‘Shipping is being dealt heavy blows while crews suffer’
EU politicians should pay more heed to what is actually happening in its shipping sector. The crew change crisis and the refugees picked up Maersk Etienne which no country would accept are examples of this,...Read more
‘Booming offshore wind drags contractors through corona crisis’
Branching out into offshore wind has been the right decision for Dutch companies like Van Oord and Boskalis. SWZ|Maritime’s Editor-in-Chief Antoon Oosting points out they can now benefit from the increase in offshore wind projects...Read more
2000 redundancies at Maersk, curtain falls on Safmarine and Damco
Maersk is laying off no fewer than 2000 employees as a result of the large-scale reorganisation that started at the beginning of September. The end of Damco had been in sight for some time, but...Read more
‘Hard brexit is the end of Dutch fishing industry’
Dutch fishermen will be dealt a deathblow by a hard brexit. A hard brexit irrevocably leads to the end of the European fisheries policy. And it is Dutch fishermen in particular, who benefit from this...Read more
Intermarine CEO: I am optimistic that we’ll see things improve next year
SAL Heavy Lift this week announced it has bought a majority stake in Intermarine. When asked by SAL CEO Martin Harren, Svend Andersen decided to return from his retirement to lead the company. ‘It will...Read more
Charter rates continue upward trend
The charter rates for multipurpose vessels continue to crawl back up from the low levels of June and July this year. Toepfer’s Multipurpose Shipping Index for October shows an increase of 70 dollars to an...Read more
Growing number of billionaires keeps Heesen Yachts optimistic
Despite the difficulties due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Heesen Yachts is still functioning reasonably well. And although last year was better, the management of the Dutch superyacht builder expects to be able to conclude 2020...Read more
BIMCO: Sharp rebound in shipping unlikely
At the Project Cargo Summit, taking place on 23 and 24 September, Peter Sand of BIMCO presented his outlook for project cargo, heavy lift and breakbulk shipping. He sees ‘an industry under pressure’. Yet, there...Read moreNetherlands and UK want to link offshore wind grids
The Dutch-German grid manager Tennet and the British electricity and gas company National Grid are working on a plan to connect the Dutch and UK energy grids via wind farms in the North Sea. This...Read more
Vroon to recycle three platform supply vessels
Vroon Offshore Services (VOS) has decided to dispose of three platform supply vessels (PSVs), with the aim of “right-sizing” its PSV fleet. The vessels, VOS Power, VOS Producer and VOS Prominence, were built between 2006...Read more
Charter rates claw back slowly
The charter rates for multipurpose vessels keep slowly improving from their downfall earlier this year. In the latest edition of Toepfer’s Multipurpose Shipping Index, the average day rate for a 12,500-DWT geared vessel now stands...Read more
Stena’s losses increase almost tenfold
In the first half of the year, Stena Group made a loss of more than 360 million euros. That is almost ten times as much as in the first half of last year.Read more
Maersk carries out major restructuring
Maersk is carrying out a major reorganisation aimed at “streamlining” the organisation, which is said to have nothing to do with Covid-19. The Danish group reports this in an advisory to its customers.Read more
Dutch shipbuilding in 2019
There was a dramatic turndown in the shipbuilding industry last year. Several yards reported red figures and the order intake was just € 351 million, 45 per cent less than in 2018. SWZ|Maritime’s editor Gerrit...Read more
SWZ|Maritime’s June special about Dutch naval shipbuilding is here
What the new Dutch frigates will look like and who will build our new submarines is still unclear, but the decisions about this are expected within the next few years. Still, the authors in SWZ|Maritime’s...Read more
Oil field services provider Schlumberger cuts 21,000 jobs
Schlumberger is cutting 21,000 jobs in response to the pandemic and related oil crisis. CEO Olivier le Peuch says the second quarter ‘has probably been the most challenging quarter in the past decades.’ The company...Read more
Port of Rotterdam wants to break away from China
The Port of Rotterdam Authority is investigating how the port can become less dependent on Asia and China in particular. Currently 73 per cent of the containers come from this continent. Due to the Covid-19...Read more
Throughput port of Rotterdam falls sharply, but less than feared
Throughput in the port of Rotterdam decreased by 9.1 per cent in the first half of the year compared with 2019, amounting to 218.9 million tonnes. Container throughput was only 3.3 per cent down on...Read more