Frank Jack Daniel News

Russia's lack of ships and Western grain traders' shrinking appetite for business with Moscow are adding to rising costs of moving Russian wheat, at a time when the war in Ukraine has spilled perilously close to vital Black Sea supply routes.President Vladimir Putin promised to replace Ukrainian grain with Russian shipments to Africa after Moscow in July ended an arrangement that gave Ukraine's food cargo safe passage in the Black Sea, imposing a de-facto blockade on its neighbour and attacking storage facilities…

A Liberian-flagged oil tanker set sail in May from Russia's Ust-Luga port carrying crude on behalf of a little-known trading company based in Hong Kong. Before the ship had even reached its destination in India, the cargo changed hands.The new owner of the 100,000 tonnes of Urals crude carried on the Leopard I was a similarly low-profile outfit, Guron Trading, also based in Hong Kong, according to two trading sources.The number of little-known trading firms relied on by Moscow to export large volumes of crude exports to Asia has mushroomed in recent months…

Syria's ports authority reopened all ports except Baniyas and al-Bassit ports on Thursday, after shutting them down a day earlier due to bad weather, state media reported. The war-ravaged country operates seven sea ports through which it brings in basic needs including food and petroleum (Reuters - Reporting by Nayera Abdallah, Writing by Ahmed Elimam; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)

President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday delivered Russia's long-awaited response to a Western price cap, signing a decree that bans the supply of crude oil and oil products from Feb. 1 for five months to nations that abide by the cap. The Group of Seven major powers, the European Union and Australia agreed this month to a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian seaborne crude oil effective from Dec. 5 over Moscow's "special military operation" in Ukraine. The cap is close to the current price for Russian oil…

Russia "will not accept" a price cap on its oil and is analyzing how to respond, the Kremlin said in comments reported on Saturday, in response to a deal by Western powers aimed at limiting a key source of funding for its war in Ukraine.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow had made preparations for Friday's price cap announcement by the Group of Seven nations, the European Union and Australia, the Russian state news agency TASS reported."We will not accept this cap," RIA news agency quoted him as saying.

At least two people died when two boats collided on Friday in the Dutch Wadden Sea close to Terschelling island, and two people are still missing, local authorities said.A ferry boat and a smaller water taxi collided early on Friday morning, causing people on board of the smaller boat to fall in the water.While four people were rescued shortly after the collision, two passengers died and two were still missing on Friday afternoon. Local media citing the coast guard reported the…

U.S. energy envoy Amos Hochstein will be in Beirut next week carrying a copy of the maritime agreement with Israel for Lebanese officials to sign, Lebanese negotiator Elias Bou Saab told Reuters on Wednesday. The deal - hailed by all three parties as a historic achievement - marks a diplomatic departure from decades of war and hostility and once in force will open the door to offshore energy exploration. "Hochstein will be in Beirut next week with the agreement that we will sign," Bou Saab said. He did not say when the deal would be signed.

Venezuelan police have arrested a fugitive Malaysian businessman nicknamed 'Fat Leonard' who is at the center of a major U.S. Navy bribery scandal, as he prepared to leave the country for Russia, Venezuelan Interpol said.Leonard Glenn Francis was detained at the country's main international airport on Wednesday under a red notification requested by the United States for crimes of corruption and bribery, the Interpol chief in Venezuela said in a statement posted on Instagram.The…

A ferry was back in the Swedish port of Nynashamn on Tuesday after a fire on the car deck temporarily knocked out its power, the Swedish Coast Guard said in a statement. The fire in a refrigerated container started at mid-day on Monday north of the island of Gotland as the Stena Scandica was heading to Ventspils in Latvia from Nynashamn. The fire was put out on Monday afternoon. No injuries were reported among the 241 passengers and 58 crew aboard, the Swedish Maritime Administration said.Suffering a power failure after the fire…

Ukraine asked Lebanon's top prosecutor on Wednesday to reopen a probe into a ship Kyiv says was carrying stolen grain that remains docked in Lebanon pending a seizure order.Ukraine says the Syrian-flagged ship, in the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli, is carrying some 10,000 tonnes of flour and barley plundered by Russia following its February invasion.Ukraine's ambassador to Lebanon, Ihor Ostash, told a news conference at the embassy near Beirut that the request to investigate further was based on new evidence gathered by a Ukrainian judge and handed over to Lebanon on Monday.The Lebanese prosecutor, Ghassan Oueidat, lifted a first seizure order on the Laodicea ship he had issued last week after finding no criminal offence committed.

Key arrangements including procedures for ships still need to be worked out before empty vessels can come in and pick up cargoes from Ukraine using the new grains corridor, a senior London marine insurance market official said on Monday.Turkey and the United Nations brokered a grain-and-fertilizer export agreement between Russia and Ukraine last month - a rare diplomatic breakthrough in a conflict that is grinding on with no resolution in sight."The standard operating procedures for vessels still need to be worked out and there are issues about crewing that still need to be resolved…

An Iranian-flagged tanker anchored off Piraeus port is expected this week to retrieve part of its cargo which was confiscated by the United States and sail back to Iran, following a Greek top court ruling, government sources said on Wednesday. The case has strained relations between Athens and Tehran amid growing tensions between Iran and the United States.The removal of oil from the Lana, formerly Pegas, prompted Iranian forces to seize two Greek tankers in the Middle East Gulf which have not yet been released. "The (Greek) Supreme Court's ruling...

