b'4American Journal ofTransportation ajot.comChinas steel industry under pressure from failing property sectorGovernment stimulus and lower interest rates are designed to boost demand, but a recovery is not on the horizon.Now that the world is normalizing again, the yachts are also moving farther afield.By Peter Buxbaum, AJOTAALs Morland bullish on project investment Asmanyoftheworldsfundingalreadyannounced centralbanks,includingin June. Mike Morland, General Manager AAL Shipping Americas, is bullish on thetheUnitedStatesFederalSomething is going on in expansion of the project sector and elaborates on the outlook for MPPs inReserve,havebeenbusythe Chinese economy and the a Q&A with AJOT. hikinginterestratesinanupshot is being seen in Chi-efforttostallinflation,thenas steel industry. The gov-By George Lauriat, AJOT PeoplesBankofChinaernmentsstimuluspackage hasbeendoingtheoppo- mighthavehelpedtheChi-AJOT: Among the big- ment of new highways/bridgesAJOT:AlthoughCOVIDsite. Around the time as thenese steel sector and boosted gestsectorscontributingtoand also improvements on cur- isnotasbigathreatasitmostrecentratecut,inlatethepricesofsteelandiron the project business is Oil &rentinfrastructure.Thesamewasin2020,nonethelessitAugust, Chinas State Coun- ore,butthathasnthap-Gas. With high energy priceswill hopefully be achieved inis still causing lockdowns incil announced a much-antic- pened.Instead,steelfutures and shortages in Europe, withthe power grid systems if thistheChinaandHongKongipated$44billionplanfordroppedover19%andiron the Russian gas cut-offs andis not held back at state level(BULLISHcontinued onspending and investments in(PRESSUREcontinued on discussionsaboutnewLNGover partisan politics. page 10) infrastructure,doublingthepage 13)terminals, what do you think the O&G project outlook is in the near term?Morland: We are expecting bullishinvestmentbehaviour on both existing (expansions) andnewprojectsnowthat thedemandisguaranteed to be strong in the near and medium term. However, new Oil & Gas projects typicallyWe Shiptake a long time from concept to realization, so in our view themostlikelyscenariois expansions to increase output fromalreadyexistingproj-ects in the near term. LongerYour trusted partner for project cargo logisticsterm, there is no doubt there willbeabigpushfornew energy projects to remove the European reliance on energy fromRussia.TheUShasa particularlybigopportunity in exporting LNG to Europe as soon as receiving capacity has been improved in Conti-nental European ports. Oversized Materials General Cargo Temperature Controlled Pharmaceuticals Hazardous MaterialsHigh Value Goods Mike Morland, General Manager AAL Shipping AmericasLive AnimalsAJOT: The construction sector(whichhasoverlap with O&G and Mining) seems tohavesomemomentumas heavy equipment sales are up. Hasthedemandinthecon-struction sector improved? Morland:Lookingatthe USmarketthereissome optimismastheInfrastruc-tureBillandtheInflation+305.407.3125 [email protected] Act both promise federalandstatefundingto a larger extent than the previ-ousyears. Thismightmake more projects viable and will makethemgoahead.We anticipatethattherewillbe investmentinbothdevelop-'