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Displaying items by tag: Irish Marine Development Office

#Shipping - The latest Weekly Shipping Market Review from the Irish Marine Development Office (IMDO) reports of strong Asia trade in the container market, and a growing sense of optimism among clean product tankers.

Container trade growth is expected to rise to 6.1 per cent in 2013 driven in part by strong business in Asia, which will see some modest growth at a slower pace than elsewhere throughout the year.

Demand in the tanker market is highest among smaller vessels and those handling clean products, while the crude oil market faces "another challenging year". Profits for product tankers in the Atlantic basin are up, and the fleet is looking forward to a year of growth.

The flipside of this is that more and more ships are facing a future in the scrapyard as the dry bulk market continues to stagnate and shipowners race to cut their costs.

The complete Shipping Markets Review for week 7 is available as a PDF to read or download HERE.

Published in Ports & Shipping

#Shipping - The latest Weekly Shipping Market Review from the Irish Marine Development Office (IMDO) reports of a strong rise in earnings in the tanker market despite a reduction in activity for December 2012.

Demand for VLCC and Aframax tankers in the Arabian Gulf experiences the steepest decline, of 37% and 45% respectively - though the market as a whole was still able to finish above the two-year average.

The dry-bulk market is also expected to exceed fleet growth in the latter half of this year, with day rate for Panamax class vessels set to increase by 12.5%.

Closer to home, plans are in the works to extend a Finnish scheme to support investment in cleaner shipping in the European Union.

Amendments to the scheme are aimed at stricter rules that will apply to marine fuel when the Sulphur Emission Control Area - comprising the English Channel, North Sea and Baltic Sea - comes into force in 2015.

The complete Shipping Markets Review for week 4 is available as a PDF to read or download HERE.

Published in Ports & Shipping

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.