Countries are looking beyond their borders for options to satiate a forecasted increase in natural gas consumption. A strong option for importing natural gas is by way of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply chain where natural gas is liquefied, transported in special tankers, and regasified at...

This dissertation develops structural models for analyzing shipping investment decisions, namely ordering, scrapping and lay-up decisions in the tanker industry. We develop models, based on a microeconomic specification, that allow us to understand the dynamics of shipping investment decisions...

The internet-based business (e-business) activities have become a new technological challenge to the container shipping industry (CSI) in recent years. Despite the growing importance of e-business in the CSI, little systematic and theoretical research on e-business has been undertaken so far....

The value of virtually any contract or asset in bulk shipping depends primarily on the stochastic dynamics of the forward freight rate curve. In the absence of a liquid and transparent market for forward freight agreements, the dynamics of the forward freight rate curve must be derived from the...

The terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 on New York and Washington DC shed light on the many security shortcomings that sea ports and the entire import and export process face. A primary source of these problems is the information sharing process which makes it hard to track the source of a...

Investing in the bulk carrier market constitutes a rather risky investment due to the volatility of the bulk carrier freight rates. In this study it is attempted to uncover the benefits of using Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) in forecasting the Capesize Ore Voyage Rates from Tubarao to...

In this thesis we review three case studies in multimodal logistics and transportation systems and analyze the reasons that lead to failure or success. We present the business idea and model of each case study and study the factors that determine revenues and costs, as well as the expectations...

The decision of firms from industrialized nations to outsource part or all of their supply chain activities to offshore countries, like in China, carries with it two major issues. The first is related to the costs and benefits of outsourcing and the second to risks and problems that may arise...

This thesis analyzes the relationship between the physical and paper shipping markets. The main objective is to find if one market leads the other by a specific time period so that market players can take advantage from that. Three different methods were used to analyze this relationship. The...