Lloyd's List: The Shipping Podcast

Lloyd's List
Lloyd's List: The Shipping Podcast

Lloyd’s List is the world’s leading source of insight, analysis and data for shipping businesses and professionals

  1. Has shipping really moved from laggard to leader?

    NOV 1

    Has shipping really moved from laggard to leader?

    Once a year, an industry alliance of first-movers and green investors gather in a room for shipping’s answer to Davos, the annual Global Maritime Forum. And it’s always an interesting conversation. These are shipping’s optimists. The progressive cohort of industry leaders who have collectively invested billions of dollars in decarbonisation projects and spawned voluntary projects advancing everything from transparent green finance and insurance to diversity programmes and climate-aligned chartering. But it’s not easy being an optimist in shipping right now. There are the obvious geopolitical headwinds blowing in of course, but there is also a growing sense that the industry in wait and see mode. Shipping’s green first-movers are increasingly unlikely to move further without a sufficiently robust regulatory framework from the International Maritime Organization next year. Scratch below the surface of the conversations about progress and innovation, and it’s apparent that we’re not yet at a stage where, even without the regulation, the industry is yet aligned on who ends up footing the bill for what is going to be a very expensive transition to green fuels and even basic efficiency investments. And yet, despite all that, when the GMF gathered in Tokyo earlier this month there was a palpable sense of optimism in the room and genuine evidence that progress is not just possible, it is now inevitable. So, has the shipping industry really moved from laggard to leader in the race to decarbonise? Joining Richard on this week's episode are: Eman Abdalla, global operations director ocean transportation division, Cargill Laure Baratgin, head of commercial operations, Rio Tinto Matthieu de Tugny, head of marine and offshore, Bureau Veritas Nick Brown, chief executive, Lloyd’s Register Arsenio Dominguez, secretary-general, IMO Johanna Christensen, chief executive, Global Maritime Forum

    22 min
  2. Shipping corporate governance: The good, the bad and the ugly

    OCT 25

    Shipping corporate governance: The good, the bad and the ugly

    There have been shipowners listed on Wall Street going back to the 1980s, but it was only in the mid-2000s – with the China trade boom – that the shipping industry really came to the US public markets in a major way. In the two decades since then, there have been some controversies with these listed shipowners. These controversies have involved conflicts of interest: self-dealing by private sponsors and management to the detriment of common shareholders. There have been cases of public owners buying ships from their private sponsors at prices that are – shall we say – advantageous to the related-party sponsors. There have been fees paid by the public companies to their own sponsors for technical and commercial management at levels that have unduly enriched those sponsors. There have been public company managements that have conducted highly dilutive equity sales, wiping out over 90% of their own share value to raise money to buy ships from their own private companies. And there have been insiders that have had attractive offers to buy the public company – offers that would have enriched the common shareholders – but offers that were blocked because it was not in the interest of the insiders. When it comes to corporate governance – the good, the bad and the ugly – there is one person who is considered the expert on this subject, equity analyst Michael Webber. He started his own firm, Webber Research, in 2019 and before that was the shipping analyst at Wells Fargo. Every year, Webber puts out a scorecard that ranks shipping companies based upon their corporate governance and ESG practices. It is very closely watched – and this year’s rankings have just been released. Webber joins Lloyd’s List senior reporter Greg Miller on this week’s episode to talk about the scorecard and what it tells us about shipping industry behaviour.

    25 min
  3. How bad is the crewing crisis and can shipping solve it?

    OCT 18

    How bad is the crewing crisis and can shipping solve it?

    This episode of the Lloyd’s List Podcast was brought to you by Veson. Visit https://veson.com/decision-advantage for more information. Some shipowners warn that crew supply is only set to get worse due to a lack of young people wanting a career at sea. Others are concerned about the need to upskill existing crews to handle increasing digitalisation and multiple fuel types. This comes during a period of growth in the merchant vessel fleet due to a new shipbuilding cycle and limited vessel recycling. Most industry insiders agree that the talent shortage is already becoming a serious problem for the industry. Meanwhile, the switch to recruiting shipboard personnel chiefly from the Indian sub-continent and East Asia since the 1980s means there are fewer people able to fill numerous western shore-based roles requiring previous seafaring experience. As competition for crew has increased, more shipowners are taking action to increase the attractiveness of a seafaring career. These include improved crew accommodation, better internet connectivity and more flexible, or shorter working contracts. All of these can be effective ways to reduce attrition. So what more needs to be done to ensure a continued supply of skilled seafarers and attract young people to the industry to operate the global vessel fleet? Joining Rob Wilmington on this week’s episode are: Julia Anastasiou, chief crew management officer at OSM Thome Raal Harris, chief creative officer, Ocean Technologies

    29 min
  4. The Lloyd’s List Podcast: Why shipping should be training for an ultra marathon

    OCT 4

    The Lloyd’s List Podcast: Why shipping should be training for an ultra marathon

    This episode of the Lloyd's List Podcast was brought to you by Veson. Visit https://veson.com/decision-advantage/ for more information. There is a very detailed series of policy discussions happening right now inside the walls of the International Maritime Organization. The question of whether the IMO can stick to its timetable and agree the basic architecture of shipping’s energy transition via a fuel standard and some kind of levy is of course important. It’s important in terms of demand signals to fuels producers, regulatory certainty for an industry in limbo, but it’s also going to determine whether we continue to have global regulation for shipping. If what the IMO agrees is not ambitious enough, shipping still faces the likely proliferation of national and regional bloc legislations to come. But what gets agreed inside the Marine Environment Protection Committee, is not the final step of shipping’s decarbonisation journey. It’s not even the starter. There’s a long list of practical and political factors for shipping to consider beyond an IMO discussion, and the industry needs to be preparing itself for a gruelling series of changes over several years. The bigger picture is that shipping is still not yet fully on the radar of the wider energy transition discussions like the Global African Hydrogen Summit that took place in Namibia last month. There are still a lot of dots to be joined between government, ports, fuel suppliers and shipping as one of many industries in the queue for green fuels. The industry is entering a phase that requires different approaches to its understanding of fuels supply and procurement and the coming regulation. The cliché “it’s a marathon not a sprint” is overused. But shipping is facing a decarbonisation ultra-marathon, and it needs to start training now.

    24 min
4.3
out of 5
16 Ratings

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Lloyd’s List is the world’s leading source of insight, analysis and data for shipping businesses and professionals

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