Don Was News

Russia's state-owned reinsurer has given financial backing to three Russian insurance firms, allowing them to get Indian approval to provide marine insurance cover to tankers, two sources said, as Moscow seeks to facilitate trade with India amid Western sanctions.A raft of sanctions by the U.S. and allies against Moscow over its Ukraine invasion, along with tighter scrutiny of Russian oil trade, has almost cut Russia off from the global network of service providers such as insurers and brokers.Russian companies Sogaz Insurance…

Founded as the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) and renamed Military Sealift Command in 1970, MSC today not only support the Navy, but we are the Department of Defense's provider of all sealift. Maritime Reporter & Engineering News recently interviewed Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck, U.S. Navy, for insights on the service today and it’s needs to grow in the future.What makes MSC so vital to the Navy’s fleet and our military forces around the world?When we  look at the history of contested logistics in World War II…

China is providing moorage for a U.S.-sanctioned Russian cargo ship implicated in North Korean arms transfers to Russia, according to satellite images obtained by Reuters, as U.S. concerns grow over Beijing's support for Moscow's war in Ukraine.Britain's Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank said the Russian vessel Angara, which since August 2023 has moved to Russian ports thousands of containers believed to contain North Korean munitions, has been anchored at a Chinese…

The MSC Foundation, the MSC Group and Mercy Ships International have joined forces to build a new hospital ship.On 8 April, the chairman of MSC Group and MSC Foundation, Capt. Gianluigi Aponte, MSC Group President and Member of the MSC Foundation Board, Diego Aponte, and Mercy Ships Founder, Don Stephens, finalized an agreement to kickstart the new project with a generous anchor donation from MSC Foundation.The new purpose-built hospital ship will expand the impact of Mercy Ships’ life-changing surgeries…

My brother and I had a discussion about methanol where we concluded that methanol is a promising sustainable liquid fuel for transportation devices when batteries cannot do the job. While Methanol is initially not carbon zero, as long as we focus on developing zero carbon electrical energy, eventually we can produce zero carbon green methanol. Once there is plentiful green methanol, existing methanol vehicles will automatically become zero carbon transportation.The core argument…

If nothing else, building vessels in the U.S. is a complicated business.In a session on the domestic shipbuilding marketplace, at Marine Money’s late-November 2023 conference held in New Orleans, Ben Bordelon, president and CEO of Bollinger Shipyards (with more than a dozen facilities, in Mississippi and Louisiana), described his company’s architecture as a “three-legged stool approach: commercial newbuilds, government newbuilds and repair/conversion capabilities”.On the same panel…

Thousands of Greek striking workers, students and pensioners marched through central Athens on Wednesday to protest over wages which they are not enough to cope with rising living costs.Ships remained docked at Greek ports and train services were halted as transport workers joined the nationwide strike by private sector union GSEE, Greece's largest.City transport was also disrupted as bus and taxi drivers halted operations for a few hours.Protesters marched to parliament around noon.

For 15 years the Maritime Risk Symposium (MRS), an annual three-day event, has brought together government and maritime industry leaders, port representatives, international and domestic researchers and solution providers to examine current and emerging threats to maritime security. World events highlight that maritime security is increasingly at risk during the current period of great-power competition and ongoing conflicts. The active competition between nations who are not…

A fabricated image of characters from the animated television series The Simpsons viewing a collapsed bridge and a large ship has been widely shared on social media with the false suggestion that the show predicted the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge in March.The image shows signs of having been made with AI and an executive producer for the series told Reuters that the image is fake as the show never had an episode where a container ship hits a bridge.The Francis Key Scott bridge…

Ukrainian seafarers are experiencing increased levels of loneliness and depression amid fears of conscription if they return home as the war enters its third year, seafarer charity Stella Maris warns.Stella Maris regional port chaplains for Southampton and Southern ports, Charles Stuart and Gregory Hogan, who make multiple daily ship visits report Ukrainian seafarers are under increasing strain.“The initial stresses have been replaced by something else,” Hogan says. “At first…

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 highlights some of the greatest focus areas for the 80-year-old trade group—simultaneously looking at both the present day and the road ahead.The towboat, tug and barge industry is in a period of rapid evolution. How is AWO—now in its 80th year…

