Tilbury News

Norwegian cruise ship MS Maud is being towed to Bremerhafen in Germany after a violent North Sea storm shattered windows on the bridge, causing a power outage late on Thursday, Danish authorities said on Friday.The ship's 266 passengers and 131 crew members were safe, a spokesperson for the Danish Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (DJRC) told Reuters, adding that a vessel from civil rescue firm Esvagt had managed to connect a tow line to the cruise ship."An Esvagt ship is towing it slowly towards Bremerhafen in Germany at around 8-9 knots," the spokesperson said.The vessel was sailing some 260

The Norwegian cruise ship MS Maud suffered a power outage after a rogue wave shattered windows on the bridge while it sailed in the North Sea, causing the vessel to lose its ability to navigate, Danish authorities and the ship's owner said on Thursday.The 266 passengers and 131 crew members were safe, according to the Danish Joint Rescue Coordination Centre."There is no power on the ship. The main engine is functioning but the navigation systems and radars are not," a spokesperson for the centre…

Five out of the six cruise ships inspected by U.K. Maritime and Coastguard Agency surveyors in British Ports Friday have been detained over crew welfare issues.The Astoria, Astor, Colombus and Vasco de Gama at Tilbury, as well as the Marco Polo at Bristol, have all been detained after surveyors found a number of expired and invalid Seafarers Employment Agreements, late payment of wages and crews who had been on board for over 12 months. All these are in breach of the Maritime Labor Convention (MLC) and the ships have been detained for that reason.All five are from the same company – Global Cruise Lines Limited. Four of the vessels are flagged with the Bahamas and one with Portugal (Madeira).The sixth ship which also belongs to Global Cruise Lines Limited…

Several cruise ships idled without passengers due to the coronavirus pandemic are being inspected in British ports in response to crew welfare concerns.Surveyors acting for the U.K. Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) have detained the Portuguese-flagged Astoria, which is currently at Tilbury Docks, the agency said Friday, adding that the detention is a preventative measure in line with U.K. regulations, to ensure a full inspection of the ship related to the Maritime Labor Convention can be carried out before its intended departure.

British building materials company Tarmac has partnered with London’s fastest growing port, the Port of Tilbury, to create the UK’s largest construction materials aggregates terminal at Tilbury2, the new port being constructed on the north bank of the River Thames.The work will see the creation of new aggregate processing and manufacturing facilities, including an asphalt and ready mix concrete plant, at the new port terminal, supported by the terminal’s deep sea capacity for vessels up to 100,000 metric tonnes. Its riverside location will enable the easy import of raw materials and facilitate the use of the River Thames as a delivery route for processed construction materials into Central London.Martin Riley…

The British Columbia Government has joined Vancouver Fraser Port Authority and FortisBC to establish the first ship-to-ship LNG marine refueling – or bunkering – facility on the west coast of North America.The use of LNG to power the world’s ocean-going vessels is forecast to expand and B.C. is well positioned to benefit from this growth.According to industry standards, replacing diesel fuel with LNG has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by approximately 20%. Because FortisBC’s Tilbury facility runs on clean B.C. electricity, LNG produced there could reduce GHG emissions in marine shipping by up to 26%.LNG-fueled…

Canadian liquefied natural gas (LNG) provider FortisBC has joined SEA\LNG, a multi-sector industry coalition accelerating the widespread adoption of LNG as a marine fuel.Peter Keller, Chairman, SEA\LNG, said: “We’re pleased to welcome FortisBC to the SEA\LNG coalition. Our North American member network grows as the appetite for LNG as marine fuel expands across the globe.”FortisBC brings to the coalition nearly 45 years’ experience in LNG production in Western Canada. It owns and operates two LNG facilities on the west coast; its Tilbury LNG facility began operations in 1971, while it’s Mount Hayes facility on Vancouver Island launched operations in 2011.Douglas Stout…

Britain said on Friday it had signed deals worth 86.6 million pounds ($109.50 million) with shipping firms to ensure the supply of vital medicines in the event of border chaos after the country leaves the European Union.The country's transport ministry said the six-month contracts meant that Brittany Ferries, DFDS, P&O and Stena Line would be ready to deliver capacity equivalent to thousands of lorries each week from the Oct.

