Good morning, nice people. It’s a meaty issue this morning with a slew of updates from the Red Sea and beyond, and some whispers of an Etihad Airways IPO being lined up. Shall we?

WTO WATCH-

It’s a wrap on the WTO conference: The World Trade Organization’s Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi concluded with the 164 WTO members pledging to strengthen global trade by adopting the Abu Dhabi Ministerial Declaration (pdf), after negotiations went into overtime. The declaration includes several measures that aim to propel negotiations forward, without providing breakthroughs on several of the topics that were under discussion during the meeting.

Digital commerce to remain tariff-free: After five days fraught with disagreements, negotiators agreed to renew the moratorium on e-commerce tariffs for another two years, exempting businesses from customs on digital goods and transactions, such as emails and film downloads, until the next session of the ministerial conference or 31 March 2026, “whichever is earlier,” the WTO said in a statement (pdf). The agreement was reached after India and South Africa acceded to the tariff suspension, Bloomberg reports.

UAE had a hand in the tariff waiver extension: After blocking the tariff waiver for the five days of negotiations on the basis of believing it “favored big tech companies and prevented competitors in developing countries from growing,” Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal dropped New Delhi’s opposition “at the request of” Trade Minister Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Bloomberg explained. India initially stalled the extension to put pressure on negotiators to achieve consensus on subsidies for Indian farmers, the business news information added.

UAE launches platform to foster future negotiations: The UAE will launch the Trade for Development platform to provide key trade negotiators from developing and least developed countries with technical assistance to “enhance their capacity and skills to engage in the complex and highly technical process of trade negotiations,” Wam reports. The government will “gift” the platform to eight WTO members: Ethiopia, Mozambique, Antigua and Barbuda, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Comoros, Kyrgyzstan and Barbados.

WATCH THIS SPACE-

#1- Egypt is set to double the Suez Canal: The Egyptian government has conducted preliminary studies on a project to duplicate the remainder of the Suez Canal to better support two-way traffic, Suez Canal Authority boss Osama Rabie said at the 2024 Marlog conference yesterday, adding that the studies have been presented to President Abdel Fattah El Sisi (watch, runtime: 2:17). Engineering consulting companies ACE Moharram Bakhoum and Dar Al Handasah are working on the feasibility studies and identifying what partners the government can work with before the matter is once again raised to the president, Rabie said. “There are around 80 kms across the Suez Canal that have not yet been duplicated — 50 kms in the north and 30 kms in the south,” Rabie explained.

The Suez Canal will consist of two 192-km channels, Ala Mas’ouleety’s Ahmed Moussa said (watch, runtime: 6:33). The project seeks to enhance safety and eliminate choke points like the one that crippled traffic for six days in 2021 when the Ever Given container ship ran aground. It also aims to increase the number of ships crossing the canal and reduce transit time to about nine hours, Moussa said.

IN OTHER EGYPT NEWS- Egypt’s Bashtil railway station in Giza is 95% complete, project manager Hussein Shahata told Al Ahram. The 239k square meter new station will include a 44k sqm investment zone and will be able to accommodate 250k passengers a day. Strategically located between Cairo’s Ramses and Giza stations, the project is intended to relieve congestion at Ramses station and straddles strategic roadways and railway intersections, the official added.

#2- Germany’s MAN Energy Solutions plans to deliver and install its first-ever ammonia-fuelled engine on a new vessel in Japan by the end of the year, CEO Uwe Lauber told Reuters. Trials on the ammonia-fuelled ship will take a year or two and bunkering infrastructure and safety standards have yet to be devised, Lauber added. The company will begin to offer ammonia-powered engines to clients in 2027. The shipping industry accounts for nearly 3% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, the newswire notes, and ammonia is one of several alternative fuels the industry is exploring.

#3- Iraq could soon amend its federal budget to pay recovery and transit fees to oil companies in a move to resume crude oil exports via a pipeline to Turkey, Iraq’s top diplomat Faud Hussein told Bloomberg on Saturday. Talks are currently underway between oil companies, Iraq’s federal government in Baghdad, and the partially autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Flows across the pipeline were halted by Turkey in March 2023 after an arbitration court ordered it to pay Baghdad USD 1.5 bn in damages for moving oil without the approval of Iraq’s federal government. The halt to operations across the pipeline have cost Iraq some USD 7 bn in lost revenues over the past year, the outlet said.

