• Korea Trade Review
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.69-88
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• 2023

This study analyzes the dynamic characteristics of cargo volume (demand), ship fleet (supply), and freight rate (price) of container, dry bulk, and tanker shipping markets by using the VAR and VECM models. This analysis is expected to enhance the statistical understanding of market dynamics, which is perceived by the actual experiences of market participants. The common statistical patterns, which are all shown in the three shipping markets, are as follows: 1) The Granger-causality test reveals that the past increase of fleet variable induces the present decrease of freight rate variable. 2) The impulse-response analysis shows that cargo shock increases the freight rate but fleet shock decreases the freight rate. 3) Among the three cargo, fleet, and freight rate shocks, the freight rate shock is overwhelmingly largest. 4) The comparison of adjR² reveals that the fleet variable is most explained by the endogenous variables, i.e., cargo, fleet, and freight rate in each of shipping markets. 5) The estimation of co-integrating vectors shows that the increase of cargo increases the freight rate but the increase of fleet decreases the freight rate. 6) The estimation of adjustment speed demonstrates that the past-period positive deviation from the long-run equilibrium freight rate induces the decrease of present freight rate.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.383-390
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• 2002

The time cost of ship end cargoes is one of the most important data for decision-making of port investment and operational efficiency. Studies in this area were initiated internationally by Goss and Mann in late 70's and also done in Korea 10 years ago using the same methodology as Goss. The main purpose of this paper is to revisit to estimate the time cost using updated data. The estimation was undertaken sampling data on various investment and operating costs by vessel from 205 vessels, comprising 47.5％ of the notional fleet in Korea as well as on cargoes from international trade statistics. Compared with the study of 10 years ago, major finding of this research is that time costs of liquid and dry bulk carriers have increased, in case of the former type, showing almost doubled cost increase. The increase is deemed to be caused by very expensive LNG carriers. Lowered social discount rate in this study compared with 10 years ago, in general, has mused the costs to stay at similar level to the previous study. Sensitivity tests were conducted using various social discount rates.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.161-173
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• 2021

The shipping industry plummeted and was depressed due to the global economic crisis caused by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in the US in 2008. In 2020, the shipping market also suffered from a collapse in the unstable global economic situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but unexpectedly, it changed to an upward trend from the end of 2020, and in 2021, it exceeded the market of the boom period of 2008. According to the Clarksons report published in May 2021, the decrease in cargo volume due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has returned to the pre-corona level by the end of 2020, and the tramper bulk carrier capacity of 103~104% of the Panamax has been in the ports due to congestion. Earnings across the bulker segments have risen to ten-year highs in recent months. In this study, as factors affecting BDI, the capacity and congestion ratio of Cape and Panamax ships on the supply side, iron ore and coal seaborne tonnge on the demand side and Granger causality test, IRF(Impulse Response Function) and FEVD(Forecast Error Variance Decomposition) were performed using VAR model to analyze the impact on BDI by congestion caused by strengthen quarantine at the port due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the loading and discharging operation delay due to the infection of the stevedore, etc and to predict the shipping market after the pandemic. As a result of the Granger causality test of variables and BDI using time series data from January 2016 to July 2021, causality was found in the Fleet and Congestion variables, and as a result of the Impulse Response Function, Congestion variable was found to have significant at both upper and lower limit of the confidence interval. As a result of the Forecast Error Variance Decomposition, Congestion variable showed an explanatory power upto 25% for the change in BDI. If the congestion in ports decreases after With Corona, it is expected that there is down-risk in the shipping market. The COVID-19 pandemic occurred not from economic factors but from an ecological factor by the pandemic is different from the past economic crisis. It is necessary to analyze from a different point of view than the past economic crisis. This study has meaningful to analyze the causality and explanatory power of Congestion factor by pandemic.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.92-99
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• 2001

