Commercial Services News

Market drivers have created a significant opportunity for Wallem to grow a specialised area of business, according to Capt. Anurag Mathur, Managing Director, Commercial Services, Wallem Group.Wallem’s portfolio of commercial services is ideally placed for expansion across a full range of vessel types, according to the executive appointed to drive for growth in January 2023. And Capt. Anurag Mathur, whose previous roles include senior managing directorships at leading ship owning and ship management companies…

U.S. Commercial Service previews September 20-22 export forum  The growing demand for marine technologies is generating new export possibilities for U.S. companies. To help American businesses pursue these opportunities, the Department of Commerce is hosting Discover Global Markets: The Blue Economy, in Providence, R.I., Sept. 20-22, 2022. International Trade Specialist Maryanne Burke leads the Marine Technology Team of the International Trade Administration (ITA). Maryanne is part of ITA’s U.S.

Susanne Jensen will join Maersk Tankers as new global head of partner sales and service.Jensen will join Maersk Tankers on August 16 and will lead the company’s sales efforts to increase the number of vessels under commercial management and drive partner engagement with existing and new partners.“We are in the midst of transforming our commercial function to boost the focus on providing valuable commercial services for shipowners,” said Eva Birgitte Bisgaard, Maersk Tankers chief commercial officer.

Sovcomflot, a Russian oil and gas shipping company,  has taken delivery of SCF Barents, a new 174,000-cbm LNG carrier.The vessel was delivered Monday and has already started its maiden voyage under a long-term time charter agreement with Shell.According to Sovcomflot, the LNG carrier was named after Willem Barents, a prominent Dutch navigator and explorer. The naming ceremony, held on September 10, was attended by Igor Tonkovidov, President and CEO of SCF Group; Cederic Cremers…

The Automatic Identification System (AIS) was developed with the sole goal of improving maritime safety by allowing ships in proximity to one another to automatically exchange information regarding their name, course, speed, type, cargo, etc. The exchange of this information would allow conning officers on each ship to make better decisions regarding the possibility of close encounters and the need to change course and/or speed. It would also make it easier for one ship to contact the other by radio-telephone to hopefully remove any doubt. To that extent, AIS has largely worked as intended, although collisions continue to occur.It did not take long, though, for governments to get involved.

Crowley Maritime Corp.’s new container/roll on-roll off (ConRo) ship El Coquí delivered its first cargo from Jacksonville, Fla., to the company’s Isla Grande Terminal in San Juan yesterday – a milestone in the company’s transformation of its U.S. mainland-Puerto Rico logistics services.“Increasing supply chain velocity while reducing customers’ landed costs was the core reason for our $550 million investment in this important service,” said Tom Crowley, company chairman and CEO.

Following a competitive tender, Chevron Shipping Company LLC (CSC) has selected smart shipping solutions from C-MAP, a provider of commercial marine charting and cloud-based software solutions for fleet management and route optimization.CSC will deploy C-MAP’s onboard platform that employs advanced algorithms and customized ship performance models to deliver voyage optimization. The platform, called Integrated Maritime Suite (IMS), enables users to optimize routes to get the fastest arrival times, while minimizing costs and bunker consumption and maximizing safety, C-MAP said.CSC will also gain full visibility of its fleet’s performance via C-MAP’s FleetManager…

A U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew medevaced a 44-year-old man from the fishing vessel Golden Alaska approximately 60 miles northeast of Cold Bay, Tuesday. Watchstanders at the Coast Guard 17th District command center received a medevac request from Health Force Partners for a man suffering from stroke symptoms Tuesday afternoon. Watchstanders notified the Coast Guard duty flight surgeon who recommended the medevac. The helicopter crew hoisted the man and safely transported him to Cold Bay for further transport by commercial services to Anchorage.

