Clarkson News

▶ Medium-sized containerships to be built by 2028, supported by design, procurement, equipment, and strategic technology investmentHD Hyundai launched a strategic shipbuilding collaboration in the United States, signing with U.S.-based Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO) to establish a strategic and comprehensive partnership for the construction of U.S. commercial vessels.The signing ceremony was held on Friday, June 20, at ECO’s headquarters in New Orleans, Louisiana. The event was attended by Hannae Choi…

RWE Offshore Wind has awarded two long term agreements to Clarkson Port Services to support the operations and maintenance activities at its 1.6 GW Nordseecluster offshore wind project.The Dutch division of Clarkson Port Services will build a new warehouse facility in the port of Eemshaven.The new building, approximately 1,700 square metres in size, will be located in the Beatrixhaven on the premises of Clarkson Port Services.Construction of the new storage hall with adjoining office facilities is to start this summer…

Norwegian shipowners agree: the obsession with new fuels is eliding a valuable discussion of the potential of fuel efficiency. The Aurora-class has enabled Höegh Autoliners to reduce emissions by around 58% per car carried, “before we even use low carbon fuels,” CEO Andreas Enger said. “The debate between energy efficiency and the fuel transition, we consider to be irrelevant and pretty stupid,” he said. “It’s a no-brainer for a shipowner to do everything they can to reduce fuel consumption.“Fuel efficiency itself will yield substantial improvements…

Lloyd’s Register’s (LR) latest Fuel for Thought report states that LNG remains the dominant alternative marine fuel readily available to the shipping industry. The report highlights LNG’s growing adoption, its cost-effectiveness under tightening emissions regulations and the urgent need to address methane slip to ensure its future as a viable low-carbon fuel.Fuel for Thought: LNG reveals a significant resurgence in orders for LNG-capable vessels, with an expanding global fleet and rapidly growing bunkering infrastructure.

South Korea beat China in global shipbuilding orders in January, according to Clarkson Research Services data.South Korean yards received orders for 900,000 CGT for 13 ships, 62% of the global total. This included 12 LNG dual-fuel container ships ordered from HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering and one from Samsung Heavy Industries.Chinese yards received orders for 270,000 CGTs for 21 vessels, 19% of the global total.The global ship order volume in January was reported at 1.46 million CGT…

Clarksons Research have today released their latest Green Technology Tracker, including full year 2024 data points, charting the progress of alternative fuel uptake and investments in energy saving technologies across the global shipping fleet.Summarizing the latest Tracker, Steve Gordon, Global Head of Clarksons Research, commented: “With overall newbuild order volumes reaching their highest level since 2007, alternative fuel has continued to play a prominent role representing 50% of all tonnage ordered in 2024.

Fleet performance solutions provider Oceanly warns that the green fuels push may lead to increased global emissions.The challenge with scaling green fuels is the high demand for renewable electricity, with current estimates suggesting that the shipping industry would need a substantial share of the world’s renewable electricity production, which is a target that seems unattainable in the short to medium term.Lerche-Tornoe, General Manager at Oceanly said: “While alternative fuels are part of the future, current infrastructure and energy availability isn’t enough to support a full transition.

The renewal of the Panama merchant fleet is one of the quality objectives of the Panama Maritime Authority (PMA), which is why the entry of vessels under 15 years of age to the Panama Ship Registry is being prioritized.As a result, 57% of ships registered in 2024 have an average age of four years. These vessels come mainly from the Asian market, a region in which the Panamanian Registry has technical offices (Japan, Singapore, South Korea, China, Hong Kong and the Philippines).Among the strategies to improve the PMA indicators is also the recruitment of newly built vessels.

Chinese automakers and shippers are ordering a record number of car-carrying vessels to support a boom in EV exports, data showed, putting China on course to amass the world's fourth-largest fleet by 2028.China currently has the world's eighth-largest fleet with 33 car-carrying ships, showed data from shipping consultancy Veson Nautical. Japan has the world's largest with 283 ships, followed by Norway's 102, South Korea's 72 and Isle of Man's 61.But Chinese companies have 47 ships on order, accounting for a quarter of all orders globally.

Danish shipowner CBED has acquired two SOVs which are expected to be delivered end of Q1 2024. Following delivery from seller, Dutch-based shipping company Vroon, both Wind Evolution (formerly Vos Start) and Wind Creation (formerly Vos Stone) will be dry-docked for refurbishing, name change and painting according to the CBED fleet design. They will be ready to take on new walk-to-work, IRM and subsea projects starting Q2 2024. The parties have chosen not to disclose the sales amount.

The NGO Shipbreaking Platform has called for the safe and environmentally friendly recycling of the FSO Safer, currently being salvaged off the coast of Yemen.The UNDP is looking for a destination for the FSO’s recycling, and the Platform is calling on the Dutch government, one of the biggest donors to the Stop Red Sea Oil Pollution operation, to assist UNDP in identifying a suitable recycling facility. The Netherlands has shown leadership in preventing the environmental disaster an oil spill from the FSO Safer would have caused, says the Platform, along with Dutch company Boskalis, via its subsidiary SMIT Salvage, which has been tasked with the removal of the oil from the FSO.Referring to Dutch involvement in the Stop Red Sea Oil Pollution operation…

Guangzhou Shipyard International (GSI), part of China State Shipbuilding Corp, has recently taken the lead in orders LNG dual-fuel pure car truck carriers (PCTCs), reports China Daily.The company now has contracts to build 25 PCTCs after a recent contract signing for three 8,600 ceu dual-fuel PCTCs for an unnamed Asian company. Other orders include three 7,000 ceu dual-fuel PCTCs with Guangzhou Yuanhai Automobile Shipping and three LNG dual-fuel 7,000 ceu newbuilds from COSCO.Of the yards 25 PCTC orders, 11 are being built for overseas companies, including South Korea's H-Line Shipping.

