Olympus News

30 years ago shaft generators with PTI capability kept container ships sailing at top speed. That purpose gone, PTI/PTO is making a new comeback in more cargo shipping segments, this time for reducing emissions.Retrofitting a shaft generator is not an insignificant undertaking. Around 50 tons of equipment needs to be installed into the engineroom through a hole in the hull. A new section of shaft is usually required.That a few shipowners are undertaking such projects - Klaveness Combination Carriers on the Ballard…

The Port of Singapore has registered a record three billion gross tonnage (GT) in annual vessel arrival tonnage.The record was reached with the arrival of the 8,628 TEU, 98,799 GT Singapore-flagged container ship, ONE Olympus, at the Pasir Panjang Terminal on December 25, 2023.The annual vessel arrival tonnage at the Port of Singapore for 2023 is expected to reach just over three billion GT in 2023, up from 2.83 billion GT in 2022.The record was marked at an event organised by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and attended by Chee Hong Tat, Acting Minister for Transport.

Singapore-based Berge Bulk has launched a ship fitted with steel-and-composite sails to cut fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, with an eye to converting more vessels that ply routes with favourable wind conditions.The dry bulk carrier Berge Olympus, equipped with four sails known as WindWings, is chartered by mining giant Vale and will sail between Brazil and China, Berge said on Tuesday.The sails will save up to 20% fuel or six tons per day on an average worldwide…

BAR Technologies (BARTech) announced it has been awarded a full type approval design certificate (TADC) for its wind propulsion technology from classification society DNV.Since being awarded an approval in principle (AIP) for its WindWings wind propulsion solution in 2021, inventor and designer BARTech, and industrialization partner Yara Marine Technologies (YMT), have focused on progressing the WindWings design through to the next level of DNV certification. This has involved validating WindWings design compliance with full detail on construction…

Crews were expected to replace a damaged oil pipeline piece by the end of the day on Friday, a Louisiana port official said, allowing for the resumption of production at seven offshore U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil platforms.A failed flange connecting two pipelines operated by Shell in Louisiana caused about two barrels of oil to leak, said Chett Chiasson, executive director of Greater Lafourche Port Commission. The oil has since been removed.Shell on Thursday shut its Mars, Ursa, and…

Top U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil producer Shell said on Thursday it halted production at three U.S. Gulf of Mexico deepwater platforms after a leak shut two pipelines connecting the platforms, adding it expected pipeline service to resume on Friday.A failure at an onshore pipeline junction in Louisiana leaked about two barrels of oil, said Chett Chiasson, executive director of Greater Lafourche Port Commission. A fix is expected to take about a day, he added.A Shell spokesperson said the leak…

Berge Bulk will equip its Newcastlemax bulker Berge Olympus with WindWings in an effort to evaluate the wind-assisted propulsion technology as a means to reduce vessel emissions.The dry bulk shipowner reached an agreement to install four BAR Tech WindWings by Yara Marine Technologies on board the 210 DWT bulk carrier in the second quarter of 2023.“This partnership with BAR Tech and Yara Marine is a great step towards our transition to zero-emissions operations,” said James Marshall, CEO of Berge Bulk. “At Berge Bulk, we believe in the results that can be achieved by harnessing wind power.

Oslo-listed offshore vessel owner S.D. Standard Drilling Plc. has agreed to sell the Standard Olympus platform supply vessel for $7.5 million to an undisclosed buyer."The sale of Standard Olympus will result in a gain for Standard Drilling of gross USD 1.3 million," the company said.The vessel is a large Platform Supply Vessel (PSV), built at Havyard Ship Technology AS, Norway, in 2014, with 800m2 deck space. "The transaction is a result of Standard Drilling’s renewed focus on more diversified investments within the shipping, offshore, and renewables segments. It gives Standard Drilling increased flexibility to pursue other investment opportunities” said Martin Nes, Chairman of Standard Drilling.

Energy companies, ports and refiners raced on Monday to shut down as Hurricane Sally grew stronger while lumbering toward the central U.S. Gulf Coast, the second significant hurricane to shutter oil and gas activity over the last month.The hurricane is disrupting oil imports and exports as the nation's sole offshore terminal, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), stopped loading tanker ships on Sunday, while the port of New Orleans closed on Monday.The U.S. government said 21%…

Odfjell SE,  a company specializing in worldwide seaborne transportation and storage of chemicals and other speciality bulk liquids, said that it took the delivery of Bow Odyssey - the third of its series of four newbuilt, 49,000 dwt chemical tankers.The Hudong class vessel was built by Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding Co.Ltd Shanghai China.The so-called Hudong series consists of four sister vessels, all with the same high-end technology and advanced features that in 2019 earned the first vessel, Bow Orion, the award as ‘Tanker Ship of the Year’.With these four vessels as flagships, and in combination with a total of 30 new vessels that enter our fleet from 2017 throughout 2020…

Natasa Pilides, Cyprus Deputy Minister of Shipping, has held this newly created political post for only three months, but already she has big plans to facilitate the growth of her country’s stature in world maritime circles. In Athens at Posidonia we sat with Pilides to discuss her plans for the development of Cyprus’ blue economy.While dubbed “deputy” minister, make no mistake that Natasa Pilides is in charge, reporting directly to Nicos Anastasiades, the president of Cyprus who asked her to take on the challenge.

Philip M. Bilden has been elected to Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (HII) board of directors, effective November 7. Bilden retired last year as a co-founding member of the private equity firm HarbourVest Partners. He began his career in Boston in 1991 and relocated to Hong Kong in 1996 to establish the firm’s Asian subsidiary. Throughout his 25-year tenure at HarbourVest Partners, Bilden served in senior leadership roles in the firm’s global management, including the firm’s six-person executive committee responsible for governance.

