Canada East Coast News

A fire has broken out on board a Liberian-registered containership off Canada's East Coast, the Canadian Coast Guard said.At around 11 p.m. on Sunday, the MSC Sao Paulo V issued a call for help after a blaze erupted in the engine room of the 294-meter-long vessel. The ship had left Montréal in the morning and was approaching the Les Escoumins pilot station while en route to Portugal when the incident occurred.By Monday afternoon, the containership crew had informed the Coast Guard that the fire was under control…

Ocean Group announced it has acquired the Verreault shipyard, located in the municipality of Les Méchins, in the Gaspé Peninsula, on Canada's east coast.Founded in 1956, Verreault Shipyard specializes in ship repair and conversion. With this transaction, Ocean Group adds capacity and grows its workforce by a hundred. The Gaspé Peninsula shipyard is equipped with a 244-meter-long and 56-meter-wide dry dock. Ocean Group is also adding to its fleet the two Verreault tugs that currently provide service at the Les Méchins and Matane docks.Jacques Tanguay…

The Canadian Coast Guard has awarded Heddle Shipyards a $36.14 million vessel life extension contract for the Canadian Coast Guard Ship (CCGS) George R. Pearkes. The vessel will be dry-docked and enter an extended maintenance period designed to increase its operational life.The Hamilton, Ont. yard secured the contract following an open and competitive bid process. The project was awarded by Public Services and Procurement Canada on behalf of the Canadian Coast Guard.Life extension work includes steel hull reinforcement…

Altera Infrastructure, formerly known as Teekay Offshore, said it has taken delivery of a new shuttle tanker from Samsung Heavy Industries in South Korea.The 148,200 DWT newbuild, Altera Thule, was handed over to Altera on Thursday. The ship's crew is currently on board and preparing for sail away after familiarization, testing and drills, the company said.The Bahamas-registered suezmax will operate on long-term contracts with a group of companies that includes Chevron, Exxon, Husky, Equinor, Suncor and more, to provide shuttle tanker services off Canada's East Coast.

A containership that lost power and went adrift off Canada's East Coast has been towed to Sydney, Nova Scotia, the Canadian Coast Guard said.The Panamanian-flagged MSC Kim departed Halifax on March 3 en route to Montreal, but went adrift on March 9 after it suffered engine problems off Port au Port, Newfoundland and Labrador. No injuries or pollution have been reported.The offshore tug Atlantic Kingfisher secured a towline with MSC Kim on Thursday morning and towed the vessel…

Altera Infrastructure recently took delivery of its newest E-shuttle tanker Altera Wind from South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries.The 103,000 deadweight tonne newbuild is the sixth and final in the series of DP2 shuttle tankers using liquefied natural gas (LNG) fuel and recovered volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as a secondary fuel, as well as battery packs for flexible power distribution and blackout prevention.The Norwegian-flagged vessel is built to DNV's Battery Power notation and has a 1…

Pieridae Energy moved closer to building a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal on Canada's East Coast after taking ownership of fields from Royal Dutch Shell which will feed gas into the plant, the company said.The Goldboro LNG terminal would be the first on Canada's East Coast and compete with the growing number of plants on the U.S. Gulf Coast, hoping its shorter distance to Europe and further west will help sell its LNG by cutting shipping costs.Pieridae said in a statement late on Thursday it had closed a C$190 million ($145 million) acquisition of Shell's gas assets in Alberta's Foothills region, giving it most of the gas…

The German shipping line Hapag Lloyd said on Sunday it had evacuated the crew from its container ship, the Yantian Express, off Canada's east coast after a fire spread."Due to bad weather conditions, the fire has not been successfully contained yet and has significantly increased in intensity at times," the firm said in a statement on Sunday."For this reason, a decision was made to evacuate the crew. The complete crew is unharmed."Hapag Lloyd had said on Friday that it was trying to extinguish the fire.(Reporting by Edward Taylor; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

German shipping line Hapag Lloyd said on Friday that it was trying to extinguish a fire on its Yantian Express container vessel off Canada's east coast but was being hampered by bad weather.A spokesman for Hapag Lloyd said the fire broke out on Thursday in a container on deck and spread to some other containers on the vessel, but the cause was not yet known.The 7,519 twenty foot equivalent ship was on its way from Colombo, Sri Lanka to Halifax in Nova Scotia via the Suez Canal…

