Indonesian Island News

Plagued by mosquitoes at night and marauding monkeys by day, ship captain Glenn Madoginog was held for months at an Indonesian naval base before ending up in a cramped prison cell, sleeping alongside convicted murderers and child rapists.The Filipino father of four was one of dozens of captains held at the Batam naval base after being arrested for anchoring in Indonesian waters without a permit while waiting to enter Singapore, according to a dozen people involved in the cases, including captains, ship owners, intermediaries and insurers.Most of the captains were freed after a few weeks once ship owners made unofficial payments to navy intermediaries of between $300…

China’s saber-rattling around Taiwan underlines the need for Australia to be prepared for conflict in the South China Sea.With its growing navy and air force, and the bases it has built throughout the area, China is increasingly capable of disrupting shipping lanes crucial to Australia’s exports and imports.Chinese military bases across the South China Sea (© OpenStreetMap contributors)Of particular concern is our reliance on liquid fuels imported via South China Sea shipping routes. This reliance has become more pronounced over the past few decades as all but two local refineries have closed.

The captain of a fuel tanker arrested by the Indonesian navy in May on suspicion of illegally anchoring in its waters has been jailed for 15 days and fined 200 million rupiah ($13,350), a navy spokesman said on Wednesday.The Nord Joy, a Panama-flagged oil products tanker, was detained on May 30 whilst anchored in Indonesian waters to the east of the Singapore Strait, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.Indonesian navy officers asked for an unofficial payment of $375,000 to release the vessel, two people involved in the negotiations told Reuters at the time. The Indonesian navy denied any such payment was requested and said the vessel was being held for anchoring in its waters without a permit.

Indonesia's head of the armed forces said on Friday that he is investigating a Reuters report that navy officers asked for a payment of $375,000 to release a fuel tanker detained last week on suspicion of anchoring illegally in its waters.Navy officers at the Batam naval base, just south of Singapore, requested the unofficial payment to release the Nord Joy fuel tanker, two security sources involved in the negotiations told Reuters.The incident comes after Reuters reported a dozen similar detentions last year. In those cases, the ship owners made unofficial payments of about $300,000 each and the vessels detained by the Indonesian navy…

For a week the world was gripped by the extraordinary sight of a massive container ship that had run aground in the Suez Canal in Egypt. The Ever Given is 400m long (1,312ft) and weighs 200,000 tonnes, with a maximum capacity of 20,000 containers. It was carrying 18,300 containers when it became wedged in the canal, blocking all shipping traffic. Efforts to free it finally paid off when it was partially dislodged in the early hours of Monday 29 March. Adejuwon Soyinka asked maritime…

The number of ships fueled by liquefied natural gas (LNG) is expected to more than double by 2030, driven by the shipping industry's desire to cut emissions, a senior executive at Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) said on Wednesday.Currently, less than 400 out of a total of more than 80,000 registered ships, run on LNG as fuel source. This number could increase to 1,000 vessels globally by 2030, said Mohd Rafe Mohamed Ramli, head of global LNG bunkering at Petronas Marine.The shipping industry has been under pressure to reduce carbon emissions…

Pirates attacked a South Korean-flagged cargo ship in the South China Sea early on Monday, stealing thousands of dollars in cash and even the sailors' shoes, South Korean authorities said.Two people sustained minor injuries when seven pirates boarded the CK Bluebell and made off with $13,000 and belongings including mobile phones, clothes and shoes from the 22-strong crew, officials from the oceans and fisheries ministry said.Tougher policing has made piracy less frequent on the strategic shipping route in recent years.The dry bulk vessel CK Bluebell had set sail from its anchorage off Singapore on Saturday afternoon, heading northeast for South Korea's port of Incheon, Refinitiv Eikon ship tracking data showed.Korean officials said the ship was sailing normally after the robbery.The incid

China's Ministry of Transport has raised its security recommendation for Chinese vessels in the Malacca Strait, a major potential bottleneck for global oil, to the highest level, according to a notice dated July 2 sent to shipping companies.The level for Chinese vessels passing through and going to the strait was raised to "3" as of 10 p.m. on July 2 (1400 GMT), according to the notice, whose authenticity was confirmed by an official at the ministry.It said shipping firms "should…

