Shedding light
where darkness reigns
where darkness reigns
23 May 2016
Whatever one thinks of the man, the likelihood of a Donald Trump presidency has become more likely than ever before. What could this mean for maritime transport, and how could Trump use maritime transport to realise his campaign promises? Trump’s campaign slogan is his economic agenda: make America great again. Now, there are various ways […]
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15 May 2016
Last week I wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal on how consolidation in the container shipping sector – and the leap from four to three major alliances – would increase the already impressive grip of carriers on ports. I recommended that competition authorities take a look at this. Although many readers concurred with […]
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8 May 2016
Future ports will be bigger, faster, greener and smarter. Put differently, their future is shaped by five phenomena that curiously enough all start with an S: size, space, speed, sustainability and smartness. Size Port size is directly related to ship size and carrier size. Bigger ships need bigger ports – and lead to bigger but […]
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29 April 2016
Port pricing seems a pretty arcane subject, but is an essential tool for solving the main challenges posed by mega-ships. These challenges are related to costs, peaks and risks. Port pricing provides possibilities to takes these into account. In other words: to internalise externalities. This blogpost will provide some ideas on how this could be […]
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24 April 2016
Shipping did not figure in the historical Paris agreement on climate change finalised in December last year. Rightly so, according to many in the industry, as the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) would be the appropriate organisation to deal with this. Last week was the first official occasion since the Paris meetings for the IMO to […]
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20 April 2016
The dominant paradigm in container shipping is “economies of scale”, but we might be heading for a paradigm shift. Away with mega-carriers, mega-ships and mega-ports! Instead: Smaller carriers with fewer assets, less debt, more flexibility; carriers that actually compete with each other. Smaller ships to provide more tailor-made solutions to customers. More ports called, also […]
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16 April 2016
The shipping sector seems to be slave to a very powerful and addictive idea, called “economies of scale”. This paradigm of always bigger has three elements: mega-ships, mega-carriers and mega-ports. The growth of these three has been spectular over the last decades. Many in the sector seem to believe that big is beautiful. And even […]
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8 April 2016
Global shipping is – in a way – a unique success story. Maritime transport costs declined spectacularly over the last decades. This has facilitated an economic model of specialisation on a truly global scale. So much so that even David Ricardo, one of the intellectual fathers of economic globalisation, would have been surprised. Maritime transport […]
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31 March 2016
There are hundred reasons why people start blogs; mine is unease. Unease with the current state of shipping, and unease with the lack of critical discussion on it. Shipping is essential to world trade and the well-being of nations, which seems to have made it immune to fundamental questions. Questions such as: Do we always […]
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