Canadian operator One Ocean Expeditions (OOE) announced it has recommissioned a 1991-built expedition cruise vessel.RCGS Resolute, previously Society Adventurer and later Hanseatic, was built in the early '90s as one of the industry’s first purpose-built passenger expedition cruise vessels.With the arrival of RCGS Resolute, OOE said it will continue to offer sailings to remote destinations such as Canada’s East Coast, the Canadian High Arctic and Antarctica, and will introduce new destinations including Central and South America as well as the North Atlantic Islands.“One Ocean Expeditions’ fle

Marlink has re-established its commitment to Hapag-Lloyd Cruises to provide its Sealink services on the fleet of four cruise vessels, plus two new cruise ships which are due to enter operational service in 2019. The contract renewal reflects Hapag-Lloyd Cruises' desire to meet the requirements of the growing market for adventure and expedition cruises, as the ships are now in remote areas that were previously considered inaccessible for cruise ships, such as Arctic and the Antarctic.Marlink’s global Sealink services provide stable…

Axpo, a Swiss utility and energy trader, said on Thursday it was in talks for a 10-year supply deal with a Canadian company planning to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal.A sales and purchase agreement would boost the chances that Pieridae Energy would decide to build the C$10 billion ($7.6 billion) Goldboro project, which would be the first LNG export terminal on Canada's East Coast.Canada is rich in oil and gas but has yet to export major shipments of LNG to Asia from its West Coast or across the Atlantic from its East Coast."Under the term sheet with Pieridae Energy, Axpo will purchase LNG from Train 2 of the Goldboro liquefaction facility and sell it across Europe…

Maersk Line, the world's largest shipping company, announced the expansion of its product portfolio between Europe's Mediterranean region and Canada to cater for the growing demands of importers and exporters on both sides of the Atlantic. The exclusive, fully Maersk Line-operated weekly service will be a five-vessel rotation stopping in Salerno and La Spezia (Italy), Fos-sur-Mer (France), Algeciras (Spain), Montreal and Halifax (Canada), and Valencia (Spain). Other Mediterranean markets will also be conveniently connected to the new service thanks to our integrated transhipment services in Algeciras and Valencia, with consistent products to/from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

Teekay Offshore said it has taken delivery of Beothuk Spirit, the first of three new shuttle tankers to serve East Coast Canada, built in Korea by Samsung Heavy Industries. Heritage Class sister vessels Norse Spirit and Dorset Spirit are scheduled for delivery in the first half of November 2017 and early-2018 respectively. The three Suezmax, DP2 shuttle tankers will provide crude transportation services to the Hibernia, Terra Nova, White Rose and Hebron offshore oil fields located in St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador.

TechnipFMC has been awarded an Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Installation (EPCI) contract from Husky Energy for the West White Rose Project in Eastern Canada. The contract covers the supply and installation of subsea equipment including tie-in manifolds, flexible flowlines, and control umbilicals, which will connect the recently announced West White Rose Platform to the existing SeaRose FPSO (Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading) vessel. The Husky West White Rose Project will use a fixed platform tied back to the SeaRose FPSO vessel. The main White Rose field is located approximately 217 miles east of St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, on the eastern edge of the Jeanne d’Arc Basin in water depths of about 393 feet.

On October 28th, 2016 the Ocean Group Inc. of Quebec City, Canada took delivery of the 6000 kW ASD tug Ocean Taiga. This icebreaking escort tug joins her sister Ocean Tundra as some of the most powerful tugs in the Canadian registry, part of a new generation of extremely capable tugs, which will provide the highest degree of year-round escort towing capability to Canada’s East Coast and the St. Lawrence Seaway. The Ocean Taiga is the latest addition and a sister tug of the previously delivered Ocean Tundra to the TundRA 3600 series (with a nominal 100 tonnes Bollard Pull) of icebreaking tugs designed by Robert Allan Ltd., Naval Architects of Vancouver B.C. This tug was built to the highest standards at Ocean’s own shipyard, Ocean Industries, on Iles aux Coudres, Quebec.

