Shipping association BIMCO is hosting an Asian seminar here in Lion City this week to explain and field questions on its NEWBUILDCON Standard Newbuilding Contract. BIMCO says NEWBUILDCON, issued last October, is the first standardised, neutral and clearly worded international shipbuilding contract to be developed. It is the product of two years' intensive drafting work by a team of lawyers with expertise in representing the interests of both builders and buyers, and is claimed to offer clear wording, logical structure and comprehensive details in its provisions.
The seminar will take place at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore between 1000 and 1600 on Thursday Janurary 31. Four of the members of the original team that drafted the document will present key aspects of the contract and how it compares to other forms in current use. The speakers will be Nils-Gustaf Palmgren who was chairman of the drafting team, Chris Hilton of UK based law firm Eversheds LLP, Chris Kidd of law firm Ince & Co and Soren Larsen, Deputy Secretary General of BIMCO. All participants will have the opportunity to ask the panel questions and discuss issues.
Already more than 50 high ranking participants from all over Asia have given notice of attendance, including shipowners, yards, laywers, bankers and brokers.

One of the most controversial figures in world shipping markets has denied playing a pivotal role in the past few weeks' decline of dry bulk shipping rates, saying it results from fundamental market changes. Nobu Su, whose privately held Taiwan Maritime Transport is the largest participant in shipping futures markets, responded to the suggestion through a London-based spokesman. Participants in dry bulk markets have attributed the decline in rates from last year's record highs partly to TMT's heavy betting on a fall in futures markets. There have also been claims from competitors that Mr Su, chief executive, has helped to push rates towards his position by chartering out some of his 130 ships at below market rates.
TMT excites strong passions because of its reputation for making large - and often successful - bets on rate movements in the futures market. It is also unique among large futures market players in owning a substantial fleet of ships. The Baltic Dry index, which measures charter rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities such as coal and iron ore, was down another 3 per cent yesterday lunchtime in London to 6,426 points, nearly 42 per cent below the peak of 11,039 that it reached on November 13. Owners who were able to command rates of around $180,000 a day for the largest, Capesize ships at the market's peak are now receiving rates of between $85,000 and $110,000 a day.
Referring to Mr Su, George Economou, chairman of New York-listed DryShips, the largest quoted dry bulk shipowner, said one person had successfully shaped market movements.
However, Mr Su said through his spokesman he could not have moved the market on his own.
"It's no longer the case that one man could single-handedly influence the direction of the market," he said.
On the claim that TMT was chartering ships at below market rates to bolster its futures position, Mr Su said he simply aimed to get the best price.
"Sometimes it's below the market average, sometimes above," he said. "It just depends on the price we're offered."
Mr Su blamed the fall instead on the temporary closure of several iron ore export ports in Brazil and exporters' tactics in price negotiations with steel mills. The drying-up of supply had left a number of chartered ships in exporting areas without cargo to carry.
Mr Su declined to comment on his futures market positions, but he is known to have profitably taken a position backing a rise in dry bulk rates for much of last year before switching to back a fall, a position which, until recently, had been unsuccessful.
Henriette van Niekerk, senior dry bulk analyst at London-based Clarksons shipbrokers, agreed one person was unlikely to be able to influence the market and blamed the fall on the port closures. With demand for commodities still strong and relatively few deliveries of ships coming this year, there was likely to be a strong rebound in rates after the Chinese new year, she said.

The Port of Melbourne has engaged technology services company EDS to integrate its complex supply chain into a single information portal, hoping to improve the efficiency of the cargo moving process. The volatile mix of public and private companies involved in cargo transactions involves IT systems at different levels of maturity, including some legacy systems, according to EDS Australia managing director, Chris Mitchell.
"It's a complex environment with disconnected pieces of information and processes that ultimately results in delays and congestion in port operations," he said in a statement.
The portal will allow the information from these systems to be adapted and transferred to the other systems. "The portal itself is like a big messaging switch which validates and standardises information flows and passes that in a secure format to those parties involved in the transaction," Jeff Carson, general manager, information and technology services, Port of Melbourne Corporation told ZDNet.com.au.
The system will reduce unnecessary communications and minimise delays through information validation according to Carson: "The portal will eliminate the current heavy utilisation of phone and e-mail question and answers. Information will be available online in the format required by the various supply chain participants. It will also provide a degree of validation of information at the entry point which will minimise errors and as a direct result minimise possible delays in the movement of cargo."
"If you can imagine getting [the members of the supply chain] all in the same room, that's what we're doing in a virtual sense," a Port of Melbourne spokesperson added.
The Port of Melbourne hopes to replicate the Spanish Port of Valencia's success by reducing the time to process a container by 50 to 60 percent. "The Port of Valencia handles a similar container volume to the port of Melbourne and closely reflects its supply chain arrangements," Carson said. Containers account for up to 70 percent of traffic within the port.
While the monetary benefits of the system are not currently quantifiable according to Carson, he believes the "savings could be significant" and that the single information portal could help the Port of Melbourne cope with future growth, given that the Port of Melbourne has grown consecutively by almost eight percent per year over the last 16 years.
The single information portal, called eDIT (electronic Documentation and Information Transfer pilot), is the largest project within the Victorian Department of Infrastructure's AU$3 million Smart Freight initiative to develop and implement information and communication technology tools such as real time travel and delay information for trucks, and container management tools.