Not so, APIKUR says: The Association of the Petroleum Industry of Kurdistan (APIKUR), which represent companies working in oil production in the semi-autonomous province of Kurdistan, have denied claims by Iraqi officials that an agreement on restarting the pipeline was close at hand, according to a statement released on Saturday. Recent negotiations in January which involved Iraq’s federal government, KRG, and oil players did not see significant progress, APIKUR said. Late October 2023 also saw claims and counterclaims from Iraqi and Turkish officials giving mixed signals on preparedness for a continuation of exports via the pipeline.

#4- Boeing can’t catch a break: Emirates President Tim Clark has called for reform at Boeing as pressure piles up on the US planemaker following a scathing review by US regulator Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Reuters reported on Thursday. Tim Clark also hinted at the need for changes in Boeing’s leadership, “When you change the governance model, it invariably involves changing the people around the old governance model,” he reportedly told journalists. The major airline executive also hinted that deliveries of the 777X, for which Emirates is the largest buyer, may be delayed into late 2025 or into 2026.

Background: The FAA cleared Boeing’s 737 MAX 9 aircraft to return to service early last month, following a mid-flight panel blow out incident that saw the fleet grounded in January. The US regulator also gave Boeing a 90-day deadline last week to rework its quality controls.

IN OTHER NEWS- Emirates Group’s air freight subsidiary Emirates SkyCargo anticipates an 8% uptick in operational growth in 2024, Wam reported on Thursday citing statements by divisional senior Vice-President of Emirates SkyCargo Nabil Sultan. The UAE’s cargo sector has seen consistent growth of 20 to 25% a year, on the back of sound infrastructure and connectivity between sea and air ports, Sultan also said.

#5- UAE budget carrier Air Arabia is set to add eight aircraft to its fleet in 2024, the airline’s CEO Adel Ali told CNBC Arabia in an interview (watch: runtime: 6:01). 15 aircraft are set to be delivered in 2025 with deliveries subsequently ramping up to 20 aircraft a year to fulfill a 120-aircraft order book, Ali said.The carrier expects to add new routes this year and to expand operations out of its Morocco hub in Rabat after sending three additional aircraft to that location. Air Arabia also does not plan to borrow to fund its growth plans, with the company seeing sufficient liquidity, but the carrier may resort to lending from 2025 onwards, Ali also said.

#6- Hadi Al Hammam in the hot seat:KSA marine service contactor Hadi H Al Hammam Establishment has been accused of withholding pay from seafarers working on eight different company-owned vessels,with seafarers seeing delays of as much as five months in some cases, according to a Thursday report by UK-based labor union the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF). The ITF has added Al Hammam to its Seafarers’ Breach of Rights Index, which tracks organizations that are accused of unfair treatment towards seafarers they employ. Many of Al Hammam’s vessels are Bahrain-flagged, and the ITF has also levied accusations of complacency towards Bahrain for failing to take action when informed of the violations. Hadi Al Hammam counts Saudi Aramco among its list of clients, the ITF also said.

#7- CBAM faces early challenges: The European Union's carbon border adjustmentmechanism (CBAM) — set to tax CO2-heavy products from 2026 — is facing its first administrative hurdles with only a small number of companies able to successfully meet the early reporting deadline for carbon-intensive imports, The Financial Times wrote on Friday. Nearly 13k reports were submitted by the end of February, primarily concerning imports from China.

Low compliance rates: Less than 10% of German companies and 11% of Swedish companies were able to meet the deadline for reporting on their imports, the FT adds. EU officials stated that the issue is due to the measures being nascent and the ongoing transitional period, adding that proposals are underway to simplify the system.

There are some vocal critics: Green trade rules are “biased” against developing nations, India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal told the Financial Times on Thursday, referring to CBAM. Goyal said trade and the environment “are two separate issues,” stating that the relevant UN institutions “should be respected” and “allowed to do their job” when it comes to addressing climate change. “Before we add new environmental issues, let’s first sort out who is responsible for the environmental degradation,” Goyal said, adding that India, which accounts for 17% of the world’s population, produces only 3% of the world’s emissions.

MARKET WATCH-

#1- Saudi Arabia will extend voluntary oil cuts until June 2024 in a bid to boost prices, an unnamed Energy Ministry source told state news agency SPA yesterday. The source said Saudi would extend its voluntary oil curbs of 1 mn barrels per day (bpd) applied from July last year to June 2024, maintaining production at 9 mn bpd. The move was agreed with several OPEC+ countries, the source said, adding that the voluntary cuts would be scaled back gradually depending on market conditions.

