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Container shippers are ordering vessels powered by methanol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but it will take years for renewable methanol output to meet demand and for costs to fall, industry executives said.The first green methanol-fuelled container ship, owned by A.P. Moller-Maersk, sailed from South Korea in July. The number of such vessels is expected to exceed 200 by 2028, up from 30 this year, consultancy DNV forecasts.Container giants such as A.P. Moller-Maersk, CMA CGM and XpressFeeders dominate the order books.

Unions hope a $30 million grant to electrify tractors in a Long Beach, California, port terminal's final push to become the world's first zero-emissions facility will serve as a bulwark against lost jobs in an era of energy transition and increasing automation. The money from U.S. President Joe Biden's administration for Long Beach Container Terminal's purchase of 60 electric yard tractors that haul shipping containers from stacks to waiting trains comes with strings attached…

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving too slowly to allow states to permit and oversee carbon-reduction projects, according to Louisiana's governor, slowing millions of dollars in investments designed to tackle greenhouse gas reduction.Louisiana and other top oil-producing states say they can speed up permitting of carbon sequestration projects if allowed to handle decisions that currently fall under the EPA. There are dozens of these projects with multi-million…

REMEMBERING MY SHIPMATE JOHN MICHELWe met in January 1959 when I became the first Officer in Charge of the Navy’s newly acquired Bathyscaph Trieste and John was the first USN enlisted man to be assigned to the project. We were based at the Naval Electronics Laboratory in San Diego. Trieste was unique as there were only two deep diving manned submersibles in the world. The French Navy had the other. Our team learned about the bathyscaph more by ‘apprenticeship’ than through any sort of formal learning process.

As digitalization in the maritime sector gains speed, the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) has launched a new maritime software as a service (SaaS) company called ABS Wavesight, to effectively consolidate all digital products under one roof, offering ship owners a one-stop-shop for it’s A-to-Z digital solutions.In an interview with Maritime Reporter's Greg Trauthwein, Paul Sells, the CEO and the president of the newly formed ABS Wavesight provided the rationale behind the ABS decision to launch the new company.He said: "...ABS has been for over 160 years…

Canada is taking a second crack at developing a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export industry on its west coast a decade after soaring costs and indigenous opposition derailed a previous wave of proposed LNG terminals.This time, companies are focusing on smaller west coast projects they bet will be cheaper and faster to build."Smaller project are easier to manage, especially in Canada," Enbridge chief executive Al Monaco told Reuters in an interview. "The need for global LNG is clearer now than it was before, we're getting a second chance and I hope we don't blow it this time.

The city of Haifa is set to become an increasingly significant east Mediterranean shipping hub, with Chinese and Indian firms buying into its ports as Israel normalizes ties with its Gulf Arab neighbors under a U.S. diplomatic push.Earlier this month, as U.S. President Joe Biden visited the Middle East, India's largest port developer Adani Ports and Israeli minority partner Gadot agreed to buy Haifa Port for 4.1 billion shekels ($1.18 billion).Its founder, Asia's richest man Gautam Adani…

If shipping is the beating heart of global trade, its pulse is about to get slower. Faced with uncertainty about which fuels to use in the long term to cut greenhouse gas emissions, many shipping firms are sticking with aging fleets, but older vessels may soon have to start sailing slower to comply with new environmental rules.From next year, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) requires all ships to calculate their annual carbon intensity based on a vessel's emissions…

BP is beefing up its hydrogen management team as the energy company prepares to accelerate investments in the low-carbon fuel which it believes will play a key role in the world's shift away from fossil fuels.The revamp of the hydrogen team is the first clear sign of changes Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath, a former head of RWE Renewables, has made since becoming BP's head of natural gas and renewables in March.It also comes as BP announces it has agreed to buy a 40.5% stake and become…

Looking back, it is easy to wonder if one could have done better by taking the other fork in the road. I grew up in Holland in a maritime family and am pretty sure I would have stuck with maritime there. In 1968, when I was 8 years old, my father left Holland America Line and joined the United States Salvage Association. At the same time, their main customer, the U.S. marine insurance industry, became heavily involved in the development of North Sea offshore oil and gas, and it resulted in an economic boom that made USSA’s Rotterdam office wildly profitable.

There’s no energy shortage when it comes to projects promoting the viability of alternatively fueled marine vessels (alt-fueled vessels).Consider just a few examples:Crowley Maritime Corp will take delivery in 2023 of an electric tugboat, dubbed eWolf, built by Master Boat Builders in Coden, Ala.The Hydrogen One towboat, using methanol-to-hydrogen technology, is being developed by its owner Maritime Partners.Master Boat Builders and Robert Allan Ltd. announced last fall the creation of a new battery hybrid, the ElectRA 3000-H, designed for U.S.