Work to dismantle and remove the old West Street Pier in Gravesend is well underway. The pier was used for a number of years by passengers of the Gravesend-Tilbury ferry. But in 2012 the ferry service moved to the renovated Town Pier.The old West Street pier has therefore not been used for a number of years and is now in very poor repair. The structure was further damaged in winter storms last year.The Port of London Authority (PLA) has recently taken ownership of the old pier and begun work to remove the structure. This includes the floating pontoon and the ‘brow’ (the bridge or ‘gangway’) which connects the pontoon to land.Staff from…

FortisBC Energy Inc will export Canadian LNG produced by its small-scale LNG terminal in British Columbia to China starting in 2021.The Canadian natural gas utility, which has operated its Tilbury LNG plant since 1971, said in a press release that it has signed a two-year contract to ship 53,000 tonnes per year of super-cooled gas by the summer of 2021 to Chinese LNG distributor Top Speed Energy Corp.According to the agreement about 60 ISO containers (standard-sized shipping containers) a week shipped from Tilbury to China.“This is the first agreement of its kind that will see Canadian LNG shipped regularly to China,” said FortisBC vice-president of market development and external relations, Douglas Stout.

Europe's largest multimodal transport group by freight volume Samskip said it is fully prepared for a North Sea container traffic surge, as attitudes harden in the run up to October's revised Brexit deadline.The global logistics company offering transport and related services by land, sea, rail and air said in a release that UK exporters and importers to start switching away from trailers and towards containerisation very soon, repeating a trend established in the run-up to the original deadline for Brexit.“We saw a significant push in container volumes up to March 2019, especially into Hull, as decision-makers facing uncertainity opted for the reliability and proven procedures of container shipping,” says David Besseling, Samskip UK Trade Manager.

Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), the third-largest cruise line in the world, controlling approximately 8.7% of the total worldwide share of the cruise market by passengers, celebrated its first season of cruises from the Netherlands, Amsterdam with the European debut of Norwegian Pearl.The international cruise liner said that with this maiden call it is growing the brand’s presence to six ships in the region for the first time.On Saturday, 8 June, Norwegian Pearl’s Captain, Paul von Knorring, and the ship’s officers were honored with a plaque and key to the city of Amsterdam from local officials from the Port of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Cruise Port and Passenger Terminal Amsterdam…

The Norwegian Maritime Authority (NMA) has fined Greek cruise ship operator Global Cruise Lines (GCL) for using 0.17 percent sulfur fuel in a 0.10 percent sulfur ECA zone.NMA informed that MS Magellan, which is owned by the Greek company GCL, has violated the legislation on fuel sulphur limits in the world heritage fjords and has received a notice of a violation fine of 700,000 NOK ($80,000).On 1 March, new environmental requirements for emissions and discharges in the world heritage fjords the Nærøyfjord, Aurlandsfjord, Geirangerfjord, Sunnylvsfjord and Tafjord entered into force. The Norwegian Maritime Authority (NMA) has given their first notice of a violation fine as a result of the new rules.On 16 April…

UK-based construction services provider S. Walsh & Sons has ordered a Multi Cat 1908 from Damen Shipyards Group. After finalizing a number of modifications, Damen will deliver the 19-meter long vessel ten weeks after receiving the order.Part of the GRS Group, S. Walsh & Sons is London’s premier construction partners, delivering end-to-end materials handling services to the UK civil engineering and construction industries. This comprises excavation, freight (marine, rail and road), materials processing, environmental management, and land remediation.

Swedish shipping company Swedish Orient Lines (SOL) announced  that it will add the port of Pietarsaari/Jakobstad (Finland) to its liner network with one weekly call using its vessels Thuleland and Tundraland.The service will offer direct port calls to Lübeck (Germany), Zeebrugge (Belgium) and Tilbury (UK). With its new route SOL supports BillerudKorsnäs export of paper products from its mill in Pietarsaari as well as other import and export cargo to the region.BillerudKorsnäs focuses on offering the packaging market sustainable materials and solutions that increase customers’ profitability while at the same time improving the overall environmental impact“From the beginning of January next year SOL offers a weekly RoRo service between Pietarsaari/Jakobstad…