At least 17 people, including four children, died after a motorboat sank in choppy waters off the Indonesian island of Java, a government official said on Tuesday.The 10-meter (33 ft) wooden vessel with 57 people on board was hit by high waves off Sumenep in East Java province on Monday, said Tholib, a spokesman for the search and rescue agency.Rescue teams saved 39 passengers and are searching for one missing person, he added.Indonesia, a vast archipelago, has a patchy transportation safety record, with frequent ferry accidents often caused by overcrowding.Last year, an overcrowded ferry with more than 200 passengers sank in Lake Toba in Sumatra. Eighteen people survived and nearly 200 are thought to have drowned in one of the world's deepest volcanic lakes.Reporting by Tabita Diela

Malaysia seizes 3,300 rare turtles from a boat in suspected trafficking caseMalaysian authorities seized about 3,300 rare pig-nosed turtles on Wednesday suspected of being smuggled into the Southeast Asian country.The turtles, found in Australia and on the Indonesian island of Papua, are endangered due to high demand from exotic pet traders, wildlife experts said.Seven packages of turtles were discovered during a boat inspection near Johor on Malaysia's southern coast, the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) said in a statement…

An undersea cable and pipe-laying ship, the Vanuatu-flagged MV Star Centurion, capsized in the Indonesian waters of the Singapore Straits after a collision with a tanker on Sunday, with no fatalities, authorities said on Monday.The Singapore Straits are one of the world's busiest shipping zones with hundreds of container ships, oil and fuel tankers and dry bulk carriers daily traversing the waters that connect east Asia to Europe, India and Africa.The collision happened just north of Bintan, an Indonesian island in the Riau Islands province that sits opposite the city-state of Singapore."It's already capsized," Samsul Nizar, the head of operations at the Indonesian coast guard base at Tanjung Uban on Bintan…

Rescuers were scouring the waters off Malaysia's southern coast on Monday for 18 people missing after a boat carrying migrants from Indonesia capsized, killing one woman, a Malaysian maritime official said. Southern Malaysian waterways, which border Indonesia and Singapore, include busy international shipping lanes and rich fishing grounds. Overloaded migrant boats also ply the waters and occasionally run into trouble. Twenty-five people, including a woman, were rescued after the boat, believed to be carrying 44 illegal immigrants, sank early on Monday, said Abu Bakar Idris, an official of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA).

Kalmar, part of Cargotec, has concluded a deal with Riau Andalan Pulp & Paper (RAPP) to supply three Kalmar SmartPower rubber-tyred gantry cranes (RTGs) for its container yard at the Port of Buatan in Indonesia. The order was booked in Cargotec's 2018 first quarter order intake and delivery is scheduled to take place towards the end of Q4 2018. RAPP, a subsidiary of APRIL Group - one of the world's leading producers of pulp and fine papers - operates a pulp and paper mill in Riau Province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The mill has an annual production capacity of 2.8 million tonnes of pulp and 850,000 tonnes of paper. APRIL Group has invested significantly in infrastructure to take its products to market, including a container terminal in the Port of Buatan.

Indonesia, acting on a request from Interpol, has seized a fishing boat carrying 600 illegal gillnets that can stretch up to 30 km (18 miles) after it evaded capture in several countries, the Fisheries Ministry said. The vessel, the STS-50, had targeted Antarctic toothfish, the ministry said, a cod species that plays an important role in the Southern Ocean ecosystem. Gillnetting, which uses walls of finely meshed nets, has been banned in Antarctic waters since 2006 and is described by Australia as posing a huge risk to “almost all marine life”. Officially stateless, the STS-50 evaded authorities by flying eight different flags at different times, including those of Sierra Leone, Togo, Cambodia, South Korea, Japan, Micronesia and Namibia, the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

Rolls-Royce is to supply more MTU engines to fast ferry operator Majestic Ferry in Singapore. Designed by Incat Crowther, a total of seven new fast ferries are being built at PT Cahaya shipyard in Batam, Indonesia over the next two years. Rolls-Royce is to supply 14 MTU engines for them by 2019. Each of the twin-hulled vessels is to be powered by two MTU 16V 2000 M72 units. “The determining factor for this follow-on order is the positive experience the operator has had with MTU engines and with our service,” said Chew Xiang Yu, a member of marine sales staff at MTU Asia.

