News on US.
Two areas for shipping will be affected in particular depending on who the Americans pick for their next president, says broker Clarksons Platou.
All signs indicate that the US retail industry will soon need to replenish its inventories following the coronavirus crisis. This is good news for the container lines, which are already sailing at the highest rates in a long time.
A panel of three trade experts from the World Trade Organization have just deemed the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Chinese goods in 2018 unjustified.
Associated Press reports that the US and EU have agreed to lift tariffs on a series of goods. The agreement will be effective for five years at first.
Over the past month, the US has seized four tankers and detained the oil cargoes aboard. Iran's oil minister now acknowledges that the oil was Iranian and headed to Venezuela.
The US has published a video which allegedly shows how Iranian naval forces boarded a tanker vessel in international waters in the Strait of Hormuz.
US pressure on the shipping sector to halt trading with Venezuela has made several classification bureaus terminate agreements with tanker vessels. Insurance companies and flag states are also tightening requirements.
The US increases its pressure on Venezuela and is now looking to halt the delivery of Iranian oil on board four tanker ships. It is, however, not yet clear where exactly this will happen.
Fear of sanctions mean that tanker ships carrying millions of tons of Venezuelan oil are unable to find buyers for their cargo, reports Reuters.
Two tankers have been blacklisted by the US, which accuses them of participating in a Mexican setup that has exported Venezuelan oil.
Another two Greek shipping companies will now no longer carry Venezuelan oil. This comes after pressure from the US, which is trying to choke Venezuela's oil export in an attempt to target the country's president, Nicolás Maduro.
Four tanker ships with ties to Greece have been blacklisted by the US for sailing with oil from Venezuela. According to a ship database, the ships are ultimately controlled by several well-known Greek shipowners.
Based on industry input, the Trump administration has prepared guidelines for shipowners and insurers on how the industry avoids violating US sanctions against several countries, Reuters reports.
Maersk has canceled an exclusive arrangement with a competitor to APM Terminals in the US and will now move the routes to its own terminal. The competitor fears having to close due to the sudden cancellation.
The US oil market saw a complete collapse on Monday, with prices as low as USD -37 per barrel of crude. They rose again on Tuesday, but the fundamental problem remains unsolved. Now Trump wants to fill reserves, US media write.
The US Energy Information Administration projects that the country will again become an importer of crude oil and other oil products, as its oil production goes down.
Two Chinese shipping companies have been hit by US sanctions as part of the White House's attempts to impact Iranian oil production.
Maersk accuses the four largest railroad companies in the US of having illegally fixed fuel surcharge prices at "extraordinary meetings, phone calls and e-mails" from 2003 to 2008. The railroad companies reject the accusations.
The US president declared a national emergency at a press meeting on Friday.
The oil price resumed its decline as the Trump administration implements ban on incoming flights from continental Europe. Crude has lost a quarter of its value this week.
US President Donald Trump bans all travel from Europe to the US for 30 days, he says in an address to the nation. "The restriction stops people not goods," the president writes on Twitter.
The oil price's recovery from the massive dive Monday slowed down following skepticism that the U.S. would be unable to provide enough stimulus to protect against the effect of the coronavirus amid a surge of crude oil into the market.
Before long, the Trump administration will issue a warning to shippers, ports and insurers against storing Iranian oil and thus circumventing US sanctions, Reuters writes.
A US court has ruled that a Turkish shipowner will forfeit more than USD 11 million for having violated US and European sanctions against Syria. The case is part of a complex in which the US is trying to tighten the net on a network of Russians and Syrians.
The coronavirus outbreak has caused major reductions in volume throughput at US ports, which could be down 20 percent in the first quarter, according to the American Association of Port Authorities.
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