Gordon News

Scottish engineering business ACE Winches is calling on industry to invest more in training young people as it expands its own apprenticeship scheme.The Aberdeenshire-based company has welcomed its very first foundation graduate, bringing the number of young people recruited as apprentices to around 300 over the last 30 years.The company's founder and CEO, Alfie Cheyne, a marine engineering apprentice himself when he left school at 16, has called on all industry bosses to recognize…

North Star, a UK-based offshore vessel owner, with a growing fleet of offshore wind support vessels, has hired sustainable shipping specialist Dr Tamara Topić to lead on the implementation of its environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) strategy."Dr Topić brings a wealth of experience and expertise in maritime sustainability, environmental impact assessment, and corporate governance. With a PhD in sustainable shipping from Newcastle University’s Marine, Offshore and Subsea Technology department, and a M.Sc.

Danish offshore charging solutions company Stillstrom has signed an MoU with UK offshore support vessel operator North Star to accelerate the adoption of offshore charging and vessel electrification technologies for service operation vessels (SOVs) in the offshore wind sector.Stillstrom’s charging solutions will enable North Star's growing SOV fleet to recharge their battery systems using wind energy while in the field.By combining their expertise and resources, the two companies will promote hybrid and full-electric vessels and charging solutions to offshore wind developers…

UK-based offshore vessel owner North Star this week held a naming ceremony for the Grampian Tyne service operation vessel (SOV) which will be deployed at work at the Dogger Bank offshore wind farm in the UK.The vessel was named at a ceremony at Equinor’s Port of Tyne base in the North East of England (UK), ahead of its early handover to the Dogger Bank Wind Farm.The traditional good luck celebration, involving the customary champagne bottle being smashed against the hull of the ship…

Port of Aberdeen said Tuesday it had welcomed the first cruise ship into the "transformational" £400 million Aberdeen South Harbour expansion. The 203-meter-long AIDAaura, with a capacity for more than 1,200 guests, is the longest vessel to visit the Port of Aberdeen to date. The vessel arrived from Hamburg, Germany, for a full day visit as part of a Scottish cruise. The AIDAaura berthed on Castlegate Quay, and the guests were greeted by a 50-strong pipe band and Highland dancers from Robert Gordon’s College and ‘Welcome to Aberdeenshire’ volunteers.

Law firm Squire Patton Boggs (SPB) has partnered with freight market information organization The Baltic Exchange to provide a vessel sale and purchase (S&P) transaction closing service for the global shipping industry. The service will be led by SPB’s 30-strong Commodities & Shipping Group co-chaired by Chris Swart and Barry Stimpson, and will be underpinned by the Baltic Exchange’s independent Singapore-based escrow operation.The Baltic Exchange’s escrow service is already used for a wide range of transactional work…

Heavy Lift Projects Ltd (HLP), a provider of offshore wind farm logistics, said Tuesday it had completed a funding round with private investors and opened its first office in Edinburgh.The company said that Capercaillie (Investments) Ltd and Giles W Pritchard-Gordon & Co Ltd have committed a "multi-million-pound" investment, which will be used to complete engineering work on its first project, a new design of a ring crane for assembling and loading offshore wind farm components.HLP…

China is making fast inroads in the market for newbuild liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers as local and foreign shipowners turn to its shipbuilders for the specialty vessels because long dominant yards in South Korea are fully booked. Three Chinese shipyards - only one of them having experience building large LNG tankers - won nearly 30% of this year's record orders for 163 new gas carriers, claiming ground in a sector where South Korea usually captures most of the business.

Global Port Services, owned by Global Energy Group alongside the Port of Nigg, has said it has secured multiple contracts to support its client Seagreen Wind Energy Limited (SWEL), with site enabling works for the pre-assembly construction of wind turbine components (WTGs) at its Port of Nigg facility. The news comes as the final turbine foundations for Seagreen arrive at Nigg to be prepared for installation at Seagreen offshore wind farm site, 27km off the coast of Angus.Seagreen…

Cable installation has kicked off at Vineyard Wind, the U.S. first commercial scale offshore wind farm, at a site located 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. Vineyard Wind, the company developing the namesake wind farm, also announced that it expects to begin nearshore cable work off the south coast of Cape Cod in the coming days. The work is being conducted by Prysmian Group, the subsea cable manufacturing and installation firm based in Italy.Prysmian recently announced plans to build the first U.S.-based offshore wind subsea cable factory in Somerset…

The New Bedford Port Authority (NBPA) has named Gordon Carr as the next Executive Director of the Massachusetts seaport.Carr, who current serves as Deputy Director of Real Estate Strategy and Policy at the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport), has more than 25 years of experience in the public and private sectors in the areas of public policy, economic development, and enterprise strategy, including on projects related to the City. As an independent consultant in 2014-15, Carr…

North Star’s new UK-built hybrid-powered daughter craft, specifically designed for the offshore wind market, has been launched at a naming ceremony held at the Royal Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht club in Lowestoft, adjacent to the firm’s regional operations hub. The vessel was christened ‘Grace Darling’ in honor of a famous lighthouse keeper’s daughter from the North East of England who risked her life in 1838 to save the stranded survivors of a wrecked merchant ship traveling from Hull to Dundee.

UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography today announced that naval architecture and marine engineering company Glosten has been selected as the naval architect for the university’s new California coastal research vessel. The new vessel will feature a first-of-its-kind hydrogen-hybrid propulsion system.Selected after participating in the university's request for proposal process, Glosten will provide the preliminary design, contract design and detailed design for the research vessel to be operated by Scripps Oceanography.“This vessel will be the first of its kind…

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…

Shipping companies are transforming rust buckets into gold mines in a modern-day alchemy that could fuel already rampant inflation for years to come.The disruption to world trade caused by pandemic lockdowns and a shortage of new cargo vessels has pushed freight rates for ageing containerships to record highs.Cashing in on the boom, shipping firms are locking in long-term leases lasting three to four years, which means consumers could carry on paying the price for the surge in costs until hundreds of new ships on order come into service.Take the Synergy Oakland…

UK-based offshore vessel owner North Star has said it has recently secured new Emergency Response and Rescue Vessel (ERRV) contracts totaling more than £100 million (around $133.7 million).Under the contracts, North Star said it would support new and existing clients in the UK Continental Shelf with its fast-response emergency fleet, purpose built to protect personnel working on offshore oil and gas platforms.

On January 18, 2022, federal, state, and local officials gathered to mark the signing of a Project Partnering Agreement for the Morganza to the Gulf of Mexico project that was executed on December 28, 2021 to kick-off federal-led construction for the project.The Morganza to the Gulf of Mexico project aims to provide risk reduction for people and property as well as the remaining fragile marsh from hurricane storm surge in the vicinity of Houma, Louisiana. It received $12.46 million funding from the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 to develop and execute a Project Partnership Agreement…

Partners Group, a global private markets firm, has agreed, on behalf of its clients, to buy North Star, a UK-based operator of emergency response and rescue vessels, which has recently also dived into the offshore wind sector with several orders made for essential offshore wind maintenance services vessels, from Basalt Infrastructure Partners for an undisclosed price.Aberdeen-based North Star has a fleet of 48 Emergency Response and Rescue Vessels (ERRVs) and Service Operation Vessels (SOVs) and around 1,400 employees.

Navies, shipowners, shipyards, and organizations have offered the best of birthday wishes to Canada’s Thomson-Gordon Group, the parent company of water-lubricated polymer bearing pioneer Thordon Bearings, as it celebrates its 110th anniversary this fall.Among several well-wishers, Claude Tremblay, Directorate General Maritime Equipment Program Management National Defence, Royal Canadian Navy, wrote: “Congratulations to Thomson-Gordon Group for 110 years of Canadian innovation and pioneering. We are proud to rely on your top-quality products.

Supply chain issues tied to liner shipping have been front page news throughout 2021; just about everyone agrees that there’s a problem. The underlying cause is right out of Economics 101: a surge in demand for moving containerized cargo, in the face of “inelastic” throughput capacity (which includes vessels and their landside interfaces to surface transportation, trucks and rail) that could not handle the swell, attributable to re-stocking of containerized cargo as economic activity recovered from the pandemic induced jolts.

North Star Renewables, a North Star Shipping subsidiary established earlier this year to target offshore wind business opportunities, said Monday it had finalized a funding package of £96 million (around $131 million) to build its new renewables vessel fleet.The Aberdeen-based company has contracts in hand worth around £270 million (~$368 million), to deliver three service operation vessels (SOVs) to be used on what will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm, the 3.6GW Dogger…

Oil prices fell by 4% on Monday, extending last week's steep losses on the back of a rising U.S. dollar and concerns that new coronavirus-related restrictions in Asia, especially China, could slow a global recovery in fuel demand.A United Nations panel's dire warning on climate change also added to the gloomy mood after fires in Greece have razed homes and forests and parts of Europe suffered deadly floods last month.Brent crude futures fell by $2.82, or 4.2%, to $67.88 a barrel by 0930 GMT after a 6% slump last week for their biggest weekly loss in four months.U.S.

While new to the CEO seat, Anna Galoni is long-tenured at Thordon Bearings, having worked in the company for more than 15 years, joining the Burlington, Ontario-company in 2007 after graduating from Queens University with a Masters’ Degree in Epidemiology. The new leader of this family-owned company, Galoni shares her insights on the business and technology.Thordon Bearings is a, global business which designs and manufactures a range of non-polluting, oil and grease-free bearing systems…