German Port News

A cargo ship from Russia earlier detained in Germany on suspicion of breaching sanctions is now free to leave the port of Rostock, the Stralsund main customs office confirmed on Friday without providing any further details.The Atlantic Navigator II carried 251 containers of birch wood destined for the United States, which is subject to EU sanctions against Russia, but not to the US ones, prosecutors have said.The vessel, which is managed by Canada-based CISN and sailing under the Marshall Islands flag, also has enriched uranium for some US clients, exempted from both US and EU sanctions, The O

A cargo ship leaving Russia that made an unscheduled stop at the German port of Rostock is under investigation there for carrying cargo in possible breach of sanctions, German authorities said on Wednesday.The Atlantic Navigator II, managed by Canada-based CSAL and sailing under the Marshall Islands flag, has been detained by German customs. On board are 251 containers of birch wood, which is subject to EU sanctions against Russia, prosecutors said."Investigations are under way against the captain of the freighter on initial suspicion of a violation of the Foreign Trade and Payments Act…

BYD's first chartered vehicle carrier has set sail from China's southern city of Shenzhen, carrying more than 5,000 electric vehicles to Europe, state media Xinhua reported on Tuesday.Chinese automakers including BYD, Chery Automobile and SAIC Motor, have been placing orders for vessels to counter rising shipping costs as they boost exports.The new roll-on, roll-off vehicle carrier named "BYD Explorer No.1" departed on Monday for Flushing Port in the Netherlands and the German port of Bremerhaven…

Boluda Towage has started towing services at the German port of Lubmin for the first installation of a floating LNG storage plant.The Deutsche ReGas LubminLNG import terminal will become the first operational FSRU-based facility in Germany. The floating storage and regasification unit is based inside the port of Lubmin, where an existing gas pipeline allows for a quick connection.In mid-December 2022, the 2009-built 145,000-cbm FSRU Neptune arrived in Germany’s port of Lubmin to serve the new LNG import terminal.

A tanker of U.S. sour crude was delivered at Germany's port of Rostock last week for the first time ever, according to sources, analysts and vessel tracking data, as local refiners test alternatives to Russian oil.The European Union plans an almost-complete embargo of Russian barrels by year-end, and is trying to wean itself off Russian crude imports, which have fed inland refineries in Germany, Poland and other central European nations via pipeline.Refiners plan to replace Russian oil with seaborne Norwegian, Saudi Arabian, British and U.S. crude grades. Russia has already shown through its natural gas exports that it is willing to cut off European destinations in a tit-for-tat over the EU's financial sanctions that followed Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February.

Germany's Tree Energy Solutions (TES), backed by Belgian firm AtlasInvest, said on Wednesday it would accelerate plans for a gas import terminal to be built at the northern German port of Wilhelmshaven in partnership with E.ON.It said it was bringing the project forward by about two years because of an energy crisis, which has been fueled by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.The terminal, to be built by 2025, would be used to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a transitional energy…

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…

Hydrogen company Tree Energy Solutions (TES), backed by Belgian investor group AtlasInvest, said on Wednesday it would build an LNG terminal in the German North Sea port town of Wilhelmshaven, business newspaper Handelsblatt reported on Wednesday.The terminal is down to receive investments of 25 billion euros by 2045 and scheduled to go into operation in three years, Handelsblatt added, and could bring up to 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Germany in the first few years."Our Wilhelmshaven project will account for 10% of the total annual primary energy demand of Germany by 2045…

Tug boats have towed free one of the world's biggest container ships, the Mumbai Maersk, which had run aground off the German island of Wangerooge in the North Sea, Germany's Central Command for Maritime Emergencies said on Friday."The Mumbai Maersk was towed free during a second attempt," the Central Command said in a statement on its website.

One of the world's biggest container ships, the Mumbai Maersk, has run aground off the German island of Wangerooge in the North Sea, Germany's Central Command for Maritime Emergencies and Maersk said on Thursday.No injuries were reported among the 30 people on board, no fuel leak sighted and the entrance to the port is not obstructed, they said in a statement.Maritime transport accounts for 80%-90% of all global trade and Mumbai Maersk belongs to a class of very large ships that can carry over 18,000 twenty-foot (33 cbm) equivalent containers holding furniture, vehicles, textiles and other export goods.A first attempt to tow the 400-meter ship into deeper water on Thursday morning by two multi-purpose vessels and five tugs failed.

Europe's third largest harbor, the German Port of Hamburg, reported a 2.9% hike in sea cargo in the first nine months of 2021 on Tuesday but warned that global transport chains would remain volatile for the rest of the year.Global trade has been marred by logjams in container ports caused by disruptions from unexpected demand spurts, labour shortages and traffic snarl-ups amid the coronavirus pandemic.The crisis has weighed particularly heavily on Germany, which is Europe's largest…

The consortium behind the Nord Stream 2 undersea gas pipeline said on Thursday a second Russian pipe-laying vessel is undergoing sea trials ahead of joining the project, as it presses on with construction despite growing political pressure.The vessel, the Akademik Cherskiy, left the German port of Wismar on Thursday with the intention of later joining the project in Danish waters, the consortium told Reuters.The United States has criticized the plan to build the pipeline from Russia to Germany…

The Russian pipe-laying vessel Fortuna has left the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline construction site in the Baltic Sea, Refinitiv Eikon data showed on Monday, indicating that the 2.6-km stretch of the project in German waters may have been completed.Fortuna was now heading for the north German port of Wismar, the data showed.The Fortuna earlier this month resumed work on the pipeline, which will pump gas directly from Russia to western Europe, bypassing Ukraine. Work had been suspended for a year due to the risks of sanctions from the United States.Nord Stream-2 did not respond to a request for comment on Monday on the latest developments.The pipeline…

EnBW Baltic 2 one of Germany’s largest offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea will soon be serviced from the Danish port of Klintholm on the island of Møn, EnBW said Tuesday. The company has so far had its service team of up to 25 people travel from Rostock to a hotel vessel close to the EnBW Baltic 2 offshore wind farm. A hotel and a service building are now being constructed in Klintholm [Denmark], from where the EnBW workers will be ferried to the wind farm in the mornings and evenings during their two-week duty roster.

