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Clinton to appear at Philly shipbuilding ceremony

PHILADELPHIA - Former President Bill Clinton will speak Thursday morning at the Kvaerner Philadelphia Shipyard to celebrate the company's plans to build 10 tankers at the former Navy yard that once went three decades without christening a new ship.

Kvaerner ASA of Norway plans to form a subsidiary, the American Shipping Corp., to build and own the tankers, then lease them out to American shipowners and tanker operators.

"It's important for the company, but I think it's also important for the shipbuilding and maritime industry of the United States," company spokesman Geir A. Drangeid said.

Thus far, Kvaerner, the world's fifth-largest shipbuilder, has built only container ships at the Delaware River yard. Its third container ship is to be finished next month and a fourth is under construction in a dry dock.

The company hopes to capitalize on demand for double-hulled tankers as the industry shifts from single-hulled tankers, which must be out of domestic waters by 2015 under a law passed by Congress in 1990, a year after the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound.

The estimated cost of building the ships by 2010 will be about $1 billion, Drangeid said. The company doesn't plan to increase its complement of about 800 workers at the shipyard, he said.

Kvaerner took over the South Philadelphia shipyard in 1997, two years after it closed. About $430 million in state, city and federal subsidies were spent to refurbish a section of the former Navy yard for Kvaerner, train its workers and jump-start operations.

The sprawling naval facility was once a mainstay of both the city's economy and the U.S. fleet. At its peak, the complex employed 48,000 people during World War II and launched 19 new ships in 1943, its busiest year.

15th April 2005 By MARC LEVY The Associated Press

Fresh hopes for Swan Hunter jobs

Top level talks are under way to steer a £50m contract towards Swan Hunter to safeguard the shipbuilding yard and more than 600 manufacturing jobs.

Politicians , regional development agency One NorthEast and unions have met to persuade the Ministry of Defence to bring a hospital ship conversion contract to the Tyne in 2006.

And the Government response to the proposals has been "warm", sources said last night.

Swan Hunter is facing a potential two-year gap with no orders from 2006, when work is expected to finish on the second of the £240m landing ships, the Lyme Bay. The workforce has already fallen from around 1,200 to 550 in the last 12 months as work begins to dry up.

Swan's chairman Jaap Kroese previously warned that he could be forced to mothball the Wallsend yard until work begins on a £3bn aircraft carrier contract in 2008 which is expected to create up to 3,000 jobs, with Swan Hunter accounting for up to a third of the fabrication work.

But now a consortium including Mr Kroese, ONE and Nick Brown - the prospective parliamentary candidate for Newcastle East and Wallsend - have met several times over recent months to discuss the new lifeline proposal.

The plan involves converting one of the four Royal Fleet Auxiliary landing ships - currently under construction - into a floating hospital to replace the ageing RFA Argus vessel at a proposed cost of £50m. The Defence Procurement Agency has been looking to develop a new casualty vessel since the Strategic Defence Review of 2003. However, budget constraints held back plans for a new "Joint Casualty Receiving Ship" project, which was expected to have up to eight operating tables and 150 beds, compared to the two theatres and 90 beds on the existing RFA Argus.

Mr Kroese said last night: "We spoke to the Ministry of Defence last week, and it is now up to them. However we know that a new hospital vessel has been on the cards for some time."

And Mr Brown said: "It is essential that it is given a chance, and from the meetings that I have been involved in I see that a hospital ship conversion is one of the options available."

Kevin Rowan, TUC regional secretary, told The Journal: "We need to be creative when it comes to safeguarding jobs on the river. The TUC is firmly behind this." Moving military contracts to safeguard the future of shipyards is not without precedent.

The Government gave a £140m contract to build two naval vessels - the Cardigan Bay and Mounts Bay - to BAE Systems at Govan, Scotland, to keep the yard working.

A One NorthEast insider close to the negotiations said: "This is an exciting plan. There is a feeling that it has a lot of potential."

The campaign to bring the contract to the Tyne has the support of regional defence cluster group, Northern Defence Industries. A spokesman said: "NDI would welcome any move which would help to sustain shipbuilding on the Tyne."

* Also standing for election in the Newcastle East and Wallsend constituency are Norma Dias (Conservative), Martin Levy (Communist Party of Great Britain), David Ord (Liberal Democrat).

Apr 14 2005 By Guy Anderson, The Journal

INTERVIEW: Cargill Moves Asia Shipping Ops To Singapore

BEIJING (Dow Jones)--The Asian ocean transportation unit of American commodities trading giant Cargill (CRG.XX) is shifting its operations from Hong Kong to Singapore in a move aimed at "better serving the increased demand for shipping goods in Asia."

"With Singapore, we are creating a central hub in Asia," Cargill Ocean Transportation Asia Pacific manager Eric Aboussouan said on the sidelines of a conference sponsored by Metals Bulletin earlier this week in Beijing.

"Singapore will focus on freight, trade and logistics," he said.

Singapore offers tax breaks and other incentives for a 10-year period to qualified companies. It is also close to growing commodities markets such as India and Vietnam, he said.

Aboussouan said that after closing down its Hong Kong and Tokyo offices, Cargill will open a new office in Shanghai to focus on China, which currently contributes between 20% and 30% of its global business.

"The long-term growth in China is there," Aboussouan said, adding that China's contribution to Cargill's freight business will keep increasing as the country's economy grows.

Fueled by surging real estate investment and fizzy demand for automobiles and home appliances, China's steel output is forecast to reach 350 million metric tons this year, compared with 272.8 million tons in 2004, according to China Iron and Steel Association.

Such growth augers well for shipping companies like Cargill.

Aboussouan said volumes and customers have kept rising in the past five years as a result of increased demand for coal, iron ore and steel.

He, however, declined to give any statistics on business growth.

The transportation arm of Cargill ships 150 million tons of food and mineral products a year worldwide, Aboussouan said. Of that about 40% is shipped in Asia.

Aboussouan also said that almost 60% of the shipping business is generated by non-intracompany clients.

"Today's business volume has almost doubled from 80 million tons four years ago," he said. At the time only 20% of the trade was generated by non-intracompany company or outside clients.

Wednesday April 13, 5:29 PM By Federica Bianchi Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Trio arrested over oil-for-food scandal

A Briton, a Texas businessman and a Bulgarian have been charged over the United Nations oil-for-food programme scandal.

US federal prosecutors in New York indicted the three men for paying bribes to Saddam Hussein's former regime in Iraq.

They are accused of receiving oil vouchers - destined for humanitarian relief - and selling them later at inflated prices.

UN secretary general Kofi Annan said the UK and US were to blame for the abuse as they allowed unsupervised oil exports on which Saddam made commercial gain.

Much of the money Saddam profited from was obtained outside of the £35.66 billion UN programme, Mr Annan said, and collected by selling oil to Jordan and Turkey.

He criticised the US and Britain for not closing loopholes and for turning a blind eye to sales to Turkey and Jordan as they were "allies".

"The bulk of the money Saddam made came after smuggling outside the oil for food programme," he said.

"It was on the American and British watch."

Saddam sold oil to buy civilian goods during the 1990s sanctions imposed on Iraqis.

© 1998-2005 DeHavilland Information Services plc. All rights reserved. 15/04/2005