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Large Oil News

18 Mar 2024

JUB Pacific Bolsters Liftboat Fleet

(Credit: JUB Pacific)

JUB Pacific, a Singapore-based provider of specialized offshore liftboat services, has acquired one of the largest liftboats in Africa, said to be perfectly suited for servicing major players in the oil and gas sector within the Africa region.JUB Pacific acquired the Caracal Pioneer liftboat, which shall be renamed to JUB Pioneer, in a strategic move to extend the company’s global reach and solidify its position as one of the leading liftboat players.The unit is well-equipped to support a diverse range of offshore operations which is highly required by large oil companies in Africa…

23 Jan 2024

Predictability, or “Call your Designated Responder Early and Often”

Copyright Björn Wylezich/AdobeStock

Predictability is the aim of every human, company, or society.Humanity simply strives to increase its level of predictability whether as a person, or as a group of people. When humans attain a certain level of predictability, their hope for the future goes up and their level of anxiety goes down.Oddly, conservatives and progressives both strive for predictability, they just do it in different ways. A conservative will say: If nothing changes, then my predictability for the future will go up.

07 Dec 2022

Russia Concerned Over Oil Tankers Build-up in Bosphorus

© Wilding / Adobe Stock

Russia is concerned about a build-up of oil tankers in the Bosphorus Strait and is discussing the issue with insurance and transport companies, RIA cited Russian deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko as saying on Wednesday.At least 20 oil tankers queuing off Turkey face more delays to cross from Russia's Black Sea ports to the Mediterranean as operators race to adhere to new Turkish insurance rules added ahead of Europe's ship insurance ban and a G7 price cap on Russian oil…

03 Oct 2022

Lithium-ion Batteries: Fire Risks and Loss Prevention Measures in Shipping

Copyright JustSuper/AdobeStock

About the Author: Captain Rahul Khanna is Global Head of Marine Risk Consulting at Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty. A marine professional with 26 years of experience within the Shipping and Maritime industry, Captain Khanna served more than 14 years on board merchant ships in all ranks, including Master of large oil tankers trading worldwide. Although shipping losses have more than halved over the past decade fires on board vessels remain among the biggest safety issues for the maritime industry.

22 Sep 2022

Incoming Shell Boss Aims Fire up Renewables Drive

Shell's incoming Chief Executive Wael Sawan. Copyright Miquel Gonzalez; Photographic Services, Shell International Limited.

Shell's incoming Chief Executive Wael Sawan is set to accelerate the group's drive to build its renewable energy business, including through a possible "transformative" clean power acquisition, company and industry sources said.Sawan will from January take on a firm with a strong balance sheet after a surge in oil and gas prices, but whose renewables capacity has lagged peers like TotalEnergies and BP as green issues come increasingly into vogue. Shell aims to halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and to become a net-zero emitter by 2050…

16 Sep 2022

Big Berty KA4815: New Desalination Pump

This pump has a huge slab of 316 stainless stee machined to provide long continuous service in marine and de-salination applications. Photo courtesy Aussie Pumps

Aussie Pumps introduced a new desalination pump, capable of both high pressure and high flows. Manufactured by Bertolini in Northern Italy, it features heavy duty AISI 316 stainless steel construction,  which makes it suitable for reverse osmosis, desalination, food industry, pharmaceutical, marine and even chemical applications. The pump can be used as a direct drive with electric motor in the 1,450rpm range (4 pole), and alternatively, can be close coupled to a gearbox, or pulley’s or driven by a gasoline or diesel engine.Called the Big Berty KA4815…

05 Aug 2022

China's Military Drills Near Taiwan Disrupt Key Shipping Lanes

© tawatchai1990 / Adobe Stock

China's military exercises in the waters around Taiwan have prompted some ships to navigate around the Taiwan Strait and give the island a wide berth, disrupting key trading routes for cargo and commodities sailing around the world, analysts said.Angered by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, China on Thursday began four days of military drills around the disputed island, including firing live missiles and deploying fighter jets.Although Taiwan's ports are operating as normal…

07 Jun 2022

Marine Insurance: Cargo Fires are a Burning Issue for Shipping

Copyright burnstuff2003/AdobeStock

Commercial insurer Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty released its Safety & Shipping Review, an annual analysis of shipping losses and accidents worldwide. The 2022 report reveals that the maritime sector continues its long-term positive safety trend over the past year with 54 total losses of vessels reported globally, compared with 65 a year earlier. This represents a 57% decline over 10 years (127 in 2012); while during the early 1990s the global fleet was losing 200+ vessels a year.The 2021 loss total is made more impressive by the fact that there are an estimated 130…