Low energy prices, depressed day rates and slow growth of bunkering infrastructure has dampened progress for the marine industry’s ‘white knight’ of environmentally friendly fuels. LNG, nevertheless, is here to stay. Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) is a clean fuel in abundant supply. The green advantages of LNG are well known: Class Society DNV-GL, a pioneer in the commercialization of LNG fueling for maritime applications, offers that use of LNG fuel provides “the complete removal of SOX and particle PM emissions and a reduction of NOX emission of up to 85 percent ...

Though the market for Offshore Support Vessels (OSVs) is soft, advances in technology, fit and finish in  the sector is unrivaled in any other maritime niche over the past five years. Here’s a look at some of the more notable designs and deliveries. Few vessels have inspired as much attention or coverage as the Harvey Energy, the first OSV of its kind in North America, able to run on both Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and diesel. Harvey Energy, chartered to Shell for its deepwater operations in the Gulf of Mexico and owned by Harvey Gulf International marine…

A special Offshore Supply Vessel (OSV) has been delivered to Shell for its deepwater operations in the Gulf of Mexico. The vessel, Harvey Energy, is chartered from Harvey Gulf International Marine and is the first of its kind in the region to run on both liquefied natural gas (LNG) and diesel. Built by the Gulf Coast Shipyard in Mississippi to meet requirements of the ABS “ENVIRO+, Green Passport” notation, the vessel is 302 feet long and operates on three dual-fuel Wärtsilä engines. It will run on 99% LNG fuel and will be able to operate for around seven days before refueling.

Build number 116 from Havyard is called ‘Olympus’. It is the third in the series of Havyard’s 832 design, and, as mentioned, the eighth vessel to be delivered to Global Offshore Services. On Friday night, an Indian ceremony was held on board, where the Indians blessed this impressive ship in accordance with their customs, before godmother Sun Wen of China wished the vessel good luck in the traditional manner. In addition to the invited guests many others also took the trip to see «Olympus» being named at quay in Fosnavåg in the lovely November weather. It is tradition for Global Offshore to name their ships after mountains. This time, it was the turn of the Greek mountain Olympus, which at 2,919 metres is the tallest mountain in Greece.

As part of the company's new vessel build program, Crowley Maritime Corp. christened the latest of its four tugboats in the ocean class series, Ocean Sun, today in Lake Charles. The ceremony served to formally welcome the fourth dynamic positioning 2 (DP2) tugboat to the company’s expanded ocean towing fleet, which has been involved in most of the major offshore oil production installations in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico over the past 18 months. Todd Busch, senior vice president and general manager of Crowley’s solutions group, opened the ceremony to approximately 80 guests.

Shell has begun production from the Mars B development through Olympus, the company’s seventh and largest floating deepwater platform in the Gulf of Mexico. It is the first deepwater project in the Gulf to expand an existing oil and gas field with significant new infrastructure, which should extend the life of the greater Mars basin to 2050 or beyond. Combined future production from Olympus and the original Mars platform is expected to deliver an estimated resource base of 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe).

A University of Houston (UH) professor led a team of scientists to uncover the largest single volcano yet documented on Earth. Covering an area roughly equivalent to the British Isles or the state of New Mexico, this volcano, dubbed the Tamu Massif, is nearly as big as the giant volcanoes of Mars, placing it among the largest in the Solar System. William Sager, a professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at UH, first began studying the volcano about 20 years ago at Texas A&M’s College of Geosciences. Sager and his team’s findings appear in the Sept.

Four of Crowley Maritime Corp’s ocean class tugboats , the 'Ocean Wind', 'Ocean Wave', 'Ocean Sky' and 'Ocean Sun', recently completed the successful delivery of the offshore oil production and drilling platform, Olympus, to the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. The project was significant because it provided the first opportunity for all four of the company's new high-bollard-pull, ocean class tugboats to work together on any single job. The rig, owned by Royal Dutch Shell, is also considered the largest tension-leg platform ever to be developed for the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

Willard Marine, a 56-year-old builder of composite and aluminum boats, announced the appointment of Taylor Hunter as director of sales. Hunter, an experienced senior-level sales executive, will assume overall responsibility for the company’s sales in the U.S. and internationally. He will be based in Willard Marine’s corporate offices in Anaheim, Calif. Hunter has held senior sales and management positions with Karl Storz Industrial America, Eagle Pacific Powerboats, Your Office Agent, Channel Vision Technology, iLeads.com and Olympus America.

Shell has selected BMT Scientific Marine Services (BMT) to implement the replacement of marine instrumentation and advisory systems (MIS/MAS) across Shell’s Gulf of Mexico tension-leg platform (TLP) fleet. The updated systems will use BMT’s WinMon data acquisition software to implement the MIS functions to monitor, log and display data from the existing suite of sensors. The system performs data quality monitoring and processing and provides storage of measured time series and derived operational information.

On the heels of the recent delivery of Olympus, the largest tension-leg platform ever to be developed for the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, Crowley has once again shown support for the domestic petroleum industry by providing ocean towing and positioning support services for the Lucius spar in the Gulf of Mexico for Anadarko Petroleum. Three of Crowley’s ocean class tugs, Ocean Wind, Ocean Wave and Ocean Sun, towed the 605-foot long, 110-foot wide spar from Corpus Christi, Texas, through the Ingleside Channel and out to Keathley Canyon Block 875 some 300 miles offshore.