China to Lift Ban of 400,000 DWT 'Valemax' Mega-Ships

http://gcaptain.com/china-to-lift-ban-of-400000-dwt-valemax-mega-ships/

by protomyth • 11 years ago

43 26 11 years ago

protomyth• 11 years ago

"Signs of a thaw began appearing last September after Vale signed a deal to sell and lease back ships from China Ocean Shipping Co (COSCO), the country’s largest shipping conglomerate."

mgirdley• 11 years ago

Imagine the mafia started a country and then a hundred years later tried to clean up their image a little.

That's how I think of business and government there.

fnordfnordfnord• 11 years ago

What do you think of Rockefeller and other early US industrialists?

sneak• 11 years ago

An organized, self-interested group, establishing their own sets of laws and customs?

What, exactly, do you think nations are?

hga• 11 years ago

In some respects, not all that large; from the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valemax): "Once all 35 Valemax ships are in service and if each ship does four round trips per year, they will be capable of carrying about 15% of the annual iron ore exports from Brazil to all destinations."

Animats• 11 years ago

This issue has been building for a while. See this 2011 article.[1] Shipowners in China were unhappy with Vale, which is an iron ore producer, using their own ships.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-11-23/china-shun...

sxcurry• 11 years ago

This is a really interesting site for shipping news. Here's a video about the largest floating structure in the world being built: http://gcaptain.com/prelude-flng-taking-shape-birds-eye-view...

t0mas88• 11 years ago

This reads like a warning against doing too much business in China? They basically blackmailed a Brazilian company into setting up a joint venture with a local Chinese shipping / ore company by forbidding their ships to enter Chinese ports?

noir_lord• 11 years ago

There are plenty of those already, it seems like a very strange place to do business compared to the west.

It's also fascinating (from a distance).

InTheArena• 11 years ago

Pretty much standard business for China. You either give your secrets over to a Chinese company as a partnership, or you find them stolen later.

douche4• 11 years ago

That's basically the way foreign trade with China has always worked, particularly sea-trade. The Portuguese were consigned to stay on Macau, and trade via a guild of registered Chinese merchants in Canton, the Cohong. Later the English and others got in on the deal. And then, unhappy with the restrictions of the system, and crack-downs on smuggling opium, from 1840 to 1914 damn near every western merchant power engaged in trade wars and gunboat diplomacy to wrest free-trade agreements and other concessions.

rebootthesystem• 11 years ago

Is there a good book that covers the history of trade with China? This sounds interesting.

gggmaster• 11 years ago

Free-trade of opium?

hackuser• 11 years ago

Your description reminds me of the US compelling Japanese automakers to setup plants in the United States in order to have access to the market. I think you can find plenty of other examples, in most countries.

gaadd33• 11 years ago

Can you provide any info on the requirements that the US placed upon Japanese companies to compete in the US? From the brief digging I did I was only able to find a lot of stuff that wishes the government had done so and most of the modern plants were built in the interest of efficiency and not due to any political agenda (which is also why they are generally non unionized)

jlarocco2• 11 years ago

Ignoring the political issues, living in a landlocked state, it always boggles my mind reading about and seeing pictures of these huge ships. I'm not sure I've ever seen a man made object even coming close to the size of these ships.

tcopeland• 11 years ago

It was pretty wild being underway on the west coast of the US and seeing a huge smear appear on the radar as a container ship swept by. If we were going north and they were going south the relative speed was really something. And the CPA (closest point of approach) would be a couple of miles, so you couldn't hear them, but wow, they were impressive.

vacri• 11 years ago

Skyscrapers? Sporting stadiums? Megamalls? You could also probably consider large sections of the road network to be single objects.

jlarocco2• 11 years ago

From what I've heard, some of the larger cargo ships and oil tankers are big enough to carry the Empire State Building. And the Empire State Building is a lot bigger than any building I can think of in Colorado.

And besides, buildings just sit there. These big ships are moving machines that travel around the world. Much more impressive, IMO.

brobinson• 11 years ago

How about a ship that carries ships?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ShjJW85S7E

rdlecler1• 11 years ago

China keeps overplaying its hand. How many case studies do you need before you realize that as a non-Chinese company you are not allowed to win. This can't end well for China.

China to Lift Ban of 400,000 DWT 'Valemax' Mega-Ships

Related Stories