Trucks Run on Natural Gas in Pickens Clean Energy Drive

Using natural gas could cut fuel costs by more than $20,000 for a truck traveling a typical long-haul distance of 100,000 miles (161,000 kilometers) a year, according to JMP Securities LLC’s Shawn Severson. Shares in Clean Energy and Westport are up at least 30 percent since the end of last year.

“Natural gas is green in terms of the environment, but the real green is in the money,” said Severson, a San Francisco- based clean-technology analyst. “If you do not have this fuel in your fleet for whatever percentage is appropriate, you’re going to be at an economic disadvantage.”

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Container Rates Rising 28% as Cargo to U.S. Rebounds From Decline

The cost of moving a loaded forty-foot steel box to the West Coast from China was last at $1,824, from $1,418 on Dec. 16, Clarkson data show. That’s still 5.6 percent lower than a year ago after a capacity glut drove rates down as much as 30 percent in 2011. Average costs to charter ships carrying 4,400 twenty-foot boxes for six to 12 months will rise to $18,000 a day this year, from $8,700 in 2011, according to Morgan Stanley.

Container rates on the world’s biggest international trade route are rallying after U.S. imports of manufactured goods rebounded from the first decline in two years.

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Baltic Dry Index falling steadily

The Baltic Dry Index – an index of global freight rates for shipping dry commodities such as iron ore, coal and grain – had fallen for 23 consecutive days as of last Friday, cutting its value in half in the space of a month. The last time the index was this low, the world was in the depths of a credit crisis and a major recession.

While the Baltic Dry Index is obscure to your average retail investor, keen market watchers have long considered it a valuable leading indicator for the world economy, indicating shifting tides in demand for key industrial commodities.

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Scrapping Record Fails to End ‘Nightmare’ for Shipowners: Freight Markets

Rates will remain below about $11,000 a day for the rest of the year, compared with a breakeven point of about $23,000, according to Johnson Leung, head of regional transport at Jefferies Group Inc. in Hong Kong.

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