Slow steaming provides "huge" benefits for liner carriers, according to a shipping analyst with Goldman Sachs.

Simple math spells out the advantages, said Thomas Kim, executive director of Asia investment research for Goldman Sachs, speaking last week at the TPM Asia conference in Shenzhen, China.

"If fuel represents 20 percent of revenue, and you save 20 percent of your fuel costs, that's a 4-percent margin, which is huge," Kim said. "The benefits of slow steaming are huge."

Needless to say, representatives of some lines are not so quick to agree.

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