train, Meta Intelligence

Shipping and the World

Asyad Dry Dock Expanding Capacity As Demand Grows

Oman shipyard Asyad Dry Dock is expanding its capacity by 20% with a new floating dock as its current facilities are fully utilized.

by Marcus Hand

The shipyard, formerly Oman Drydock Company, is now part of the Asyad Group, the logistics arm of the Oman government. Management of the yard has been combined with shipowner Oman Shipping Company, and overseen by Dr. Irbahim Al Nadhairi, Chief Executive Officer, Shipping & Drydock.

“We have integrated the shipping and drydocking as the shipping service. The companies are still two legal separate entities but then we share the same executive team to be more efficient,” Dr. Ibrahim told Seatrade Maritime News in an interview at Posidonia 2022.

On the shipping side of the business the group owns a fleet of 65 ships with plans to increase the fleet to over 100 vessels over the next five years. He explains that with such a size of fleet the shipowner needed a quality shipyard so it made sense to work together.

Asyad maintains most, if not all its fleet at the shipyard in Oman, accounting for around 15% of its business. While part of the same group Dr. Ibrahim says it does not send its ships to the yard “by default,” and they have to make sure it is competitive as it needs to be for their third-party customers.

Business has been growing for the shipyard and it experienced a spike in the first half of this year as Chinese capacity has been taken out of the market by COVID restrictions pushing work to yards in other parts of the world. “So, we could see there was a big hike in the number of ships, not only for Asyad Dry Dock, but the entire region as well,” Dr. Ibrahim said.

“The next 12 months I believe the ship repair industry will still continue to flourish on our side.”

The shipyard’s two 600,000 DWT drydocks are already operating at full capacity and this year sees it adding a floating dock with the capacity to handle vessels up to Panamax size.

“We’ve recently acquired a floating dock which is of Panamax size and we reckon that about 40% of the business in ship repair is within that Panamax size. The floating dock gives us around 20% extra capacity,” he said. It will increase the number of ships the yard can repair from 200 to around 240.

The floating dock is expected to arrive in Oman in the next six weeks, and following some dredging works be operational by the start of Q4 this year.

Greek owners are major clients of the shipyard and account for around 40% of business, and Dr. Ibrahim said they added two more Greek clients last week. “It seems we have a good reputation in the Greek market and between now and end of Q3 we have 27 ships in orderbook from the Greek market.”

Globally its customer base includes MSC, AP Møller-Mærsk, CMA CGM S.A., Hapag-Lloyd, and Mitsui OSK Lines (株式会社商船三井). Maersk currently has currently two vessels in the yard.

Being able to deliver services efficiently and on time is of critical importance in the financially booming container sector.

“Today when you talk about bringing a container ship into a shipyard time really is money,” Dr. Ibrahim said. If a container ship owner says a ship will be in the yard for 15 days the owner will expect work to be completed in 12 days.

‘Further Action Is Needed’ As MEPC 78 Gets Underway

IMO Secretary General Kitack Lim hailed the 78th session of the Marine Environment Protection Committee as an opportunity to be brave and lead by example on decarbonization.

by Gary Howard

MEPC 78 has a packed agenda with the opportunity to consider and progress IMO’s work on cutting greenhouse gas emissions from ships.

At the last MEPC meeting, a revision process was agreed to strengthen the IMO’s initial GHG strategy which was adopted in 2018. A strengthened version of that initial strategy is due in mid-2023 at MEPC 80.

Speaking to Seatrade Maritime News in May, Stamatis Fradelos, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs at ABS said that important influencers in the IMO like the United States, EU, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand are calling for net zero emissions from shipping by 2050 and introducing a level of ambition for 2040.

“Whilst progress has been made on many of the measures set out in the Initial Strategy, I am sure that we can all agree that further action is needed. Your discussions this week will chart the way forward for the decarbonization of international shipping,” said Lim.

“It is therefore of utmost importance that IMO continues to deliver concrete progress in transitioning international shipping from fossil fuels to low and zero-carbon alternatives.”

Member states at MEPC 78 will also consider adoption of guidelines to support short-term measures on GHG emissions, including correction factors for carbon intensity, EEXI calculation methodology and revised SEEMP.

Calculations on the GHG impact of fuels will be discussed, as ISWG-GHG 11 reports progress on developing lifecycle GHG assessment guidelines. Well-to-wake and tank-to-wake calculations are in scope, with the aim of giving fuel users a full picture of the impact of the production and use of the fuels they choose.