Siem PCTCs sport MAN ES engines, turbochargers and propellers -- Each ship is estimated to cut CO2 emissions by up to 25%, NOx by up to 30%, particulate matter by up to 60%, and SOx almost completely.Siem Confucius and Siem Aristotle are the names of the new pure car truck carriers (PCTCs), significant in that they are the world’s first trans-Atlantic PCTCs  to operate full-time on LNG. Built for Siem Car Carriers at Xiamen Shipyard in China, both ships – which will transport…

Germany's Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy  Peter Altmaier and coastal states agree package of measures for shore-generated power.Instead of burning fossil fuels to generate shipboard electric power, in future vessels in port should be using renewable shore-based energy. The German government is now launching appropriate measures to promote shore-generated power.Along with the premiers of Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg and representatives of the state governments of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony and Bremen, that was confirmed today by German economics minister Peter Altmaier.Meeting in Kiel, they signed…

The visit of the cruise ship AIDAprima on Saturday, October 12, marked the end of the oceangoing cruise season in Kiel, and what a season it was with ship visits and passenger numbers up over 2018.In total the port was visited 174 times (2018: 169) by 32 different cruise ships with a total tonnage of 15 million GT (2018: 11.5). For the first time the port exceeded the 800,000 cruise passenger threshold (embarked or left a ship at the terminals) in Kiel (+ 33.6 %). The cruise and…

Another milestone for the establishment of LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) as marine fuel in Germany has been achieved. Nauticor successfully conducted the first ship-to-ship LNG bunkering operation in a German port. The trailing suction hopper dredger (TSHD) Scheldt River received the low emission fuel from the bunker supply vessel (BSV) Kairos.Today, the world’s largest LNG BSV Kairos conducted the first ship-to-ship bunkering operation in German waters. The vessel, which was christened in Hamburg on February 2019…

German port operator Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) increased its Group revenue by 3 percent to EUR 1.29 billion in the 2018 financial year (previous year: EUR 1.25 billion). The Group’s operating result (EBIT) of EUR 204 million (previous year: EUR 173 million) represents an increase of 18 percent.In total, 7.3 million standard containers (TEU) were handled at HHLA’s container terminals in the 2018 financial year. Compared to 7.2 million TEU in the previous year, this equates to an increase of 1.9 percent.Container throughput at the three container terminals in Hamburg remained at the high level achieved in the previous year, while throughput at the international HHLA container terminals in Odessa (Ukraine) and Tallinn (Estonia) increased.

The youngest ship in the fleet of TUI Cruises - “Mein Schiff 1” - has arrived in Kiel on her first visit. Kiel is the first German passenger seaport in which the new vessel has introduced herself, just a few days after she was handed over to her owners following completion in Turku, Finland. The new cruise ship, which is of more than 111,500 GT and 315 m long, arrived in the Kiel Fiord early on Thursday morning, April 27th, and was welcomed with a water fountain tribute from one of the port’s tugs and escorted to her berth. Crowds of onlookers lined the banks of the fiord and came to the Ostseekai Cruise Terminal to catch a glimpse of the brand new “Mein Schiff 1”.

Titan LNG, the leading LNG supplier to marine and industrial users in North West Europe, has successfully completed the first-ever LNG bunker delivery at Mukran Port on the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea.Truck deliveries enable delivery of LNG anywhere. For vessels that require LNG it is possible to be supplied in German ports at prices below the price of marine gasoil.“The approval process for obtaining clearance to bunker is becoming more standardized and approvals are received faster from the ports. LNG as a bunker fuel is gaining traction as the fuel itself, the financial and operational benefits are becoming well-known”, Jippe van Eijnatten…

The world’s first containership retrofitted with a liquefied natural gas (LNG) engine was launched on August 23, 2017. Since May 2017, the 1,000 TEU containership Wes Amelie, owned by Wessels Reederei based in Harem/Ems, has undergone an engine conversion at the German Dry Docks in Bremerhaven, and from this point forward will run on LNG fuel. Experts from the Hamburg based company Nauticor were selected to conduct the vessel’s initial LNG bunkering at the Kühlhauskai in the Port of Bremerhaven. In total, four trucks of LNG were brought to the German port and transferred to the vessel.

In the first of a series of marine industry sector reviews, MR&EN correspondent Tom Mulligan reports on the latest innovations in heavy lifting machinery technology with a selective overview of new product launches and recent equipment installations on board ships, ferries and workboats, as well as in ports, docks, harbors and shipping terminals worldwide. Markey Machinery’s Render/Recover and Asymmetric Render/Recover ‘active heave’ compensating winches have been recognized as…