07 Feb 2022

Exploded Nigerian FPSO was 'old, badly maintained' - Sources

Video Screenshot

An oil vessel used for storage that exploded off the coast of Nigeria last week had not been maintained for some time and had technical issues, two sources and an environmental group said on Friday, as its wreckage lay in the sea after the fire was put out.The 10 crew members who were on board at the time of the explosion early on Wednesday remained unaccounted for, according to witnesses, amid fears they may have been caught in the fire.A Reuters witness saw the burnt out remains of the Trinity Spirit floating production…

15 Nov 2021

Amplify Energy Pulls Full-year Outlook after California Offshore Oil Spill

Crude oil is shown in the Pacific Ocean offshore of Orange County, Oct. 3, 2021. U.S. Coast Guard photo (Cropped)

Amplify Energy Corp withdrew its full-year forecast on Monday, saying that a large oil spill from one of its subsea pipelines in southern California last month forced it to shut its operations in the region.In mid-October, the U.S. Coast Guard said about 588 barrels (25,000 gallons) of crude oil was spilt, about a fifth as much as it initially estimated, from a pipeline connected to an offshore facility owned by Amplify's unit.The oil and gas producer said on Monday that it was under multiple investigations by state and federal authorities over the incident…

04 Oct 2021

'Catastrophic' California Offshore Oil Spill Kills Fish, Damages Wetlands

Crude oil is shown in the Pacific Ocean offshore of Orange County, Oct. 3, 2021.

A unified command has been established to respond to and clean up the oil spill off the California coast.

Official U.S. Coast Guard photo.

A large oil spill off the southern California coast left fish dead, birds mired in petroleum and wetlands contaminated, prompting local officials to call it an environmental catastrophe.The U.S. Coast Guard, heading a clean-up response involving federal, state, and city agencies, said on Sunday there was an around-the-clock investigation into how the spill occurred.An estimated 126,000 gallons, or 3,000 barrels, had spread into an oil slick covering about 13 square miles of the Pacific Ocean since it was first reported on Saturday morning…

20 May 2021

New Report Helps UK MCA Prepare for Offshore Oil Spill Challenges

Credit: Xodus Group

The UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency's (MCA) future oil spill response plan will be informed by a new report that maps out possible threats to the UK's coastal areas, marine life, and traffic as a result of hydrocarbon releases from energy industry operation and shipping.The report on the review of the hydrocarbon release risk on the UKCS over the next decade was delivered for the MCA, by Xodus Group, in association with London Marine Consultants.The review evaluated the risk of a serious mineral oil release occurring in UK waters from vessels of more than 1…

23 Mar 2021

DNV Awards AIP for DSME's Rotor Sail System

Visualization of the DSME Rotor Sail System (Image: DNV)

South Korean shipbuilder Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) received an approval in principle (AiP) from classification society DNV for the DSME Rotor Sail System for large oil tankers and liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers.Desigend to provide eco-friendly auxiliary propulsion for ships, a rotor sail system incorporates the installation of cylindrical columns (rotors) on the vessel’s deck to generate additional power to propel the ship by using the force of the wind and column rotation during operation.“In this time of growing pressure to decarbonize…

27 Nov 2020

Booming Offshore Wind Market Faces Shortage of Installation Vessels

Credit: DJ/AdobeStock

Offshore wind is expanding rapidly, and as turbine and project sizes grow, demand for specialized installation vessels will soar, Rystad Energy said Thursday, however, warning that the boom might lead to a shortage of offshore wind installation vessels."The market for vessels capable of installing large offshore wind components is quickly being outpaced by growing demand from the global development pipeline, a Rystad Energy analysis shows. The global fleet will be insufficient to meet demand after 2025…

15 Sep 2020

SBM Offshore in Talks with Petrobras Over Buzios FPSO Charter

Illustration; An FPSO in Brazil - Credit: Ranimiro/AdobeStock - the image has been cropped

Brazilian oil company Petrobras has started negotiations with the Dutch FPSO supplier SBM Offshore over a potential charter of an FPSO to be installed at the giant Buzios field in the Santos Basin, offshore Brazil.The FPSO, to be named Almirante Tamandaré, will be the sixth FPSO in the Búzios field. The FPSO would have a production capacity of 225,000 barrels of oil and 12 million m3 of gas per day and would start producing in the second half of 2024.Petrobras said it planned to hire SBM Offshore directly…

04 Sep 2020

Mitsubishi's DIA-SOx Scrubbers Installed on 22 Ships YTD

(Photo: Mitsubishi Shipbuilding)

Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Co., part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Group, says its DIA-SOx marine scrubbers have been installed on 22 ships during the last eight months.The builder said the installations were completed as scheduled despite the continued spread of COVID-19 globally through remote commissioning conducted via close communication and cooperation with its local partners' engineers in China and Singapore.The  DIA-SOx lineup consists of the R Series and C Series.

