Energy Market News

The U.S.’ largest energy export gateway and Europe’s leading industrial deepsea port have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding that will allow the two global entities to collaboratively improve their global maritime operations.The Port of Corpus Christi and the Port of Rotterdam have outlined a number of shared objectives, which include codeveloping trade and commercial opportunities, fostering an exchange of information, and advancing the development and deployment of innovative technologies specifically related to navigational safety and environmental protection.Sean Strawbridge…

SBM Offshore forecast that 2021 core earnings will be slightly below market expectations, the multinational oil firm said on Thursday, noting 2020 challenges will spill into 2021 as many of its clients had to cut budgets.The Dutch company, which supplies floating oil and gas production vessels, forecasts earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of around $900 million in 2021, missing a company-provided consensus for an EBITDA of $926 million."COVID-19 affected our clients and the wider energy market and impacted our operations and projects…

Dublin-based Irish Commercial Charter Boats (ICCB) has ordered a bespoke 12-meter landing craft to support a wave of offshore energy projects on the horizon. The Chartwell Marine-designed vessel will be built at the Arklow Marine shipyard starting this month for schedule delivery in summer 2021.With a number of large-scale energy projects coming to Irish waters, the aluminum vessel has been developed to meet ICCB’s expanding operational requirements, including surveying, assisting with cable landing and transporting supplies and personnel to near-shore offshore installations.

Brazilian oil giant Petrobras will concentrate its European commercial activities in Rotterdam. This will result in the transfer of Petrobras Europe Ltd.’s commercial activities from London, England to Petrobras Global Trading B.V. in Rotterdam. The change will start in the next quarter and must be completed by the second half of 2021.The focus on Rotterdam is in line with the Petrobras policy of rationalizing its international presence in 2021, taking into account the world’s three major oil markets: Europe, North America and Asia.

Floating wind farm foundations specialist Ideol has signed a letter of intent with the Port of Cromarty Firth in the UK, that could create more than five hundred new Scottish construction jobs.The agreement would see the French-based company and its future local construction partners use the Port’s land and Firth berthing sites and cooperating towards further developing the facilities and infrastructure to establish a concrete hull serial manufacturing yard for incoming floating wind tenders.

Naval architecture and marine engineering firm Elliott Bay Design Group (EBDG) s aid it has hired two new employees to fill positions of retiring employees.Joseph Cardella joins the company as a project manager and is based out of the Covington, La. office. He will lead and manage diverse marine projects along the Gulf Coast, supporting clients with their engineering needs.Cardella has over 13 years of experience as a naval architect and project engineer within the maritime field.

Singapore's Energy Market Authority (EMA) and Keppel Offshore & Marine have jointly awarded a research grant to pilot Singapore’s first floating Energy Storage System (ESS). This project was awarded to a consortium led by Envision Digital International Pte Ltd (Envision Digital), aspart of the $10 million partnership between EMA and Keppel O&M  - announced in April 2020 - to develop innovative energy solutions in the marine sector.Keppel O&M said Monday it would work with the consortium to deploy a 7.5 MW/7.5MWh lithium-ion battery ESS on Keppel O&M’s Floating Living Lab (FLL).

Kongsberg Maritime, under a contract with maritime services and solutions provider MacGregor, will deliver a Pile Gripper Guidance System (PGGS) for OHT's offshore wind foundation installation vessel Alfa Lift.The Alfa Lift will be the world’s largest custom-built offshore wind foundation installation vessel, equipped with a 3,000t main crane. The ship’s 10,000+ m² ‘smart’ deck will carry up to 14 XL monopiles per voyage and will also be fully submersible to a depth of 14.66m.

Coastwise Offshore Services and Next Generation Shipyards signed a contract for the building of a new type of vessel, an aluminum vessel for the offshore wind-industry, with an option for three additional vessels. The signing took place at Next Generation Shipyards on Lauwersoog, the Netherlands. The new boat aims to combine the stability of a catamaran with the speed and fuel efficiency of a monohull, and the building of the vessel was at the initiative of Coastwise Offshore Services, the new shipping enterprise owned by Eelko Wijdieks, Douwe van den Berg and Onno Nienhuis.

Iran has slashed crude oil production to its lowest level in four decades as storage tanks and vessels are almost completely full due to a fall in exports and refinery run cuts caused by the coronavirus pandemic, industry data showed.Total onshore crude stocks surged to 54 million barrels in April from 15 million barrels in January, and swelled further to 63 million barrels in June, according to FGE Energy.Market intelligence firm Kpler estimated Iranian average onshore crude storage for June to be around 66 million barrels.That is around 85% of available onshore storage capacity."However…

In today’s energy industry, things are moving fast. The upheaval brought about by COVID-19 and exacerbated by the Russia-Saudi Arabia oil price war has been so profound that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has described the situation as “a once in a century event for energy demand”. This is supported by current IEA predictions which suggest a 6% drop in global energy demand in 2020 – seven times worse than the plunge in demand that followed the 2008 recession.Amid what the IEA has dubbed a “dismal” year for fossil fuels…

Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) has ordered the first commercial unit of a new Corvus Energy high-density lithium-ion capacitor energy storage system (ESS) Blue Marlin.According to Corvus, which plans to market the system to the offshore energy market, the Blue Marlin uses lithium-ion capacitor (LiC) cells that sustain very high charge/discharge rates of 550 C peak and 200 C continuous, enabling both energy recapture and fast discharge for high-power load handling. It can deliver beyond a million cycles with minimal capacity loss…

