Hubei Province News

Schottel supplied main and auxiliary propulsion units for China’s first ice-breaking beacon vessel. Haixun 156, which will perform a wide range of tasks, has recently been launched by the contracted shipyard Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group, Hubei Province, China. It was ordered by the Tianjin Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) and is scheduled to enter operation in September 2021.The main propulsion of the beacon vessel includes of a pair of diesel-driven Schottel EcoPellers type SRE 460 (1,800 kW each) featuring a four-bladed 2.4 m-diameter propeller.

Damen Shipyards Group said it has laid the keel for a new crane barge that is going to be delivered in Panama, following award of tender in August last year. The barge is being built at Damen Yichang Shipyard in Hubei Province, China. The shipyard is almost back to full capacity following the recent coronavirus outbreak, with strict safety measures to protect the health and wellbeing of yard workers.The 75- by 32-meter Crane Barge 7532 will succeed, a 77-year old crane still in operation.

A special coating from Japan's Nippon Paint and US-based technology company Corning Inc, has been developed to protect workers from picking up viruses from painted surfaces.Nippon Paint's Antivirus Kids Paint, developed specifically for frontline hospital use, incorporates Corning Guardiant Antimicrobial Particles – a nascent technology designed to safeguard against viruses from adhering to hospital surfaces.Experts estimate that viruses can remain viable on some surfaces for several days…

Oil prices edged higher on Thursday as investors focused on the possibility of deeper supply cuts from the world's biggest producers, whilst largely shrugging off reports which cut demand forecasts after the coronavirus outbreak in China, the biggest oil importer.Brent crude was up 32 cents, or 0.6%, at $56.11 a barrel by 10:52 a.m. ET (1552 GMT), while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was up 14 cents at $51.31 a barrel.The energy complex was led higher by U.S. gasoline futures…

Japan's military prepared a chartered ferry on Wednesday to use as a quarantine ship that could house hundreds of suspected coronavirus cases as the number of infected people in the country rises.The 17,000 ton Hakuou was docked at the Yokosuka naval base near Tokyo, which is also the home port of the U.S. Navy's Ronald Reagan carrier. If put into service, the ship will initially take up to 94 people, but can accommodate more."Around 300 people could comfortably live on the ship and it has a maximum capacity for 500, although that would mean queues for the baths and other facilities," a Japan Self Defense Force official told Reuters.Preparations aboard the Hakuou come as health authorities placed more than 3…

The Wuhan coronavirus outbreak has placed the shipping industry on high alert amid a rising death toll in China and reports that the fast-spreading illness is reaching new shores.The flu-like coronavirus, first identified in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China on December 31, has killed more than two dozen people in China and is believed to have infected more than 900 worldwide, according to several media reports. Cases have been confirmed in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong, and internationally in travelers returning from China to Japan…

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for achieving high-quality economic growth through developing the Yangtze River economic belt. Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks at a symposium on promoting the development of the Yangtze River economic belt in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province. He stressed the importance of enhancing reform and innovation, strategic coordination as well as planning and guiding in developing the economic belt. "It is a major decision made by the CPC Central Committee and a major strategy concerning overall national development to promote the development of the Yangtze River economic belt," Xi said.

Severe floods are expected on China's Yangtze River this year due to a strong El Nino weather pattern, state media said, raising the risk of deaths and damage to property and crops along the country's longest waterway. The El Nino conditions are the strongest since records collection began in 1951, and resemble a 1998 weather pattern that flooded the river and killed thousands, the official Xinhua news agency said on Friday, citing vice minister of water resources, Liu Ning. "Precipitation in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the river is forecast to be as much as 80 percent more than normal from May to August," Xinhua said. Some Yangtze tributaries had already begun flooding and the flood control and drought relief situation was "extremely severe"…

Nearly 400 bodies are recovered from a Chinese ship that capsized on the Yangtze River. Only 14 survivors, one of them the captain, were found after the ship carrying 456 people sank on Monday night. Disaster teams found hundreds more bodies overnight and on Saturday morning after pulling the overturned river cruise boat upright with cranes and gradually raising it up from the currents of the river. Jiang Zhao, general manager of the company which operated the Eastern Star, bowed in apology for the disaster during an interview with state media on Friday, saying they would "fully" cooperate with the investigation. Authorities have attributed the capsizing of the river cruise ship Monday to a storm but also have placed the captain and first engineer under police custody.

Huge cranes righted the Eastern Star, the capsized Chinese cruise ship, but still submerged in water. The next step would be to lift it. Authorities said they would search every cabin, the official news agency Xinhua reported. The death toll from the cruise ship that capsized on the Yangtze River has climbed to 82, state media said, as authorities began righting the vessel and said there was no chance of finding anyone else alive. Xu Chengguang, a spokesperson with the Ministry of Transport, said at a press conference on Thursday night that chances of finding more survivors are fading. "Generally speaking, there is no chance of more survivors," he said, adding that it was time to start operation to right the ship, which will speed up the search process.

