George Carter’s The Wreck of The Grosvenor was a wellknown work from an artist best known for his painting depicting the death of Captain Cook. The Medusa tragedy was captured in The Raft of the Medusa, a famous oil painting

by Théodore Géricault, that is now part of the Louvre’s collection in Paris.

Maritime tragedies continue to alarm us, and to capture our imagination. The world’s oceans remain cruel.

OPINION ■ ■ ■

The Seven-Year Itch Max Hong discusses shipping cycles and Marilyn Monroe What is it with seven years, is there some kind of cycle?

Over a very healthy dinner at the home of a good friend, a vegetarian, he tells me he is excited by the upcoming celebration of his seventh anniversary of becoming a nonmeat eater. It is important, he says, because all the cells in a human body will be replaced over a period of seven years, meaning in his case that the last meat fed cells would be gone and his body will now be 100% veggie based. Nice, simple, clean conversion.

Where’s the meat? Libido attraction that was empowered by one set of cells, evaporates down to zero and a new set of pheromones from another body sets us off. In the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch, a married man struggles with the temptation to run off with the young woman next door, played by Marilyn Monroe.

Always something more hot… but we are in the shipping business and, of course, hormones and temptations play no part in our decisions. What about cycles?

Seven years, 2007 to 2014, what do we call this cycle? Of course, it was the financial crisis that began in 2007 when markets became exhausted by the steroids of cheap credit which boosted shipping in an orgasmic frenzy to heavenly charter rates and asset values only to plunge and shatter both the egos and balance sheets of many an industry titan.

Like the conviction and commitment that accompanies the ‘mother of all hangovers’, banks, owners and every one else in the shipping ecosystem swore that these excesses would never be repeated.

Until the next time, that is until asset values get so low and newbuilding prices recede with hungry yards willing to “do it for cash flow”. For a few years it looked like sobriety and balance were returning, the pace of newbuildings subsided, orderbooks contracted, ships got scrapped and it looked like a new normal of supply and demand health, but then came the renewed surge of China stimulus, coupled with the ‘ecoship replacements’ and all of that powered on of course by more cheap credit, but this time it was not the banks’ shipping finance departments, no they were already risk averse, chastened and wiser. This time is was the Feds and their global counterparts with the interest neutraliser - quantitative easing - and the dawning of the ‘funds in shipping’.

Named for trees or the colour of rocks, these funds have now pumped a whole new level of financial testosterone into shipping. They don’t need the bank, and when they order it is not one or two it is five and ten. They say it makes sense with assets only getting more expensive in the near future, a prophecy they guarantee as they pour more money in.

Hey, VLCCs are now priced at in excess of $100m again, see I told you it was a deal at $92m when we signed for ten. Yeah, we all read the news and know that it is true if it is printed in blue.

So what have we learned

(aside from follow the money) and where are we now? Every cycle has a beginning, middle and an end. The sudden cut off of easy money in 2007 left a lot of blood in the streets. People are feeling safer now with bonuses fattening up again, but what does the second half of 2014 hold? Watch the Chinese currency systematically cheapen as government tries to breath new life into its export machine, while pushing the urbanisation bubble to drive

activity. Ask yourself what that means. See how much further the ‘trees’ and ‘rocks’ can attract more mountains of cash and don’t forget about Ukraine.

Yes, we are seven years down the road from one of the worst financial train wrecks that ever impacted on shipping, but it is over, done and dusted. Or like the tides that carry the vessels we all love so dearly, the crest of this seven-year cycle is here and something must be done about that itch.

Named for trees or the colour of rocks, these funds have now pumped a whole new level of financial testosterone into shipping Sinoship summer 2014

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OPINION ■ ■ ■

‘You cannot manage that which you do not measure’ In the wake of April’s Korean ferry tragedy Andrew Craig-Bennett takes shipping’s poor crew competency checks to task The sinking of the ferry Sewol (pictured) has shocked South Koreans. I hope it shocks everybody else. I particularly hope that it shocks shore staff – from superintendents to chief executives – in our industry.