“Your constructive discussions on these topics will enhance the Committee’s evidence-based decision making when further considering proposals for mid-term GHG reduction measures,” Lim told Member States.

“I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest appreciation to all Member States, and observer delegations, and especially the Chair of the Working Group on reduction of GHG emissions from ships, Mr. Oftedal of Norway, for the extraordinary effort and dedication in ensuring the successful outcome of both intersessional meetings.”

Houston Begins $1.1Bn Ship Channel Widening

The Port of Houston kicked off its the long-awaited billion dollar dredging scheme, the Houston Ship Channel Widening and Improvement Project 11 last week.

by Michele Labrut

The $1.1bn expansion of the Houston Ship Channel, which has been in planning for more than a decade is finally underway.

After more than a decade of planning, Project 11 will allow the ship channel to accommodate an additional 1,400 vessels per year and could generate up to $134bn more annually in economic impact once completed. The channel currently accommodates about 8,200 vessels and 215,000 barges each year, hauling more than 247m tons of cargo.

“This project will enable Port of Houston to continue to grow and respond effectively to whatever the future demand in the supply chain has to offer,” Port of Houston Executive Director Roger Guenther said in a statement.

Port of Houston is a 40-2 km-long complex of nearly 200 private and public industrial terminals along the 583.6 km-long manmade Houston Ship Channel, which connects the port to the Gulf of Mexico.

Project 11 will widen the Houston Ship Channel by 51.8 m along its 41.8 km Galveston Bay reach, to 213.3 m wide. It will also deepen upstream segments from a current depth of 13.7 m to a depth of 14.7 m. Dredging began last week. The Houston Ship Channel winds from the Gulf of Mexico through shallow Galveston Bay and up through the port.

“This project is important on many levels, including improving the efficiency of our nation’s supply chains, promoting navigational safety, and creating environmental benefits through the innovative use of dredged material,” Michael Conner, Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works), said in a statement.

Port of Houston and the Army Corps of Engineers signed an agreement in August giving the port permits to start dredging the federal waterway. Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. was awarded a $95m contract in October, which also includes oyster mitigation and construction of a bird island. The channel widening and deepening project is scheduled to be completed in 2025.

EU Transport Commissioner Focuses on ‘Solidarity Lanes’ and Sanctions

As the global food crisis deepens and millions of tons of Ukraine’s grain remain blocked in the Black Sea, EU Transport Commissioner Adina-Ioana Vălean has declared that all transport modes will be considered in setting up new Solidarity Lanes that bypass the Black Sea.

by Paul Bartlett

Her comments come as disrupted grain movements risk a global food crisis.

Speaking to journalists immediately prior to yesterday’s opening ceremony at Posidonia, she said that trucks, tracks, trains, transshipment and storage facilities will all contribute to new supply chains to ensure that exports from one of the world’s largest grain exporters can resume, at least in part, as soon as possible.

She said that the setting up of Solidarity Lanes would have important commercial implications for shipping and could even lead to changes in the sector’s business models.

Vălean also rejected criticism from prominent Greek shipowners who had claimed earlier in the day that sanctions imposed on Russia in the wake of its invasion on Ukraine won’t work. At a Maritime Leaders Summit staged by Capital Link on Monday, George Prokopiou and Evangelos Marinakis had both said that sanctions against Iran and Venezuela had been shown not to work and similar moves against Russia would not be effective either.

However, other sources pointed to the scale of the sanctions package that has severely impacted the Russian economy by disrupting key revenue generating sectors. Energy exports are the most obvious example and although Russian oil is still easily sold in India and China, for example, it is at deep discounts to global prices.

Meanwhile, LNG exports have also been hit and development of Arctic LNG supply chains have also been severely affected. Within the next few months, Vălean said that Russian oil exports would be further disrupted by the withdrawal of insurance cover on shipping and transport arrangements.

Science and Its Discontents: The Case of Natsume Sōseki (夏目漱石) in Japan

Natsume Sōseki (夏目漱石) is and was the most prestigious and respected novelist in modern Japan and every student has to engage with such novels of his as Botchan (坊っちゃん, “Young Master”) and Kokoro (こゝろ, or in post-war orthography こころ, “Heart”). Sōseki died in 1916.

