Blaze sinks Sun Vista MORE than 1,000 passengers and crew were rescued early yesterday when the cruiseship Sun Vista caught fire and sank off Malaysia.
News summaries US West Coast trade is booming Page 3 Saga The company says it can maintain its independence Page 2 Smit Tak's Cees van Essen tells how no cure - no pay can go horribly wrong for salvors Page 9 The week in view: pictures and people who have made the news 12-13 Business travel The problems of getting to Genoa Page 11 Shipping Four pages of the latest shipping information from our database Pages 19-22 Puzzles Pit your wits against our chess and crossword experts Page 23
Saga boss declares independence SAGA Petroleum, the beleaguered Norwegian oil company which is the target of a $2.2bn takeover by Norsk Hydro, is "fully capable of remaining independent", according to its president and chief executive.
Natik Aliyev: part of the exploration cycle Natik Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan's state oil company Socar, yesterday said that although two foreign oil groups had left Baku this year following poor exploration results, this was a normal part of the exploration cycle. He expected more foreign groups to move into the country this year.
Insurers face $80m bill after cruiseship sinks The cruiseship Sun Vista is expected to be declared a total loss, bringing the cost of the casualty to insurers to $80m.
Fine weather key to success of evacuation Daylight and calm weather appears to have been an important contributor to the successful evacuation of the 36 year old cruiseship Sun Vista after the vessel caught fire off Penang in the Malacca Strait.
Jurong Shares Surge on Newbuilding Order Jurong Shipyard shares reportedly surged more than eight percent, or Singapore $0.60, to a year high of S$8.10 morning on hopes that the yard had won a multi-million dollar new building order.
Venezuela Revises Down 10-Year Oil Output Target Venezuela has reportedly revised its 10-year oil production capacity target downward by more than a million bpd between 4.8 million and 5.2 million bpd.
ABP Says Opens New Bulk Terminal at Scottish Port A new dry bulk commodities terminal was reportedly inaugurated at the west Scotland port of Ayr.
Mexico Says Removes Tariffs on U.S. Imports Mexico will reportedly eliminate tariffs on natural gas imports from the U.S. starting on July.
Saga Says Capable of Staying Independent Saga Petroleum is reportedly fully capable of remaining independent if shareholders reject a takeover bid by industrial group Norsk Hydro ASA, according to company reports.
Malaysia Port Klang Sees 1999 Container Volume Up Container volume at Port Klang, Malaysia's busiest port, is expected to rise to 2.1 million TEUs in 1999 from 1.82 million TEUs in 1998.
OPEC's Indonesia Victim of Supply Cuts-Trade OPEC member Indonesia has reportedly become a victim of the very oil supply cuts it helped to shape, as it has tendered to buy Saudi Arabian, Iranian and Iraqi crude because its normal supply has been cut under the latest OPEC accord to boost oil prices.
Devon to Buy PennzEnergy in $2.42 Billion Deal Devon Energy Corp. reportedly plans to acquire PennzEnergy Co. in a friendly $2.4 billion deal that would create one of the 10 largest independent U.S. oil and gas producers.
Brazil says 42 Firms to Bid For Oil Area Licenses Brazil reportedly ended the subscription period for its landmark auction of oil exploration and production licenses with 42 companies signed up to bid for the 27 blocks.
U.S. Oil Drilling Rig Count Up 11, Canada Downs One The number of rigs exploring for oil and natural gas in the United States reportedly rose 11 from last week to stand at 518 as of May 21, and down from 855 a year ago.
The Teamsters union and 17 car-hauling companies are racing against a May 31 contract deadline to negotiate a new National Master Automobile Transporters Agreement. This is new Teamsters President James P. "Jimmy" Hoffa's first crack at negotiating a national contract and it's being watched beyond the car-haul industry. The Teamsters' rank and file voted to authorize a strike by a 92 percent margin. Traffic World offers a lengthy examination of the industry's plight made worse by inroads from nonunion trucking companies and rails, as well as what the Teamsters want in Hoffa's first foray at the bargaining table.