Wood Group has secured a five year contract to provide engineering, procurement, construction and maintenance services to the Hibernia platform, offshore Newfoundland, from Hibernia Management and Development Company Ltd. (HMDC). The contract will be executed by Wood Group’s Eastern Canada operations, in St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, and has the potential of two additional five year contract extensions. Michele McNichol, CEO for Wood Group’s Asset Life Cycle Solutions business in the Western Hemisphere, said: “Since first oil in 1997, Wood Group has been the incumbent contractor for many of these services on the Hibernia platform. The first producing field of Canada’s East Coast, it has been a cornerstone of our business in the region.

Hapag-Lloyd remains the market leader among liner shipping companies in Canada. In the past year, the shipping company saw its market share increase to over 18%. Hapag-Lloyd is the largest liner shipping company in terms of throughput volume at both the Port of Vancouver and the Port of Halifax. Hapag-Lloyd handles more containers in Montreal than in Los Angeles and Long Beach combined – the largest port complex in North America. Deepening the channel is an important topic at the Port of Montreal, as it is in Hamburg. In order to be able to sail the Saint Lawrence River, which is quite shallow in places, with increasing transport volumes, Hapag-Lloyd has included some modern wide-body ships in its Montreal services, which can offer more capacity due to their low draught.

Canada will push ahead with a moratorium on oil tanker traffic along the northern coast of British Columbia, effectively slamming the door on a controversial pipeline project that was already facing massive development hurdles. In a letter released on Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau instructed Transport Minister Marc Garneau to work with numerous other ministries to "formalize" the ban on oil tanker traffic, a Liberal campaign promise ahead of the federal elections last month.

The Port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, may be getting a new lease on life with the arrival on August 3 of the CMA CGM Vivaldi at Halterm International Container Terminal. The 8478-TEU, 334-metre long Vivaldi is the largest container vessel to berth at Halterm and on Canada’s East Coast. Up till now, the biggest container vessels calling at Halifax were in the 7500-TEU range. CMA CGM Vivaldi docked with a cargo of containers from China, Vietnam and Malaysia for import into Canada and outbound containers for the ship’s next ports of call — New York, Norfolk and Savannah. The ship then would return to Port Klang via the Suez Canal. An even bigger ship, known as a super post-Panamax ship built for 9200 TEU is scheduled to arrive in Halifax next month.

Teekay Offshore Partners L.P. informs it has entered long-term contracts to provide shuttle tanker services for a group of companies producing oil on Canada’s East Coast, including Chevron Canada, Husky Energy, Mosbacher Operating Ltd., Murphy Oil, Nalcor Energy, Statoil and Suncor Energy. The 15-year contracts, plus extension options, will initially be serviced by one of Teekay Offshore’s existing shuttle tankers, the Navion Hispania, and two to three third party-owned shuttle tankers currently operating in East Coast Canada, which will be chartered-in to Teekay Offshore’s Canadian affiliate located in St. John’s, Newfoundland, prior to the delivery of up to four shuttle tanker newbuildings.

Canada's largest oil and gas producer, Suncor Energy Inc, is shipping its first ever tanker of Western Canadian heavy crude from Canada's East Coast to Europe, a company spokeswoman said on Tuesday. Suncor spokeswoman Sneh Seetal confirmed Reuters shipping data that shows the aframax tanker Minerva Gloria was set to pick up a cargo of crude oil from the port of Sorel-Tracy on the St. Lawrence River in Quebec. Seetal declined to comment on where in Europe the crude cargo is going, citing commercial confidentiality. According to Reuters data it will be discharged in the Mediterranean. The crude was delivered by rail to a storage facility in Sorel-Tracy that is owned by Kildair Service Ltd.

A very rapidly developing storm is expected off the East Coast of U.S. and Canada as air pressure is forecast to drop abt 30 hPa in 12 hrs; from abt 998 hPa 26/00UTC to abt 968 hPa at 26/12UTC, after that the low deepens further on NE-ly track.   Widespread Storm and high sea (9-14 max 20m) in connection with the low 26-27 as it moves NE-wards along U.S./Canada East Coast.   Also vessels moving short coastal distances along U.S. and Canada East Coast should keep themselves updated on the development.