Baltic Coast News

On March 12, Havariekommando, Germany’s Central Command for Maritime Emergencies (CCME), held a naming ceremony for its latest vessel, a Damen Multi Cat (MuC) 2309. The vessel, named Lütt Matten, will operate out of Sassnitz on the Baltic island of Rügen, providing emergency response capabilities. Havariekommando is responsible for performing maritime emergency management in the German Baltic and North Seas. The Damen MuC 2309 is a versatile vessel providing the capability to perform a wide range of duties including transport, monitoring and oil spill recovery.

dship Carriers from Hamburg has selected Liebherr’s LS 250 heavy-duty cranes to equip at least four of the ships in its fleet.The LS 250 cranes are designed to comply with the requirements of the St. Lawrence Regulations. These regulations apply to ships navigating the St. Lawrence Seaway and connecting the Great Lakes in Canada with the Atlantic Ocean.Manufactured at Liebherr’s Rostock site at the German Baltic coast, the eight cranes will be delivered to a Chinese shipyard in 2026.

A tugboat has stopped a tanker carrying around 99,000 metric tons of oil from Russia from drifting out of control off Germany's Baltic Sea coast near the island of Ruegen, emergency services said on Friday.The 274-metre (899-foot) Panama-flagged tanker, called Eventin, and travelling from Russia to Egypt, had been drifting slowly and unable to manoeuvre since earlier on Friday, Germany's Central Command for Maritime Emergencies said.A tugboat was holding it in position and others were en route, CCME said, adding it was evaluating next steps. Evacuation of the 24-member crew was not necessary, it said."Russia endangers our European security not only with its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine but also through severed cables ...

On Nov. 18, hours after two communication cables were severed in the Baltic Sea, 30 NATO vessels and 4,000 military staff took to the same body of water for one of northern Europe's largest naval exercises.The 12-day 'Freezing Winds' drill was part of a push to step up the transatlantic defence alliance's protection of infrastructure in waters that carry 15% of global shipping traffic and are seen as increasingly vulnerable to attack.The Baltic Sea is bordered by eight NATO countries and Russia.

A new floating reception terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) off the German Baltic Coast should be operational from the first quarter of 2024, gas pipeline operator Gascade, which is building its onshore connection, said on Wednesday.Located off Mukran on the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen, the terminal will host two floating storage and reception units (FSRUs) for LNG deliveries into the German mainland and for exports to eastern European neighbours, as the region ends reliance on Russian pipeline gas."All things going well…

Norway's Höegh LNG is in talks to supply more of its floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) to several European countries seeking alternatives to Russian gas, its CEO said.The sharp drop in piped Russian gas exports to Europe in the wake of the Ukraine war has resulted in a dash for FSRUs to allow diversification with liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports.Höegh LNG has already committed five vessels, half of its FSRU fleet, to European projects, and combined they will provide 25-35 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year of regasification capacity next year, Erik Nyheim said in an intervi

KfW IPEX-Bank, leading a consortium consisting of six international banks, is structuring the financing of two cruise ships for Genting Hong Kong Ltd. and its brand Dream Cruises.The Global Class I and II ships are currently being built in the three shipyards of MV Werften located on the Baltic Coast in the German federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.The financing package comprises around EUR 2.6 billion with a total investment volume of just under EUR 3.1 billion.The structure will be backed by export credit guarantees of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Finnish export credit agency Finnvera, as well as by a guarantee from the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

The SCHOTTEL After Sales Team has carried out a modernization on two double-ended ferries operated by FinFerries. Both vessels, capable of holding either 14 cars or up to 60 tons of payload, were originally equipped with various propeller systems manufactured in different years. For the retrofit, the state-owned operator requested a tailor-made concept to allow the same propeller assembly to be used. At the same time, the solution had to be quick and easy to install.In each ferry, two SCHOTTEL Rudderpropellers type SRP 150 have been installed.

