Gloomy reading from at least two quarters

IF YOU are in the shipping business, you probably don't need to read a report to know that the industry is going through tough times.

However, two new reports go into some of the grisly details behind the massive over-tonnaging crippling the industry - Drewry Maritime Research's latest Container Insight Weekly, and a White Paper from maritime transport information specialist IHS.

Drewry looks at the container sector and its need to resort - once again - to laying up vessels; IHS, casting its net more widely, considers the dire position of dry-bulk shipowners.