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal claims that the assessment by 74% of poll respondents in election swing states who believe inflation moved in the wrong direction last year is incorrect. The piece went on to state that the respondents’ perceptions were “contradicted by hard economic data”.Like many of us, I just love “hard data”, especially when it’s “economic”.One great aspect of “hard data” is that we must assume it’s correct; otherwise, how could it be “hard”? In fact…

A resolution to end a dispute between Peru and China's Cosco Shipping could come as soon as this week to ensure a megaport will start operations as planned by the end of the year, Peru's Prime Minister Gustavo Adrianzen said on Thursday.The Peruvian port authority said in Marchit hoped to annul its decision granting exclusivity of the port's operations to Cosco, citing an "administrative error."Cosco, which is investing $1.3 billion in the first stage of the terminal, has said the push affects the "security and legal stability of investments."On Thursday…

Crowley Maritime Corporation has owned and operated a lot of vessels since its founding in 1892. But the latest vessel to join its fleet is unlike any other that has come before it.Crowley’s new harbor tug, eWolf, is unique in that it runs 100% powered by batteries, not diesel engines, meaning it produces zero emissions and nearly no noise. Not only is the vessel the first fully electric tug in the Crowley fleet, but it is also the first of its kind in the United States.Faced with stricter regulations and commercial pressure to prioritize environmental…

The state of Great Lakes port infrastructure is one of the biggest issues facing the U.S. and Canadian maritime industries. According to the America Great Lakes Ports Association, “Due to years of inadequate funding, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been unable to maintain Great Lakes navigation infrastructure. Over the next five years Great Lakes navigation channels will require $540 million of dredging to maintain authorized channel dimensions. Breakwaters and other federal…

The catastrophic bridge collapse that closed the Port of Baltimore to ship traffic is unlikely to trigger a major new U.S. supply chain crisis or spike goods prices, due to ample and growing spare capacity at competing East Coast ports, economists and logistics experts say.With six people still missing after a container ship collision destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge, it remained unclear how long the span's twisted superstructure would block the harbor's mouth.But port officials…

Rising oil tanker chartering rates due to global shipping disruption are forcing oil shippers to take on longer-term shipping charters, executives said this week at an energy conference in Houston.The global oil tanker fleet must now travel further to get crude to refineries and fuel to consumers. European sanctions have forced Russian exporters to send oil to Asia that would have otherwise gone to Europe. Attacks on vessels in the Red Sea have forced some shippers to sail around…

Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods on Monday said his company is trying to establish it has rights over Hess Corp's Guyana assets in its dispute with Chevron, not buy the company itself.In his first public remarks on the company's pursuit of an arbitration case that could block Chevron's $53 billion deal for Hess, Woods said Exxon would not have waited for Chevron to announce its Hess deal if it had wanted to buy Hess."We're basically standing up for what we believe is a fundamental right," Woods told Reuters at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston.

The European Union, Canada, Japan and climate-vulnerable Pacific Island states are among 47 countries rallying support for a charge on the international shipping sector's greenhouse gas emissions, documents reviewed by Reuters showed.The documents, being discussed at an International Maritime Organization (IMO) meeting now entering a second week, outline four proposals with a combined 47 backers for imposing a fee on each tonne of greenhouse gas the industry produces.Support for…

(The Center Square) - The U.S. Coast Guard says it “will not enforce” a new California Air Resources Board regulation, citing “safety concerns.”The Coast Guard and business organizations oppose CARB's requirement that commercial harbor craft install diesel particulate filters (DPF) linked to a number of fires. Seventeen states are suing the Environmental Protection Agency for giving an exemption to California alone to enact its own air standards that, by power of its market size…

U.S. President Joe Biden's plan to build a floating U.S. military port to speed up aid to Gaza could take up to 60 days to become a reality and involve more than 1,000 American troops, the Pentagon said on Friday.The Pentagon offered the timeline a day after Biden announced the initiative in his State of the Union speech, as he seeks to cool anger in his Democratic Party over his staunch support for Israel's offensive in Gaza since Oct. 7.The United Nations has warned that widespread famine in the Gaza Strip is "almost inevitable" without urgent action.

U.S. importers are playing the waiting game with new container shipping contracts, gambling the rate spike from Red Sea vessel attacks will fade and put them in a stronger negotiating position, shipping industry analysts said.Iran-aligned Houthi missile and drone attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea have forced most container carriers to reroute vessels around Africa and sent spot rates soaring.That price shock is a "gift" that carriers will be giving back when the assaults stop…

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…