Russia deepens cuts: Russia plans to slash output by an additional 471k bpd until June, according to a statement by Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. It will lower output by 350k bpd in April, 400k bpd in May and 471k bpd in June.

The extension-line up: Other OPEC+ members announcing the extension of cuts include Iraq, UAE, and Kuwait, including to a statement by OPEC. It said the extension aims to support and balance oil markets.

#2- Baltic index hits 2-month high: The Baltic Exchange’s dry bulk sea freight index — which tracks rates for the capesize, panamax, and supramax vessel segments — was up 4.4% at 2203 points on Friday, its highest since 19 December and marking a more than a two-month high, as improved rates across the board edged up the index, Reuters reported. The index was also up 18% w-o-w, the newswire said. The capesize segment climbed 6.3% to 3977 points, bringing it to an eleven-week high, while panamax also increased 8% to 1723 points. The smaller supramax segment saw a 10 point increase to 1267 points, the newswire said.

DATA POINTS-

#1- Saudi Arabia’s trade balance declined 36.2% y-o-y to SAR 97 bn in Q4 2023, according to 4Q 2023 trade figures (pdf) published by KSA’s General Authority for Statistics. Overall merchandise exports dropped 14.4% y-o-y to SAR 297.9 bn in 4Q 2023, while merchandise imports inched up 2.8% y-o-y to SAR 201.4 bn during the same period. The fall in merchandise exports was mostly attributed to a 17.8% y-o-y drop in oil exports to SAR 226.8 bn, the report said.

#2-Mwani Qatarhandled 111.3k TEU in February, up 8% m-o-m, the port operator said Friday on X. The month also saw Mwani Qatar’s ports process 169.2k tons of general bulk and cargo, up 186% from the previous month, 7.16k heads of livestock, 127% higher than the previous month, and 7.16k Ro-Ro units, 18% higher than the previous months. Ships calling at Mwani Qatar’s ports in February came in at 198 vessels, down 19 vessels m-o-m.

#3- Morocco’s National Ports Agency saw a 20% y-o-y boost in port traffic revenues to MAD 2.5 bn in 2023, according to the company’s financial statement (pdf). The increase in revenues was driven by improvements in product offerings and operational strategies, the statement said. Moroccan ports handled 88.4 mn tons during the period, up 1.4% y-o-y. Total combined revenues from all subsidiaries, divisions and affiliates totaled to MAD 2.8 bn, surging 19.6% y-o-y.

#4- Tunisia’s commercial traffic at maritime ports bumped up 2% y-o-y to 29.4 mn tons in 2023, according to a Wednesday statement. The period saw a 17% y-o-y boost in liquid bulk traffic to 10.5 mn tonnes, primarily driven by a 19% surge in fuel transportation. General cargo volumes declined 11% y-o-y to 8 mn tons, while solid bulk traffic saw a slight 0.1 mn ton uptick to 10.8 mn tons in 2023, the statement said.

CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

The UAE will host the MRO Middle East on Tuesday, 5 March and Wednesday, 6 March in Dubai. The two-day event will bring together key decision makers from airlines, MROs, OEMs, lessors, and suppliers spanning all aspects of the airline supply chain.

The UAE will host The Logistics Middle East Award on Wednesday, 6 March in Dubai. The awards ceremony brings together industry experts to celebrate the sector’s biggest accomplishments over the previous 12 months.The deadline for submitting nominations is Friday, 19 January.

The UAE will host Abu Dhabi Mobility Week from Wednesday, 24 April to Wednesday, 1 May in Abu Dhabi. The event, organized by The Department of Municipalities and Transport – Abu Dhabi (DMT), will feature announcements, forums, and introduce a mobility strategy for the emirate.

Saudi Arabia will host a special World Economic Forum event from Sunday, 28 April through to Monday, 29 April in Riyadh. The event will focus on global collaboration and energy.

The UAE will host the 23rd edition of the Airport Show from Tuesday, 14 May through to Thursday, 16 May in Dubai. The 23rd Airport Show will see representation from airport suppliers, airport service providers, aviation executives, and regional decision makers. The event will highlight current innovations and new technologies, while emphasizing this year’s "Sustainability and Innovation," theme.

The UAE will host The Electric Vehicle Innovation Summit from Monday, 20 May to Wednesday, 22 May in Abu Dhabi. The event will see industry leaders come together to discuss sustainable mobility and tapping into groundbreaking advancements in electric vehicles while engaging with key decision-makers.

Check out our full calendar at the bottom of this email for a comprehensive listing of upcoming news events and news triggers.