ShipSpotting.com Forum
Shipspotters all over the world => Shipping News and information => Topic started by: Robert McDonald on December 09, 2011, 01:16:15 PM
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O Glogo reports an announcement today by Vale's President Murilo Ferreira: FERREIRA: I do not want to comment on the decisions of my predecessor. What I did was make the decision to recommend the sale of ships owned by the Valley (19 of 35 ordered). They were too costly capital of the company. The company has to focus its investments in nickel, iron ore, copper, coal and fertilizer, which is what she does well."
"STX Dutch company hired Smith, one of the most renowned in ship repair. This company is doing all the maintenance work of the vessel so that she can return to browsing. It is agreed that will be taken until tomorrow (today) about two thousand tons of bunker (fuel used in the marine industry). After that, the tendency is for the technicians to release the ship to follow it to its destination in Rotterdam, no risk."
For the full story, see: http://oglobo.globo.com/
The GLOBE: The company is negotiating the sale of ships?
FERREIRA: There is already quite advanced negotiations with a foreign company. But this will only be done if we have the assurance that the ships will be chartered to Vale sold for the long term.
Robert in Port Townsend
www.oil-electric.com (http://www.oil-electric.com)
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I think something is lost in translation here and therefore slightly misleading. Although it's true that Vale wishes to relinquish ownership of the 19 VLOCs they have on order, the plug is not being pulled altogether. What the article fails to mention is that the 19 ships will be sold with a long-term TC back to Vale. They are still coming folks :-))
Brgds
Phil
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Of course
sold means not disappearing
we saw that the last year all over,,companies ordered 20 ships and sold 10-15 of the contracts or all 1x1 before the first welding rod was used on them.
An old saying in the german shipping : You make money through ordering ships not by running ships !!!
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Capt.,
That might have been true 3-4 years ago when asset values were at a high point, but with a rapid drop in ship prices accross the board, owners are not reaping any rewards with asset play at the moment. Any resales in the last year or so have mainly been distressed sales where owners have defaulted on payments, or yard resales of owner cancellations. Vale probably won't make any money on reselling the ships, but they figure that the cost of running such vessels is prohibitive to their main commodities and mining business. Hence, they would rather sell them and TC back in
Brgds
Phil
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Hi Phil
Of course they have the money in view, and that,s what I more or less say,, they make money through ships not with ships. Vale never really was into managing ships (as far as I know) that is another aspect most probably. On top of that wasn,t there a report that a VALE bulker was not allowed to enter a chinese port ? May be they know sooner or later they will have to call China again, and better let others deal with that problem then they ?
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Exactly. Owning and managing ships isn't their core activity Ted. The sale is not to make a quick buck, but to divest themselves of what has become a shackle round their neck. The Chinese aspect is complex, but effectively the Chinese are concerned with Vale using their own vessels to take away business from Chinese ships. Who knows, maybe it's a Chinese owner waiting in the wings to buy the vessels, then it will be problem solved !
Brgds
Phil
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Due to the Chinese embargo on the Vale ships, Vale will sell them to other operators and charter them back in order to get around the embargo. The Chinese are well renowned for wanting to control the shipping themselves.
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The Chinese weren't bashful about carrying the paper and building the vessels ...
Robert in Port Townsend
www.oil-electric.com (http://www.oil-electric.com)
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One of Brazilian mining giant Vale's huge iron ore carriers, the world's biggest, will arrive fully-loaded in Asia for the first time next week with a stop in Singapore, according to Reuters Freightviews data, Reuters reports. The 388,000-tonne Berge Everest, which has been leased to Vale, is expected to arrive in Singapore on Dec. 15, but it was not clear whether the city-state was the ship's final destination.
China, Vale's main market, has yet to give these ships access to domestic ports, forcing the world's largest iron ore producer to send its vessels instead to Italy, Oman and other destinations. The vessel's arrival also comes amid rising concerns over the safety of these Valemax ships after a similar vessel, Vale Beijing, became disabled before setting sail on its maiden voyage. The crew of the Berge Everest has not formally requested to stop in Singapore, said a port official, and may decide instead to anchor far offshore for supplies and to refuel. Singapore's ports were wide and deep enough to handle the Berge Everest should the crew decide to dock, authorities said. A spokeswoman with Singapore-based Berge Bulk, the owner of the vessel, was not immediately available to comment on the ship's voyage plans. The Berge Everest, built by China's Bohai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry, is one of six mega bulk ships to be delivered to Vale so far this year. The company wants to build a fleet of as many as 35 mega vessels to sharply cut the cost of delivering the steel-making ingredient to China.
