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Nigeria and Piracy: the Evolution of a Complex Problem; A seminar by Lisa Otto

Hosted by Lisa Otto

Biography

Lisa Otto holds a MA in International Peace and Security from King’s College London’s War Studies Department, which she achieved with Distinction, as well as BA and BA Honours degrees from the University of Johannesburg. She is now pursuing doctoral studies in Politics under the auspices of the SARChI Chair in African Diplomacy. and is currently conducting visiting research at the GMI. Her doctoral study investigates the evolution of maritime piracy in Nigeria.

Lisa’s research interests include non-traditional threats to security, particularly in Africa, as well as African foreign policy and engagement at the regional and international levels. Before returning to UJ to begin her doctorate, Lisa worked with the Institute for Security Studies and the South African Institute of International Affairs. She has also worked on projects with Transparency International, the African Union, Corruption Watch, and the European Commission, and has conducted field research in Finland, South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique and Ethiopia.

Topic

Nigeria and Piracy: the Evolution of a Complex Problem

Abstract:

While piracy is certainly not a new predicament off West Africa’s coast, it is one that has certainly become more punctuated in recent years, particularly off the shores of Nigeria. Piracy there challenges our traditional understanding of the crime, taking on a more domestic nature, and one that tends to centre on the region’s thriving oil industry. It is with the legacy of this industry too that it finds its origins, which, enmeshed with defining features of the Nigerian state (corruption, neo-patrimonialism, poverty, and criminality), has come to pose a significant threat to economic and security imperatives in Nigeria and the sub-region. Actors tasked with tackling the phenomenon have been implicated in the crime itself, rendering it an exceedingly complex problem to solve. This presentation will unpack the nature of piracy in Nigeria (and by extension West Africa), offering insight into underlying causal factors of the crime, how it plays out on these troubled waters, and what efforts are being taken to bring it to an end.

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Greenwich Forum presents The Blue Economy – The UK Opportunity Maritime Technology and Sustainability conference

Oasis of the Seas: The world’s largest cruise ship comes to the UK

The world’s largest cruise ship arrived in the UK today for the first time.

The £800m Oasis Of The Seas sailed into Southampton at 10am on Wednesday in dense fog, welcomed by a crowd of hundreds and helicopters circling overhead.

Weighing 225,282 tonnes, the 1,187ft ship is longer than London’s The Shard is tall, and at 208ft wide, larger than the wingspan of a Boeing 747.

Spread across its 16 decks is an outdoor park with more than 12,000 real plants and trees, an 82-foot long zip wire, and the largest pool on the seas.

There is also a 750-seater arena, ice rink, surf machines, a high-diving performance venue and an elevating bar.

Some other interesting facts :

but how big can these vessels get.

Already in Venice we have seen the government ban the docking of these large vessels whilst they investigate the environmental impact on the city.

Overall, the cruise ships oceanic produce at least 17% of the total emissions of nitrogen oxides, contributing to more than a quarter of total emissions of nitrogen oxides in port cities and coastal areas.

In addition, waste from cruise ships adversely affect the resilience of marine ecosystems, destroying coral reefs (Source: “Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in the Tourism Sector: Frameworks, Tools and Practices” by United Nations Environment Program, together with the University of Oxford, p.102)

If you ever choose to embark on one of these marine giants, you must know that your CO2 emissions can be up to 1000 times more than a train journey. (Source: “Climate Change and Tourism. Responding to global challenges’, World Tourism Organization and United Nations Environment Programme, 2008, pp.. 37, 134)

How much bigger can container ships get?

By William Kremer, BBC World Service

The world’s cargo ships are getting big, really big. No surprise, perhaps, given the volume of goods produced in Asia and consumed in Europe and the US. But are these giant symbols of the world’s trade imbalance growing beyond all reason?

What is blue, a quarter of a mile long, and taller than London’s Olympic stadium?