New coffee’s sales will raise money for maritime charities. Hampshire, U.K. based Sailors’ Society has launched a new coffee in partnership with The National Museum of the Royal Navy that will help raise money for seafarers and their families in need. Sailors’ Society, which celebrates its 200th anniversary in March, said it launched BySea coffee as a way of diversifying its income. Now, profits from a new blend, HMS Victory – which shares its name with Nelson’s famous flagship – will go to the charity’s work supporting global seafaring communities…

20 Vessels, 6,500 Loads of Cargo will be Offloaded by Week’s End. The Full-Scale Logistics Operation includes 375 Trucks Used to Expedite Deliveries. With employees working around the clock and its vessels calling the Port of San Juan almost daily, Crowley Maritime Corp. said today it will have offloaded by the end of this week more than 6,500 loads of FEMA and commercial cargo from 20 vessels since Hurricane Maria struck the island in late September. And the company projects another 9 vessels, carrying between 2,500 and 3,000 loads, will arrive in Puerto Rico next week. “I am very grateful for the extraordinary work of our teams in San Juan, Jacksonville and in other parts of the country,” said Tom Crowley, chairman and CEO.

Peter Lister has joined the senior leadership team at Seaspan Marine as Vice President, Commercial Services, responsible for marketing, sales and customer relations. He will develop and build marketing strategies, customer service quality control measures, customer service standards and account management processes. Lister brings to the role more than 20 years of experience as a research and innovation leader in the forestry sector. He joins the company from FPInnovations where he served as Vice President, Forest Operations & Wood Products.

It will soon become possible to access automatic identification system (AIS) data covering the last two years. Thanks to the Danish Maritime Authority (DMA), historical data from as far back as October 2014 will be available (in Danish) from www.soefartsstyrelsen.dk. AIS is a very high frequency (VHF) based navigation and anti-collision tool that enables the exchange of ship-to-ship information. This information is collected in a shore-based AIS system operated by the DMA, who makes its historical AIS data publically available so that those who wish to do so can make AIS analyses.

Abu Dhabi Ports and Abu Dhabi Ship Building (ADSB) have signed a long term contract that when fully realized will see a fully operational ship repair facility that will also include a floating dock capability within Zayed Port. The agreement was signed at Abu Dhabi Ports Head Office at Zayed Port by Captain Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi, Chief Executive Officer of Abu Dhabi Ports and Dr Khaled Al Mazrouei, Chief Executive Officer of ADSB, along with a senior delegation representing both parties. Dr.

Shortly after the inauguration of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1959, and the growth of grain exports that followed, bulk shipper Fednav realized that incoming steel products offered ideal repositioning from Belgium, and thus was launched regular service FALLine. Steel is also transported from Germany, the U.K. and other countries, but Antwerp remained the epicenter of the activity. Located in the Scheldt estuary, Antwerp is the breakbulk port of choice due to its central position, its connections to the Rhine and its experienced stevedores. Initially, and for many years served as general Colbelfret and sales agent for the company. From the beginning, the company decided a Fednav office in Antwerp was required and in June 1966 the Federal Commerce & Navigation (Belgium) SA was incorporated.

Off the coast of a nearly deserted island below the southern tip of Hong Kong, at least 10 massive ships that normally carry hundreds of thousands of tons of coal or iron ore lie idle near one of the world's busiest sea routes. These empty vessels paint a grim picture for the dry bulk shipping business that veterans of the industry say is grappling with an unprecedented crisis of too many ships and not enough cargoes. The hollow boats underscore the global economic doldrums that policymakers are struggling to overcome. "This is the worst we have seen in recent times. We have been hit by a perfect storm - huge order books, China slowdown…

Inmarsat, has opened its new Singapore office, which is the company’s largest facility in Asia Pacific region. Inmarsat’s investment in the 1,700 suareq meter office in Toa Payoh, Central Region Singapore, sees the company’s regional hub providing a new solutions lab, demonstration capabilities, training rooms, a knowledge centre and support center, in addition to enhanced production and storage facilities. The opening ceremony was attended by Inmarsat’s CEO, Rupert Pearce, Beh Kain Teik…

NOAA Coast Survey gives commercial navigation systems better tool to receive updated nautical charts. Accessing up-to-date nautical charts on electronic systems and mobile apps is about to get easier, as developers start adopting NOAA Coast Survey's new Chart Tile Service prototype. Navigational chart users should not notice any difference in how their charting systems operate - except that service providers will be able to quickly update the charts with hundreds of corrections applied weekly by NOAA, so users will have the corrected versions faster than ever before. Coast Survey released the NOAA prototype chart tile and metadata service on December 7.