Source : PortNews
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Looks to me that the chinese lernt rather quick the capitalism mechanics of the market, block what you can,,get what you can. If a european port would block a chinese ship to enter one would hear an uproar. I sailed the last 25 years mainly in Central and south american waters and noticed often that those countries are more and more friendly towards China. The problem what these countries seemingly don,t see,,that whatever China does is good for China and not necessarily good for them,,beside some offshore bank accounts for the top politicans. And one thing I hear now already the help cry to the north when the chinese cutthroat the story.
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ohhh forgot to add
Ich rief die boesen geister, nun werd ich sie nicht mehr los
From the german poem ZAUBERLING, Goethe
loosely translated : I called for the bad ghosts, now I can,t get them go away again
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Sale-and-charter-back deals became commonplace when accountants took over the British and West European shipping industries. "Get them off the balance sheet - especially if shipping is not our core business!" That has been the accountants' call.
If the buyers of the Vale ships do turn out to be Chinese-based, that will confirm that all the stuff about banning these ships from Chinese ports was pure protectionism. Since the second world war, the same situation has arisen with, first, Japan, then Korea and now China. All three depend for their industrial might on raw materials imported from abroad. Importing those raw materials in your own ships, rather than in some Johnny-foreigners' has a positive effect on your country's balance of payments figures. Accountants, economists and especially trade ministers (politicians) really like that!
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This whole cracking of big ships ,like now the Vale Beijing reminds me of the 70,s when tankers became bigger and bigger until they broke apart, most of the time during loading or discharging. I sailed some containerships , 200 + m and we had on all of them somewhere cracks, very often in Ballast tanks and bunker tank areas. I heard from other Masters and officers who sailed on bigger ones that on those chinese mega container ships cracks "are the norm" . For me it is really not a surprise. For the money matter, of course sell them and lease them back gives them also less responsibility. EXXON "sold" almost its entire fleet after the Exxon Valdes disaster in Alaska. That move freed them of the responsibility to have adequate manning and safety standards (not that Exxon Valdes did not have that ) and keeps them out in case disaster strucks. Vale has big export contracts to China, so, the suggestion that China will be around a few corner behind the buying is not too far off-thinking.
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Hi all,
Any news already about which Vale vessel will visit the Port of Rotterdam? And more news about her ETA?
As what I can see right now, nothing to be expected yet...
Thanks!
Keep up the good work!
Klaas-Jan
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Hi Klaas-Jan,
He's stil at the Baia de Sao Marcos opposite of Sao Luis - Brasil.
You can check this on Marinetraffic.com
The trip from Brasil to Rotterdam takes about 11/12 days.
Cheers Fred
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4116 SEA MILES, 12.9 DAYS @ 14KN
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Is it true that Vale Basil has been towed a couple of miles off the loading bay and moored over a mud bank with very little clearance under her keel? Pictures of her being moved showed her down by the stern.
Vale Rio de Janeiro is now moored offshore, looks as if she is on her maiden voyage from build in Korea.
Will they dare load her?
Holedriller
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Vale Rio de Janeiro was delivered in September and has already completed one cargo voyage from Brazil to Italy. This will be her second loading.
Brgds
Phil
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Anchoring/position her over a mud bank makes sense. In case she really goes further down or even breaks more she will not totally sink, but after off loading and repairing could go somewhere else for further inspections and repairs. so in that light a good idea.
But personally I think they reached areas in ships sizes as in the 70,s with the tankers, when everybody thought bigger, bigger, BIGGER,,BIGGEST !!!! and suddenly they broke and everybody wondered. Seems like we reach or have reached the same stages. Just looking fwd or better said not, when the first mega container vessel goes apart. I read an article when the Emma Maersk came in service that in case of total loss it would be about 2 billion Dollar loss ,not counted the following losses of production cuts in factories etc etc.
staggering numbers when one thinks about it. I remember I did one trip at that time on a 2500 TEU ship, fully loaded, among it 400 reefer container from Brazil and Argentina, I figured it would be about 250 million under my feet. Staggering numbers
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But personally I think they reached areas in ships sizes as in the 70,s with the tankers, when everybody thought bigger, bigger, BIGGER,,BIGGEST !!!! and suddenly they broke and everybody wondered.
If I recall correctly, none of the 370+ m ships on the list of world's longest ships (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world%27s_longest_ships) suffered major structural failures and sailed to the scrapyard in one piece. However, there might have been some smaller problems that were not widely reported - mind shedding some light on them if you can recall any?