The answer – this year’s new class of container ship, the Triple E. When it goes into service this June, it will be the largest vessel ploughing the sea.Each will contain as much steel as eight Eiffel Towers and have a capacity equivalent to 18,000 20-foot containers (TEU).If those containers were placed in Times Square in New York, they would rise above billboards, streetlights and some buildings.Or, to put it another way, they would fill more than 30 trains, each a mile long and stacked two containers high. Inside those containers, you could fit 36,000 cars or 863 million tins of baked beans.

he Triple E will not be the largest ship ever built. That accolade goes to an “ultra-large crude carrier” (ULCC) built in the 1970s, but all supertankers more than 400m (440 yards) long were scrapped years ago, some after less than a decade of service. Only a couple of shorter ULCCs are still in use. But giant container ships are still being built in large numbers – and they are still growing.

It’s 25 years since the biggest became too wide for the Panama Canal. These first “post-Panamax” ships, carrying 4,300 TEU, had roughly quarter of the capacity of the current record holder – the 16,020 TEU Marco Polo, launched in November by CMA CGM.

In the shipping industry there is already talk of a class of ship that would run aground in the Suez canal, but would just pass through another bottleneck of international trade – the Strait of Malacca, between Malaysia and Indonesia. The “Malaccamax” would carry 30,000 containers.

The current crop of ultra-large container vessels can navigate the Suez – just – but they are only able to dock at a handful of the world’s ports. No American harbour is equipped to handle them.

The sole purpose of the soon-to-be-launched Triple E ships will be to run what’s called a pendulum service for Maersk – the largest shipping company in the world – between Asia and Europe.

They arrive in Europe full, and when they leave a significant proportion of containers carry nothing but air. (At any given moment about 20% of all containers on the world’s seas are empty.)

“Ships have been getting bigger for many years,” says Paul Davey from Hutchison Ports, which operates Felixstowe in the UK, one of the likely ports of call of the Triple E.

“The challenge for ports is to invest ahead of the shipping capacity coming on-stream, and to try and be one step ahead of the game.”

Overcapacity in the world’s ports means there is huge competition for business. Operators cannot afford to get left behind, says Marc Levinson, author of The Box – How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger.

“The ports are placed in a difficult competitive position here because the carriers are basically saying to them, ‘If you don’t expand – if you don’t build new wharves and deepen the harbours and get high speed cranes, we’ll take our business someplace else.'”

These big beasts of the sea present ports with other challenges too.

Ship owners also want vessels to be unloaded and loaded within 24 hours, which has various knock-on effects. More space is needed to store the containers in the harbour, and onward connections by road, rail and ship need to be strengthened to cope with the huge surge in traffic.

Felixstowe, which handles 42% of the UK’s container trade, has 58 train movements a day, but plans to double that after it opens a third rail terminal later this year.

Bigger vessels also behave differently in the water. The wash created by a large ship can be enough to cause other ships moored in a harbour to break free – just as the passenger liner SS City of New York did in 1912 when the Titanic set out on her maiden voyage.

“These days with the increase in traffic, we experience this more and more often,” says Marco Pluijm, a port engineer working for Bechtel. “A simple thing you can do is just slow ships down and add some tug boats for better manoeuvring – but that all has cost implications.”

There are currently 163 ships on the world’s seas with a capacity over 10,000 TEU – but 120 more are on order, including Maersk’s fleet of 20 Triple Es.

Bearing in mind that the carbon footprint of international shipping is roughly equivalent to that of aviation – some 2.7% of the world’s man-made CO2 emissions in the year 2000, according to the International Maritime Organization – the prospect of these leviathans carving up the oceans in ever greater numbers is likely to be a source of concern for green consumers.

Maersk, however, argues that the Triple E is the most environmentally friendly container ship yet. (The three Es in the name stand for economy of scale, energy efficiency and environmentally improved.)

Although it will only be three metres longer and three metres wider than the 15,500-TEU Emma Maersk, its squarer profile allows it to carry 16% more cargo.

Re-designed engines, an improved waste-heat recovery system, and a speed cap at 23 knots – down from 25 – will produce 50% less carbon dioxide per container shipped than average on the Asia-Europe route, Maersk calculates.

“When you get bigger ships, you can more efficiently carry more cargo, so the carbon footprint you get per tonne of cargo is smaller,” says Unni Einemo from the online trade publication Sustainable Shipping. “So on that basis, big is beautiful.”

To achieve maximum fuel efficiency, however, a ship has to be fully loaded.

