Mixed bag for Singapore terminals throughput

Singapore: Singapore port terminals handled 20.3% fewer containers in May from a year ago but traffic edged up 0.7% from April, Reuters writes citing data from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore.

The numbers show this year's shrinking trade at the world's busiest container port may have stabilised. Most containers passing through Singapore's port are transshipments between East and West, and so are a barometer of world trade.The figures reinforce government data on Wednesday that showed Singapore's May non-oil exports rose a bigger-than-expected 5.6% from the previous month on a seasonally adjusted basis, but fell 12.1% from a year ago."Evidence of a fledgling recovery in Singapore exports and industry is growing," said HSBC economist Robert Prior-Wandesforde after the exports data. "We remain optimistic that Singapore GDP will have grown on a quarter-on-quarter basis in the second quarter."

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COSCO boss positive about profit prospects

Shipping giant China COSCO Holdings expects better financial results for the second half of this year.

"We will aim to achieve a profit this year," said the Chairman of China Ocean Shipping, Wei Jiau, the listed company's parent.China COSO had an unaudited net loss of US$490.8 million for the first quarter, compared with a net profit of US$898.6 million a year earlier.Captain Wei also said the parent company's key dry bulk operations are at a break-even level. China COSCO is the listed flagship of China Ocean Shipping, China's largest shipping operator by revenue.

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West Eminence Heads for Offshore Brazil Next Week

Norway drilling company Seadrill hopes its West Eminence rig will head out for drilling in Brazil's Santos Basin next week, the company's drilling performance manager told Dow Jones Newswires.

The West Eminence arrived in Brazil on May 30 and has been undergoing inspections and acceptance testing, Seadrill's Mauricio Aguiar said Wednesday."We expect everything will be ready and the rig will head out to sea next week," Aguiar said. The executive spoke on the sidelines of the Brazil Offshore 2009 conference in Macae.West Eminence will first head for the much-ballyhooed BM-S-11 block, home to the Tupi and Iara finds. The subsalt oil prospects are estimated to hold recoverable reserves of between 8 billion and 12 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

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46 indicted in Taiwan’s Kaohsiung port scandal

Taipei: Prosecutors in Taiwan said on Thursday they had indicted 46 people from the island's largest port and from eight shipping lines on charges of inflating data, apparently in an effort to raise the port's global ranking, writes Reuters.

The Kaohsiung Harbour Bureau director general and other officials were indicted over the past few days on charges they paid the freight lines a total of about T$300 million ($9.12 million) since 2007 to exaggerate shipping volumes, said Chung Chung-hsiao, a spokesman with the Kaohsiung prosecutor's office. Kaohsiung's port, the world's third-busiest in the late 1990s, has fallen to No. 8 with the expansion of ports in nearby China following rapid economic growth."We don't know their motivation, but we do know they were exaggerating," Chung said. "We have to do what we have to do. So much money and so many faked documents -- it's pretty big."After a year of investigation following a citizen complaint, prosecutors indicted the port officials with falsifying records, seeking personal gain and breaching contracts, Chung said.Port officials declined to comment on the case.

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BW Gas applies for delisting from Oslo

BW Gas has now formally applied for delisting from the Oslo Stock Exchange, following a resolution of its members and board of directors.

The Sohmen family now controls 99.9 per cent of the share capital and the votes in BW Gas through its World Nordic. As there is only one shareholder left, the shares will no longer be subject to regular trading, and the shares will thus no longer meet the requirement for listing on the Oslo Stock Exchange

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