Cover -- Dedication -- Foreword -- Preface -- About the author -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- List of Tables and Figures -- Figure 1. Bunker price history (380 cSt) - Rotterdam (February 2004 to July 2010) -- Data courtesy of Bunkerspot (www.bunkerspot.com) -- Figure 2. The price collapse of 2008 -- Data courtesy of Bunkerspot (www.bunkerspot.com) -- Figure 3. Typical structure of a shipping business -- Figure 4. Ownership structure possibilities -- Courtesy of ExxonMobil Marine Fuels (www.exxonmobil.com) -- Figure 5. Dry forward freight agreement participants -- Data courtesy of GFI Group (www.gfigroup.com) -- Figure 6. Newbuilding price index -- Chart courtesy of Clarkson Research Services Ltd (www.crsl.com) -- Figure 7. Iron ore imports into China 1988-2010 -- Chart courtesy of Clarkson Research Services Ltd (www.crsl.com) -- Figure 8. The movement of crude tanker spot earnings April 2008 to July 2010 -- Chart courtesy of Clarkson Research Services Ltd (www.crsl.com) -- Figure 9. Liner Market Rates 2006 to 2010 -- Chart courtesy of Clarkson Research Services Ltd (www.crsl.com) -- Figure 10. Movements in charter rates - April 2006 / April 2008 / April 2010 contrast -- Data courtesy of Clarkson Research Services Ltd (www.crsl.com) -- Figure 11. Credit score card -- Courtesy of ExxonMobil (www.exxonmobil.com) -- Figure 12. Small ship supplier credit check list -- Courtesy of Roger Symes, Marine Debt Management Ltd (www.marinedebtmanagement.com) -- Figure 13. Independent bunker trader's risk breakdown -- Table courtesy of World Fuel Services (www.wfscorp.com) -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 - The bunker market -- Origins -- A market is born -- Enter the trader -- Trading grows up -- The supply chain -- Fuel delivery -- Some modernisation, but still an old fashioned industry -- Chapter 2 - What is bunker credit risk? -- Buy now, pay later.

Sell your risk? -- What can a poor buyer do? -- Security? What security? -- What price bunkers? -- The Big Price Collapse -- Where can you find bunker prices? -- A volatile market -- Different ways to prepare for the bad times -- The pressure of competition -- Credit risk - a necessary education -- More than numbers to understand bunker credit risk -- Chapter 3 - The market today - structural risk -- The constituent players - how do they work? -- Flags of Convenience -- One ship, one owning company -- Limited liability -- The debt is fixed to the vessel -- Types of shipping business -- Who is actually buying? -- Greek shipowners -- Norwegian shipowners -- German shipowners -- You must know the responsible principal -- The make-up of the shipping industry -- Wet and dry trades -- Containers -- Cruise shipping -- Fishing -- Chapter 4 - Background factors affecting risk -- Market volatility -- Cycles are essential to the health of world shipping -- Historical example of shifting ship values -- 12 dry sector cycles since 1869 -- Some drivers of fleet expansion -- Tankers since the 1970s -- The dry sector over the last 20 years -- The 2008 collapse -- Non-market risk factors -- The effect of hostilities -- Political unrest -- Piracy -- US blacklists -- IMO regulation -- Emission Control Areas (ECAs) -- Port State Control -- Trading areas -- Institute Warranty Limits (IWL) and government restrictions -- Practical/operational constraints -- Innovation -- Financial innovations -- FFAs and risk management -- Why FFAs? -- Paper driving physical - not healthy -- Modelling risk -- Chapter 5 - Review of shipping markets -- Bulk carriers -- The good times… -- …and the bad -- Was the 2008 crash foreseeable? -- Subdivisions of dry bulk -- Dry bulk sector risks? -- The newbuilding disaster -- Pushing the problem back -- Real structural changes following world events.

Asia not insulated -- Shipping enters recession late and comes out more slowly -- The number of ships on order -- The China effect -- A brief major bulks review -- Foreshadowing the crash -- Risk factors -- More rapidly fluctuating rates -- Capesize rates -- Paper trading issues -- COAs no longer a necessary good -- Tankers -- Changes coming up -- Spot earnings -- Build costs erode earnings -- Fleet size reduction and sector recovery -- Risk arising from loss of oil major approval -- Political volatility of crude oil loading areas -- Falling demand for oil impacts the tanker fleet directly -- Changes in refining affects trading patterns -- The Liner sector -- Conferences -- Review factors for liner companies -- Falling consumer markets impact on the container trades -- Movements in charter rates -- Cost saving measures -- Some good news, but not much -- Newbuilding flood not quite so bad for liners -- Basic risk factors remain income too low, costs too high -- Container market realignments in the face of the recession -- General economic conditions -- Considerations on the world economy -- Economic risk factors in key segments of the freight market -- General considerations of threat/risk factors for shipping -- Chapter 6 - Country risk -- Time zones -- Language barriers -- Legal issues -- Currency -- Information -- Current areas of concern -- North Africa -- West Africa -- East & North East Africa -- The Middle East -- The Indian Sub-Continent -- South East Asia -- Australia, New Zealand and Oceania -- North East Asia -- The Americas -- Europe and the Former Soviet Union -- Chapter 7 - Tools for credit risk analysis -- The underlying dynamics of risk in shipping -- The boom to bust cycle -- Shipping follows world trade -- Markets down, credit risk up -- Every case may be different -- The credit risk analyst's tool-kit -- No formulaic answers.

The tools available -- 1) The Internet -- 2) The press -- 3) Colleagues and networking -- 4) Specialist data vendors -- 5) Industry associations -- 6) The company itself -- 7) The specialist marine credit report -- Chapter 8 - Making the credit decision -- The basic question -- Your own records -- The specialist data vendors -- Sovereign risk -- What vessels? What trades? -- The initial hypothesis -- Trade press -- Asking the market -- Buy a credit report -- Use as many sources as you can -- Know for yourself as much as possible -- A credit check list -- Chapter 9 - A positive business tool -- Sweating the debtor book -- Putting pressure on the sufferers -- Credit as long as it is due, not when it is not -- Seeking out the higher margin payers -- Selling to the higher payers as long as they are safe -- Give credit, get something back -- Chapter 10 - Securitising credit risk -- Credit insurance -- Where bunker credit insurance started -- Parental guarantee -- But it is always your responsibility -- Chapter 11 - What to do if there is a default -- Asset tracing and chasing -- Ship arrest -- Be careful -- Where ship arrest can work for the bunker supplier -- A question of jurisdiction -- Find the best port to arrest -- What you need to consider -- Chapter 12 - Summary and conclusions -- Appendix 1 - Credit check lists -- Major oil company credit check list -- Small ship supplier credit check list -- Independent bunker trader's risk breakdown -- Appendix 2 - Sample credit reports -- Sample 1: Ocean Intelligence: Yang Ming Marine Transport -- Sample 2: Lloyd's List Intelligence: Hapag-Lloyd AG -- Appendix 3 - Bibliography -- Technical and legal -- General bunkering -- Bunker markets -- Credit issues -- Ship arrest -- Useful websites -- Credit analysis: -- Associations: -- Information sources: -- Appendix 4 - Glossary of terms -- Index -- Back Cover.