Myanmar News

Esgian reports on new contracts for Borr Drilling and Shelf Drilling (North Sea) jackups in its Week 15 Rig Analytics Market Roundup. Additionally, Energean has selected a drillship for its upcoming drilling campaign offshore Morocco. South America remains vital to the floating rig market, with ExxonMobil moving ahead on a sixth development on the prolific Stabroek block offshore Guyana and Petrobras reporting a new discovery in Brazil's Potiguar Basin.Report Outline:ContractsBorr Drilling has announced new contract commitments for three of its premium jackup rigs…

Every day, nearly 60 fully loaded very large crude-oil carriers sail between the Persian Gulf and Chinese ports, carrying about half of the oil that powers the world's second-largest economy.As the vessels enter the South China Sea, they ply waters increasingly controlled by China's growing military, from the missile batteries and airfields at its bases on disputed islands to its stealthy Type 055 destroyers.But when crossing the Indian Ocean, joined by others headed to China from Africa and Brazil…

Indonesia has informed Australia’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) that lumpy skin disease (LSD) has been detected in Australian cattle exported to Indonesia by sea.Indonesia has now suspended cattle imports from four Australian pre-export quarantine facilities.Australia’s Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr Mark Schipp, issued a statement saying that the finding came after those cattle had arrived and spent some time in Indonesia.“As Australia’s Chief Veterinary Officer…

Two people died and nine were missing after a cargo ship sank off southwestern Japan early on Wednesday amid fierce winter winds, the coast guard said, as it continued to search for survivors.Six people who were rescued remained unconscious, while five had revived as of 8:30 p.m. local time (1130 GMT), the Japan Coast Guard said, partly citing information from its South Korean counterpart.The 6,651-tonne Hong Kong-registered Jintian - which had 22 crew on board who were Chinese or Myanmar nationals according to media reports - issued a distress call late on Tuesday…

Crying with relief after a traumatic 40-day voyage to Indonesia in a leaky boat, Rohingya Muslim Fatimah bin Ismail held a mobile phone with shaky hands as she made a video call to relatives. The 19-year-old was among 174 surviving Rohingya in the overloaded wooden fishing boat when it washed up on the shores of Indonesia's Aceh province this week. Around 200 had been on board, fleeing poverty and persecution, when it set off across the Indian Ocean from Bangladesh on Nov. 21.

At least 100 ethnic Rohingya are stranded in a boat off India's Andaman Islands and as many as 16-20 may have have died of thirst, hunger or drowned, said two Myanmar Rohingya activist groups. Each year many Rohingya, members of a Muslim minority, risk their lives boarding rickety vessels to escape violence in Myanmar and squalor in Bangladesh refugee camps. Many attempt to reach Malaysia. The stranded boat was approached by five Indian ships late on Tuesday, a source told Reuters.

A Vietnamese oil service vessel rescued 154 people from a sinking boat in the Andaman Sea and has transferred them to Myanmar's navy, state media reported, a group that was confirmed by activists as minority Rohingya Muslims. The vessel, Hai Duong 29, was en route from Singapore to Myanmar when it spotted the boat in distress 285 miles (458.7 km) south of the Myanmar coast on Wednesday, VTCNews said in a report aired late on Thursday.The Rohingya are a minority that has for years been persecuted in Myanmar and many risk their lives attempting to reach predominantly Muslim Malaysia and Indonesia on rickety boats. Their exodus from Myanmar and from the squalor of refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh…

Japanese shipping company NYK said a car carrier it operates rescued 303 people from a vessel in distress in the South China Sea.On November 7, the Japanese-flagged pure car and truck carrier (PCTC) Helios Leader was sailing from Japan's port of Nagoya to the port of Singapore when it received a rescue request from the port authority of Sri Lanka via the port authority of Singapore.A Myanmar-flagged trawler Lady R3 was in distress about 258 nautical miles off the southeastern part of the Vung Tau cape.

Having recently reopened its Guam office after a three-year hiatus using a partner agent, Inchcape Shipping Services resumed direct control over all operational matters on the Pacific island.Inchcape had a permanent presence in Guam since the 1990s but opted to close its office on the Pacific island in 2018. “Given the volume of business in Guam at that time, it made better financial sense to use a partner agent instead. However, the uptick in volumes after the pandemic justified the move to reopen.

Indonesia will allow a boat packed with Rohingya which had become stranded off its coast to dock in the Southeast Asian country, its security ministry said on Wednesday, after calls from aid organizations to allow the vessel to seek refuge.Local officials in Aceh, a province on the western island of Sumatra said on Tuesday that they would provide the roughly 120 passengers on board with food, medicine and water, but would not allow them to seek refuge in Indonesia, despite international pleas to do so."Today…

Offshore drilling contractor Transocean on Wednesday released its quarterly offshore drilling rig fleet status report, which shows one contract terminated in Norway, and several new deals secured Norway, U.S. Gulf, Brazil, Angola, Brunei, and, possibly, Myanmar. The rig owner's total backlog is now around $7.3 billion.While some of the contracts were already announced as they were coming in during the quarter, Transocean shared some new information, too.It said Thursday that the Hungarian oil firm MOL had in July terminated the Transocean Barents semi-sub drilling contract for convenience. The drilling rig was supposed to stay with MOL between May and December 2021…

"I've seen grown men cry," says Captain Tejinder Singh, who hasn't set foot on dry land in more than seven months and isn't sure when he'll go home."We are forgotten and taken for granted," he says of the plight facing tens of thousands of seafarers like him, stranded at sea as the Delta variant of the coronavirus wreaks havoc on shore."People don't know how their supermarkets are stocked up."Singh and most of his 20-strong crew have criss-crossed the globe on an exhausting odyssey: from India to the United States then on to China…

