Vane Line Bunkering News

The tug Falcon was built by Modern Marine Inc. in 1978. In the intervening years, companies that employed her have changed hands a number of times until 2013 when Vane Line Bunkering of Baltimore, Maryland purchased Kirby Marine’s Philadelphia bunkering division. The parent company, Vane Brothers, immediately began plans to update and upgrade the classic 75x25-foot tug. Central to this was the repower of the vessel. They arranged with Cummins Power Systems to replace the boat’s pair of aging Detroit 12V71s with modern Cummins K38-M engines. The U.S.

BMT Designers & Planners, Inc. (BMT), an operating company of BMT Group Ltd, has delivered its training program to assist Port Engineers (PEs) with maximizing investments in the repair and sustainment of their maritime assets. With the complex management of ship repair constantly changing, PEs are tasked with understanding many challenging requirements. These include surface preparation and preservation, drydock evolutions and safety, propulsion system alignment, welding processes and procedures, nondestructive testing, inspections, general shipyard safety and more.

Jeffboat has been awarded a contract to build two 52,000 net barrel ocean service tank barges for Vane Line Bunkering of Baltimore, Maryland. These barges are the fifth and sixth built to the same design at Jeffboat since 2001. Work on the new barges is expected to begin in June 2004 and extend through September 2005. The barges are to be built for coastwise manned and ocean unmanned light oil service. The new contract contains options for Vane to purchase up to two additional barges of the same design. Jeffboat is currently constructing two similar barges for Vane, the DOUBLESKIN 55 and DOUBLESKIN 57. These barges are designed for coastwise manned and ocean unmanned heated heavy oil service. These barges are set to deliver in May 2004 and October 2004 respectively.

Coast Guard Marine Safety Office Hampton Roads is responding to a report of a diesel fuel spill from the tank barge VB 53 on the upper James River below Richmond. The spill was reported to the Coast Guard National Response Center at 11:41 a.m. on Sunday, May 8, 2005. The barge was being pushed south on the James River in an area known as Kingsland Reach, about 2 miles northwest of the Interstate 295 bridge, when it sustained damage to two cargo tanks. The barge is presently aground and has a port list. The owners have submitted a lightering and salvage plan to the Coast Guard for approval. The amount of diesel fuel spilled has not been determined. The barge is surrounded by oil containment boom and other booms have been deployed upstream and downstream to limit the spread of the oil.

Vane Line Bunkering Inc.*, Baltimore, Md., was awarded on March 14, 2007, a $17,507,083 firm-fixed-price contract for Atlantic Dedicated Barge Transportation Services.Work will be performed in Baltimore, Md., and is expected to be completed by March 31, 2012.Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.There were an unknown number of bids solicited via the World Wide Web on Oct. 17, 2006, and one bid was received.The Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, Alexandria, Va., is the contracting activity (W81GYE-07-C-0005).

The Manitowoc Company, Inc. announced that Vane Line Bunkering, Inc. has awarded Manitowoc Marine Group (MMG) a contract for the construction of a 480-ft., 145,000-barrel, double-hulled hot oil tank barge and an accompanying 6,000-horsepower tug. The ocean-going articulated tug and barge (AT/B) unit is slated for delivery in fourth quarter of 2006. This contract also provides Vane Brothers with an option for an identical AT/B unit to be delivered in the third quarter of 2007. Other contract terms were not disclosed. The Vane contract represents the eleventh double-hulled barge and fourth ocean-going tug to be built by Manitowoc Marine Group. Both tug and barge, which will serve the mid-Atlantic petroleum markets, will be classified in compliance with ABS, Coast Guard, and OPA-90 standards.

The Coast Guard has drastically increased its estimates of the amount of asphalt spilled from a grounded barge on the James River in Virginia, saying up to 63,000 gallons have leaked from a tank holding more than twice that much, according to a PilotOnline report. Most of it is concentrated beneath and along the sides of the 250 ft., nearly submerged barge, where divers were attempting to find the leak and plug it. More than 2,000 feet of oil containment boom surrounds the football field-size spill. No evidence of significant environmental damage has been seen yet, according to the report. The spill occurred about 4:30 a.m. Monday, five miles south of Richmond…

The Coast Guard continues to monitor a barge that ran aground and spilled approximately 42,000 to 63,000 gallons of liquid asphalt, five miles south of Richmond, Va., at 4:30 a.m. Monday. The Piney Point was being pushed up river, toward Richmond, by the tug Barbary Coast when it ran aground in the vicinity of Meade Landing State Park. The barge was transporting approximately 930,000 gallons of asphalt when it ran aground. The other seven tanks on board were reportedly not damaged, and workers from the scene report the barge is not leaking. Divers assessed damage to the hull today, and a plan is being developed for patching the hole.

A barge carrying about 1 million gallons of liquid asphalt ran aground early this morning on the James River near the end of Willis Road in southern Chesterfield County, according to a report in the Richmond Times Dispatch. Authorities said the barge was being pushed up river by a tugboat. It ran aground between 4 and 4:30 a.m. One of eight tanks holding about 120,000 gallons of heated asphalt ruptured, spilling the material into the river, said Henrico County fire Lt. Gary Hutchison. U.S. Coast Guard officials estimated that 8,400 gallons of asphalt leaked from the barge. Firefighters and hazardous materials crews from Chesterfield and Henrico counties, as well as a private cleanup contractor, were working to contain the spill with booming material.