shipping News Updates

A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S said a cyberattack that hit the owner of the world’s biggest container shipping company at the end of June will wipe as much as $300 million off profits in the third quarter.

Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Holdings Ltd., which specializes in dry-bulk carriers, has rallied 83% in 2017 to lead the benchmark Straits Times Index. The Chinese shipbuilding firm has made a comeback after it won 13 contracts worth $318 million in the first quarter, about 40% of its $823 million worth of orders it won last year.

Matson Inc. sailed over a shallow trough of lower Hawaii cargo shipments to produce a 33% profit gain in the second quarter largely driven by enhanced business in China and Alaska.

With its pending purchase of the Whole Foods grocery chain, Amazon.com will become a major shipper for fresh produce, a transport market that has always been difficult and is now getting even more challenging.

UPS Inc. will institute a holiday-shipping surcharge for residential delivery in much of November and December this year to help deal with the torrent of e-commerce shipping at that time of year.

Philly Shipyard announced June 8 that it will build up to four new containerships and is in “advanced discussions” to create a new cargo shipping line to provide transpacific service between the West Coast and Hawaii.

Little more than 2½ years from now, the global fleet of merchant ships will have to reduce drastically how much sulfur their engines belch into the atmosphere.

Shortly after Donald Trump was elected president Nov. 8, the stock prices of a slew of shipping companies soared by more than 1000% on hopes that commodity prices would rise and U.S. manufacturing would rebound, spurring a surge in shipments of everything from iron ore to computer parts.

The global shipping industry has urged the European Union to drop the sector's inclusion in proposals adopted Feb. 15 to reform the bloc's carbon market, saying it risks distorting trade and international efforts to cut the sector's emissions.

The global shipping industry is in the midst of a huge downturn, with weak demand engulfing it for the past few years. Experts acknowledge that the sector’s biggest hurdle is overcapacity, but the wave of mergers and acquisitions means the hard times will pass eventually.