As COVID-19 and a historically weak energy market wreaks havoc on maritime, Takeshi Okamoto, Corporate Officer and General Manager of Public Relations Team, ClassNK, tells Maritime Reporter & Engineering News in its May 2020 edition that the pandemic will effectively help to fast track portions of its ClassNK Digital Grand Design 2030 strategy, particularly "where we have a great interest in expanding evaluation methodologies using digital technology to substitute the current physical evaluation methods."Takeshi Okamoto was part of Maritime Reporter's report on 'Class'…

As COVID-19 and a historically weak energy market wreaks havoc on the maritime industry, Christopher J. Wiernicki, CEO, American Bureau of Shipping, tells Maritime Reporter & Engineering News in its May 2020 edition that “COVID-19 will function as threat, a disruptor and catalyst for change, driving class further away from calendar maintenance towards predictive operations. The industry will accelerate its digitally driven movement into condition-based approaches and real-time…

As COVID-19 and a historically weak energy market wreaks havoc on maritime, Knut Ørbeck-Nilssen, CEO Maritime, DNV GL, tells Maritime Reporter & Engineering News in its May 2020 edition that this could be the beginning of a Renaissance period for the industry. "Everything will be looked at with new eyes, it’s going to be a renaissance for the maritime world and I think we’ll have a lot of innovation and new ideas," said Ørbeck-Nilssen. "Things that we’ve traditionally done for years simply will not hold up…

Keppel Offshore & Marine, an offshore construction subsidiary of Singapore's Keppel Corp, expects challenging conditions ahead due to the drop in oil prices but says its business diversification into gas and renewables has paid off.The company has traditionally been called an "offshore rig builder" as this was the Keppel O&M's core business in the heydays before the 2014-16 collapse in oil prices when oil fell from over $100 a barrel to below $30.However, with offshore drilling rig orders dwindling…

The United States called on China on Saturday to stop "bullying behavior" in the South China Sea and said it was concerned by reports of Beijing's "provocative actions" aimed at offshore oil and gas developments in the disputed waters.Three regional security sources told Reuters on Friday that a Chinese government survey ship was tagging an exploration vessel operated by Malaysia's state oil company Petronas in those waters.The vessel Haiyang Dizhi 8 was earlier this week spotted off Vietnam, where it had last year conducted suspected oil exploration surveys in large expanses of Vietnam's exclusive economic zone."The United States is concerned by reports of China's repeated provocative actions aimed at the offshore oil and gas development of other claimant states," the U.S.

Singapore-based offshore rig builder Keppel Offshore & Marine has partnered up with Energy Market Authority (EMA) to develop energy solutions in the areas of distributed energy resources, digitalization and emerging low carbon alternatives.As part of the $10 million partnership, EMA and Keppel O&M are launching a grant call for solutions relating to energy storage systems and smart power grids for the offshore and marine environment. "These solutions should seek to reduce overall energy usage and carbon footprint while enhancing overall operational efficiency.

Renewables recruitment outfit ERSG has opened an office in Tokyo, Japan and has appointed Samuel Griffiths as country manager.Samuel has lived in Tokyo for 20 years and has been recruiting in the Japanese market for more than 15 years, he is therefore ideally placed to head up their Tokyo office. He will be supporting the business in the renewables and engineering sectors across the APAC region."The Tokyo office compliments ersg’s first move into Asia via Taipei, Taiwan last year and cements their position as market leaders in delivering highly specialized local recruitment solutions to the global renewable energy industry," said a release from the specialist energy recruitment company.According to IRENAs Future of Wind report Asia is poised to become the world’s dominant wind market…

Golar Power, which offers integrated liquefied natural gas (LNG) based downstream solutions, and Petrobras Distribuidora S.A. (BR Distribuidora) announce the formation of a Partnership for the development of an LNG distribution businesses in Brazil. According to a press release, the intention is to introduce LNG as an alternative to the fuels currently available to Brazil’s cargo and people transportation, industrial, thermoelectric generation, commercial and residential sectors.Both Golar Power and BR Distribuidora believe that LNG is an innovative and potentially disruptive solution for the transportation sector in Brazil that delivers environmental benefits as well as important economic gains for customers, society and for Brazil as a whole.

French electricity giant Électricité de France (EDF) is moving into the Irish energy market.EDF Renewables, a subsidiary of the French energy utility, has acquired a 50% stake in the Codling offshore wind project from Hazel Shore, a company linked to the property developer, Johnny Ronan.EDF Renewables will develop and build the project alongside Fred Olsen Renewables, which owns the other 50% stake in 1100MW Codling Wind ParkIt is the first investment by the international energy player in the Republic.The Codling project is located south of Dublin, 13 km off the coast of County Wicklow thus benefiting from the favorable conditions for offshore wind off the east coast of Ireland. The initial development work started in 2003.

While it is generally agreed that the nascent offshore wind energy market in the U.S. will be a newbuild market, there is a repair and conversion possibility for some stacked OSVs.Though estimates on the pace of the offshore wind energy market in the U.S. vary widely, the direction is clear: offshore wind will be a huge marketplace for construction and support vessels to be deployed in U.S. waters over the next decade. The starting point for estimated vessel demand is the raft of projects along the U.S. East Coast, and to a lesser extent, in the Pacific waters, now in the pipeline.

Lithuanian company AB Klaipedos Nafta (KN) has been appointed as the operator of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the Brazilian Port of Açu.To execute the contract, KN has established a company in Brazil and plans to form a team of up to 30 local specialists in 2020.KN, KN Açu Serviços de Terminal de GNL Ltda. (Brazilian SPV) and Gas Natural Açu (GNA), which is a joint venture among Prumo Logistica, BP and Siemens, signed an operation and maintenance services agreement for the provision of the relevant services.Following the signing of the agreement, KN assumes the responsibility for the provision of safe, reliable and efficient operations…