“They are massive ships, and a really big ship running half-full is probably less energy-efficient overall than a smaller ship running with a full set of containers,” says Einemo.

Maersk’s Triple Es will be going into service at a time when growth in the volume of goods to be shipped is comparatively low – some experts don’t expect it to pick up until 2015. But the world’s container fleet capacity is expected to grow by 9.5% this year alone, as Maersk and others receive the ships they ordered years ago.

Some of the extra capacity will be absorbed in the new practice of slow steaming – industry-speak for sailing more slowly. Sailing at 12-15 knots instead of 20-24 knots brings enormous savings on fuel – but it does mean that extra ships are required to transport the same volume of goods in the same timescale.

Maersk are counting on container trade continuing to grow at 5-6% – less than half the growth rate of seven years ago, but enough to recoup the company’s investment in the Triple Es, which cost $190m (£123m) each.

“The history of container shipping involves ship lines taking huge gambles,” says Marc Levinson, who points to a trend for some American and European companies to move manufacturing back from Asia.

“There are a lot of people in the shipping industry who aren’t sure that Maersk is on the right track,” he says.

Jean-Paul Rodrigue at Hofstra University believes that big container ships like the Triple E will prove their value on specific trade routes, nonetheless.

“Each time a new generation comes along, there’s the argument ‘Oh is this going a little too far this time – is there enough port trade to justify this?'” he says.

“But each time the ship class was able to put itself in the system and provide a pretty good service.”

Marco Pluijm was interviewed on the BBC World Service programme The Forum.

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The Nelson Collection of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation

Gina Balta

PhD Candidate, Maritime Studies

It was on May when I received an invitation to attend the opening of a very unique and interesting exhibition. The Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation was inviting me to attend the opening of Lord Admiral Nelson’s naval exhibition taking place at the Hellenic Maritime Museum in Piraeus, Greece for a limited time only. The private collection is permanently exhibited in a neoclassical mansion in Piraeus, at the premises of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation and consists of books, paintings, personal items, dispatches, autograph letters and more. The collection belongs to the Greek shipowner Panos Laskaridis, President of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation. It took Laskaridis thirty years to collect these items through auctions and other collectors and it was a result of admiration and appreciation of the British maritime history. Parts of the collection have been exhibited during the 200^th Anniversary celebration of the Battle of Trafalgar in 2005 in London, Athens, Cephalonia and the Falkland Islands.

During my visit at the museum I met Mr Steven Coobs, responsible for the collection, who gave me an interview and also guided me through the exhibits. Mr Coobs explained that Nelson’s private collection has been one of the biggest collections outside the United Kingdom and its importance to the public is remarkable. The collection contains a selection of nearly 800 books, all dedicated to Horatio Nelson and the Napoleonic Wars. Placed in glass display cases someone can see documents and newspapers of the same period talking about the Siege of Malta (1798-1800), the Battle of Cape St. Vincent (1797), the Battle of the Nile (1798), the Battle of Copenhagen (1807) and the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). But the most interesting among the documents are probably the autograph diary of Admiral Lord Collingwood, the autograph diary of Thomas Fletcher, who was a gunner aboard HMS Defense at the Battle of Trafalgar, and also a few pages from the diaries of HMS Naid and HMS Swiftsure.

The Foundation’s outstanding collection encompasses a wide range of painting, flags and banners from the period of the Napoleonic Wars as well. One of the exhibits is the framed fragment of Lord Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory. Moreover, among the exhibits someone can see some of his personal items, like his special cutlery set. It was constructed after Nelson lost his right arm at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 1797 and its usage is aimed for one handed people. Although Nelson was not naturally left-handed, he managed to write again and finally build up to the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. It is easy to detect the dramatic change in his handwriting especially in his first letters. The collection contains two letters written by the naval commander which refer to Admiral Cornwallis and Admiral Collingwood, and his correspondence with Lady Hamilton which reveals different aspects of his character.

