Long Search News

The search for victims of a ferry that sank in the lake of an ancient supervolcano crater in Indonesia will resume on Wednesday with divers and an underwater drone to scour the depths for at least 128 missing passengers.The wooden tourist ferry sank in rough weather on Lake Toba on Sumatra island on Monday. Eighteen survivors were found that evening, but only one body was recovered, and a day long search on Tuesday was suspended having failed to account for any more.One survivor, Widya, said her family died when the boat was hit by strong waves."There were at least five couples with two children each. I wish I had died with my family…

Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht is looking to dispose of its entire stake in Colombia's Magdalena River navigability project, as the company battles corruption allegations across Latin America, an official told Reuters. Odebrecht had last year planned to give up most of its 87 percent stake in the Navelena consortium, tasked with the 2.5 trillion peso ($854 million) effort to increase cargo capacity on the river, sending the government on a fruitless months-long search for a replacement. But the company later decided to keep a majority of its share after Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui bank said it would finance $250 million of the project.

The death toll in a Myanmar ferry sinking has reached 73, authorities said on Friday, as they wrapped up a week-long search and rescue operation for survivors and prepared to launch an inquiry into the cause of the disaster. Marine accidents are common in Myanmar, where many people rely for transport on crowded boats that are often in a state of disrepair. The ferry sank early on Saturday, about 85 miles (137 km) northwest of Mandalay, Myanmar's second biggest city, as it travelled between the towns of Homalin and Monywa. "We were able to salvage the sunken ferry yesterday and we don't expect to find any more bodies, so we've suspended the official rescue operation," said Ko Ko Naing, an official of Myanmar's social welfare ministry.

A U.S. Navy salvage team prepared on Sunday to launch a remotely operated submersible to confirm that wreckage discovered near the Bahamas was that of the cargo ship El Faro, lost in a hurricane last month along with its 33 crew members. The team's mission is to document the shipwreck and any debris field, and to retrieve the sunken vessel's voyage data recorder - similar to an airplane's black box - as part of an investigation into its loss, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

The owners of the cargo ship El Faro that sank after it was trapped in the path of Hurricane Joaquin off the Bahamas last week announced the creation of a family relief fund on Friday to support the 33 mostly-American families of the crew. "Over the last few days we have had hundreds of employees, mariners, customers and individuals from around the country inquire about where to donate in support of the families," Anthony Chiarello, chief executive of New Jersey-based Tote Inc, owners of the El Faro, said in a statement. The U.S.

Sweden military has confirmed it held a second “secret” search operation for a foreign submarine in its waters back in October for a suspected underwater intruder in the Stockholm archipelago. The hunt, not reported until now, followed a report in Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter claims about a sighting of a submarine tower outside Stockholm. A submarine-hunting corvette, HMS Malmö, was secretly deployed in the waters between Lidingö Island in the inner Stockholm archipelago and Nacka Municipality on October 31. This was just a week after Swedish armed forces called off the search for the suspected submarine first reported on October 16. On Sunday, a military spokesman Jesper Tengroth confirmed that the Navy searched waters near the capital on Oct.

A New York-based commodities merchant bank run by veteran energy traders, Neal Shear and Kaushik Amin, announced on Friday plans to buy the aging Come by Chance refinery in Newfoundland from South Korea's state-run oil company. Korea National Oil Corp said it will sell the 115,000-barrel-per-day refinery to SilverRange Financial Partners LLC for an undisclosed price following a months-long search to find a buyer. The deal also includes 53 gas stations and convenience stores. SilverRange is a New York-based merchant bank focused on energy and natural resources owned by SilverPeak Partners, a real estate fund with over $12 billion in assets under management, according to its website.

Korea National Oil Corp said on Friday that it would sell its 115,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Come by Chance, Newfoundland, to SilverRange Financial Partners LLC for an undisclosed price following a months-long search to find a buyer. KNOC's Harvest Operations Corp unit is selling the aging refinery, as well as 53 gas stations and convenience stores, to SilverRange. The New York-based merchant bank has entered into a multiyear refining deal with an unspecified global oil company, Harvest Operations and SilverRange said in a release. "(The refinery) is strategically located along Atlantic crude oil shipping routes and provides access to petroleum markets in Europe and the U.S. Eastern seaboard," SilverRange official Harsh Rameshwar said in the release.

Britain imported more oil products than it exported last year for the first time in 30 years, an official report shows, and analysts say the country is likely to stay dependent on overseas oil as its refineries close. Britain exported 26.2 million tonnes of products such as diesel, kerosene and jet fuel from its refineries last year, but imported 28.2 million tonnes, due to the closure of two major oil processing plants. "The U.K. was a net importer of petroleum products in 2013 for the first time since 1984, the year of the miners' strike," the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said in its annual report. Coryton oil…

Five employees of an Italian cruise company for the Costa Concordia shipwreck that killed 32 crew and passengers were convicted in an Italian court on Saturday after it accepted their plea bargains. The longest sentence went to the crisis coordinator for Costa Crociere SpA, the cruise company, who was sentenced to two years and 10 months. Concordia's hotel director was sentenced to two years and six months while two bridge officers and a helmsman got sentences ranging from one year and eight months to one year and 11 months.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency announced the appointment of Philip Naylor as the new Director of Maritime Services. This post is responsible for ensuring the safety and quality of seafarers and ships under the Red Ensign and delivering emergency response, survey and inspections services. Naylor is currently General Manager for Fleet Marine and Shore Operations for Carnival UK. He served as a Deck Officer on tankers, ferries and sail training vessels before joining the cruise industry in 1986. Here he was responsible for the worldwide operation of 12 cruise ships, as well as major developments ashore in the Port of  Southampton. He has also led Carnival's emergency response organisation.

A new installation of Transas VTS system took place in the middle of August at Heimaey, the main populated island in Vestmanneyjar archipelago southwest of the Icelandic mainland. The history of this project goes back several years, when the Icelandic Telecommunication Company were interested in acquiring a system intended to supervise/protect national submarine communications. A huge submarine cable integrated with the transatlantic submarine communication line between Europe and Northern America connects Iceland with the rest of the Globe. This cable has been damaged several times because of incorrect fishing and anchoring operations, consequently causing very expensive repair works often running into millions of US dollars.