This section outlines shipping routes for the following global trades:
Natural Incidents that had an impact on Bulk Trades – During the devastating tsunami in Japan in 2011, the cooling system at the Fukushima nuclear powerstation failed, causing a serious problem at the powerstation, and threatened nuclear contamination in a wide area around the power plant. This caused the Japanese government to reconsider the question of nuclear power, but in the meantime, large volumes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) had to be imported to replace some of the power lost by the disaster. It also had the effect of increasing the global demand for gas and more importantly, led to a reassessment of plans for nuclear powerstations in a number of countries. The LNG price increased, as did the freight rates for the gas and the charter rates for LNG carriers also increased.