Issue link: https://jocdigital.uberflip.com/i/957444
Cover Story Breakbulk & Project Cargo www.joc.com April 2018 | The Journal of Commerce 7 growth accelerates in emerging and developed countries alike. "It's not quite the boom rates of the 1990s, but it's certainly better," Behravesh said. Crude oil prices appear to have stabilized at about $60 a barrel, a level that has encouraged renewed invest- ment in exploration and production. Petrochemical manufacturing is booming in regions including the US — where companies are taking advan- tage of low-cost natural gas feedstocks from fracking — and the Middle East. Mining is coming out of an extend- ed downturn that led companies to slash maintenance and replacement budgets. Prospects for infrastructure development have brightened in the US and other regions. "Today, we are in a good space," Jean-Sebastien Jacques, CEO of Rio Tinto, told analysts in February as the mining giant announced a 90 percent year-over-year jump in quarterly profi t. "Mining at the end of the day is a GDP-driven industry." David Seaton, CEO at Fluor, said the engineering, procurement, and construction company anticipates fi nal investment decisions during the next year in sectors including energy and chemicals, mining and metals, and infrastructure. "We're on the front end of a multi-industry upturn," he said. Translating that upturn into of machinery and equipment. Now, global economic growth is gaining momentum. The global economy is on track toward 3.5 percent growth in 2018 and 2019, Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Markit, told the JOC's 18th Annual TPM Conference in Long Beach on March 5. IHS Markit expects world trade volumes to grow 5 percent this year, up from 2.5 percent in recent years, as and gas, petrochemical, mining, and infrastructure projects, and by econo- mists forecasting global improvement that will drive increases in cargo volume by late 2018 or early 2019. Operators of multipurpose and project carriers and their customers have endured a multiyear slump. Soft commodity prices have forced companies to cancel or delay proj- ects, and to cut back on mainte- nance that generates shipments The engineering, procurement, and construction company Fluor says it expects investment decisions in the next year on projects in several sectors. MartinLueke / Shutterstock.com upturn?