While walking through the exhibition room Mr Coobs asked me if I am ready to see something unique. Suddenly, I had in front me about thirty ship models made almost entirely from bones. The bone ship models were constructed during the period of the Napoleonic Wars by French war-prisoners and became very famous among the British artistic crowd. Mr Coobs explained that during the Napoleonic Wars over 10,000 prisoners were held captive in Britain and some of them had remained locked away for over a decade. Encouraged by the captors the prisoners were allowed to produce small objects d’art and sell them afterwards at the camps’ periodic civilian open markets. Very popular were the models representing British naval ships. All the models were constructed mostly from cattle bones kept by the prisoners from the food rations issued by the British, which they boiled until they became soft and ductile. Each ship model would normally take about a year to complete and that makes them unique. The prisoners used the large bones to carve the body of the ship and by using pieces of wood they used to create the finely detailed cannons and masts. For the sail rigging they used their own hair or threads taken from their bed clothes.

Similarly interesting is the Scrimshaw Collection which also belongs to the Laskaridis Foundation and is dated back to the 19^th century. These handmade crafts were created by whalers who would patiently carve the teeth and bones of whales and other marine mammals. These crafts were normally created at sea and would later be donated to friends and family. The decorated or engraved bones and ivories depict various aspects of life in land and at sea, a seaman’s adventures, various ships and whales of course.

One of the Seven Engineering Wonders of the World: The Panama Canal

Dr Chris Ware

One hundred years ago today ( 15 August) the Panama Canal was opened to traffic, no longer would vessel have to round Cape Horn against prevailing Westerly wind instead they would transit the 49 miles from Atlantic( Caribbean) to Pacific. The idea not new would only be realised at the end of the 19^th Century when first the French sort drive a series of cuts and locks across the Isthmus, this first effort would end in Bankruptcy and a large death total, upward of 22,000 died from fever.

It would be the United States which would, in 1904, take over the project and take a lease on a strip land across Panama, and complete the work by 1914.This allowed the American’s to move the Warships from the Atlantic to the Pacific and allowed the increasing trade of the West Coast of the US to follow East and vice versa. Now the Canal is being widened and there is talk that Nicaragua is looking to build a canal. % 25 percent of the world tonnage is built to Panamax standard, ships which can transit the Canal, however less than 2% per year actually do so, the remodel Canal will allow large ships with better hull forms to be built and run. If the Pharos of Alexandria and the Colossus of Rhodes were wonders of the ancient world, the Panama Canal stand as one of the engineering wonders of the 20^th century and beyond.

History book donation – new titles to come and read

Here at the Greenwich Maritime Institute we are very lucky to have some fantastic supporters. Only today Micheal Clark, a History student graduating in 2006, visited us to donate some wonderful books. Micheal Clark has been a reviewer of titles for The Northern Mariner.

The Norther Mariner is a fully refereed journal devoted to all aspects of the North Atlantic and North Pacific. It publishes essays,notes and documents on a variety of naval and maritime history, including merchant shipping, maritime labour, naval history, shipbuilding, fishing, ports, trade, nautical archaeology and maritime societies. TNM/LMN is published quarterly by The Canadian Nautical Research Society in association with the North American Society for Oceanic History (NASOH)

One example title is : The rise of an early modern shipping industry, Whitby’s golden fleet, 1600-1750 by Rosalin Barker

The ancient but isolated town of Whitby has mad a huge contribution to the maritime history of Britain: Captain Cook learned sailing and navigation here; during the eighteenth century the town was a provider of an exceptionally large number of transport ships in wartime; an in the nineteenth century Whitby became a major whaling port. This book examines how it came to be a such an important shipping center.

All are welcome to come and read this title amongst others in our Greenwich Maritime Institute office at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich.

Bulking up in Africa: China inflates seaborne minerals export trade

by Richard Scott

Visiting Lecturer, Greenwich Maritime Institute and MD, Bulk Shipping Analysis

Africa’s profile as an exporter of dry bulk commodities is rising. Responding to growing import demand from China, India and other buyers in the past decade, many new African suppliers have entered the market. Seaborne dry bulk exports by countries in Africa now exceed 200 million tonnes annually, about 5% of the global total, and further growth is predicted over the years ahead. Expansion has been especially notable in the iron ore and coal trades, the focus of this article.

Seaborne exports growth from Africa benefits the global shipping industry in two ways. Larger volumes moving create additional employment for bulk carriers, many of which are operated by independent shipowners. Also, because a large element of new commodity supply is coming out of West Africa, destined for Asian receivers, long-haul voyages amplify the extra cargo-carrying (deadweight) capacity needed.