Sōseki’s feeling that the modern world is some kind of runaway train with no brakes is expressed clearly in his 1913 novel, Kōjin (行人 , “The Wayfarer”).

One of Sōseki’s dialogues in the novel is about the current science and technology world, which was quite visible already then, and has a very nerve-racking or frightening tempo of a turbulent tsunami.

One character says:

“Now what you call insecurity is the insecurity of the entire human race, and it isn’t peculiar to you alone. Constant motion and flow is our very fate.
“Man’s insecurity stems from the advance of science. Never once has science, which never ceases to move forward, allowed us to pause. From walking to ricksha, from ricksha to carriage, from carriage to train, from train to automobile, from there on to the dirigible, further on to the airplane, and further on and on, no matter how far we may go, it won’t let us take a breath. How far it will sweep us along, nobody knows for sure. It is really frightening.”
Yes, it is frightening, indeed, I agreed.
“It is frightening because the fate that the whole of humanity will reach in several centuries, I must go through—in my own lifetime—and at that all alone. That’s why it is frightening. In short, I gather within myself the whole insecurity of the human race, and distill that insecurity down into every moment, that is the fright that I am experiencing.”
(Natsume Sōseki, Kōjin [行人], Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1991, 9th printing, page 285)

Comment: There’s no need to dismiss these feelings as Luddite. They represent a reaction to the vertiginous or dizzying pace of the modern techno-protean change machine with no pause button.

Notice that Sōseki’s life (1867-1916) is basically congruent with Globalization I (i.e., the period of 1870-1913) discussed in the previous essay on Arthur Lewis’s classic Growth and Fluctuations, 1870-1913.

Sōseki has been, like his spokesmen in the citation above, swept up into a change-storm which led to a globalization backlash from 1914-1945, the era of deglobalization. WWI is the beginning bookend of all this.

Notice that the micro world of feelings and moods in the novel are resonant with the macro world though people at a certain time, such as the Sōseki protagonists, are not rigorous or prophetic theoreticians but rather groping in the dark.

Essay 116: Reports of Rising Police-Society Conflict in China

Interview with Suzanne Scoggins (November 25, 2019)

China is facing a rising tide of conflict between the nation’s police officers and the public. While protest events receive considerable media attention, lower-profile conflicts between police officers and residents also make their way onto the internet, shaping perceptions of the police. The ubiquity of live events streamed on the internet helps illuminate the nature of state–society conflict in China and the challenges faced by local law enforcement.

Simone McGuinness spoke with Suzanne Scoggins, a fellow with the National Asia Research Program (NARP), about the reports of rising police–society conflict in China. Dr. Scoggins discusses how the Chinese Communist Party has responded to the upsurge, what channels Chinese citizens are utilizing to express their concerns, and what the implications are for the rest of the world.

What is the current state of police-society relations in China?

Reports of police violence have been on the rise, although this does not necessarily mean that violence is increasing. It does, however, mean that the media is more willing to report violence and that more incidents of violence are appearing on social media.

What we can now study is the nature of that violence—some are big events such as riots or attacks against the police, but there are also smaller events. For example, we see reports of passengers on trains who get into arguments with transit police. They may fight because one of the passengers is not in the right seat or is carrying something prohibited. Rather than complying with the officer, the passenger ends up getting into some sort of violent altercation. This kind of violence is typically being captured by cellphone cameras, and sometimes it makes the news.

The nature of the conflict matters. If somebody is on a train and sitting in a seat that they did not pay for, then it is usually obvious to the people reading about or watching the incident that the civilian is at fault. But if it is chengguan (城管, “city administration”) telling an elderly woman to stop selling her food on the street and the chengguan becomes violent, then public perceptions may be very different. It is that second type of violence that can be threatening to the state. The public’s response to the type of conflict can vary considerably.

What are the implications for China as a whole?

Regarding what this means for China, it’s not good for the regime to sustain this kind of conflict between street-level officers or state agents and the public. It lowers people’s trust in the agents of the government, and people may assume that the police cannot enforce public security. There are many state agents who might be involved in a conflict, such as the chengguan, the xiejing (auxiliary officer), or the official police. The type of agent almost doesn’t matter because the uniforms often look similar.

When information goes up online of state agents behaving poorly, it makes the state a little more vulnerable. Even people who were not at the event might see it on social media or in the news and think, “Oh, this is happening in my community, or in my province, or across the nation.” This violates public expectations about how the police or other state agents should act. People should be able to trust the police and go to them when they have problems.

