$300 million Nigeria project includes major FPSO Brown & Root Energy Services (BRES) has been selected by the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) and its partners to work on the development of the first major offshore oil and gas facility for SPDC in Nigeria. The contract, valued at approximately $300 million includes fabrication of a mooring facility and one of the largest floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels built in the last five years.
Star switches Meyer Werft newbuild to NCL brand A 91,000-ton newbuilding on order at Germany's Meyer Werft as part of Star Cruises' multi-ship new build program, will now become an NCL vessel.
Taiwan seeks to order four Aegis destroyers from U.S. yards Taiwan has handed the U.S. its annual shopping list for arms. At the top of the list, according to the Washington Post, are four Aegis destroyers, at about $1 billion a copy.
Hvide forced to sell more vessels Hvide has reached agreement on the terms of an amendment to its bank credit facility. Under the terms of the amendment, the company is required to prepay principal under its term loans in scheduled increments totaling $60 million by January 1, 2001. To make the prepayments of principal, Hvide will sell underperforming vessels and other assets.
LMZ hungry for China aframax deal LMZ Transoil, the expanding new Greek Cypriot bulk shipping group, is set to award a surprise tanker-building deal to China's Bohai Shipyard.
Aurora berths in Southampton home P&O Cruises' £200m ($317m) Aurora has berthed in her home port of Southampton prior to being named by HRH The Princess Royal on April 27 and embarking on her maiden 14 nights Mediterranean cruise on May 1.
Concordia misses out on rate rise Stronger tanker freight rates arrived too late to prevent Concordia Maritime suffering a first quarter loss.
Oil price and rising output lift Hydro in first quarter Nine-year high crude oil prices and higher oil production boosted first quarter net profits at Norsk Hydro to NKr2.45bn ($293m), compared with NKr709m in 1999.
Cammell Laird lands ferry deal A tyneside shipyard has announced details of a contract that will mean the return of shipbuilding to the river.
New gloom over MoD ship order The Ministry of Defence's order for large landing ships is likely to be placed too late to offer a lifeline to the UK's closure-threatened shipyards Govan and Harland and Wolff.
New Zealand limbers up for oil and gas rush New Zealand has been tipped to become a world-class fuel producer, with recent tests yielding a one-in-three success rate for finding oil and gas.
Splendour of the Seas drug arrests THREE crewmen from a Royal Caribbean cruiseship were charged with importing cocaine to the Cayman Islands, prompting a search that turned up more cocaine stuffed into shoes in a ceiling on the ship.
Not since a terrified Penn Central board of directors sacked its chairman and president a week before filing for bankruptcy protection 30 years ago has a railroad executive-suite massacre occurred equivalent to the firing by CSX Chairman John Snow of President Ron Conway and two Conway proteges, Senior Operations Vice President Gary Spiegel and Senior Marketing Vice President John Sammon. Since CSX and Norfolk Southern incorporated a carved-up Conrail into their systems last June 1, the stock of both railroads has plummeted, profits nearly disappeared, service quality evaporated, customers who can have gone elsewhere and the Federal Railroad Administration has criticized the railroad's track maintenance program. Things have just been worse at CSX than at NS.
Shippers are taking their message of anti-competitive railroads to Washington in hopes of getting someone to listen. Groups such as the Consumers United for Rail Equity and the Transportation Intermediaries Association testified to members of the House Judiciary Committee that railroads are the "only industry in America not subject to the antitrust laws, not regulated and whose members don't have to compete with each other." While shippers would like to change that, railroads are happy with the oversight of the Surface Transportation Board and Congress has shown little inkling to change that.
Web merchants, particularly online grocers, need to look hard at charging more for delivery, say many consultants watching the exploding industry. While Peapod, the Chicago-based online grocer may be on its last leg, a whole new crop of Internet-based grocers is coming on the scene. The key is to find a way to make money from the last mile of the delivery, the transportation piece that has boggled Internet players from the beginning. Failing to deliver as promised is a huge problem for online merchants, akin to running a marathon and stumbling at the end.
If the first two major LTL earnings reports are any indication, it's going to be a profitable year in trucking. Roadway Express and American Freightways both enjoyed healthy earnings increases from last year's opening quarter. Roadway, the nation's largest LTL carrier, enjoyed a 31 percent rise in net income to $10.4 million in the quarter. AF, the nation's eighth-largest LTL carrier, nearly doubled its first-quarter earnings to $13.4 million. Both carriers cited increases in productivity and yield management that came in spite of record-high diesel prices in the first quarter.
Railroad executives agree there is a lot of wasted capacity. There are also plenty of lanes where shippers are told the railroad is full. In the past, railroads' first response to capacity constraints was to buy new equipment. Now railroads are looking at better coordination among the railroads and improved information systems that can make huge improvements for very little money. RailLinc, a rail-funded technology company, has set up a new website aimed at improving intermodal transfers as a start.
Kitty Hawk doused investors with a spate of bad news, spurring rumors that the company may have to enter bankruptcy protection to climb out of the mess. There is a very real possibility that the air cargo company will miss a May 15 loan payment; it will restate its 1999 earnings; and it plans to write down the value of many of its aircraft assets. Kitty Hawk's newly appointed Chief Financial Officer Paul H. Tate resigned amid the bad news but is expected to stay on as an investor. Kitty Hawk's stock dropped to below $1 in a massive sell-off April 12.
The competitive stakes have changed in the U.S.-Latin America and Caribbean trades, following the announcement that a new deep-water container terminal for the U.S. Gulf region is planned. The new facility, a 50-50 joint venture between Americana Ships and Stevedoring Services of America, could strengthen the entire U.S. Gulf region. Both companies have committed up to $1 million to conduct a detailed evaluation. The planned terminal is located about 40 miles from Houston and 15 miles from the Gulf of Mexico.
International trade-logistics software company Vastera is growing up. The company has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to publicly offer up to $70 million of its common stock. Managing underwriters for the offering are Deutsche Bank Alex Brown, Chase H&Q and Banc of America LLC. Vastera decided to go public because "we want to be a large player and we want to dominate our space. It is a piece of our evolution," said Greg Stock, vice president of marketing for Dulles, Va.-based Vastera. The company plans on acquiring other companies with the money and will remain focused on building strategic solutions for global trade.
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