There is a remarkable historical precedent. Around fifty years ago, back in the 1960s, Africa rapidly became much more significant as an exporter when iron ore deposits were opened up in several West African countries, mainly to supply the European market. This trade subsequently diminished and was overtaken by the emergence and eventual dominance of South Africa as the continent’s chief iron ore and coal exporter. The current phase starting in the past few years represents, partly, a reprise of earlier events in West Africa, accompanied by some new developments elsewhere.

A steely embrace

For most of the past ten years coal, from South Africa, was the largest dry bulk cargo export movement originating in the African continent. But in 2013 Africa’s iron ore exports, which had been rising, especially in the five years since 2008, became the largest element. Estimates point to last year’s iron ore total reaching about 91mt. South Africa’s contribution comprised more than three-fifths. The remainder consisted mainly of shipments from Mauritania plus the rapidly expanding resumed exports from Sierra Leone and Liberia.

A large proportion of iron ore exports growth reflected China’s expanding requirements amid rapid steel production increases. During the five years period from 2009 to 2013, Africa’s annual ore exports total increased by 49mt. In the same period African cargoes transported annually to China rose by over 48mt, based on official Chinese import figures. This relationship clearly demonstrates the significance of China for the development of African trade. Although South Africa was the main origin of iron ore purchases by Chinese buyers, supplying 43mt last year, increasing volumes were bought from Mauritania, reaching 9mt in 2013. During last year and the preceding year, Sierra Leone became a much more important supplier to China, with the annual quantity surging to 12mt in 2013. Smaller volumes in the past twelve months were derived from Liberia (just over 1mt) plus a minor 0.2mt from Guinea.

Iron ore exports from South Africa more than doubled in the past ten years. From 23mt in 2003, the total rose to 58mt in 2013. The largest part of this growth occurred within the past five years, reflecting greatly increased volumes purchased by Chinese buyers. Ore deposits are mainly located in the Northern Cape Province, where Kumba Resources’ Sishen mine is by far the biggest. This mining area is linked by a railway, 860 kilometres in length, to Saldanha Bay port north-west of Cape Town, which has a terminal (operating since the mid-1970s), designed for capesize bulk carriers.

The ramping up of iron ore exports from West Africa within the past few years is particularly noteworthy. Mauritania’s shipments showed gradual growth over the past decade. Liberia and Sierra Leone, by contrast, remained absent from the international market until 2011 when they both resumed participation on a minimal scale; then there was a rapid building up of sales over the next two years.

In Mauritania, sales historically were focused on Europe’s steel industry, involving a relatively short-haul sea voyage implying lower transport costs compared with more distant sources. Since the mid-2000s a changing emphasis towards Asian markets resulted in the share of long-haul shipments from Mauritania growing. Although the total exported by state-owned iron ore miner SNIM increased only slowly to 13mt in 2013, volumes shipped to China rose very strongly, resulting in China becoming by far the largest customer. This growth was assisted by Nouadhibou port’s recently enlarged ability to load capesize bulk carriers (typically 180,000 deadweight tonnes capacity), often the most economical vessel size for ore trades.

Liberia’s iron ore production ceased during the civil conflict, which persisted from 1989 for fourteen years. In September 2011 global steel producer ArcelorMittal restarted ore exports, when a 63,000 tons panamax size shipment was loaded at Buchanan port. As volumes from the Yekepa, Nimba mine rose, an offshore loading facility for capesize bulk carriers was subsequently introduced. Then, at the beginning of this year, shipments resumed from the long-closed Bong mine. New operators China Union (part of Wuhan Iron & Steel), a majority shareholder in Bong, plan to move 50,000 tonnes monthly through 2014 to China from a new pier at the port of Monrovia.

Also in this mineral-rich corner of West Africa, Sierra Leone’s iron ore mining has come back to life vigorously. A 50,900 deadweight bulk carrier departed from the port of Pepel in November 2011 carrying an ore cargo, reinstating another long-defunct operation. Mining company African Minerals has installed a capesize transshipment facility at Pepel to serve its Tonkolili mine. Another mining company, London Mining, began exporting from its Marampa mine in 2012, utilising river barge movements and a transshipment operation at the port of Freetown.

