Overseas trade vis-a-vis overseas shipping: Growth and performance in India (1999–2009)

Maritime trade has been and even continues to account for about a lion's share of India's total cargo volumes. Despite the growth of multimodal transport (by land, water and air), shipping still continues to be the major mode of transport in the bulk carriage of country's overseas trade. In view of this vital role of shipping, in the first four decades of independence, under the initiative of planned development and active government support, India's shipping and port sector saw dramatic growth in their performance to build adequate national fleet, in keeping up with the transport of overseas cargo. However, the onset of economic liberalization in 1991 has given rise to many new dimensions in the development of the shipping and port sector of the country with a significant redefinition of shipping and port services, in response to the new global trend patterns. For instance, it has also established the new era of containerization in the mode of cargo delivery from the dominance of the era of bulk and break-bulk trade during the decade of sixties and seventies. Moreover, as global competition increases, in response to this emerging trade patterns within this country, India's volume of traffic growth also increases manifold. So, India's shipping and port sectors need, significantly, to build up and furnish their capacity by increasing the frequency of this mode of transport i.e. the growth of the national overseas fleet to meet this surging demand. This paper, therefore, have focused on this role of shipping in such rising overseas trade, with a view to examine the shipping performance (the growth of overseas fleet) in response to the growing overseas trade at all ports of India during the period (1999–2000 to 2008–2009), in terms of both a mathematical model and a graphical representation. Finally, it concludes that the absolute overseas trade, being highly import dependent, have led to a more or less stagnant performance in overseas shipping, owing to the lack of the adequate growth of absolute overseas exports during this period.     

Effect of risk preference on the valuation of time charter contracts with extension options

ABSTRACT

The literature on valuation of time charter contracts and real options in shipping generally relies on the complete markets hypothesis and the risk-neutrality of agents. However, these assumptions fail completely in some shipping market segments. This study proposes a numerical approach—based on discounting the certainty equivalent payoff at the risk-free rate—which incorporates the agent’s risk preferences through an exponential utility function. The method comprises an iterative Monte Carlo nested simulation with the real probability measure. This method is applied to a case of Suezmax tankers. The stochastic evolution of the time charter rates is modelled as a geometric mean-reverting process. The case study supports the applicability of the proposed method and evidences that the effect of risk preference may be significant, mainly for more risk-averse agents. Although the method involves intensive computation, it has the benefits of theoretical ease and flexibility, which could encourage utilisation by practitioners.     

An empirical model for estimating berth and sailing times of mega container ships

ABSTRACT

We provide two empirical models for calculating the sailing time and berth time of maritime container liner networks to effectively model the ambiguity associated with sea and port contingency for ex-ante decisions of fleet deployment and route planning. The models are based on recorded AIS data of 110 mega vessels including all the operating container mega vessels with a capacity of 16,000 TEU or more during the summer of 2015. The models are able to estimate the sailing time (with R² of 0.974) and the berth time (with R² of 0.895) without knowledge of any operational-level explanatory variables. The models are validated against the published East Asia–North Europe services. Moreover, the study reveals that vessel operators adopt different berthing and sailing strategies even under the same conditions.     

A cause of oversupply and failure in the shipping market: measuring herding behavior effects

ABSTRACT

The shipping market is volatile. In general, the shipping market cycle shows four stages, through—recovery—peak—collapse, while a upward trend lasts for 7~8 years and a downward trend for another 7~8 years. So the market’s bubble is not sustainable but always ends in a recessionary trend. The economic cycle is common knowledge and an axiom of the shipping industry, but many ship-owners take no account of it. Previous study stated that ship-owners’ fears, triggered by a violently changeable market, make them mimic the crowd mind or herd mentality, following market sentiment. This study aims to measure the effects of herding behavior (HB), triggered by market sentiment, on the shipping market. We attempt to address two research questions: (1) How does HB arise, and what course does it follow? (2) How many vessels (or how many tons) were purchased under the influence of HB? We estimate that 50.5% (227.8 vessels) of the total vessels or 30.4% (3,670.2 tons) of the total tonnage were purchased under the influence of HB. Looking at international finance, we found that ship investment HB is a very strong factor of the recent shipping market, at least in Korea.     

Next generation mega container ports: implications of traffic composition on sea space demand

ABSTRACT

Demand for sea space brought about by increasing container-shipping traffic has important implications on how this space is managed and used. This is particularly important given the long-term nature, high-asset specificity, high- opportunity cost of investment, and significant economic impact of container port activity on a locality. The challenge is especially pressing for ports, which are facing constraints in seaside capacity where container traffic also has to co-exist with the needs of other types of ship traffic. This challenge is likely be multiplied for next generation container ports, which are expected to handle even larger traffic volumes. These ports are also likely to face competing sea space demands from other economic and social activities especially when they are concurrently major confluences of trade, logistics, and urban populations. This is the first research to investigate in detail the impact and importance of investigating sea space requirements from the perspective of cargo traffic composition and ship capacity. Results show that transshipment containers can generate much higher demand for sea space due to the higher volume of shipping capacity that accompanies such traffic. Sustainability issues and managerial and policy implications pertaining to the development of next generation container ports are provided.     

对在油船改装成浮式储油装置过程中开展海事监管的若干思考

文中以"北方之珠"轮改装工程为例,就VLCC大型油船改装成海上浮式储存卸油平台过程中存在的监管重点、难点进行了分析。     

谈小型油船利用双层底舱装运货油违章行为处置

文中分析了部分小型油船利用双层底舱装运货油为多赚运费的违章行为,指出了违章原因,并提出了相应的建议。     

油船间货油海上过驳海事监管探析

文中专题分析2009年MAI（POL公约附则I修正案“关于防止油轮间海上货油过驳期间造成污染”的履约要求和我国海事监管存在的问题,并提出相应对策建议,以期全面履约和实现对我国管辖海域内的油船间货油过驳作业的有效监管     

GPS在轮胎吊“油改电”系统中的应用

为了提高“油改电”技术节油效果,结合GPS卫星定位技术、单片机控制技术和轮胎吊PLC控制技术设计了“轮胎吊作业区域智能识别系统”.介绍轮胎吊作业区域通知识别系统方案设计和硬件、软件的实现.实现了轮胎吊在不同区域作业时油电转换功能.     

基于博弈视角下的出租车行业规制分析

通过对出租车市场中出租车司机、黑出租车、消费者、政府几者的主体利益分析,运用博弈论的方法分析出租车市场上出租车公司与出租车司机,出租车司机与乘客,出租车公司与政府,黑出租车与政府这些利益主体几者的博弈关系,说明出租车规制对各方利益博弈均衡的影响。通过对政府管制下出租车行业的利益主体的博弈分析,说明出租车行业管制对行业利益分配的影响,为出租车行业管制的发展和改革提供理论依据。