4 Processors News

Cereal and oilseed imports to China, the world's biggest buyer of farm goods, will remain near record highs this year despite a recent spate of cancellations as lower global prices and a domestic output shortfall prompt purchases.China's wheat imports from Australia in January and February this year have nearly quadrupled from the same time last year, the latest customs data show. That trend should continue even after Beijing cancelled or postponed 1 million metric tons of Australian wheat last week.The cancellations, along with those for about 500,000 tons of U.S.

The maritime industry’s movement toward remote vessel operations will not only build a more diverse workforce, it will benefit from it, argues marine robotics company Ocean Infinity.Greater workforce diversity, whether it be considered along lines of ethnicity, gender identity, sexuality, age, socioeconomic status, neurotype, physical ability or any other parameter, has shifted over the course of the last decade from a ‘nice to have’ to a fundamental value. The modern view of society that the thought leaders at Ocean Infinity subscribe to, is often characterized as ‘intersectionality’.

Designed for military use but now available commercially, OPENSEA Edge is designed to be a modular edge computing module with perception support for autonomous underwater robots based on Greensea’s OPENSEA open architecture software platform, advancing ocean robotics into the next generation.Greensea launched its latest product which the company says promises to bring true autonomy to ocean robotics.Based on Greensea’s open architecture platform OPENSEA, OPENSEA Edge offers the next level of operator capability.

I-6 F1, Inmarsat's most sophisticated commercial communications satellite\, has reached geostationary orbit and begun on-orbit testing, Carrying both L-band and Ka-band payloads, I-6 F1 will deliver a further enhancement of Inmarsat’s ELERA and Global Xpress networks respectively.The satellite, the size of a London double-decker bus, with a solar array ‘wingspan’ larger than a Boeing 767, was launched by MHI in Japan in December 2021. Since its launch, it has been moving towards geostationary orbit (GEO) approximately 36…

Mike Hooks, LLC has signed a deal with Mobile, Ala. fabricator Mobile Pulley Works (MPW) to design and build a new 27-inch cutter suction dredge (CSD).The new CSD Lorraine Hooks is being designed to the latest industry standards to maximize safety, comfort, and efficiency. The dredge will house on-board crew accommodations to provide comfort and convenience for personnel while they are onboard. The new accommodations and lever control room will be constructed on vibration mounts to reduce fatigue caused by harmonic vibrations and noise levels.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced the allocation of $88 million in fishery disaster funding to Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, where a catastrophic regional fishery disaster occurred due to extreme freshwater flooding in 2019 associated with the unprecedented opening of the Bonnet Carre Spillway.“The Department of Commerce stands with our U.S. fishing communities, especially in times of hardship,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. “These funds will help industries and individuals recover from this disaster…

Seatronx announced the launch of the Seatronx Digital Matrix Switching Command Control system (SCC).The Seatronx SCC takes bridge control to a new level. The system not only allows operators to control individual or multiple displays including power on/off, input selection, brightening, dimming and night mode view, it is also fully customizable with optional modules for added functionality. These accessory modules let users incorporate KVM mouse, keyboard and touchscreen switching…

Ships transporting cargo from Argentina's Rosario grain hub through the Parana River are having to reduce their cargoes after a bank collapse obstructed the navigation channel, exporters told Reuters.Dredgers are working in the Parana to the south of the Rosario complex to try to restore the necessary depth of water for export traffic, but at present have no estimate of when normal operations on the grains superhighway can resume."Ships cannot leave because they do not have the adequate safety margin…

Lockdowns to slow the coronavirus pandemic are pummelling gas demand in the world's biggest buyers of liquefied natural gas (LNG), pushing Asia's spot prices to record lows and forcing some suppliers to start cutting output. Economies worldwide have ground to a halt as virus containment measures have taken their toll, slashing gas demand for power generation, heating, cooking, vehicles and chemical manufacture. The world's biggest LNG markets - Japan, China, South Korea, and India - are all seeing a drop in demand. Asia's spot LNG prices dropped to $1.85 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) last week, the lowest ever, as cargoes have flooded the market. "At prices in the $2/mmBtu range ... some producers are getting close to not recovering cash costs of their operations.

The world has radically changed since towboat captain Terry Hall boarded his vessel late last month in Wood River, Illinois, for his four-week shift hauling bargeloads of crude oil, chemicals, scrap metal and other goods up and down the Mississippi River.His employer, Canal Barge Co, has beefed up pre-board health screenings for all crew to include a temperature check and disclosures about recent travel and personal interactions in response to the coronavirus pandemic.Any disruption…

After a frantic week that sent crude oil freight rates to record highs amid a bookings bonanza to ship Saudi oil to the world, rates are now easing as charterers balk at the nosebleed charges and await Saudi volume plans for April, shipping sources said."Sentiment remained softer today," said one ship broker while pointing to another day of limited chartering activity.At least nine very large crude oil carrier (VLCC) provisional charters failed this week along with another five for Suezmax tankers…

The commercial shipping world can benefit from greater range of communications and reduced satellite costs. Domestic brown water operators know all too well that’s easier said; than done. Until now.In the fast moving world of blue water, deep draft shipping, the availability of reliable ship-to-shore communications has been a non-issue for at least two decades. More than ever, they need it. These longtime users of so-called ship management software and now, sophisticated remote monitoring systems that watch over even the most obscure minutia on board far flung 1,000 foot ocean liners, need (and get) robust and reliable communications.On the domestic, brown water side of the equation? Not so much.