A curious venture

All these three West African countries – Mauritania, Liberia and Sierra Leone – have plans to greatly expand iron ore production and exports over the next few years at least. Another project, regularly making newspaper headlines, is the plans to develop a vast iron ore deposit contained within the Simandou mountain range of Guinea. This project, which could eventually yield up to 100mt of high-quality ore annually for foreign markets, has seen controversial ownership changes. One prominent problem for the developers is the proposed mine’s remote location, requiring construction of a 650 kilometer railroad through difficult terrain to the port of Conakry. The total cost has been variously estimated at $18-20 billion, including mine infrastructure, building a new railway, plus developing the port to handle large ships.

The renewed prominence of the name Simandou resonates with events about fifty years ago. During the early 1960s, iron ore was being produced in Guinea at a deposit about five miles from Conakry and exported to Europe, mainly to the United Kingdom. The Guinean government decided to purchase a new bulk carrier, intending to employ it in the ore trade from Guinea to the UK. This story is told by Iain Harrison, founder and chairman of shipowners and managers Harrisons (Clyde) Ltd, in his fascinating history of the family company, entitled ‘A Curious Venture’. A bulk carrier of 15,000 deadweight tons named ‘Simandou’ was ordered from shipbuilders Scotts of Greenock and delivered in 1963. Harrisons arranged the deal and were appointed managers. But a long term contract for employment in the intended iron ore trade proved unobtainable, and so the ship was used in open market dry cargo trades around the world.

A generation game

Africa’s coal exports scene has been dominated by South Africa. But the South African trend over the past ten years was fairly flat, as various influences restrained sales despite robustly growing global import demand. Supplies from South Africa mainly comprise steam coal, chiefly used in electricity generation. A small proportion, less than 2 percent, of exports is coking coal used by the steel industry. After totalling 71mt in 2003, there was a dip in the 2008 and 2009 period down to 63mt annually, before a recovery to 74mt in 2013. During this period, emphasis switched away from European destinations towards faster growing Asian markets, especially India, and also China.

Although South Africa is ideally situated to supply both Atlantic and Pacific markets, this advantage was not exploited to maximum benefit in recent years. Most coalfields are located in the country’s north east, and are linked by rail to the principal coal loading port of Richards Bay, on the east coast north of Durban. This port has been expanded greatly to enable huge volumes to be handled, theoretically now 91mt annually, but the higher capacity remains under-utilised. Lack of strong growth has been attributed to inadequate rail transport connections with the coalfields, and also to insufficient mining capacity, together restricting sales.

While South Africa’s coal exports are much larger in volume than exports from other African countries, developments elsewhere in the past few years have often attracted a far greater degree of interest. This characteristic particularly applies to Mozambique, where the challenges for producer exporters could be described as tough, similar to those faced by some new iron ore shippers in West Africa. Mozambique, and also Botswana, possess huge deposits of good quality coal, but developing the infrastructure (railroads and ports) required to enable access to international markets is a hugely expensive and lengthy process.

Coal mines in the Tete province of Mozambique, where coking as well as steam coal grades are available, started exporting small quantities in 2011, leading to more substantial exports of about 3mt in 2012. Brazilian mining company Vale started producing at the Moatize mine in 2011, transporting coal along the 575 kilometre Sena railway to Beira port. Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto began producing at the Benga mine in 2012. Last year, a further increase in the country’s exports, reportedly to about 5mt, was seen.

Expanding the capacity of the existing rail route, and building a new route, will enable more coal to be exported from Mozambique. The Sena railway is being upgraded from a maximum 6.5mt annually to 20mt, and the handling capacity at Beira is being raised. A new 912 kilometre line carrying coal through Malawi to a new deepwater loading port at Nacala in northern Mozambique is due for completion at the end of 2014, with potential for carrying up to 18mt exports.

Problems associated with developing mineral resources for export were highlighted by a news item at the end of July this year. The Financial Times reported that Rio Tinto had finalised the sale of its Benga coal mine and other Mozambique coal assets, to an Indian state-owned company, for $50 million. This price tag is only a small fraction of the $3.7 billion originally paid by Rio Tinto in 2011 for the Riversdale company owning these assets, described by the FT as a “disastrous acquisition.” The logistical challenges of transporting coal from Tete to the coast, and a reduced estimate of recoverable coking coal volumes had been identified earlier as key problems, amplified later by the adverse impact of sharply lower international prices.

