Southeastern United States News

Bellingham, Wash. boatbuilder All American Marine (AAM) has launched the newly built research vessel Gannet for NOAA Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary (GRNMS).The newbuild is a 52- by 19-foot semi-displacement aluminum catamaran hull that was developed by Nic de Waal of Teknicraft Design in Auckland, New Zealand. The vessel is based on the proven design elements found in the recently commissioned research vessel Storm Petrel, built for NOAA’s Olympic Coast National Marine…

Washington-baed shipbuilder All American Marine (AAM) has won a contract to build a research vessel for the NOAA Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary (GRNMS). GRNMS is located 19 miles off Sapelo Island, Georgia, and is one of 14 marine sanctuaries and monuments that make up the U.S. National Marine Sanctuary System. AAM will build the research vessel at its Bellingham Bay facility. The vessel is a 52’ x 19’ semi-displacement aluminum catamaran hull that was developed by Nic de Waal of Teknicraft Design in Auckland, New Zealand.

Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation reported a first-quarter net income of 11.1 million in the first quarter of 2022 an increase compared to first-quarter 2021 income of $8.8 million.Revenue for the quarter was $194.3 million, an increase of $16.7 million from the first quarter of 2021. The higher revenue in the first quarter of 2022 was due to higher domestic capital and coastal protection revenue, offset partially by a decrease in revenue from maintenance dredging, rivers and lakes…

The Clean Canaveral, a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) bunker barge operating along the coast of the southeastern United States, recently completed its inaugural bunkering in Jacksonville, Fla. The Clean Canaveral has a capacity of 5,500 cubic meters, making it the largest Jones Act LNG bunker barge. The vessel operates as an articulated tug barge unit (ATB) and is owned by Polaris New Energy LLC, a subsidiary of Seaside LNG Holdings.The operation marks the first barge-to-ship cool down performed in the United States.

The U.S. government relaxed a long-standing maritime law protecting domestic shipping commerce to allow an undisclosed company to transport gasoline and diesel to ports in the East Coast after a cyberattack crippled the nation's largest fuel pipeline network.The Jones Act, implemented in 1920, requires goods moved between U.S. ports to be carried by ships built domestically and staffed by U.S. crews. The waiver will allow foreign vessels to ship petroleum products such as gasoline and diesel to the country from the Gulf Coast to U.S.

Newly formed dredging and marine infrastructure services firm Encore Dredging Partners, LLC. (EDP) said it has acquired Inland Dredging Company, LLC for an undisclosed purchase price.EDP said it completed the transaction with support from its sole financial sponsor, Austin, Texas-based private equity firm AV Capital. League City, Texas-based EDP is a mid-sized cutter suction and mechanical dredging services provider focused on navigable waterways throughout the U.S.For 24 years, Dyersburg, Tenn.-headquartered Inland has provided dredging services throughout the Central U.S.

U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administrator Rear Adm. Mark Buzby joined elected officials and leadership from Jacksonville Port Authority (JAXPORT) and SSA Marine on Nov. 22 to break ground on a new state-of-the-art international container terminal at JAXPORT’s Blount Island Marine Terminal.The SSA Jacksonville Container Terminal is an expansion of SSA’s current leasehold at Blount Island and includes $238.7 million in infrastructure and equipment upgrades. Operations will continue throughout the redevelopment, which is expected to be complete in 2023—coinciding with the completion of the federal project to deepen the Jacksonville shipping channel to 47 feet.

Hurricane Dorian took aim at the Bahamas and the Florida coast on Thursday, spurred on by warm Atlantic waters as it threatens to strengthen into a dangerous Category 3 storm.Dorian earlier sideswiped the Caribbean without doing major damage but is expected to strengthen and slam the Bahamas and the southeastern United States with rain, strong winds and life-threatening surf over the next few days, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said in an advisory.U.S. President Donald Trump urged Floridians to heed official warnings.