Captain Lee Joon-seok of the Sewol, who has now joined Captain Francesco Schettino of the Costa Concordia in the ranks of infamy, was the star of a promotional video for his employers, made in 2010, in which he expounds on the safety of ferries*.

There is an attitude of mind – a very common one – amongst people working ashore in shipowning and shipmanagement, which maintains that, “Our people are the best!” and, at the same time, refuses to examine whether that statement is true, for fear that it might not be.

There are people - and you, dear reader, may be one of them – who would not dream of operating a ship for 20 years without a docking or a survey, in the hope that everything holds together, but who say that they don’t want to examine the actual competence of their officers and ratings, for fear of finding that they are incompetent, and thus that their ships are unseaworthy in the eyes of the law.

Planned maintenance for machinery is a requirement; planned maintenance for the human element is, it seems, unthinkable.

Any lawyers reading this have already muttered the words, the Hong Kong Fir. The Hong Kong Fir was a

26-year-old ship, bought by Hong Kong owners during the boom brought on by the Suez Canal closure of 1956 and immediately chartered on the Baltime form to K Line for two years. Her engine room staff were incompetent and she constantly broke down; in 1962 the Court of Appeal decided that she was unseaworthy (but not unseaworthy enough for K Line to terminate the charter - they had to claim damages). This is one of those cases, like the Lady Gwendolen - the Guinness tanker in the fog - that anyone who works in shipping, from office boy upwards, needs to know about.

So far as we can tell, the officers of the Sewol look to have been blitheringly incompetent. Evidently, their employers did not know this, and had not troubled themselves to find out.

Ferry operators and their staff across the world are notorious for complacency. They do the same things every day and they ‘switch off ’. It does not matter what country you are in – New Zealand, Norway,

Britain, Greece, the Philippines, Egypt - in fact, anywhere where citizens have bodies of water to cross, you will, sooner or later, have a ferry disaster, because complacency knows no national boundaries.

From the point at which he left his inexperienced third officer alone on the bridge to undertake a demanding passage for the first time, through his successive failures either to grasp the situation (when was the MAYDAY message sent?) or to deal with it (why were the liferafts not deployed?) Lee, his employer’s paragon of safety, showed himself to be lethally incompetent.

The point that I am driving at is that his employers did not know this. They thought he was wonderful.

Would you choose to fly onboard an aircraft whose captain had not been inside a simulator or seen a check pilot for many years, but whom the airline held out, on the basis of their own opinion, as a Sky God? As every accountant in

Complacency knows no national boundaries

the world knows, and as our industry chooses to forget, you cannot manage that which you do not measure. So how do we measure competence?

To be able to carry out a given job function, we need to have the knowledge, the skills and the behavioural attributes essential for that function.

These are defined in units of competency. One or more units of competency may be required to be able to perform a job function safely to the required standard.

To manage performance, we need to carry out regular assessments in the workplace, measured against those performance standards. This will identify any gaps and blind spots. These can be closed by a programme of learning events targeted precisely at the gaps that have been found, followed by further assessment to confirm that the gaps have been closed.

This is competence assurance. Planned maintenance: good for machinery, good for people.

Now ask yourself two questions: 1. Have I ever boasted about how good my company’s sea staff are?

2. Do I feel lucky? *Those with an interest in customer relationship management will recall the parallel with the worst ever aviation disaster, the Tenerife disaster of 1977, when Captain Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten, KLM’s chief flying instructor, star of their publicity material, commenced his 747’s take off run without clearance and ploughed into a Pan Am 747, killing himself and 582 other people. That changed the face of aviation forever.

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■ ■ ■ PHOTO FINISH

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PHOTO FINISH ■ ■ ■ Cargo meets cruise in Dalian MAKE MINE A PINT Hundreds attended SinoShip’s beer and 货船与邮轮在大连相遇 barbecue party at the most recent Marintec China event in Shanghai. © Jason Jiang The event was supported by Transas and Wilhelmsen 中国的修船行业持续低迷

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