Seaspan back in black with US$175 million profit after $139 million loss

    Hong Kong's Seaspan Corporation's 2017 net profit was US$175.2 million, reversing itself from an annual net loss of $139 million in 2016. Last year's revenue came in at $831.3 million, a year-on-year decline of five per cent.

    Quarterly net profit increased nearly 40-fold to $58.5 million year on year, drawn on revenues $214.3 million, up 0.55 per cent.

    In the fourth quarter and this year to date, Seaspan accepted delivery of one 11,000-TEU vessel on long-term bareboat charter with the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) in December 2017.

    The final of five 11,000-TEU vessels chartered to MSC was delivered in January 2018.

    Seaspan, a New York-listed non-operating containership owner, achieved vessel utilisation of 96 per cent for the quarter and 95.7 per cent for the year. Excluding four 4,250-TEU vessels that were sold, vessel utilisation was 96.7 per cent for the year.

    Seaspan also raised $250 million of capital from affiliates of Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited, which it intends to use for growth initiatives, debt repayment and general purposes.

    Currently there are 23 unencumbered vessels in Seaspan's operating fleet, including two 2,500-TEUers, two 3,500 TEUers, fifteen 4,250-TEUers, two 4.500-TEUers and two 9,600-TEUers.

    Said Seaspan chairman David Sokol: "2017 was an important and pivotal year for Seaspan. We continued to achieve strong operating results, maintain a sizable contracted revenue backlog, and grow our operating fleet on long-term time charters by taking delivery of five newbuildings with charters of 10 to 17 years.

    "With a focus on driving shareholder value, we also took important steps to strengthen our corporate governance, deleverage our balance sheet, and increase our unencumbered asset base," he said.

    Said president and CEO Bing Chen: "My goal during this important phase is to leverage our integrated platform to create substantial franchise value. By prioritising our customers, operational excellence, accretive growth and financial strength, we intend to increase our industry leading position."

APL launches three new Asia to Latin America services

    APL has started offering three new Asia-Latin America services that will call at ports in Asia, Mexico, Central America and the west coast of South America.

    Together with the Asia Caribbean Express (ACE) service that directly connects Asia to the Caribbean, APL's expanded Asia-Latin America service network promises a more extensive service coverage.

    As a new weekly direct service that links China, Korea, Taiwan, Mexico, Central America and west coast of South America, the CDX service's eastbound route boasts the industry's fastest transit time from Busan to Mexico in 15 days, Shanghai to Mexico in 20 days and central China to San Antonio in 33 days.

    Its westbound route also offers competitive transit times that are designed to facilitate shipments of fresh fruit and perishable commodities transported from Mexico and west coast South America to Japan and China. For example, it requires just 15 days for cargoes to transit from Mexico to Yokohama via this service.

    The CDX service will commence from Kaohsiung on April 4 on the following port rotation: Kaohsiung, Hong Kong, Shenzhen-Shekou, Ningbo, Shanghai, Busan, Manzanillo, Lazaro Cardenas, Buenaventura, San Antonio, Callao, Lazaro Cardenas, Manzanillo, Yokohama, Busan, Kaohsiung.

    The carrier's new weekly Falcon Express (FCX) service that calls at ports in China, Korea, Mexico and west coast South America will offer transit times from Korea and China to Ensenada of 12 and 17 days respectively. Cargoes from north China to Peru and Chile will arrive in just 28 and 33 days respectively.

    The FCX service will commence sailing from Xiamen on April 7 on the following port rotation: Xiamen, Shenzhen-Yantian, Shanghai, Qingdao, Busan, Ensenada, Manzanillo, Callao, San Antonio, Lirquen, Manzanillo, Shanghai, Xiamen.

    The third new service named Caracara Express (CRX) is another weekly service that calls at ports in China, Mexico and west cast South America. The first sailing will commence from Hong Kong on April 17 with the following port rotation of Hong Kong, Shenzhen-Yantian, Kaohsiung, Ningbo, Shanghai, Manzanillo, Buenaventura, Callao, San Antonio, returning to Hong Kong.

DP World's volumes globally up 10pc to 70 million TEU, remains big on Canada

    Dubai's DP World saw container volumes across its global portfolio of 78 terminals grow by 10.1 per cent year on year to 70.1 million TEU.

    The company operates Vancouver's Centerm and Prince Rupert's Fairview Container Terminal. As of November 2017, container traffic through the Port of Vancouver rose by 10.8 per cent to 2.98 million TEU year on year, while container traffic through Prince Rupert was up 26 per cent to 926,540 TEU.

    Last August DP World unveiled a US$200 million expansion to raise the Fairview container terminal's annual capacity to 1.35 million TEU up from 776,412. In the first six months of 2017 it invested US$595 million in assorted growth markets, reported Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide.

    DP World has ambitions to increase its cargo handling capacity on Canada's west coast to four million TEU by 2022. Sixty per cent of that total would flow through Prince Rupert as part of a third Fairview expansion that would raise its capacity to between two million and 2.5 million TEU.

    It also plans to invest $350 million in expanding its Centerm container terminal in Burrard Inlet to raise its annual box handling capacity to 1.5 million TEU up from the current 900,000.

    Container volume increased in all regions serviced by DP World, especially Australia and the Americas, where gross TEU volume was up 13.8 per cent in 2017 compared with 2016.

    DP World CEO Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem pointed to improvements in global trade and market share gains as key factors in the company's increased cargo numbers, which he noted were ahead of 2017's global container cargo market growth of six per cent.

    McKinsey estimated that the container shipping sector, without which worldwide GDP would be reduced by US$15 trillion, has "destroyed over US$100 billion in shareholder value over the past 20 years".

    Its report predicted that the large gap between container capacity and demand will persist into the early 2020s. Danish Ship Finance (DSF) also sees darker clouds on the horizon for shipping lines, warning that surplus capacity remains a significant issue.

(Source:HKSG-GROUP)

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