Since summer 2017, four vessels equipped with analog sonars have been upgraded using RTsys AS3i technology (Analog Surface Ship Sonar Improvement), which digitalized and improved the processing of signals rendered by sensors.Brittany-based company RTSYS does not only deals with AUV, subsea recorders and buoys, but can also display a full range of sonar systems such as handheld devices for divers or sonar retrofit. The latter of which led the French SME to lately offer in summer…

ChartWorld launched its next generation eGlobe G2+ ECDIS, reported by the company to be the world's first 4K ECDIS..“ENCs and ECDIS, like paper charts before them, are at the heart of modern navigation," said Steven Schootbrugge CEO, ChartWorld, in a press release on the product. "One of the great advantages of digital navigation is our ability to navigate more accurately and update charts quickly as more detailed, or even specific, information becomes available.”ChartWorld’s…

Rolls Royce and Intel Artificial Intelligence (AI) announced that they’re bringing advanced intelligence to cargo shipping to deliver on the benefits of an autonomous shipping future.As part of its effort to make commercial shipping safer and more efficient, Rolls-Royce is working to develop fully autonomous shipping solutions using artificial intelligence (AI) powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors and Intel 3D NAND SSDs for storage.“Delivering these systems is all about processing – moving and storing huge volumes of data – and that is where Intel comes in.

Two tankers carrying Iranian condensate, a type of ultra-light oil, have been floating off the United Arab Emirates for about a month as demand for the oil fell ahead of U.S. sanctions.The tankers, carrying about 2.4 million barrels of South Pars condensate combined, have been floating off the UAE since August after South Korea halted imports from Iran while China's demand dropped during summer, according to several industry sources and shipping data.The build-up in Iranian oil supplies underscores the pressure that Iran is facing as Washington aims to bring Iranian oil exports down to zero to force Tehran to re-negotiate a nuclear deal.The Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) Felicity loaded condensate at Iran's Assaluyeh port in early August and then set ail for Jebel Ali in the UAE…

Maritime newbuild projects, conversions and maintenance projects have at least one thing in common: millions are lost in search for the right information. About 30 percent of all work within these maritime projects consist of unnecessary searching, searching and more searching for data. The right data. This of course has a cause and luckily there is also a solution.First of all the cause. I visit many maritime companies that have heard of digital transformation, but are unable to give it any real interpretation. For most of them it remains a big cloud.

The number of ships waiting to berth at Brazilian ports to load soybeans and its byproducts is currently almost 60 percent larger than in the same period last year, according to data from shipping agency Williams compiled by Reuters.At the same time, the amount of ships that are berthed and currently loading is 42 percent smaller than seen at this time last year.Associations representing soy processors and grain exporters said the situation is caused by slower transportation of grains from producing regions to the ports…

A new satellite device that combines the Inmarsat Fleet Xpress Network Service Device (NSD) with the RedPort Optimizer Enterprise satellite router and VoIP gateway was launched by RedPort Global.The single rackmount appliance will manage ship networks with satellite broadband routing, VoIP connectivity and crew services, and replaces at least three pieces of hardware that were previously required for Fleet Xpress installations.The innovative RedPort Optimizer Enterprise NSD for Inmarsat Fleet Xpress gives satellite service providers and ship operators an all-­in-­one solution…

China has pledged to buy more U.S. goods to reduce America's huge trade deficit and help avoid exacerbating a trade war between the world's two biggest economies, with energy and commodities high on Washington's list of products for sale.The U.S. trade war with China is "on hold" after the governments agreed to drop tariff threats and work on a wider agreement, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday. Washington is especially keen to sell more of the United States'…

In the port of Amsterdam the construction has started of a new facility that will convert non-recyclable plastic into fuel for the transport sector, which will cut down CO₂ emission by 57,000 tonnes per year. It is the first project of Bin2Barrel, a Dutch company focusing on the development of Plastic-to projects. This is how synthetic materials that could not be reused otherwise will now become reusable in a useful application, while at the same time offering a more sustainable alternative for traditional transport fuels. The ultimate goal is application of the produced substances in the production of new synthetic materials, in other words chemical recycling.

The SENER engineering and technology group has upgraded its FORAN System with important new enhancements following its Shipyard 4.0 Digitalization Strategy, which have been incorporated into the System in the latest FORAN Build, launched to the market in October 2017. The industry is demanding more technological capacity and integration, and this new FORAN release incorporates relevant improvements in the different design packages. The surface ship model, managed as a collection of NURBS patches, is now internally represented by a shell in accordance with the new geometrical kernel of FORAN.

AME is a Florida based engineering services company specializing in marine (Advanced Mechanical Enterprises) and industrial (Advanced Maintenance Engineering) predictive, preventative and corrective maintenance for rotating and reciprocating machinery. Founded by Rich Merhige in 1992, AME has pioneered the use of technologies and equipment to perform diagnostics, maintenance and repair, particularly for private and commercial vessels. As AME celebrates its 25th anniversary, discuss the decision to start the company.