Mossel Bay News

South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) has decided to allow the use of exhaust gas cleaning systems (EGCS) in its territorial waters and ports ahead of the IMO 2020 regulation.The Clean Shipping Alliance 2020 (CSA 2020) has welcomed the decision by SAMSA to accept all types of approved exhaust gas cleaning systems (EGCS) for use in its territorial waters.In an IMO 2020 advisory notice issued in March to shipowners, operators, master mariners and bunker suppliers, SAMSA says the use of open-loop, closed-loop or hybrid systems are accepted until further notice “as an equivalent arrangement under Regulation 4 of MARPOL Annex VI…

South Africa’s smallest commercial port, the Port of Mossel Bay is well equipped to provide value following global energy giant Total’s significant gas condensate discovery on the Brulpadda prospects, located on Block 11B/12B in the Outeniqua Basin, 175 kilometres off the southern coast of South Africa, announced Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA).The authority has dispelled criticism that it may not be ready to answer the call for capacity necessitated by the recent discovery of vast amounts of gas condensate about 175 kilometres south of Mossel Bay.Mossel Bay Port Manager Shadrack Tshikalange said the port’s role in the drilling expedition involved providing land and quay space for the logistics base operations…

Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) appointed Preston Khomo, previously Richards Bay Port Manager, as Executive Manager: Ship Repair, to manage and administer the organization’s ship repair resources nationally.Thamsanqa (Thami) Sithole has been appointed as the new Port Manager for Richards Bay. Both appointments are effective July 1.Khomo joined TNPA in 2004 as Head of Infrastructure Development: Port Operations and Consulting at Portcon (the then international arm of Transnet)…

South Africa’s ports are ramping up for a bumper cruise season with at least eight luxury cruise lines and over ten passenger vessels of varying sizes set to ferry international and domestic tourists across the country’s port cities. The South African cruise season kicked off officially in October with a number of smaller vessels already having called at South Africa’s ports. They are en route to and from travel hotspots in Africa, Europe, the Far East, the Mediterranean, South America and more. However the MSC SINFONIA – a cruise ship in the local cruise calendar – marked a highlight in the 2015/16 cruise calendar when she arrived in her homeport of Durban in the early hours of Thursday, November 19. This was her first South African call this season.

The Ports of Cape Town and Saldanha became the latest to go live with Transnet National Ports Authority’s new R79 million web-based Integrated Port Management System (IPMS), first introduced at the pilot site, the Port of Durban in July. IPMS replaces manual processes and enables key port operations to managed online and in real time across TNPA’s eight commercial ports. All vessels arriving at the two Western Cape ports between August 26-31 will be allowed priority registration, provided vessels agents are trained.

The 90-yer-old Prince Edward Graving Dry Dock in Durban, which is owned and operated by Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA), will be undergoing a R30 million ($2.4 million USD) repair project on its outer caisson over the next four months. This is the third and final phase of a repair program on the structure, which was deemed unsafe and in need of repair due to the dry dock’s age and general need for maintenance. Earlier this month, TNPA appointed Durban-based engineering…

Armed guards employed aboard the Danish MR product tanker 'TORM Kansas' recently succeeded in deterring an attack by a group of pirates in the western Indian Ocean. The ship owners inform that the Indian master, his crew and the employed armed guards are safe and suffered no injuries as theyshowed great skill in deterring the attack. No pirates were hurt either. The MR product tanker TORM Kansas was in open sea at the time of the incident, enroute from Sikka in India to Mossel Bay in South Africa (position latitude: 007…

"Joining and Cutting" are key procedures for the maintenance of technical underwater installations. They are indispensable for harbor construction, hydraulic engineering and flood defense, ship operation as well as offshore installations and pipelines. More than 80 experts attended the two-day Underwater Technology Convention Joining and Cutting in . On the agenda were twelve presentations dealing with current joining and cutting procedures. Possible application procedures and limits as well as quality assurance and health and safety requirements during underwater operations were discussed by the participants. Dr Peter Szelagowski, a German engineering consultant for underwater technology, explained the state of the art technology in comparison to international developments.