Al Ahmadi News

A commercial vessel owned by an Israeli firm was attacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in Gulf waters, pro-Iran media and an Israeli television channel said on Tuesday.Israel’s top-rated Channel 12 TV quoted unnamed Israeli officials as blaming arch-foe Iran for the assault and said there were no casualties.Two maritime security sources told Reuters that an Israeli ship was hit near the UAE’s Fujairah port resulting in an explosion but that there were no casualties.An Israeli Transportation Ministry spokesman said he was aware of the media reports but that he could not confirm them. There was no immediate confirmation from the UAE.The incident comes a day after Tehran accused Israel of sabotaging a nuclear site…

There is no real risk of a spill from a fully loaded supertanker that caught fire off the east coast of Sri Lanka, a senior official in the Indian Ocean nation's navy said on Friday.The fire that broke out in the engine room of the New Diamond on Thursday morning had spread to the bridge of the ship, carrying about 2 million barrels of oil, though it has not reached the cargo area, the Sri Lankan navy said.Director-General of Operations Rear-Admiral Y N Jayarathna told reporters it was the navy’s view that there was no real danger of a spill…

Sri Lanka began towing a fully loaded supertanker on fire off its east coast after it began drifting towards land, a spokesman for the navy of the Indian Ocean nation said on Friday.The fire was still raging on the New Diamond tanker carrying about 2 million barrels of oil, said the spokesman, Captain Indika de Silva. There were 23 crew on board, one of whom is presumed dead, while the rest have been rescued from the ship.There were no signs of an oil leak from the vessel, he added.

A fully loaded oil tanker has caught fire off the east coast of Sri Lanka, which has dispatched an aircraft and two navy ships to help in the rescue, a Sri Lankan navy spokesman said on Thursday.The New Diamond, a very large crude carrier (VLCC) chartered by Indian Oil Corp (IOC), was heading to the port of Paradip in India, where the state-run firm operates a 300,000 barrel-per-day refinery.The ship had sailed from the port of Mina Al Ahmadi in Kuwait, carrying Kuwait Export Crude, Refinitiv Eikon ship tracking data showed.The Sri Lankan spokesman, Commander Ranjith Rajapaksa, said the VLCC was ablaze about 20 nautical miles off the east coast.

Royal Dutch Shell has sent a replacement cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States to Dubai, shipping data shows, after a diplomatic row disrupted typical trade routes from Qatar. Shell has a deal to supply the Dubai Supply Authority (DUSUP) with LNG which it typically sources from Qatar because of its proximity. But bans on Qatari vessels entering ports in the United Arab Emirates, imposed after top Arab powers severed diplomatic and transport links with Qatar on Monday, meant it had to source the LNG from elsewhere. The Maran Gas Amphipolis tanker, carrying around 163,500 cubic metres of LNG produced in the United States, was initially headed toward Kuwait's port of Mina Al-Ahmadi but made a U-turn on Wednesday to head for Dubai's port of Jebel Ali.

Qatargas and Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) have signed a deal to supply half a million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Kuwait over the next four years, according to a report. The LNG will be sourced from Qatargas 2, a joint venture among Qatar Petroleum, ExxonMobil and Total which started production in 2009, and will be delivered onboard Q-Flex LNG Vessels, chartered by Qatargas, to KPC’s Mina al-Ahmadi LNG receiving terminal in Kuwait. Qatargas has supplied Kuwait with most of its LNG requirements for the last five years, through direct sales to KPC and through third parties that have deals with Qatargas and with KPC. Elsewhere in the Middle East, Qatargas has supplied LNG to Dubai since 2008 and delivered a commissioning cargo to Jordan in May last year.

Residents in the Yemeni capital Sanaa are stocking up on rare food and fuel supplies after the government in exile decided to divert aid ships from the Houthi rebel-held north to loyalist areas farther south. Sources in Yemen's government confirmed the move, though there has been no official announcement, and Yemen's exiled information minister said on Tuesday that commercial flights would be diverted from the capital to the southern port of Aden. The decisions come as southern fighters backed by weapons and air strikes by neighbouring Gulf states have made rapid gains on southern battlefields against the Iran-allied Houthis. A Saudi-led alliance has been bombing Yemen's dominant group since March in support of the country's exiled leadership…

Golar has been contracted by Kuwait National Petroleum Company to provide loating storage and regasification ("FSRU") services to support their LNG import operations at Mina Al Ahmadi. The contract will be for an initial period of 5 years and comprises the provision of portside FSRU services for an anticipated nine months of the year together with a three month window where the vessel is free to pursue spot carrier and other short term business opportunities. Winter scheduling of the three month stand-down period together with favourable positioning mean that the company is optimistic for the vessels trading prospects. The 170,000cbm newbuild FSRU Golar Igloo which delivers during the fourth quarter of 2013 will service the contract that is set to commence in March 2014.

Technip was awarded a contract by Kuwait Gulf Oil Company (KGOC), for the engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning assistance of their Gas and Condensate Export System project. The project is spread over onshore and offshore locations in two countries, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The objective of the project is to deliver a combination of lean gas, condensate and sour gas through a single 12” export pipeline from Al Khafji Joint Operations (KJO) facilities in Saudi Arabia to Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) tie-in facility,namely the Intermediate Slug Catcher being constructed under KOC Project No EF/1718 near Al-Ahmadi, Kuwait.

Jumbo Shipping has completed its eight-month heavy lift transport contract for client KNPC (Kuwait National Petroleum Company). The contract involved the transport of 37 reactors, separators and coke drums for KNPC’s Clean Fuels Project expansion. Jumbo’s Total Transport Solution included shipping and barging operations, as well as land transport. From October 2010 until June 2011, Jumbo’s Heavy Lift Vessels Jumbo Jubilee and Fairpartner and its flat-top barge JB-2 transported heavy refinery equipment from Hazira, India and Porto Marghera, Italy to the storage area in the Port of Shuaiba in Kuwait. Weights varied from 280 t coke drums up to 1595 t reactors, with the largest reactor measuring 42 x 8.5 x 7.5 m.

South Korean Hyundai presented the lowest bid of $326.5 million in a tender for a new oil export pier in Kuwait. The Kuwait National Petroleum Co (KNPC) tender is for engineering, procurement and construction of a new oil pier and associated topside facilities at Mina al-Ahmadi refinery.

Following on from the earlier success of the first half of this year, Bahrain’s ASRY, has turned in a successful third quarter series of results with an increase in business and sales, which were up some 7% on the previous quarter. In all some 28 vessels were in the yard for repairs and refurbishment, with 30 percent being in the tanker class with the majority being ULCCs and VLCCs. The yard was also kept extremely busy with other classes of vessels ranging from lpg carriers, livestock carriers through to RoRos, dredgers and general cargo. During this third quarter over a hundred specifications were received from owners around the world with a contact award success rate of 26%.

Bremen-based STN Atlas Elektronik has been awarded a major contract to supply the Kuwaiti National Coast Guard with a new purpose-designed radar-based coastal surveillance system due to begin service in 2005. The system will comprise a series of nine Atlas 9760 VTS high-resolution radar stations providing loss-free digitized raw video for operator detection of all sizes of targets, particularly very small ones. Additionally, some stations will also include radio direction finders and meteorological sensors as well as specially-designed AIS facilities to meet specific Coast Guard requirements. All the stations will be connected via high-availability microwave links to two VTS sub-centers.