Maritime momentum

Looking at how the sea trade scene as a whole has been evolving, the pull of increasing demand from Asian markets, in particular China and India clearly has been a crucial factor stimulating and underpinning Africa’s dry bulk commodity exports growth. Assuming that this influence remains favourable over the years ahead, further expansion in a number of trades seems predictable although timescales and volumes are harder to estimate precisely. Large-scale iron ore and coal mining projects are under way in several countries already, as we have seen, and more are planned, together with related infrastructure developments, aimed at expanding foreign sales.

The sheer magnitude of the task of organising minerals movements, from inland locations to coastal loading ports, for onwards sea transportation to foreign markets, has sometimes been daunting. For several projects the costs are proving almost prohibitive. This problem is, of course, related to commodity prices obtainable on the world market. If prices are high enough, projects with even excessive costs can prove profitable. But recently iron ore and coal prices have fallen steeply from peak levels as huge additional relatively low-cost supplies become available around the world, resulting in greater challenges for some developing African projects.

International seaborne movements of dry bulk cargoes originating in African countries are not entirely confined to iron ore and coal. These two commodities have seen probably the most impressive developments and export growth in the past decade, but others are significant. Among minerals, bauxite and its processed form alumina, especially from Guinea is a key element, while phosphates from Morocco is another prominent example. Altogether, annual mineral exports by sea from Africa have grown by about 50 percent during the past ten years, to an estimated total now exceeding 200mt, as mentioned earlier. This expansion has raised the continent’s status in the global shipping market. It has been reflected in the much higher deadweight volume of bulk carriers employed in trades, many involving long-haul routes, beginning in ports in West African and southern African countries.

Bangladesh ferry capsizes, 100 unaccounted for

A ferry with about 200 passengers on board capsized in Bangladesh on Monday in a river southwest of the capital, Dhaka, and about 100 people were unaccounted for, the chief of the district administration said.

Low-lying Bangladesh, with extensive inland waterways and slack safety standards, has an appalling record of ferry accidents, with casualties sometimes running into the hundreds.

Overcrowding is a common factor in many of the accidents and each time there is an accident the government vows to toughen regulations.

Mohammad Saiful Hasan Badal, deputy commissioner of Munshiganj district, said about 100 passengers had been rescued from the vessel after it went down in the Padma river.

Two women had been taken to hospital and died and the remainder of those on board were unaccounted for, he said. There was a possibility some had swum to the riverbank

“Most of the passengers were coming back to the city after celebrating Eid al-Fitr,” Saiful told Reuters, referring to the festival marking the end of the Ramadan fasting month.

Teams from the Inland Water Transport Authority, fire brigade and the army were helping with the rescue about 30 km (18 miles) southwest of Dhaka.

The stretch of river where the ferry sank was deep and the weather was bad meaning there was no sign of the boat under the choppy water.

Survivor Mohammad Suman told Reuters two of his brothers and a sister were missing.

“We were five altogether and I and another survived by jumping from the ferry,” he said.

In March 2012, a ferry sank near the same spot, killing at least 145 people.

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4th August 1914 ……….the date that changed the world

By Dr Chris Ware

For the better part of the last one hundred years the 4 August has passed , if not unnoticed at least with a relatively low key statement that it was the start of the bloodiest war, in sheer numbers , that Britain , had been engaged in. Centenaries touch something within us which fifty or ninety years do not. This is history writ large yet we can still be connected, almost every family had someone who was involved in some way or another.

A war which stretched from the Pacific to the Arctic bounded by the world’s oceans but whose centre was Europe, Scylla and Charybdis, men-and-women inexorable caught up in it, only to be devoured. And a hundred years later what, after all the upheaval, the fall of empires and the birth of new nations, are we remembering? The death of millions, the change in the world order, the idea that a League of Nations would solve the issues by negotiation, violence would after all be forgotten as a way to resolve disputes: Perhaps George Santayana’s words should ring out loud and long “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”