"I've seen grown men cry," says Captain Tejinder Singh, who hasn't set foot on dry land in more than seven months and isn't sure when he'll go home."We are forgotten and taken for granted," he says of the plight facing tens of thousands of seafarers like him, stranded at sea as the Delta variant of the coronavirus wreaks havoc on shore."People don't know how their supermarkets are stocked up."Singh and most of his 20-strong crew have criss-crossed the globe on an exhausting odyssey: from India to the United States then on to China…

South African police have seized close to a ton of cocaine worth almost 600 million rand ($40 million) from a ship off the Saldanha coast, close to Cape Town, in one of the country’s largest drug busts, authorities said on Tuesday.In an intelligence-driven operation, police and tactical forces boarded the vessel on Monday evening and found 973 blocks of compressed cocaine in three compartments of the unnamed ship.“It is one of the biggest busts in the country,” Brigadier Novela Potelwa told Reuters.She said 10 suspects, four Bulgarians and six from Myanmar, were arrested and are expected to ap

Nearly four years into their odyssey at sea, the five-member crew of oil tanker MT Iba [ex-Titan Brave] is tantalizingly close to shore, yet still unable to set foot on dry land.Bleary-eyed and wearing tattered clothes, the men are exhausted from an ordeal that has kept them from their families and aboard the 5,000-tonne vessel long after its owner abandoned it in the Gulf.What started out as a regular seafaring job turned into what the men call a nightmare, when the tanker's owner, Alco Shipping, fell into financial trouble and stopped paying their salaries 32 months ago.The crew was left to fend for itself, relying on donations from charities they contacted for food and hygiene supplies.The tanker ran aground in Umm Al Quwain…

Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps seized a South Korean-flagged tanker in Gulf waters and detained its crew, Iranian media said on Monday, amid tensions between Tehran and Seoul over Iranian funds frozen in South Korean banks due to U.S. sanctions.Seoul confirmed the seizure of a South Korean chemical tanker by Iranian authorities in the waters off Oman, and demanded its immediate release.Several Iranian media outlets, including state TV, said the Guards navy captured the vessel for polluting the Gulf with chemicals."According to initial reports by local officials, it is purely a technical matter and the ship was taken to shore for polluting the sea…

Ship managers Synergy Group converted a 1992-built, 126,000 cubic meters capacity Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) carrier into a Floating Storage Unit (FSU). The conversion was performed at Sembcorp Marine’s Admiralty Yard in Singapore.Synergy will manage, maintain and operate the FSU, which has a projected lifespan of 15 years. It will be deployed in Myanmar where it will be manned by a Synergy crew of 25 seafarers.The FSU will be moored permanently and used to receive and store…

This article will focus on “comprehensive sanctions,” which prohibit most trade between the U.S. and the target country, with a particular focus on three countries currently targeted by comprehensive sanctions: Iran, Syria and North Korea. Similar jurisdictions which are subject to varying levels of comprehensive sanctions, including Cuba, the Crimea region (Russia/Ukraine) and Venezuela (which may be thought of as subject to “quasi-comprehensive” sanctions) will be dealt with an article later in this series.IranHistory of Iran sanctions: The first U.S.

This article will focus on U.S. sanctions generally, including the definition of “U.S. persons,” the application of the facilitation rules, the difference between primary and secondary sanctions, the 50% rule and various maritime advisories. The article will conclude with a few frequently asked questions."Traditionally, U.S. sanctions applied only to “U.S. persons,” which generally means a U.S. citizen or permanent resident; an entity organized in the U.S. (including foreign branches); and anyone in the US."U.S. sanctions overviewTraditional U.S.

Malaysia's Petronas has delivered the first liquefied natural gas (LNG) import cargoes to Myanmar, the company said on Thursday, marking a new consumer for the super-chilled fuel.The state-owned company's subsidiary Petronas LNG delivered two LNG cargoes to Yangon, Myanmar, in May and June as part of a sales and purchase agreement it had signed with joint-venture company CNTIC VPower earlier this year, Petronas said.As part of the deal, the cargoes were sold on a free-on-board (FOB) basis from the Petronas LNG complex at Bintulu…

At least 32 ethnic Rohingya died on a ship that drifted for weeks after it failed to reach Malaysia, Bangladesh coast guard officials said on Thursday, following the rescue of 396 starving survivors.A human rights group said it believed more boats carrying Rohingya - a Muslim minority - were adrift at sea, with coronavirus lockdowns in Malaysia and Thailand making it harder for them to find refuge."They were at sea for about two months and were starving," a Bangladesh coastguard official told Reuters in a message…

Malaysian authorities said on Sunday they had intercepted a boat ferrying a group of 202 people believed to be ethnic Rohingya.Malaysia, which does not recognize refugee status, is a favored destination for ethnic Rohingya fleeing a military-led crackdown in Myanmar and squalid conditions at refugee camps in Bangladesh.The boat was found adrift around one nautical mile from a luxury beachside resort on the holiday island of Langkawi, off the west coast of the Malaysian peninsula, the Malaysian maritime enforcement agency said in a statement.The group included 152 men, 45 women and 5 children. All 202 have been detained at the coastguard's Kedah state headquarters.The group will be handed over to immigration authorities for attempting to enter the country illegally…

When President Xi Jinping made his first state visit this year to Myanmar and signed new infrastructure contracts, there was no indication of the obstacle about to trip up China's plan for railways, ports and highways around the world: the coronavirus.Travel restrictions to prevent the spread of the disease, which has now killed more than 1,800 people, have idled much of the world's second-largest economy and choked key elements of Xi's signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).Chinese workers cannot get to overseas projects…