Oil Ships News

Romania's military carried out late on Sunday a controlled explosion of a naval mine that had drifted close to the country's Black Sea shore, the defense ministry said.Mines began floating in the Black Sea after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, and Romanian, Bulgarian and Turkish military diving teams have been defusing those drifting in their waters.Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of planting them.The Black Sea is crucial for shipment of grain, oil and oil products. Its waters are shared by Bulgaria…

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…

A military diving team deactivated a stray naval mine off Turkey's northwest coast on Monday, Turkey's defense ministry said, the second such device to be defused in the area in days amid the war in Ukraine.NATO member Turkey borders the Black Sea, as does Russia and Ukraine, which Moscow invaded on February 24.Russia's main intelligence agency last week accused Ukraine of laying mines to protect ports and said several hundred of the explosives had broken off from cables and drifted away.

The Saudi-led coalition has allowed four fuel ships to dock at Yemen’s Red Sea port of Hodeidah, two sources familiar with the matter said, after the Houthi group said it would only agree to a ceasefire proposal if an air and sea blockade were lifted.Four vessels, including two carrying a total of 45,000 tonnes of gas oil, a ship loaded with 5,000 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas and a fourth tanker with 22,700 tonnes of fuel oil have received clearance from the coalition, the sources said.As of Wednesday morning…

One coastal tanker is hijacked every two weeks on average in Southeast Asia making it the most dangerous seas, the latest piracy report from the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has warned. The IMB says more than half of all sea pirate attacks since the beginning of 2015 have been in Southeast Asia. A report in the Voice of America quoted Pottengal Mukundan, director of the IMB saying that armed pirates attack small oil ships in the area about every two weeks. It was a disturbing trend because if firm action is not taken then we expect that the violence will increase and the pirates will get a little more audacious in the kind of targets that they will look for, he said.

Southern African Shipyards (SAS) has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with China Shipbuilding Trading Company (CSTC), a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation, in a union between the largest shipyard in Southern Africa and the largest shipbuilding group in the world. Operation Phakisa was launched by President Jacob Zuma in 2014. One of its two key focus areas is to develop South Africa’s maritime economy in sectors such as marine transport and manufacturing and offshore oil and gas.

Some of the world's biggest oil traders have booked supertankers to store at least 25 million barrels at sea in recent days, seeking to take advantage of the crash in crude prices and make a profit down the line. Floating storage levels are expected to increase further in coming weeks as trading companies adopt a strategy that was last used in 2009 when prices slumped and led to over 100 million barrels of oil being parked on tankers at sea before stocks were sold off. The play is also driving up tanker hire rates, and shipping firms have seen their share prices surge in recent days. In the past week, trading firms including Trafigura…

While it seems that half the world is monitoring the oil and gas exploration activities of Royal Dutch Shell (Shell Oil) on the United States outer continental shelf (OCS) in waters of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off the north coast of Alaska, another historic event is occurring in those same waters: Arctic Shield 2012. The US Coast Guard is assembling its largest ever effort in the Arctic during the period July through October 2012. The Coast Guard has been gradually expanding its presence in the Arctic over the past four years.

A rolling strike on blocked 14 oil tankers from entering France's biggest oil port of Fos-Lavera, part of the state-run French port of Marseille, according to a Reuters report. The total number of ships is unchanged on the previous day but down four ships compared with May 2. "This includes eight crude oil ships and 6 refined oil tankers," the port said in a statement, adding that one gas tanker and three chemical tankers were also blocked from entering the hub. France's national port union, part of the CGT federation, called on workers last month to stage 24-hour strikes on a weekly basis to protest against government plans to privatise loading activities at state-run ports.

The movement of petroleum products on the nation's rivers, lakes, bays and oceans is soon to be regulated of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. Called OPA 90, this regulation requires many bulk carriers of petroleum products to use double-hulled barges to haul their cargo by 2005 and all to be doubled hulled by 2015. Looking first at the large product tankers and crude oil carriers, 23 product carriers and 17 crude oil carriers must be double hulled by 2005, another 20 product carriers and 17 crude oil tankers need to be double hulled by 2010 and another 13 product and 9 crude oil ships need to meet OPA 90 by 2015. These conversions (or ship retirements) are a major issue impacting the ability of the U.S. to transport crude oil and its refined products.

India's Kandla port will invite tenders soon for repairs to jetties, buildings and equipment damaged in last month's earthquake. "We will invite tenders in the next few days to repair the port," A.K. Joti said. He said total damages, including civil structures and mechanical and electrical systems, were estimated at $10.8 million. The port would invite several tenders for each job instead of awarding a comprehensive tender to one group, thus enabling work to begin simultaneously, said Vipul Mittra, port deputy chairman. Operations at the country's busiest port were halted on January 26 by the huge quake that struck the western state of Gujarat, killing at least 30,000 people. Partial operations were resumed on February 3.

The Export-Import Bank of China has agreed to lend $370 million to two state-owned conglomerates contracted to build five oil ships for Iran. The deal marks the largest loan yet by the Eximbank, which was founded in 1994 to help finance Chinese machinery exports. The loans to China Shipbuilding Industry Corp. and China Shipbuilding Trading Co. Ltd. reportedly carry export credit insurance worth $500 million. The contracts with Iran are China's first to build and export oil ships of the 300,000-tonnage size, marking a breakthrough for the domestic shipbuilding industry.