Relatives of more than 400 people missing after a cruise ship capsized on China's Yangtze River were hoping for a "miracle", as authorities said they were racing against time to find any survivors. Divers pulled three people alive from inside an overturned cruise ship and searched for other survivors, state media said, giving some small hope to an apparently massive tragedy with well over 400 people still missing on the Yangtze River. The disaster is one of the country's worst ever shipping accidents, but authorities are following a familiar playbook of media control and online censorship, say independent observers. Eighteen are confirmed dead and over 400 are still missing.

Ship capsizes in "tornado" on southern stretch of Yangtze. Rescuers fought bad weather on Tuesday as they searched for more than 400 people, many of them elderly Chinese tourists, missing after a cruise boat was buffeted by a freak tornado and capsized on the Yangtze River. The accident on Monday night is likely to end up as China's worst shipping disaster in almost 70 years. Divers and other rescue workers pulled five people they found trapped in the upturned hull of the four-deck Eastern Star, a fraction of the 458 people state media reported were on board when the ship capsized. Distraught relatives of some of the passengers scuffled with officials in the city of Shanghai, where many of those on board booked their trips, angry about what they said was a lack of information.

An intermodal shipping line connecting the Yangtze River city of Luzhou in Sichuan province and Wuhan in Hubei province, thence on to Taiwan will be launched by the end of this year, reports Xinhua. With the new service, Sichuan products, such as auto parts, mechanical or electronic products, will be shipped to Wuhan on smaller vessels and then be loaded onto larger near-sea ships for Taiwan, moving goods nearly four times faster door to door. Luzhou port, being the only river port in the region to offer sea-rail intermodal service, is an important port for trade cargo in the mid-west region. Last year, it handled 135,200 TEU, taking up 84 per cent of Sichuan's total. Source: Xinhua

Viking River Cruises (www.vikingrivercruises.com) set a world record with the christening of 10 new Viking Longships. “Today is a proud day for Viking and for river cruising. We are honored to showcase 10 of our revolutionary new Longships and to have had such a celebrated group of women helping us christen them,” said Torstein Hagen, Chairman of Viking Cruises. Guests at the christening ceremony enjoyed remarks by each godmother and a presentation on the growth of river cruising by Hagen.

China launches its largest & most advanced patrol vessel 'Haixun 01' in Wuhan, Hubei province. Haixun 01 is the first Chinese patrol vessel to simultaneously incorporate marine inspection and rescue functions. It will carry out missions regarding maritime inspection, safety monitoring, rescue, oil spill detection and handling, said Xu Guoyi, head of the Shanghai Maritime Bureau, which will manage the ship, which is expected to come into service in late 2012. The Haixun 01 is 128.6 meters in length with a design speed of 37 km per hour and  a maximum sailing distance of 10…

Yichang Marine Diesel Engine Co., Ltd. (YMD), a group company of China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC), has completed production of its first Mitsubishi-UE low-speed marine diesel engine under a technology licensing arrangement with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI). YMD, located in Yichang, Hubei Province, is expected to complete three more Mitsubishi-UE engines within this year, with plans calling for progressive expansion of engine production going forward. The first Mitsubishi-UE engine completed by YMD is the 6UEC43LSII, featuring a power output of 6,300 kW or 8,580 PS (pferdestarke) at 160 rpm (revolutions per minute).

A 19,800 dwt stainless steel chemical tanker vessel is the 60th ship being built with Germanischer Lloyd class at Qingshan Shipyard. The 10th anniversary of close cooperation between Qingshan Shipyard and Germanischer Lloyd is being celebrated on August 3 with a ceremony attended by more than 100 guests. Participants include the President of Chang Jiang Shipping Group Liu Xihan, the Vice Governor of Hubei Province Li Chunming, the Vice Mayor of Wuhan City Yue Yong and other representatives of local government and authorities. 27 vessels have been delivered since 1996, 33 ships are under construction and on order. In total, more than 750,000 dwt have been constructed with GL class at Qingshan Shipyard. Qingshan Shipyard has 3,800 employees and is located at the Yangzi River in Wuhan.

A Chinese cargo ship which was reported missing in the Bohai Sea of north China over two months ago has been found sunk in the sea with 10 people aboard missing, local maritime authorities said. The missing were unlikely to have survived, said an official with the Maritime Affairs Administration of Tianjin, a port city which is more than 70 nautical miles away from the site where the boat was found. The boat was reported missing on its way to Tianjin after it took some 500 tons of sand in Caofeidian, an island of northern Hebei Province in the Bohai on February 20 this year and bad weather was blamed for the accident, the official said. All the victims are from central China's Hubei Province and four boat owners were also missing from the accident, Xinhua news agency reported.