While it would be nice to go to smaller ships (yay, more ships!), I guess the economy of scale will become more and more important in the future and we'll see even bigger ships. I don't think safety will be an issue as long as we make sure the ships are built as they are designed.
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I agree. Based on history, there is no reason to say a 400,000 dwt vessel is more dangerous than a 300,000 dwt vessel, and there are many of the latter sailing the seas. There were no major structural failings or incidents with the 400,000 - 565,000 dwt ULCCs built in the 1970s, to my knowledge.
I saw the Chinese Shipowners' Association has sent out a press release this week, saying the Valemaxes were allegedly unsafe and posed "catastrophic" pollution risks.
Rhetorical questions:
- Are they referring to the ones built by their compatriots, or the Korean-built ones?
- Also, how can the risk of pollution from bunkers(!) from a 400,000 dwt dry cargo ship (Valemax) be anywhere near as "catastrophic" as a spill from one of the elderly VLCCs that trade to China carrying full cargoes of crude oil? Perhaps they should focus on the latter in stead...
- And finally, what is more risky - a brand-new 400,000 dwt Valemax or one of the old single-hull 250,000 - 300,000 dwt VLCCs that the Chinese have converted into VLOCs?
Don't believe the hype.
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Mats has a point. A Valemax ship can carry some 10,000 tons of fuel which, while surely a potential environmental disaster, is nothing when compared to tankers. While I do not know where the fuel tanks are located, I would assume that they are not evenly distributed along the length of the hull, meaning that a typical structural damage of a VLOC (grounding, hull girder failure) would not rupture them. However, what happens when a fully-laden VLCC breaks in two...
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quote from a friend of mine with whom I worked together 10 years ago in the same company
and that company builded heavily in China during the following 6-8 years.
"one should forbid them to build ships,if it were not for the cheap building prices due to labour costs and materials"
he said that after he came back from China after the initial sea trials for a 300+m container vessel failed 3 times, they got not even out of the river.
I was on one chinese constructed vessel and I know one thing I don,t want to see any again.
As mentioned in a posting before, I sailed with officers (engineers and nautic alike)from 2004-2008 on container ships and from each one of them who came from 300-350 +m ones, I heard that those 300 + ships "cracks" are the norm. That means not necessarily that they will break, but it happened. Saying now, that it is a proven and sizes don,t matter, can be as big as they want,,thats exactly what was said also in the 70.s
That a big ore carrier makes less pollution than a VLCC in case of disaster is a given.
It was mentioned that in case of the Vale ship that may be it was wrong loaded, possible,,but nowadays with all the computer oversight involved, I would say unlikely. Just on the first time loading most probably the oversight of the loading operations was rather good, complacency comes usually with standard and repeating prodecdures, not when procedures are used the first time. What I know for sure, as long the human element is involved, accidents will happen,,never mind how much automatic/computer control will be installed.
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I too have heard horror stories about Chinese-built ships. For example a decade or so ago a shipping company ordered a number of products tankers that, once delivered, spent weeks or months in a western ship repair yard due to hairline cracks in the cargo tanks. Still, they were cheaper than their European-built counterparts. Also, a Chinese-built ro-ro ship I visited had many minor issues that made life and working inconvenient, and the overall appearance was kind of shabby...
Anyway, one should not forget that the Vale Beijing was built in South Korea, not China, and the Jiangsu Rongsheng-built Vale China has not reported structural damage. Of course this does not mean that the reason for the failure can not be an error made during the construction of the vessel. Also, since it's a prototype, it could also be a design error that must be fixed to the next STX-built Valemaxes.
As for loading error, I don't think Vale made a mistake - they do have enough experience of loading VLOCs and breaking them in two. However, the loading plan might have been incorrect to begin with and, as you said, there's always the human punching in the numbers.
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Captain ted, I don't know why you keep tooting on about ULCC's, in fact, the biggest ones suffered absolutely no structural problems, the 555.000 dwt Batillus class Sea Giant sailed for more than 24 years with no problems, French construction, really robust.
And the current largest sailing ULCC, 441.000 dwt TI Oceania has absolutely no problems nor any of her sisterships so it's not the size, it's either bad design or cheap construction, a crack can form in 50m vessel if it's built/designed poorly.