How has the Chinese government responded to the increase in reporting violence?

There is a twofold approach. The first is through censorship. When negative videos go up online or when the media reports an incident, the government will go in and take it down. We see this over time. Even while collecting my research, some of the videos that were initially available online are no longer accessible simply because they have been censored. The government is removing many different types of content, not only violence. Censors are also interested in removing any sort of misinformation that might spread on social media.

If step one is to take the video or report down, step two is to counteract any negative opinion by using police propaganda. This is also referred to as “public relations,” and the goal is to present a better image of the police. Recently, the Ministry of Public Security put a lot of money and resources into their social media presence. Many police stations have a social media account on WeChat or Weibo (微博, “microblogging”) and aim to present a more positive, friendly image of the police. The ministry also teamed up with CCTV to produce television content. This has been going on for some time, but recently shows have become more sophisticated.

There is one program, for example, called Police Training Camp. It is a reality show where police officers are challenged with various tasks, and the production is very glossy. The ministry also produces other sorts of specials featuring police who are out in the field helping people. It shows the police officers working really long shifts, interacting positively with the public, and really making a difference in people’s lives. In this way, the government is counteracting negative opinions about police violence or misconduct.

Do you know of any effective avenues that Chinese people have to address their concerns? Which avenues are becoming more popular?

In general, I will say that it is difficult for people in any society to get justice with police officers because of the way legal systems are structured and the power police hold in local government politics. In China, one of the things people are doing beyond reaching out to local governments or pursuing mediation is calling an official hotline.

This is a direct channel to the Ministry of Public Security, and all these calls are reviewed. There is not a whole lot that citizens can do about specific corruption claims. But if somebody has a particular goal, then the hotline is slightly more effective because it allows citizens to alert the ministry. However, many people do not know about the hotline, so the ministry is trying to increase awareness and also help staff the call center so that it can more effectively field calls.

As for how much relief people feel when they use these channels, this depends on what their goal is. If the goal is to get somebody fired, then the hotline may not work. But if someone is looking to air their grievances, then it may be helpful.

What are the implications of increased police-society conflict in China for the rest of the world? What can the United States or other countries do to improve the situation?

These are really sticky issues that are difficult to solve. When discussing police–society conflict, it is important to step back and think about who the police are—the enforcement agents of the state. So by their very nature, there will be conflict between police and society, and that is true in every country. In China, it really depends on where and what type of police climate we are talking about.

Xinjiang, for instance, has a very different police climate than other regions in China. There is a different type of policing and police presence. Chinese leaders certainly do not want any international intervention in Xinjiang. They see this as an internal issue. While some governments in Europe and the United States might want to intervene, that is going to be a nonstarter for China.

As for police problems more generally, I would say that if China is able to reduce some of the police–society conflict in other areas of the country, then this is good for the international community because it leads to a more stable government. We also know that there is a fair amount of international cooperation between police groups. China has police liaisons that travel and learn about practices and technology in different countries. The police in these groups attend conferences and take delegates abroad.

There are also police delegations from other nations that go to China to learn about and exchange best practices. But that work will not necessarily address the underlying issues that we see in a lot of the stations scattered throughout China outside the big cities like Beijing (北京) or Shanghai (上海). Those are the areas with insufficient training or manpower. Those issues must be addressed internally by the Ministry of Public Security.

How is the Chinese government improving its policing capabilities?

Recently, the ministry has tried to overcome manpower and other ground-level policing problems by using surveillance cameras and artificial intelligence. Networks of cameras are appearing all over the country, and police are using body cameras for recording interactions with the public. This type of surveillance is not just in large cities but also in smaller ones. Of course, it is not enough to just put the cameras up—you also need to train officers to use that technology properly. This process takes time, but it is one way that the ministry hopes to overcome on-the-ground problems such as the low number of police per capita.

How might the Hong Kong protests influence or change policing tactics in China?

The situation in Hong Kong is unlikely to change policing tactics in China, which are generally more aggressive in controlling protests than most of what we have seen thus far in Hong Kong. It is more likely that things will go in the other direction, with mainland tactics being used in Hong Kong, especially if we continue to observe increased pressure to bring the protestors in check.