The chairman of the House Ground Transportation Subcommittee, Tom Petri, R-Wis., is leaning toward support of a stand-alone motor carrier administration, wants hasty reauthorization of the Surface Transportation Board, wants railroads and their unions to agree on safety-law changes, thinks commercial driver licenses should be more easily revoked, is concerned with the impact on supply-chain costs if hours-of-service laws are revised and opposes precipitous changes to truck size and weight restrictions.
Negotiations to hammer out a new labor contract for longshore workers at the country's West Coast ports got under way after months of sometimes acrimonious sparring between union officials and the organization representing ocean carrier management. The current three-year contract between the International Longshore Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association expires midnight July 1. Shippers are watching the proceedings closely. "Our members are extremely concerned. Make that obsessively concerned," said Robin W. Lanier, senior vice president of industry affairs and trade development for the International Mass Retail Association. The negotiations begin just as retailers are cranking up to meet the demands of the holiday shipping season. With product cycles as short as one month, a slowdown at the ports at this time would be devastating to them.
New Penn Motor Express, a Lebanon, Pa.-based LTL carrier, is once again leading the way in first-quarter operating ratio. Posting a gaudy 78.4 OR, the Teamsters-covered carrier is preparing for more growth by expanding its Cinnaminson, N.J., terminal that serves the Philadelphia area. In another LTL development, Consolidated Freightways tabbed 30-year company veteran Patrick H. Blake as its new president; CEO W. Roger Curry says he'll devote more time to overall corporate strategy at the nation's third-largest LTL carrier.
Norfolk Southern signed an agreement with the New York Cross Harbor Railroad to be the shortline's exclusive interchange partner at its new bulk terminal under construction in Brooklyn, N.Y. Before the pending takeover by NS and CSX, business over the NYCH had been hobbled by having only a single carrier—Conrail—at its interchange points. A spokesman for the shortline, which operates a railcar float across the Hudson River, said the agreement does not preclude it from doing business with CSX or Canadian Pacific Railway, with which it also will interchange beginning June 1.
Service problems and mergers caused railroads to scrap any notion of attempting on-time service in the early 1990s. But with the carriers in a cooling-off phase before what many believe will be an inevitable pairing off into transcontinental rail systems, there's a resurgence in rail efforts toward scheduled rail service. A new system offered by Canadian National Railway seems to be the most aggressive, as it will attempt to guarantee delivery of every car it bills on its system.
The wall cladding systems that Tom O'Rourke ships around the world make buildings more thermally efficient. Now he is building a system designed to insulate shippers like him from ocean freight rates that could be headed for the ceiling. O'Rourke, an executive at a Rhode Island-based Dryvit Systems Inc., created the National Unaffiliated Shippers Association. The idea behind NUSA is that by pooling container traffic with common destinations, shippers can leverage their buying power in the market.
It's rumored that the U.S. Postal Service will be testing a same-day product as early as September. The possibility of USPS encroaching on same-day delivery, one of the air-freight industry's most prized offerings, has some members of the Air Courier Association of America a little frightened. However, a full-blown same-day product doesn't make any sense, according to a USPS spokesman. Rather, the USPS is considering a more limited same-day service between high-traffic city pairs such as New York-Washington, Washington-Atlanta and Los Angeles-San Francisco.
J.D. Edwards and Co. agreed to buy Numetrix Ltd. for $80 million cash. The announcement was one of several that the Denver-based enterprise resource planning software vendor made at its user conference, also in Denver. The acquisition of the supply-chain planning software company headquartered in Toronto is expected to be finalized in June. J.D. Edwards also announced it will integrate and resell Ariba Technologies' and Siebel Systems' electronic commerce software with OneWorld. The combination of functionality from Numetrix, Ariba and Siebel will form the basis of J.D. Edward's new electronic business solution, ActivEra E-Business.
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