Royal Dutch Shell has decided to withdraw from the Baltic liquefied natural gas (LNG), its joint project on the Russian Baltic coast with Gazprom after the Russian gas holding decided to change the concept of the project’s development.“Following Gazprom’s announcement on March 29 regarding the final development concept of Baltic LNG, we have decided to stop our involvement in this project,” Cederic Cremers, Shell Russia’s chairman, said in a statement.According to Reuters, the development comes as Western firms struggle to expand in Russia because of pressure from sanctions imposed by the United States, while for Gazprom it could mean limited access to Shell’s technology as well as the need to fund the project without the help of the Anglo-Dutch major.Shell…

A consortium of western companies and Russia's Gazprom that is due to build the controversial subsea Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany said on Tuesday it was starting preparatory work in the Greifswald bay off Germany's Baltic coast."Five dredgers are now working on the trench for the two pipeline strings," the consortium, based in Switzerland's Zug, said in a press release. Nord Stream 2 will consist of two pipelines running in parallel."Preparatory works are in accordance with the Stralsund mining authority's planning approval," it said.

LNG Gorskaya, a privately-owned Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer, has launched a 340 million euro ($379 million) project to become the first LNG exporter from Russia's European coast, its CEO told Reuters. Russia expects to send LNG to Europe by the end of 2017 from its distant Arctic peninsula of Yamal but a plant on its Baltic coast could establish the country as a more immediate supplier of LNG in a region already dependent on piped Russian gas. The company will build a floating LNG plant off the port of Gorskaya, not far from Saint Petersburg, which will be fed by a 12 km pipeline from Gazprom. The LNG will then be shipped to seven Baltic ports outside Russia using three tankers already on order from Russia's United Shipbuilding Corporation.

The Damen Shipyards Group informs it has signed a contract with the Dutch and Swedish Ministries of Defense for a seven-year, in-service maintenance contract covering a total of five tugs, all of which were purchased from Damen. The agreement with the Royal Netherlands Navy (RNLN) covers three Damen ASD 2810 Hybrid tugs. Two of these, the Noordzee and Waddenzee, were delivered in February and April respectively. The third, named the Zuiderzee, is due for delivery in June. Their maintenance will be provided by the nearby Damen Shipyards Den Helder.

The planned 18 kilometre-long immersed tunnel will connect Denmark and Germany as part of the Scandinavian-Mediterranean corridor, one of the EU’s nine priority network corridors. Detailed knowledge of the subsurface soil properties is key for the proper design and execution of this challenging tunnel construction, for which the world’s largest construction and marine dredging companies are amongst the bidders. Fugro will deploy two jack-up rigs in the Fehmarnbelt seaway between the Danish island of Lolland and Fehmarn on Germany's Baltic coast. In July 2015 Fugro’s highly experienced geotechnical team will perform down-hole CPT (cone penetration testing), drilling and geotechnical laboratory work in water depths between 3 and 10 metres.

German propulsion giant Schottel looks back at five decades of  controllable-pitch propeller (CPP) development. CPPs have been developed and produced on the Baltic coast of Germany since 1962 – initially in Rostock, and then in Wismar from 1964. The first units were manufactured for 86 freezer-trawlers of type Tropik for the Soviet Union. Four additional types were produced for GDR fishery vessels. The first years of controllable-pitch propeller production in Wismar centered on systems with a power rating of 1…

Controllable-pitch propellers have been developed and produced on the Baltic coast of Germany since 1962 – initially in Rostock, and then in Wismar from 1964. The first units were manufactured for 86 freezer-trawlers of type Tropik for the Soviet Union. Four further types were produced for GDR fishery vessels. The first years of controllable-pitch propeller production in Wismar centered on systems with a power rating of 1,930 kW for 199 freezer-trawlers of type Atlantik. A total of 230 controllable-pitch propeller systems were delivered up to the end of 1969.

The recent installation of two LPS 600s in Poland underlines the strong demand for Liebherr’s tailor-made portal solution. Booth machines are equipped with the unique Pactronic hybrid power booster and strengthen Liebherr’s market-leading position. Two LPS 600s for dedicated bulk handling have recently been delivered and installed in the center of the southern Baltic coast. Both cranes will soon start operation in the port of Gdansk, Poland. The port handles various commodities and bulk material handling is of high importance as it accounts for more than 25% of the total cargo handling.

