NEWSLINES
Your monthly digest Issue 6, August 2017
This month’s news includes:
- Effects of Brexit on UK Transport
- Amazon’s hunt on Warehouses
- New Shipping Fuel Regulations
- Cyber Security in Maritime
- Europe’s lag in regulating fuel efficiency standards
- Three major areas of improvement of Road Freight Transport
How will leaving the EU affect UK Transport?
The independent Transport Commission is addressing key Brexit concerns for the UK transportation industries to assist policymakers and the representatives in the ongoing EU-UK negotiations. They outline key issues alongside stressing essential policy outcomes such as EU labour, Frictionless trade, funding and financing and regulatory standards. The Director of the ITC pointed out that transport issues should be given the highest priority by the Government in its negotiations with the EU as transport is an essential role in supporting the UK economy. He also stated that the long time frames involved in transport infrastructure, operations and planning require certainty on future arrangements. Otherwise a transitional arrangement should be explored to help prevent distribution.
Amazon hunting for 1,300 European warehouses as battle for fast delivery hots up
Amazon is looking for a staggering 1,300 warehouse units across Europe to fulfil its commitments for its one-hour Prime Now delivery service.
New shipping fuel regulation set to hit commodities
In an attempt to curb emissions from ships, the UN International Maritime Organization has placed a cap on sulphur content in marine fuel oil from 2020. The problems for the oil market are two-fold. Although high sulphur bunker fuel accounts for only 4 per cent of global oil demand, according to the IEA, the marine market has traditionally been an important outlet for the refining industry. The product markets are already reflecting the rule change, with forward prices in 2020 for high sulphur fuel falling and high quality gas oil, a benchmark for low sulphur marine fuel, rising.
(Summary, Original Article by Financial Times.)
Cyber Security Is one of the hottest topics in shipping at present
Even though 90% of maritime and offshore companies think more should be done to prevent cyber-attacks, less than half that number had prevention and contingency plans in place.
Europe lags behind the major world economies in regulating fuel efficiency standards for the fast-growing truck transport sector
The executive Director of the International Energy Agency stated that a regulation in terms of emission and fuel efficiency standards are required as Trucks are responsible for 35% of CO2 emissions despite the huge disparity in numbers compared to regular cars. He stated that this needs to happen quite soon because USA, Canada, Japan & China are already having those and Europe is still behind. The EU executive aims to propose a new legislation on heavy-duty vehicles fuel efficiency standard in early 2018 and monitoring and reporting CO2 emissions and fuel consumptions by heavy duty vehicles from 2019.
International Energy Agency highlights three major areas of improvement of Road-Freight Transport
The growth in oil demand from trucks has outpaced all other sectors, including passenger cars, aviation, industry and petrochemical feed stocks. They’re account for almost one-fifth of global oil demand. If no action is taken, oil demand might grow by 5 million barrels per day by 2050, which is about 40%.
Two Top Stories in the Maritime World:
(Click the headline to read more)
- Air cargo demand at some of Europe’s major airlines continued to grow at high level in June
- IRR Experts have announced an ambitious plan to double the amount of freight carried by trains across Europe