This month’s featured INSIGHTS executive is Steven A. Candito, President and CEO of the National Response Corporation (NRC). He has extensive experience with OPA 90 compliance issues with particular focus on vessel owner and insurance matters. Candito was previously an attorney with Haight Gardner Poor & Havens, specializing in maritime litigation and environmental law. He also served as a marine engineer aboard Exxon USA’s domestic tanker fleet from 1980 to 1985. Candito is a graduate of Hofstra University School of Law and the United States Merchant Marine Academy.

Inmarsat announced that the Global Xpress (GX) and FleetBroadband terminals manufactured by Intellian, are now approved for use with FleetBroadband Xtra. Designed to enable maritime customers to benefit from high-speed broadband connectivity, Fleet Xpress is an-integrated Ka-band and L-band solution that utilizes capacity from the first GX satellite in commercial service, 1-5 F1, and Inmarsat’s existing Inmarsat-4 fleet. A key Inmarsat terminal manufacturing partner, Intellian continues to support Inmarsat’s GX network services. The recently unveiled Intellian 65cm GX60 and 1m GX100 are both approved for use, along with Intellian’s FB250 and FB500 for FleetBroadband Xtra.

Heidmar’s Board of Directors. reacted swiftly to the untimely death of CEO Marc La Monte, appointing Ben Ognibene to the position of interim Chief Executive Officer. Ognibene became Heidmar’s COO in July 2013. That promotion followed a long and successful career at almost every level of the company’s Pool management business, during which time he worked closely with both Pool partners and more recently chartering clients. Ognibene started at Heidmar in 2004 focusing on the creation of Heidmar’s Aframax Pool, Sigma Tankers.

The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce has named passenger vessels operator Boston Harbor Cruises (BHC) as the 2015 Small Business of the Year Awards top honoree. The Small Business of the Year Awards recognizes Greater Boston’s smaller for-profit companies, with annual gross revenues of more than $1 million, who display strong financial performance, achievement in management, workplace excellence, product innovation and community and social responsibility. BHC operates a fleet of 48 vessels on a seasonal daily excursion schedule that includes Boston Harbor sightseeing cruises…

MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company today took delivery of the MSC Silvia, the latest of a brand new class of 9,400 TEU container ships from the leading ocean carrier. Following today’s inauguration ceremony in Shanghai, MSC Silvia will join the Empire service between the Far East and US East Coast ports. Built at the Hudong shipyard, in China, the new ship sails under the Panama flag. As a family-owned group with a strong culture of maritime traditions, MSC’s new container vessels usually bear the names of relatives of MSC Group founder and Executive Chairman, Gianluigi Aponte, or those of the wives, mothers or daughters of MSC employees. Today’s christening of MSC Silvia honours the wife of Achille Staiano, a former MSC liner who is today Head of Commercial Services at MSC Cruises.

Inmarsat today announced its enhanced Maritime product roadmap consisting of two new services designed specifically for Inmarsat’s Global Xpress network: Fleet Xpress and FleetBroadband Xtra. Fleet Xpress is a hybrid solution, which will operate over the Global Xpress Ka-band network, and incorporate Inmarsat’s L-band FleetBroadband service as back-up, providing a truly global and advanced connectivity service for maritime customers anywhere in the world. The solution will be available when Global Xpress (GX) commences global commercial services early in the second half of 2015. Fleet Xpress will be an Inmarsat managed service sold through the company’s experienced GX Value Added Resellers (VARs).