Infospectrum Insights

Certain tanker sectors have ridden a series of exceptional events to net exceptional returns. 

It is hard to find anybody who is prepared to underplay the impact of COVID-19 on the dry bulk market today.

With the collapse in oil prices and emergence of COVID-19, should bunker players turn their focus from financing to counterparty risk?

Having struggled through the last decade, how will the collapse in oil prices and emergence of COVID-19 impact the offshore sector?

At a recent shipping event a panel of highly experienced executives took to the stage, microphones in hand, to air their views on a number of topics that are considered prescient to the market today.

Resource scarcity, and the huge demand for raw materials generated by developed and developing economies, has given what's under our feet a strategic value attractive to citizens and politicians alike. To some, this is resource nationalism, to others, supply and demand economics and political posturing.

The US government has once again snared a “big name” in its efforts to effect regime change. However, what “real world” impacts will the Rosneft sanctions have?

The booming demand for LNG and large-scale construction projects worldwide can hide a potentially fragile supply chain of contractors, whose finances cannot support unpredictable changes in the development of these projects. The failure of these companies has a direct impact on subcontractors and suppliers in the shipping industry.

After the huge container sector consolidation of 2014-2017, which reduced the number of major operators to a relative handful, the expectation was that this would hand them genuine pricing power, give them a chance to regain profitability, and bring stability to this sector - reducing risk for other stakeholders. Has this actually happened?

As January closes and the abstemious sprint for the nearest bar and many brief flirtations with veganism end in steak frites, we have had at least 31 days to consider the impact of IMO 2020. Before the audible groaning starts, let me just remind you that here in the UK the 31^st January marked an even more auspicious/dreaded date, the commencement of the final chapter of Brexit. So if you think IMO 2020 is a bit stale, spare a thought for us Britons.