Suzanne Scoggins is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Clark University. She is also a 2019 National Asia Research Program (NARP) Fellow. Dr. Scoggins holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and her book manuscript Policing in the Shadow of Protest is forthcoming from Cornell University Press. Her research has appeared in Comparative Politics, The China Quarterly, Asian Survey, PS: Political Science and Politics, and the China Law and Society Review.

This interview was conducted by Simone McGuinness, the Public Affairs Intern at NBR.

Essay 92: How to See the Rise of Speculative Finance via Novels: Trollope

Anthony Trollope (died in 1882), the great British novelist, gives us a glimpse of the world of speculative finance in the nineteenth century where to some extent the stock market becomes a kind of “betting parlor” where abstract bets can be made on previous bets in a kind of “infinite regress.”

The example here concerns coffee, guano, and something called “Kauri gum” which is the title of a chapter in The Prime Minister, Trollope’s novel, which introduces us to the “betting parlor” tendency, which is not unique to the prelude to our own Great Recession of 2008.

Sexty Parker sympathized with him to the full, — especially as that first 500 pounds, which he had received from Mr Wharton, had gone into Sexty’s coffers. At that time Lopez and Sexty were together committed to large speculations in the guano trade, and Sexty’s mind was by no means easy in the early periods of the day. As he went into town by his train he would think of his wife and family and of the terrible things that might happen to them. But yet, up to this period, money had always been forthcoming from Lopez when absolutely wanted, and Sexty was quite alive to the fact that he was living with a freedom of expenditure in his own household that he had never known before, and that without apparent damage. Whenever, therefore, at some critical moment, a much-needed sum of money was produced Sexty would become lighthearted, triumphant, and very sympathetic. ‘Well; — I never heard such a story,’ he had said when Lopez was insisting on his wrongs. ‘That’s what the Dukes and Duchesses call honour among thieves! Well, Ferdy, my boy, if you stand that you’ll stand anything.’ In these latter days Sexty had become very intimate with his partner.
It was evident on that day to Sexty Parker that his partner was a man of great resources. Though things sometimes looked very bad, yet money always ‘turned up’. Some of their buyings and sellings had answered pretty well. Some had been great failures. No great stroke had been made as yet, but then the great stroke was always being expected. Sexty’s fears were greatly exaggerated by the feeling that the coffee and guano were not always real coffee and guano. His partner, indeed, was of the opinion that in such a trade as this they were following there was no need at all of real coffee or real guano, and explained his theory with considerable eloquence. ‘If I buy a ton of coffee and keep it six weeks, why do I buy it and keep it, and why does the seller sell it instead of keeping it? The seller sells it because he thinks he can do best by parting with it now at a certain price. I buy it because I think I can make money by keeping it. It is just the same as though we were back to our opinions. He backs the fall. I back the rise. You needn’t have coffee and you needn’t have guano to do this. Indeed the possession of the coffee or guano is only a very clumsy addition to the trouble of your profession. I make it my study to watch the markets; — but I needn’t buy everything I see in order to make money by my labour and intelligence.’ Sexty Parker before his lunch always thought that his partner was wrong, but after that ceremony he almost daily became a convert to the great doctrine. Coffee and guano still had to be bought because the world was dull and would not learn the tricks of trade as taught by Ferdinand Lopez, — also possibly because somebody might want such articles, — but our enterprising hero looked for a time in which no such dull burden should be imposed on him.
On this day, when the Duke’s 500 pounds was turned into the business, Sexty yielded in a large matter which his partner had been pressing upon him for the last week. They bought a cargo of Kauri gum, coming from New Zealand. Lopez had reasons for thinking that Kauri gum must have a great rise. There was an immense demand for amber, and Kauri gum might be used as a substitute, and in six months’ time would be double its present value. This unfortunately was a real cargo. He could not find an individual so enterprising as to venture to deal in a cargo of Kauri gum after his fashion. But the next best thing was done. The real cargo was bought, and his name and Sexty’s name were on the bills given for the goods. On that day he returned home in high spirits for he did believe in his own intelligence and good fortune.

(Trollope, The Prime Minister, Chapter 43, “Kauri Gum”)

One could “marry” this mini-essay to the previous one about Dreiser’s novel to get a fuller picture of the story of our technology-and-finance strand of the present world.

There is a potentially unhealthy “dephysicalization” of finance whereby you don’t need to think about actual “coffee and guano and Kauri gum” at all but only on the “betting structure” (i.e., horse races without horses, so to speak).