Jennifer Carpenter joined The American Waterways Operators (AWO), the national trade association representing the inland and coastal tugboat, towboat and barge industry, in August 1990 and became its president and CEO in January 2020. She weighs in some of the most important developments in the industry today, from “hugely exciting” opportunities in offshore wind , tech innovation and decarbonization, to labor and recruitment challenges.The recent Infrastructure bill is a huge boost for many industries…

Metals miner Nornickel said it will participate in the design and building of Russia's first dual-fuel liquefied natural gas (LNG) and diesel icebreaker to prepare for more capacity in the environmentally sensitive Arctic region.Russia, which has a fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers, has long considered LNG-powered icebreaking ships to develop the Northeast Sea Route into an international shipping lane from Arctic waters.Nornickel, the world's largest palladium and nickel producer…

Maersk bought two e-commerce companies on Friday and said more acquisitions were coming soon as the world's biggest container shipping line boosts its bet on land-based services.Maersk, which handles one in five containers shipped worldwide, aims to expand its land-based logistics services, hoping to gain a larger share of the supply chain from existing shipping clients such as Puma and Walmart.It bought Visible Supply Chain Management and B2C Europe, both specialised in e-commerce, for a combined enterprise value of $924 million, Maersk said."It won't be long before we have a logistics busine

Thousands of Lebanese gathered near the port of Beirut on Wednesday to mark the first anniversary of a catastrophic explosion that devastated the city, demanding justice for the victims.One year since the disaster, caused by a huge quantity of ammonium nitrate stored unsafely at the port for years, no senior official has been held to account, infuriating many Lebanese as their country also endures financial collapse.One of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded, the explosion wounded thousands and was felt in Cyprus…

As International Maritime Organization (IMO) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emissions requirements continue throughout the IMO Emission Control Areas (ECA), they are also forcing postponement of many new construction decisions as vessel owners and operators continue to tread cautiously along the path forward. The Marpol Annex VI program looked to correct emissions requirements while working with petroleum fuels. Technology developers continue best efforts to advance long-term solutions to reach the latest IMO zero emissions greenhouse gas (GHG) goals of 2050.

The fifth in a series of 12 hybrid ro-ro ships for the Grimaldi Group has been christened in the port of Catania.Built by the Chinese Jinling shipyard in Nanjing, Eco Catania and its sister vessels already in service in the Mediterranean are part of the GG5G (Grimaldi Green 5th Generation) class, which rank among the largest and most eco-friendly ro-ro ships in the world.With a transport capacity of more than 500 trailers, these green giants are able to halve CO2 emissions compared to the previous generation of ro-ro ships operated by the Grimaldi Group…

Deutsche Bank is on course to make up to $1 billion on a long-shot bet on Israeli shipping firm Zim after it surged in value on the back of record-high global freight rates, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.Citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, the report said that Mark Spehn, a distressed debt trader at the German bank, had wagered less than $100 million over the past five years on building a position in the company through bond and bank loans as shipping rates fell. Zim recovered to float on the stock market on Jan.

Glencore boss Ivan Glasenberg is to step down next year and Gary Nagle, head of coal assets at the mining and trading group, will become the new CEO.Glasenberg's departure will mark a shift to a new, younger leadership for the business, which, along with other mining companies, has faced increasing pressure from investors to cut carbon emissions.Glasenberg, 63, has been chief executive since 2002 and investors have been expecting a succession plan after several senior members…

Oil product tankers earnings have skyrocketed in the first half of 2020, while the sale and purchase (S&P) activity of the oil product tanker market has slowed to the lowest level since 2016. Data from VesselsValue highlight that in the first five months of 2020, only 2.8 million deadweight tons (DWT) of oil product tankers have shifted hands in the second-hand market, a 45% drop compared to the same period last year.A surprising S&P slowdown?The oil product tanker market has thereby experienced a disconnect in the first half of 2020 with high spot earnings…

In the past few years, the commercial use of facial recognition technology has advanced at an explosive rate, expanding into numerous industries and trades. For instance, facial biometrics is increasingly relied on by airlines and airports across the globe; a similar trend is starting to take hold in the maritime industry, particularly the cruise sector.While this expansion is occurring, states and cities across the country—as well as the federal government—are attempting to enact strict laws regulating the use of facial recognition technology by commercial entities.

Jennifer Carpenter joined The American Waterways Operators (AWO), the national trade association representing the inland and coastal tugboat, towboat and barge industry, in August 1990 and became its president and CEO in January 2020. She weighs in on the unprecedented challenges encountered over the past year and addresses top priorities along the uncertain path ahead.The world has changed drastically in the year since you took the helm at AWO. How have priorities shifted, both…

With the Coronavirus pandemic hitting many segments of the global shipping industry particularly hard, it is understandable that businesses of all sizes are reviewing their budgets for 2020 and beyond and looking for ways to reduce costs while maintaining their operations. Supply chains are being disrupted, inspections postponed or conducted remotely, crew transfers complicated, and paperwork ditched as social distancing measures are in place. The role of the ship agent is of even greater importance during these troubling times…