03 Sep 2020

PDVSA, Eni Looking at Options to Offload Oil from Idle FSO

Venezuela's state-run PDVSA and Eni are looking at options to safely offload crude from a floating storage facility on Venezuela's eastern coast that has remained idle for over a year due to U.S. sanctions, according to sources close to the discussions and a statement from the Italian oil company.The companies suspended output at their joint venture Petrosucre shortly after Washington imposed sanctions on PDVSA in January 2019, depriving the partnership of its main crude buyer, PDVSA's U.S.-based refining subsidiary Citgo Petroleum.About 1.3 million barrels of Corocoro crude stored at the FSO (floating storage and offloading facility) have remained stuck in the vessel…

20 Jan 2020

Oil, Gas Players Optimistic on Profits

Companies  in the oil and gas sector are optimistic about their ability to achieve their financial targets for 2020, according to a survey from standards agency DNV GL.While the sector’s growth hangs in the balance for 2020, oil and gas leaders are optimistic that they will weather the storm, drawing on hard-earned cost efficiencies from the past five years to make margin.Some 64% predict their organizations will hit profit targets this year (largely consistent with 62% in 2019), and nearly half (46%) say their companies would still achieve acceptable profits if the oil price were to average less than USD50 per barrel. This is a large proportion…

15 Jan 2020

Beware of the Nominal Entity

© hildeanna / Adobe Stock

Make sure you know who you are really contracting with.A famous U.S. politician once insisted that “it takes a village to raise a child.” That said, any marine operator will tell you that it takes an even larger village and a ridiculous number of contracts to operate a vessel, and even more to manage a fleet of vessels. To make our marine operations run, we have to agree to contracts that provide for the construction or charter of a vessel, staffing, vessel catering, communications, fuel, maintenance, provisions, software, inspections, etc.

01 Jul 2020

Oil Product Tanker S&P Activity Down 45% -BIMCO

© Igor Groshev / Adobe Stock

Oil product tankers earnings have skyrocketed in the first half of 2020, while the sale and purchase (S&P) activity of the oil product tanker market has slowed to the lowest level since 2016. Data from VesselsValue highlight that in the first five months of 2020, only 2.8 million deadweight tons (DWT) of oil product tankers have shifted hands in the second-hand market, a 45% drop compared to the same period last year.A surprising S&P slowdown?The oil product tanker market has thereby experienced a disconnect in the first half of 2020 with high spot earnings…

30 Mar 2022

Insights: Gavin Higgins, CEO, Everett Ship Repair

Gavin Higgins, CEO, Nichols Brothers Boat Builders and Everett Ship Repair

Everett Ship Repair (ESR) is a relatively new name in the U.S. ship repair business. Established in October 2019, the Pacific Northwest shipyard is owned by Ice Cap Holdings, LLC, which is also the parent company to another shipyard not too far away: Nichols Brothers Boat Builders (NBBB).Both ESR and NBBB are headed up by CEO Gavin Higgins, who is responsible for the development of new business opportunities and cultivation of new business relationships, including working with industry groups…

25 Sep 2019

Mitsubishi Begins Shipments of Marine SOx Scrubber System

C Series (Photo: Mitsubishi Shipbuilding)

Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Co., Ltd., a member of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) Group, based in Yokohama, has increased production capacity for its marine SOx scrubber system that reduces sulfur oxide (SOx) from the exhaust gas of ships, and begun shipments of the DIA-SOx C Series tower and DIA-SOx R Series tower from partner fabricators in China and Taiwan, respectively. The C Series tower shipped this time is designed to be fitted on LPG carriers and large oil tankers…

02 Dec 2019

Singapore Raises Concern over HHI-DSME Deal

The Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) has expressed concern about the agreement of fusion notified from the South Korean shipbuilding groups Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME).The authority antitrust of Singapore has raised competition concerns with the proposed acquisition by Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co., Ltd. (KSOE) of a majority interest in DSME and the intended integration of the businesses of KSOE and DSME.Earlier, on 12 September 2019, CCCS accepted an application from KSOE for a decision on whether the Proposed Transaction infringes section 54 of the Competition Act (Cap.