Tilbury Port and the people that work there will play a major role in helping the UK to increase international trade after we leave the European Union.International Trade Secretary Dr Liam Fox visited Tilbury Port  to meet with port workers and management, as well as members of the Tilbury on the Thames Trust.Tilbury is the fastest growing port in the UK and a £1 billion investment programme will see the port employing 9,000 people by 2020, 3 times more than it did in 2012. One in 5 of the employed people in the local area of Thurrock will work at the port.This investment will see the amount of trade passing through the port reach 32 million tonnes each year…

European multimodal company Samskip Multimodal has launched Netherlands-Italy rail service that would bring multimodal benefits to Amsterdam.Officially launched on October 17, the connection sees trains depart from Melzo east of Milan three times a week, to be ready for unloading along 750m intermodal rail tracks inside TMA Logistics' Holland Cargo Terminal (HCT), Amsterdam 24 hours later.As well as avoiding the driver delays increasingly affecting European road transport, arrivals in Amsterdam coincide with Samskip shortsea departures to Hull, creating a seamless multimodal option to minimise post-Brexit border control issues.The new rail link is in addition to six times weekly train services connecting Melzo and Rotterdam…

Samskip is launching a new shortsea service connecting Antwerp and Hull, in an expansion of its continent-UK multimodal network that also sees it debut at Belgium’s largest port.The intermodal logistics company  said in a press release that the initial schedule offers a twice weekly short sea container service, with its first departure from Antwerp on the 12th October.The service will be operated by a 508TEU capacity vessel, sailing from ATO's multimodal terminal on Tuesday and Saturday and ABP Port of Hull on Thursday and Monday.This new connection is in addition to Samskip's existing shortsea services connecting Rotterdam with Tilbury, Hull and Grangemouth (eight per week) and the recent three times weekly Amsterdam-Hull service.

With new global emissions standards looming, the marine shipping industry is increasingly looking at liquefied natural gas as alternative to high-sulfur bunker fuel, shipping and energy executives said at a global gas summit this week. Already used to fuel ferry fleets and cruise ships, LNG is gaining traction among freight and cargo shippers, despite a reluctance by the entrenched industry to make major changes. The stakes are high: the global shipping fleet now consumes about 4 million barrels per day of high sulfur fuel oil. "Ship owners are very conservative, they're generally a little slower to act... But it's going to happen," Peter Keller, chairman of SEA\LNG and executive VP of maritime firm Tote Inc, told Reuters at the World Gas Conference in Washington.

Damen Shiprepair Rotterdam (DSR), part of Damen Shiprepair & Conversion, said it has completed maintenance and repair works on the newest member of CMV’s fleet, the cruise ship Columbus. The full work scope was concluded within a tight timescale, thus ensuring that the vessel could sail to the London Cruise Terminal in Tilbury, U.K. in time for her naming ceremony and inaugural cruise. Several CMV vessels – the Astor, Marco Polo and the Magellan, for example – have made calls at various Damen repair yards in the past.

The Ferrovial Agroman Laing O'Rourke joint venture (FLO) has taken delivery of two Damen Stan Pontoons. FLO will deploy the vessels – a SPo 7120 and a SPo 4113 – for marine infrastructure construction duties on the Thames Tideway Tunnel project in London. The joint venture company has also chartered a smaller SPo 3011 for a period of one year. Considered to be one of the most important civil engineering projects currently under construction, the Thames Tideway Tunnel represents the modernization of London’s subterranean sewage system.

Marine News showcases the best of North America’s 2017 workboat deliveries. There is something for everyone. Notwithstanding the lingering offshore energy downturn, there were plenty of bright spots for North American shipyards in 2017. If a hull was delivered in 2017, we took a look at it, with several areas as a focus for inclusion into this edition. For starters, it is always exciting when a domestic yard delivers a vessel – or multiple vessels, for that matter – to foreign buyers. We can compete in a foreign arena; on price, quality and on-time delivery. This year was no different. No less important is the environmental footprint of a vessel, and there was plenty to report on from that angle in the past 12 months. The domestic waterfront is indeed getting greener and cleaner.

Samskip has announced a major enhancement in its shortsea and multimodal services between the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, with the addition of direct connections between Amsterdam and Hull three times a week. The value proposition to customers will also include barge and rail systems connecting the European hinterland to Amsterdam. With effect from mid-March, and departing from Amsterdam on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, the new calls and the port's European hinterland systems augment Samskip's existing Rotterdam-Hull operation and runs alongside shortsea and multimodal services into Tilbury and Grangemouth. Richard Beales…