A British crew member of the ship Scot Carrier has been found guilty in manslaughter and sentenced to 1.5 years in prison after a ship collision in December last year in the Baltic Sea that killed two Danish seafarers, Danish police said on Thursday.The 30-year old British man was on duty when the 55-meter (180 ft) barge Karin Hoj was in collision with the 90-meter (295 ft) Scot Carrier in fog and darkness off the Danish island of Bornholm.

A luxury yacht linked to Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who faces EU sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, is sitting in a shipyard in the German port of Hamburg and local authorities said there were no plans to deliver it to its owner.Hamburg authorities denied that they had seized the more-than-500-foot (150 meter) Dilbar superyacht, which boasts a 25-meter swimming pool and is worth nearly $600 million. Forbes had reported on Wednesday that it had been undergoing…

French customs have seized a yacht belonging to Rosneft boss Igor Sechin as it tried to leave the Mediterranean port of La Ciotat in a breach of EU sanctions on Russian oligarchs, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said.The move came as western states are implementing massive sanctions, including asset freezes, against Russia for invading its neighbor Ukraine. A separate nearly $600 million luxury yacht owned by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov has also been seized, by German authorities, Forbes reported. The 88-meter "Amore Vero" arrived in La Ciotat on Jan.3 and was due to stay there until April 1st for repairs, the finance ministry said in a statement…

France on Saturday seized a car cargo ship in the English Channel that Washington says was linked to the son of a former Russian spy chief, in one of the first visible displays of the West enforcing sanctions on Moscow over its Ukraine invasion.The "Baltic Leader" was headed to St. Petersburg but was diverted to the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. (0200-0300 GMT), Captain Veronique Magnin of the French Maritime Prefecture told Reuters.The vessel was "strongly suspected of being linked to Russian interests targeted by the sanctions," she said.The United States Treasury Department has issued blocking sanctions against the vessel because…

Sea rescue services from the Canadian city of Halifax found and recovered 10 bodies from a Spanish fishing trawler that sank in rough sea off the eastern coast of Canada, the services said late on Tuesday, though 11 of the crew are still missing.“Regrettably, Joint Rescue Coordination Center (JRCC) Halifax can confirm that an additional three deceased individuals have been recovered from the sunken fishing vessel,” the center said on its Twitter account. Earlier, it announced the recovery of seven bodies.Three surviving sailors from the trawler…

Chinese forces followed and warned away a U.S. warship which entered waters near the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, the country's military said on Thursday, but the U.S. Navy denied the ship had been warned off.The Southern Theatre Command of the People's Liberation Army said the USS Benfold "illegally" sailed into Chinese territorial waters without permission, violating the country's sovereignty, and that Chinese naval and air forces tracked the ship."We solemnly demand that the U.S.

European Commission proposals to bring shipping into the bloc's carbon market contain exclusions for small commercial and military vessels that would leave millions of tonnes of CO2 emissions unregulated, an NGO study showed on Thursday.With about 90% of world trade transported by sea, global shipping accounts for nearly 3% of the world's CO2 emissions. So far, the industry has avoided the EU's system of pollution charges.Under proposals announced in July 2021, shipping would be added to the European Union Emissions Trading System (ETS) from 2023 phased over a three-year period…

Three Cuban-flagged tankers that are under U.S. sanctions for transporting Venezuelan oil to the Communist-run island have been serviced in the port of Veracruz on Mexico's Gulf coast, according to vessel tracking data and industry sources.The maintenance work on the vessels—one of which was serviced as recently as this month—is a potential breach of sanctions on Venezuela, two lawyers who specialize in U.S. sanctions said.However, the United States has in the past not brought enforcement actions against shipyards for doing work on blacklisted vessels from those countries, according to U.S. Treasury Department data.Under U.S. law, companies and individuals are prohibited from materially assisting sanctioned entities.

Mexico's naval authorities on Tuesday ordered the closure of oil, cargo and passenger ports in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean ahead of Hurricane Delta, expected to sweep the Yucatan peninsula overnight.Ports shuttered to large ships included Dos Bocas in Tabasco and oil installations in Campeche.(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; editing by Drazen Jorgic)

Mexican authorities said on Sunday they had confiscated a vessel in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz and a warehouse in neighboring Tabasco along with storage tanks and trucks used by criminal groups to steal, transport and store hydrocarbons.Fuel theft has been a problem in Mexico for decades but President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has enacted a range of measures to stamp out the practice and crush corruption and organized crime.State oil company Petroleos Mexicanos said in a recent presentation that an estimated 106 billion pesos ($5.02 billion) had been saved since Lopez Obrador took office in December 2018.Various anonymous complaints about criminal groups siphoning off hydrocarbons from pipelines in the area led to the operation…

The trading arm of Mexican state oil company Pemex is mulling options to slash the number of fuel cargoes the country imports in May and June as demand plummets because of the coronavirus, three sources close to the talks told Reuters.Pemex last week declared force majeure over fuel supplies from its trading arm PMI Comercio Internacional after a bottleneck of more than 60 vessels built up outside Mexican ports, waiting to discharge.But PMI still has not declared force majeure…