Indonesian police on Thursday questioned the captain and crew of a luxury yacht in Bali at the request of U.S. authorities, probing alleged money laundering at a Malaysian state fund, they said. The yacht was impounded in Bali on Wednesday amid a multi-billion dollar corruption investigation launched by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and tied to Malaysian state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Police seized the yacht, Equanimity, after receiving a letter on Feb. 21 from the U.S.

One of the biggest icebergs on record has broken away from Antarctica, scientists said on Wednesday, creating an extra hazard for ships around the continent as it breaks up. The one trillion tonne iceberg, measuring 5,800 square km, calved away from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica sometime between July 10 and 12, said scientists at the University of Swansea and the British Antarctic Survey. The iceberg, which is roughly the size of the U.S. state of Delaware or the Indonesian island of Bali, has been close to breaking off for a few months. Throughout the Antarctic winter, scientists monitored the progress of the rift in the ice shelf using the European Space Agency satellites.

A boat ferrying 40 people from Indonesia capsized off Malaysia's coast on Monday and at least nine people were killed and nearly 30 were missing, the latest accident involving migrant workers in overloaded boats. The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) said it had recovered the bodies of six women and three men and rescued two people from the early morning accident. Twenty-nine people were unaccounted for. The agency said a combination of overloading and bad weather and heavy seas were believed to have caused the accident. There has been a string of accidents in the waterways between Indonesia and Malaysia involving overloaded boats ferrying labourers seeking work in Malaysian factories and plantations.

Does piracy off the coast of South-East Asia pose a threat? The answer is yes. Shipping lanes in Southeast Asia, one of the world’s busiest trade routes, have been hit by a “worrying new rise” in piracy. How is maritime piracy threatening South-East Asia and to what extent? Piracy is mushrooming in the area of the Strait of Malacca, Singapore Strait, Bangladesh, South China Sea and Vietnam, a shipping bottleneck that sees one-third of the world's annual commercial maritime traffic, making it the busiest waterway on earth. They no longer fly the skull and crossbones flag, instead clambering aboard ships wielding guns and knives under the cover of darkness.

A speedboat carrying 101 people, mostly migrant workers, struck a reef and sank off an Indonesian island on Wednesday, killing 18 people, the country's disaster agency said. The accident occurred as the boat was heading from the southern Malaysian state of Johor towards Indonesia's Batam island, just south of Singapore, according to a statement by the Indonesian national disaster mitigation agency. The boat, carrying 98 Indonesian migrant workers and three crew, hit the reef after being caught up in strong winds and big waves and sank at around dawn, it said. As of Wednesday evening, 18 people were confirmed dead, 39 people had been found alive while rescue teams were searching for the remaining 44, the agency added.

Almost 100 people were rescued when a ferry sailing towards Singapore from the Indonesian island of Batam hit a floating object and reportedly started to sink, authorities in the city-state said. Ferry operator Batamfast called out two other ferries that rescued all 90 passengers and seven crew and took them back to the Nongsapura ferry terminal in Batam, Singapore's Maritime and Port Authority said in an emailed statement. The authority said early on Monday it had received a report of the incident on the 'Sea Prince' at 9:45 p.m. on Sunday (1345 GMT). A passenger, Chella Ho, said the ferry started sinking slowly in deep water and passengers were loaded into two inflatable boats but those boats also sank because they were overloaded, TV news network Channel News Asia reported.

Almost 100 people were rescued when a ferry sailing toward Singapore from the Indonesian island of Batam hit a floating object and reportedly started to sink, maritime officials said. Singapore's Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) said it received a report last night that Indonesia-registered ferry 'Sea Prince' had hit a floating object after leaving Batam, one of the popular resort islands about 40 minute ride from Singapore. It said at the time of the incident, the ferry was in Indonesian waters and heading towards Singapore with 90 passengers and seven crew members. It is understood that other passengers included British, South Korean and Portuguese nationals. No injuries were reported.

The world's first ever carrier vessel for compressed natural gas (CNG) is to be powered by an integrated Wärtsilä propulsion system, chosen for its energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. The vessel is being built at the Jiangsu Hantong shipyard in China ordered by CIMC ENRIC and designed by CIMC ORIC for end user Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN), the Indonesian state owned energy company. The order with Wärtsilä was placed during the fourth quarter, 2014. The new vessel will feature a 9-cylinder Wärtsilä 34DF dual-fuel main engine operating primarily on gas. Wärtsilä will also supply the controlled pitch propeller and gearbox, all of which will be fully integrated so as to optimise the propulsion efficiency.