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Radu
Would you please point out where I said that VLC,s and ULCC,s breaking up ? You may have to get the habit to read more carefull what is posted before attacking someone.
fact is that in the 70,s various tanker broke at sea and during loading ops. That was in that time a wake up call, The ULCC,s you mention were all builded afterwards, and what I said is,,it reminds me of that period (70,s) what goes on now that ships seemingly can,t be big enough. I said with not one word that now ships breaking up. That big ships, special container ships in this matter , have often cracks, I know out of my own experience as
Master who sailed on them and heard often enough from other sailors who sailed them too. You ever were on a ship where the vibrations are so high that coffee shakes out of a cup,, do you really believe that those vibrations coming from nowhere and going to nowhere. You ever been on a vessel where the main engine ripped out of its foundations ? I was there when that happened, also when at that time not as Master.
If they lerned in the last 1-2 decades how to build better ships of that size, great, I hope so, because I and others working on them, but I would not put a bet on that.
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Would you please point out where I said that VLC,s and ULCC,s breaking up ? You may have to get the habit to read more carefull what is posted before attacking someone.
Ted, I'm not attacking you I'm merely wondering why you keep repeating this since you're the ONLY one saying this.
Let me dissect what you wrote:
Would you please point out where I said that VLC,s and ULCC,s breaking up ?
You wrote:
reminds me of the 70,s when tankers became bigger and bigger until they broke apart, most of the time during loading or discharging.
But personally I think they reached areas in ships sizes as in the 70,s with the tankers, when everybody thought bigger, bigger, BIGGER,,BIGGEST !!!! and suddenly they broke and everybody wondered.
Now I'm not sure what "bigger" means to you but at that time the biggest tankers were ULCC's, Is that correct? (Yes or No) And I don't recall a massive influx of cracked/brocken ships to accompany the evolution of ship size, sure there were afew but the BIGGEST ships of the 70's never had such problems.
I sailed some containerships , 200 + m and we had on all of them somewhere cracks, very often in Ballast tanks and bunker tank areas.
You weren't talking about container ships, nor have I said anything about container ships, you mentioned the biggest tankers in the 70's and I addressed that.
I suggest you take your own advice, no disrespect intended.
Thanks.
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Before this argument goes any further I think it's wise to add some sort of perspective. Yes, I too have heard horror stories of sub-standard Chinese built ships, but it has tended to involve those built at smaller, privately run yards. The major state run CSSC/CSIC yard groups generally do not have the same failings.
It's perhaps important to bear in mind that over 25% of the global merchant fleet currently sailing and built in the last 10 years was built in China. That is a lot of ships - almost 6,000. If they were all substandard, there would be regular carnage on the high seas. But thankfully there isn't.
Brgds
Phil
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Radu
ok,,you are right,,I never been on a ship, know therefore of ocurse nothing and will
attentivley listen to the experts
case closed
have a great day
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Ted, I'm not an expert, I just wanted to know where you got your facts from, that's it, don't take it so personally.
I'm fairly knowledgeable with big tankers especially older ULCC's (70's-80's), I'm not questioning anything else you said I just required some facts, nobody here is questioning your experience but please don't believe all rumors.
And like I mentioned before I generally dont like Chinese built ships, so we have that in common.
Have a great day.
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Sorry, Ted, not quite closed yet!
Since I first got myself involved with shipping in the 1960s, I have witnessed the ridicule and denegration of, first, Japanese, then Korean and now Chinese shipbuilding standards
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The cracks in the hull of the 'VALE BEIJING' may indeed be attributable to loading procedures. This vessel has Det Norske Veritas's Easy Loading 2 (EL) voluntary notation which allows each hold to be fully loaded in one go which is known as 'single-pass' loading.
The commercial benefits of this procedure, rather than part loading each hold equally in turn are massive on a ship of this size reducing the loading time from 26 hours to less than 12 hours. However 'Easy' loading requires a synchronised deballasting of the vessel and any potential failure of the ballast water operation is likely to be seen as a potential cause of increasing the stresses on the hull.
In any case stresses on the hull can be enormous with loading rates at Ponta de Madeira reaching 16,000 tonnes/hour so the localised shear forces acting on sections of the hull increase as each hold is totally filled.
Photographs of the vessel being towed after the cracks appeared show iron-ore waste around the hatches of all but no. 5 hold suggesting this one was not loaded when the cracks appeared.
What is also interesting is that Ore Carriers, being a specialised type, do not have to comply with the CSR's (Common Structural Rules) introduced by the Classification Societies to improve the structural strength of standard tankers and bulkers.
The vessel has dual classification with DNV and the Korean Register and was built by the highly respected STX. No doubt in depth investigations will be carried out by these bodies to determine the cause, we will just have to wait with interest.
Best Regards
John J.