Hurricane Michael, now a Category 4 storm, will be the second hurricane in two months to significantly affect ports on the U.S. eastern seaboard. Eastern North Carolina in particular is only now recovering from Florence.The U.S. Coast Guard has set conditions X-Ray for ports in Georgia and South Carolina in preparation for Hurricane Michael. The storm is now expected to make landfall by Wednesday afternoon. While gale force winds are expected within the next 48 hours, these ports can remain open to commercial traffic.

The National Hurricane Center has announced a Hurricane Warning is in effect for the Cuban province of Pinar del Rio. A Hurricane Watch is also in effect for the Alabama-Florida border to Suwannee River Florida.A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for Suwannee River to Anna Maria Island Florida, including Tampa Bay and for the Alabama-Florida border to the Mississippi-Alabama borderAt 700 AM CDT (1200 UTC), the center of Tropical Storm Michael was located near latitude 20.9 North, longitude 85.1 West. Michael is moving toward the north near 7 mph (11 km/h).

Port Canaveral staff were on hand to welcome the captain and crew of the Höegh Sydney roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) vessel on her inaugural visit to the Port. The Sydney’s arrival at Port Canaveral is the first U.S. port call for the vessel on a transit that originated in East Asia. The Höegh Autoliners vessel represents the fourth vehicle carrier to call on Port Canaveral and the first auto imports to arrive direct from Asia. More than 800 cars destined for Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina dealerships arrived at Port Canaveral on the Höegh Sydney and were discharged within six hours of the vessel’s arrival. “The first vehicle to roll off Höegh Sydney signifies Port Canaveral’s entrance into the direct from Asia import market.

The Southeast United States is expected to be hit with fuel shortages in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, as the storm barrels toward one of the largest energy-consuming regions in the country. Some states are already experiencing supply constraints as motorists fill up tanks as an emergency precaution. The region is not known for energy production, but there are significant storage facilities directly in the path of the storm that have already been evacuated. Roads in Florida…

Hurricane Matthew, the fiercest Caribbean storm in nearly a decade, strengthened as it barreled toward the southeastern United States on Thursday after killing at least 140 people, mostly in Haiti, on its deadly northward march. As Matthew blew through the northwestern Bahamas on Thursday en route to Florida's Atlantic coast, it became an "extremely dangerous" hurricane carrying winds of 140 miles per hour (220 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. That made it a Category 4 hurricane and it was likely to remain so as it approached the United States…

Strong winds and heavy rainfall were expected across the southeastern United States on Tuesday even as the center of Tropical Storm Colin was moving into the Atlantic Ocean. The storm was 90 miles (145 km) southwest of Charleston, South Carolina, at 4 a.m. eastern time (0800 GMT) and moving at 31 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said. A tropical storm warning was in effect from the Altamaha Sound Georgia to Oregon Inlet in North Carolina on Tuesday morning. On its forecast path, Colin was to barrel along the coast of the southeastern United States before moving out to sea during the day. As 50 mph winds were expected in the region, a tornado was reported in Lee County Florida, the National Weather Service said.

Two cargoes of Argentine wheat were scheduled to arrive at port in Wilmington, North Carolina, shipping data showed on Friday, indicating a rare situation where U.S. buyers actually find it cheaper to purchase imported grain than abundant domestic supplies. Argentina's wheat prices tumbled last month after the country devalued its peso and scrapped export taxes. The South American country also sold large volumes to top global wheat importer Egypt for the first time in years. Chatter circulated that hog producers in the southeastern United States were buying feed-quality Argentine wheat that was priced at a discount both to U.S. corn and U.S. wheat. North Carolina port data showed vessel Nord Capella with an estimated U.S. arrival of Feb. 5 and the vessel due on Feb. 14.