Marine salvage, rescue, emergency response and specialized services company Resolve Marine announced the formation of a government relations departmentRetired Navy Capt. Gregg Baumann has been appointed government program manager to lead the effort from the Washington D.C. area. In this newly created role, Baumann is responsible for developing strategy and objectives to grow the company’s government services business, with a primary focus on the United States and Canada. He will also oversee government business development and project mobilization and de-mobilization…

Crowley has appointed Bob Karl as senior vice president and general manager of the company’s new business unit, Crowley Wind Services. As Crowley elevates the scope of its offerings in wind energy, Karl will lead the company’s wind services team in the strategic development and expansion of services to support the emerging sector. The development of a wind service business unit will see the company continue to leverage its expertise and assets to provide landside and marine logistic solutions throughout the wind lifecycle.

The South Korean government on Monday called on striking workers at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) to end their month-long siege of a dock at the company's biggest shipyard, which has paralyzed production and is delaying delivery of new vessels.Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho called the occupation "outright illegal" and pledged a "stern response based on law and order."The shipyard near the city of Geoje, off the country's south coast, is one of the world's largest.

As the maritime world collectively feels its way forward in a time now defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizers of the SMM in Hamburg, traditionally the world's largest and most influential maritime and shipbuilding trade event, share market overview insights on the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic throughout the the shipping industry.The Covid-19 pandemic has turned the world economy on its head. “The recession this year will likely be more severe, and recovery in 2021 will be slower than we anticipated two months ago…

As the maritime industry settles in on a COVID-19 induced ‘new norm,’ and long-range planning is dramatically shortened,, Nick Brown, Marine and Offshore Director, Lloyd’s Register, said that while much deserved focus must be paid to the current crisis, the industry cannot lose sight of another one looming just as large: climate change. “We strongly maintain that the climate emergency is an event of the same magnitude, just with a different time domain to COVID-19," Brown told Maritime Reporter & Engineering News recently.

China's business and travel activities are steadily recovering after being disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak, but rapidly rising infections globally will pose a challenge to the country's broader economic resumption.Nomura estimated in a research report on Monday about 61.6% of the firms hardest hit by the health crisis in China have resumed work as of March 8, and 74.1% in the broader economy.China reported on Monday no locally-transmitted cases of infection on the mainland outside of the central province of Hubei…

Dry bulk carrier owner and operator Oldendorff Carriers has signed a research agreement with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) to make its vessels more green and economical.Oldendorff, together with CBA and its campus collaborators including MIT's Sea Grant Program, will investigate disruptive improvements in ship design and propulsion to achieve the IMO 2030/50 requirements.The initial emphasis will be directed at improving hydrodynamic efficiency, which builds on work CBA has been doing with the aerospace and automotive industries. This looks beyond traditional naval architecture to a deeper integration of form and function.Anticipated research areas include morphing structures…

Bermuda-headquartered Nordic American Tankers (NAT) said that its tanker segment is on upswing mode following he strong market improvement for its Suezmax tankers."However, seeing is believing and if anyone had doubts, last week, the international shipbroking firm of Clarkson Platou Research reported the largest week-on-week increase in the history of their freight index,"pointed out the company.From Thursday to Friday last week, reported Suezmax rates jumped 60% on the day and 400% on the month, it said.NAT’s uniform fleet of 23 Suezmax tankers have 21 units trading in the open spot market, ready to benefit from strengthening freights.Presently the Suezmax spot market is reported to about $68,000/day, and rising.

For some years now, the maritime sector has experienced breaches of various computer and information technology (IT) systems. Primarily, these breaches have been collateral damage. The maritime sector has almost never been the intended target. That does not mean that the damage has been minor. In June 2017, A.P. Moller-Maersk suffered a major cyber-attack. The malware had been designed by Russian hackers to disrupt the Ukrainian power sector. Once released, though, it proved to be indiscriminate, infecting IT systems worldwide that had not been kept up to date. In the case of A.P.

Chinese shipbuilders Chinese shipbuilders took the top spot worldwide in terms of new orders in the first quarter of the year 2019.A report in Yonhap quoted data compiled by industry tracker Clarkson Research Institute that said the local shipyards garnered new orders totaling 2.58 million compensated gross tons (CGTs), or 35 vessels.South Korean shipbuilders came in second worldwide in terms of new orders in the first quarter of the year, said the report.Korean shipyards won new orders totaling 1.62 million compensated gross tons (CGTs) in the January-March period, equating to 35 ships.Italian firms came in third with 780,000 CGTs, or 10 ships.In the first quarter…

South Korean shipbuilders came in first worldwide in total new orders in February, outpacing Chinese rivals, Yonhap news agency said. It comes around 90 percent of the new vessel construction orders awarded in the month.According to the data compiled by industry tracker Clarkson Research Institute, Korean shipyards garnered new orders totaling 630,000 compensated gross tons (CGTs) in February to build eight ships (or 90 percent), out of the 700,000 CGTs (15 vessels).Third spot went to Japanese shipbuilders with 10-thousand CGT.In the first two months of 2019, Chinese shipbuilders won orders totaling 1.24 million CGTs (65 vessels or 41 percent)…