ABB shore-to-ship power connection installed in Port of Ystad enables vesels to shut down their diesel generators to reduce pollution and noise. Shore to ship power connection is sometimes known as AMP, Alternative Maritime Power. Located on the southern tip of Sweden on the Baltic coast, Ystad is Sweden’s fifth largest port, handling some 3,500 sailings annually, including daily ferry services to Poland and Denmark, as well as cruise ships in the summer and cargo vessels all year round.

Even for Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), the world’s largest shipyard group, it was a remarkable occasion. In a quadruple naming ceremony at HHI’s Ulsan shipyard on July 2, Rickmers Group christened four ultra-large container ships (ULCS) of 13,100 TEU each. Each of the four ships, Pearl Rickmers, Ruby Rickmers, Aqua Rickmers and Coconee Rickmers, has a service speed of 24.3 knots. They have been chartered longterm to Maersk Line and will join Maersk’s “E-class” as Maersk Edinburgh, Maersk Emden, Maersk Eindhoven and Maersk Essen.

Fassmer-Shipyard this year celebrates its 150th year in business, and the companies' chronology is literally a case study in the effective use of and evolution of marine materials. Founded as a one-man boatyard by Johann Faßmer in Bardenfelth in 1850 for the purpose of boat building, the company has evolved from a one-man shop producing wooden boats for hydraulic engineering and fishery to a dynamic medium-sized company, which today builds everything from a 177 ft. (54 m) fishing surveillance craft to a wide range of lifeboats, tenderboat and fast rescue boats for the cruise and ferry markets. Fassmer-Shipyard was literally built of wood, wooden boats that is, and the company served the aforementioned commercial market for its first 30 years admirably.

Coastguards battled to pump out seawater gushing into a cargo ship holed below the water line after it collided with another vessel off Sweden's Baltic coast on Friday, a spokesman said. The 1,430-dwt cargo ship Geta was limping towards the southern Swedish port of Karlskrona as military salvage vessel Belos used heavy-duty pumping gear in a desperate struggle to keep it afloat. "We've put the pumps on board but we don't know if that will be enough," a coastguard spokesman said. The spokesman denied earlier reports that a crewmember from the Bahamas-registered vessel had been injured and airlifted to hospital. He said there were still no reports of injuries.

Two cargo ships collided on Friday off Sweden's Baltic coast near the southern town of Karlskrona, a coastguard spokesman said. The larger ship was about 328 ft. (100 m) and the smaller one, about 164 ft. (50 m), was taking in water, the coastguard spokesman added. There were reportedly no injuries. No further details were immediately available and it was not clear what the ships were carrying.

Wärtsilä Corp. has reported a healthy increase in orders for Sulzer RTA-series low-speed engines to be manufactured in the group's Trieste factory in Italy. This year orders have been booked for 16 such engines with an aggregate power of 351.7 MW for delivery to European shipyards. Together with Sulzer low-speed engines, the factory builds a wide range of four-stroke types from the Wärtsilä 26X through the Sulzer ZA40S up to the Wärtsilä 64 type. Since the factory came under Wärtsilä management in 1997, considerable efforts have been put intomaking the factory more competitive, not just within Europe but on a world basis. The first order this year was for four Sulzer 7RTA72U-B low-speed engines for the German shipyard Aker MTW Werft GmbH in Wismar on the Baltic coast.

The European Commission said it has approved a $5.5m regional investment aid package for the German shipyard Volkswerft Stralsund. The commission said the investment will enable the yard to build larger ships at competitive costs, thereby increasing the productivity of the yard without creating a result in a disproportionate capacity increase. The total investment will be $24.8m, with $5.5m paid as state aid, corresponding to 22.5 pct -- the maximum aid intensity allowed under the Framework on State aid to Shipbuilding. Germany said it would provide aid to Volkswerft Stralsund, situated on the Baltic coast in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in August 2005. The region has a standard of living is below the EU average and serious unemployment.