Cargill Inc next week is likely to load 50,000 tonnes of Brazilian corn bound for the United States, shipping data showed on Wednesday, in what is expected to be the first of several bulk vessels of South American grain that will be imported here this year. Hog and poultry producers in the Southeastern United States purchased two vessels of corn from South America for arrival in August and September while at least one other vessel was likely to arrive by March, three U.S. corn export traders said. Cargill was the listed shipper for the Nord Voyager vessel, which was due to load the 50,000 tonnes of corn at the Brazilian port of Santarem, according to Williams Shipping Agency data. A spokesman for Cargill, which has a port terminal in Santarem, declined to comment.

Brunswick Commercial & Government Products (BCGP) added a new model to its IMPACT RHIB product lineup. The 8.5-meter IMPACT 850 D is a hard sided RHIB featuring a hybrid air/foam-filled collar with a solid fiberglass gunnel. The 850 D melds the characteristics of an air-holding and foam-filled insert collar to create a boat that features a solid fiberglass gunnel with the benefits of a collar. “When we originally launched the IMPACT series in 2009, our intent was to offer customers a solution for boarding situations…

The SC Ports Authority handled 152,917 twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, in January, marking an 18 percent boost in container volumes over the same month last year. January container traffic pushed fiscal year to date TEU volumes past the 1 million mark, with 1,072,438 TEUs moved since the period began in July. Fiscal year to date, TEU volumes are up 14 percent year over year. As measured in pier containers, SCPA moved 88,619 boxes in January. With 614,372 boxes handled fiscal year to date, pier container levels are up 15 percent compared to the same period last year.

Britain has sold a shipment of feed wheat to a buyer in the United States, marking the first significant volume in two-and-a-half years, two traders said on Monday. Around 25,000 metric tons of British feed wheat is expected to be shipped from the port of Harwich in the coming days, coinciding with the country's return to being a net exporter after a two-season hiatus, the sources said. "They've used U.K. wheat before, it must have calculated at some point," one of the traders said. British wheat production rebounded this year after adverse weather curbed output for two seasons. The last time Britain sent a significant volume of feed wheat to the United States was in March 2012, when 47,250 tonnes was shipped, customs data showed.

Deep-ocean exploration company Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. has completed the current phase of the recovery operations on the SS Central America shipwreck project. The recovery ship, Odyssey Explorer, has returned to Charleston, South Carolina, for necessary repairs and installation of new equipment, which is expected to take approximately two to three weeks. In addition to more than 15,500 gold and silver coins, 45 gold bars and hundreds of other gold nuggets, gold dust, jewelry and artifacts recovered from the shipwreck site over the past five months…

Organizers of Jacksonville Port Authority's (JAXPORT) biennial 'Logistics & Intermodal Conference' have released the list of panel topics for discussion at the upcoming 2015 conference. The overall theme for 2015 is "Challenges Facing Shippers in South Atlantic Ports,” and the conference will feature five panel discussions sharing insights, solutions and successes. Panelists will be announced soon and will include senior executives from major ocean carriers, railroads, shippers and service providers. JAXPORT’s conference is designed for senior level executives in logistics and transportation, offering a unique opportunity to network with industry leaders and hear speakers from around the country discussing topics of interest to decision makers.

William Wachel has been named a Senior Supervising Engineer, Ports and Marine, in the Houston office of Parsons Brinckerhoff, a global infrastructure strategic consulting, engineering, and program/construction management organization. In his new position, Wachel will manage ports and marine projects throughout Texas and the Southeastern United States. Wachel comes to Parsons Brinckerhoff following 25 years with the Port of Houston Authority. He most recently served as Managing Director in the agency’s engineering department…

Hoover Container Solutions (Hoover), a subsidiary of Hoover Group, Inc., has announced the grand opening of its new distribution and service center in Scott, La. The opening of this facility will provide an increased ease of operation for Hoover products and services to the Gulf of Mexico and the southeastern United States. The new distribution and service center sits on nine acres and is comprised of 25,000 square feet of warehouse and 3,000 square feet of office. Overseen by Robbie Monlezun…