Chris Johnson News

The United States on Monday rejected China’s disputed claims to offshore resources in most of the South China Sea, a move that Beijing criticized as inciting tensions in the region and which highlighted an increasingly testy relationship.China has offered no coherent legal basis for its ambitions in the South China Sea and for years has been using intimidation against other Southeast Asian coastal states, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.“We are making clear: Beijing’s claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea are completely unlawful…

The Commission on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) today agreed to set aside more than 1 million square kilometres of the Ross Sea in recognition of its incredible scientific and biodiversity values. CCAMLR committed to creating a system of marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean in 2009 and has been discussing the creation of MPAs in the Ross Sea and East Antarctica for several years. Claire Christian, director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, said  “ASOC is thrilled to see that CCAMLR has protected 1.55 million square km of the Ross Sea, 1.12 million square kilometers of which will be fully protected with the remaining area designated as special research zones.

Lockheed Martin Corp on Friday welcomed the U.S. Navy's decision to use Lockheed's integrated combat system for future frigate-class ships to be built beginning in fiscal 2019, saying it would allow greater commonality across the entire Navy fleet. "It's great news," Joe North, vice president of Littoral Ships and Systems at Lockheed, told Reuters in a telephone interview. Neither the Navy nor Lockheed provided an estimate for the value of the combat system, but North said each system accounted for less than 10 percent of the cost of the ship. The last three ships ordered by the Navy ranged in price from $345 million to $441 million. The decision will make it easier for the future frigates that will succeed the current Littoral Combat Shipsp (LCS) to work together with U.S.

A Washington state lawmaker looking to ease traffic congestion for several Puget Sound-area communities near Seattle has proposed building an eye-catching new toll bridge made from retired Navy aircraft carriers. Republican Representative Jesse Young has been gathering support among colleagues and the public for the planned span, which would link Bremerton and Port Orchard on the Kitsap Peninsula, spokesman Kevin Shutty said on Friday. "It's a bottleneck area and for a number of years people have been looking for some solutions," Shutty said. The area near where the proposed bridge would be built includes a U.S. Navy base and naval hospital, and it is home to many retired veterans from all arms of the military.

Cargill Inc said on Tuesday its quarterly earnings fell 28 percent, making it one of the largest companies yet to demonstrate how big commodity market disruptions this year have hurt its bottom line. Minneapolis-based Cargill, a top global commodities trader, was hit by a triple-whammy of unexpected events, including a surge in energy prices in January, rail backlogs, and the rejection of U.S. corn shipments by China. The problems are likely to have also hit Cargill peers such as Archer Daniels Midland Co and Bunge Ltd, which are due to report financial results in the coming weeks. The coldest winter in 30 years catapulted regional U.S. natural gas prices to record highs, while power markets gyrated as producers struggled to keep supplies flowing to consumers.

Lankhorst Ropes Offshore Division (LROD) announced the latest results of offshore trials of its Lankofirst synthetic fiber rope mooring connector on booth 1517 at OTC 2013. The trials have shown a significant reduction in mooring line deployment times and improvements in health and safety using the Lankofirst connector, compared with traditional mooring line plate links and thimbles. The Lankhorst booth will also feature the ultra-low creep HMPE mooring rope made with Dyneema for permanent deepwater moorings beyond 2,000m water depth, and Lankhorst Mouldings' buoyancy modules for fiber rope mooring lines for the Goliat FPSO project.

Lankhorst Ropes Offshore Division is undertaking a research project into the development of cut resistant jackets for mooring ropes in the Norwegian and Barents Seas. The project will be used to assess materials needed to reduce the effects of fishing trawler lines on synthetic fiber mooring lines. Deepwater moorings, beyond 800m, in the Norwegian and Barents Seas are subject to extreme weather and wave conditions. The synthetic mooring ropes must provide high abrasion resistance and be immune to the effects of external damage arising from trawler activities.

The U.S. Navy and its shipbuilding partners have incorporated lessons learned from the first two Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) in the design and construction of the follow-on ships. “I think the lead ships are pretty good,” says Rear Adm. Jim Murdoch, the Program Executive Officer for LCS (PEO LCS). LCS 1 is the USS Freedom, built at Marinette Marine in Wisconsin by a team led by Lockheed Martin, and commissioned in November of 2008. The ship deployed to U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command as well as participated in the RIMPAC fleet exercises around Hawaii in 2010.

Leading deepwater rope manufacturer, Lankhorst Ropes Offshore Division has invested Euro 2M  in a synthetic fibre rope test machine that, for the first time, will enable naval architects to run 'what if' scenarios to simulate the effects of storms and hurricanes on deepwater mooring lines. Located at Lankhorst Ropes’ fibre rope production facility in Portugal, the rope test machine will be used to test the mechanical performance and fatigue behaviour for a range of new materials and rope constructions for deepwater mooring and single point mooring (SPM) systems. The machine can test 20m ropes with loads up to 1,200 tonnes and a stroke length up to 4.5 m.