High-cell-density cultivation of Ralstonia eutopha KHB 8862 by fed-batch fermentation in a 200 l pilot plant was carried out for the mass production of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB). After 80 h of cultivation, the dry cell weight (DCW), PHB concentration, and PHB yield from fructose syrup reached 168 g/l, 74%DCW, and 0.27 (w/w), respectively, resulting in a productivity of 1.6 g of PHB/L/h. Based on these results, the PHB production cost from bacterial fermentation was analyzed and economic evaluation was performed. In the case of new investment being implemented or not, the production cost of PHB was US$ 3.15/kg and US$ 2.41/kg, respectively. PHB productivity and PHB yield on a carbon substrate were both important factors to be optimized. The increase of PHB yield on a carbon sources significantly decreased the PHB production cost but the increase in productivity had a relatively slight effect on the decrease in PHB production cost because the cost of carbon sources (37%) for PHB was larger in proportion to total cost than the depreciation cost (17%). These results suggest that the increased PHB yield from carbon sources and the development of new cheaper substrates would be more effective in decreasing PHB production cost than the increase in productivity. It was demonstrated that PHB is not in competition with consumable plastics such as PET in present market. Therefore, it is essential to lower production cost to be used as a bulk product and desirable to develop new application fields for PHB such as biomedical and cosmeceuticals.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.127-163
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• 2023

The objective of this study is to investigate the volatility spillover effects among BDI, CCFI and SCFI. This paper will divide the empirical analysis section into two periods to analyze and compare the differences in volatility spillover effect between shipping freight indices before and after the outbreak of COVID-19 separately. First, in order to compare the mean spillover impact and index lead-lag correlations in BDI and CCFI indices, along with BDI and SCFI indices before and after COVID-19, the co-integration analysis and the test of Granger causality built on the VAR model were utilized. Second, the impulse response and variance decomposition are employed in this work to investigate how the shipping freight index responds to shocks experienced by itself and other freight indices in a short period. Before the COVID-19 epidemic, the results demonstrated that the BDI freight index is the Granger cause of the variable CCFI freight index. But the BDI and CCFI freight indices have no apparent lead-lag relationships after COVID-19, and this empirical result echoes the cointegration test result. After the COVID-19 epidemic, the SCFI index leads the BDI index. This study employs the VAR-BEKK-GARCH joint model to explore the volatility spillover results between dry bulk and container transport markets before and after COVID-19. The empirical results demonstrate that after COVID-19, fluctuations in the BDI index still affect the CCFI index in the maritime market. However, there is no proof of a volatility spillover relationship between the BDI and SCFI after the COVID-19 epidemic. This study will provide an insight into the volatility relationship among BDI, CCFI and SCFI before and after the the COVID-19 epidemic occurred.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.115-136
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• 2020

This study aims to analyze the impact of China's iron ore imports and exports on the tramper freight rate of China. The import volume of iron ore in China, the export volume of steel products in China, and exogenous variables were used as independent variables. The dependent variables were BDI, BCI, C5, C10, C14, BSI, S2, and S3. Correlation analysis and regression analysis were conducted. The correlation analysis showed that China's iron ore imports were not related to the remaining BDI, BCI, BSI, C5, C10, S2, and S3, except for the C14 index. However, there was a positive correlation between the ship's space and international oil prices, and it was not related to China's Purchasing Managers Index (PMI). The export volume of steel products was negatively correlated with BDI, BCI, BSI, C5, C10, C14, S2, S3, and international oil prices, and was not related to iron ore imports, ship space, and China's PMI. In the verification of the hypothesis between China's iron ore imports and exogenous variables, China's PMI was rejected within the hypothesis. However, the hypothesis on international oil prices and ship space was adopted. In the verification of the hypothesis between China's steel export volume and exogenous variables, the hypothesis on BDI and the S3 index was adopted, and the hypothesis on BSI and S2 was rejected. In the analysis results of this study, the ship space and oil prices were adopted in all the hypothesis results. Domestic companies participating in the tramper shipping market will need to be prepared through continuous monitoring of related indicators.