Infospectrum Insights

A key member of our Americas team, Luciano Mezzalira, is a proud Venezuelan, and has been following the ongoing political crisis in the country.  We've covered the challenges of compliance issues in our earlier article. In our latest piece, Luciano covers the issues surrounding national oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), and how this is impacting its exposure to the shipping markets.

We've covered the impact of the recent dry bulk market movements on the operating sector in our recent article, but there are some market participants whose model ensures money is made in any market by walking away from commitments.

This month, we spoke with Simon Hasslacher, Senior Analyst at Infospectrum’s Americas office, to learn more about how his shipping career began and what he gets up to outside of work.

Is it business as usual for ocean carriers as they continue to buy large vessel assets? In a rapidly changing market, it is important that shipping lines have sufficient liquidity to pay for assets that some would argue are, in certain cases, not even required.

Over the past ten years, legal and regulatory bodies — particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States — have enhanced their expectations of compliance risk management.

Heads I win, tails you lose. That has been a tacit suggestion at some stage from companies that have sat in the dry bulk operating space for any period of time in the past 30 years.

2019 is likely to bring about major changes to our industry, with almost all of our client base impacted in some form by Brexit and IMO 2020. With demand for our services at an all-time high, we have invested in our team and new office locations. 

Bunkering has always needed finance to cover expansion and bridge cash flow gaps in a notoriously liquidity-demanding sector, and banks have often been keen to provide it. While the impacts on the multiple unfortunate creditors of the recent collapses in Singapore's bunker sector are known, the indirect impact may be more significant — it may undermine confidence in the sector at a time when the bunkering industry seeks liquidity in the run-up to 2020.

This month, we spoke with Nicolas Defillion, Senior Analyst at Infospectrum’s Oxford office, who shared with us how he first entered the shipping industry, what a typical day looks like, and what he gets up to outside of work.

This week's Insight has come from one of our new colleagues and industry veteran Neil Dekker, formerly of Drewry and the Informa and Safmarine groups, who has covered the liner sector for over 25 years.