Media Briefing News

Efforts to limit environmental damage from a cargo vessel that sank after a Houthi missile strike and another abandoned during a fiery assault are on hold until attacks on ships ease, the United Nations' maritime shipping regulatory agency said on Monday.The UK-owned Rubymar last month became the first vessel lost since the Houthis began targeting commercial ships in the Red Sea area in November. The bulk carrier with 21,000 metric tons of fertiliser contained in its cargo hold…

New Zealand will deploy a six-member defence team to the Middle East as part of an international coalition to uphold maritime security in the Red Sea, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Tuesday.The United States and Britain have been carrying out air strikes against the Iranian-allied Houthi group in Yemen, who have been targeting civilian ships in the Red Sea for weeks in what they say is a protest against Israel's military campaign in the Gaza Strip."Houthi attacks against commercial and naval shipping are illegal…

Ukraine's navy said on Wednesday that 12 more cargo vessels were ready to enter a fledgling Black Sea shipping corridor on their way to Ukrainian ports, as Kyiv steps up a push to defy a de facto Russian blockade on its vital sea exports.Russia, which has a much more powerful and bigger naval fleet in the Black Sea, pulled out of a deal in July that had allowed wartime Ukraine to safely ship food products out through what is traditionally its main export corridor. Ukraine responded by setting up a temporary "humanitarian corridor" for cargo vessels…

Shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk warned on Friday of a steeper decline in global demand for shipping containers by sea this year, prompted by muted economic growth and customers reducing inventories.The company, one of the world's biggest container shippers with a market share of around 17%, said it expects container volumes to fall by as much as 4%. It had previously forecast a decline of no more than 2.5%.Maersk transports goods for retailers and consumer companies such as Walmart…

Top U.S. LNG exporter Cheniere Energy LNG.A is shunning the Panama Canal to transport liquefied natural gas to Asia because the market is not supporting use of the waterway, said Chief Operating Officer Corey Grindal on Monday.The Panama Canal historically has been used by U.S Gulf Coast LNG exporters to send LNG to Asian customers via the Pacific Ocean. But a months-long drought has led to delays and depth restrictions for the largest ships accessing the canal."We use the canal when it is economical to do so, right now it is not.

A leaking fuel tanker that sank off the central Philippines three weeks ago has been found using an underwater robot from Japan, a provincial governor said on Tuesday, as authorities sought more foreign help to address the oil spill.The discovery of MT Princess Empress, which was carrying about 800,000 liters (211,338 gallons) of industrial fuel oil when it capsized on Feb. 28 and eventually sank, was deemed crucial in stopping the spill, which reached shorelines in three provinces.

Philippine authorities believe they have found the location of a tanker that sank off a central province last week, the environment ministry said on Monday, amid a race to assess the extent of an oil spill and contain further environmental damage.The tanker, the MT Princess Empress, is thought to be lying at about 1,200 feet (366 meters) below sea level, off Oriental Mindoro province, though the information still needed to be verified, the ministry said in a statement.A remotely operated vehicle would be deployed to help determine the exact location of the tanker…

Environment and disaster authorities in the Philippines rushed to contain an oil spill on Friday from a sunken fuel tanker that has reached coastal towns on a large central island, warning of dangers to marine ecosystems if more oil leaks. The tanker, MT Princess Empress, was still missing on Friday after sinking en route to Iloilo province carrying about 800,000 litres (211,338 gallons) of industrial fuel oil.The vessel encountered engine trouble on Tuesday due to overheating and drifted due to rough sea conditions, according to the coast guard.

Cargo volumes were down in November at the Port of Los Angeles, marking another month of declines at what was once the United States' busiest seaport. The port said in its cargo update briefing this week that it handled 639,344 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in November, a 21% decrease from the same month last year. Overall, the port has handled 7% less cargo in the first 11 months of 2022 compared to last year’s all-time record.November 2022 loaded imports reached 307,080 TEUs, down 24% compared to the previous year.

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…

Indonesia deployed navy ships and hundreds of personnel on Wednesday, including intelligence assets, in an effort to thwart illegal shipments of refined palm oil olein, just hours away from an export ban aimed at taming surging cooking oil prices.The new rules were due to take effect at midnight local time (1700 GMT), and the navy and other agencies had been instructed to step up patrols of Indonesian waters to ensure compliance, said navy spokesperson Julius Widjojono.Palm oil futures on the Malaysia exchange surged by 9.8% on Wednesday…

Indonesian rescuers searching for a submarine that went missing with 53 people on board found an oil spill on Wednesday near where the vessel dived, authorities said.The 44-year-old submarine, KRI Nanggala-402, was conducting a torpedo drill in waters north of the island of Bali but failed to relay the results as expected, a navy spokesman said.An aerial search found an oil spill near the submarine’s dive location and two navy vessels with sonar capability have been deployed to assist in the search…

South Africa's government has selected eight preferred bidders, including Turkey's Karpowership, to provide emergency electricity and help prop up the country's ailing power supply, Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe said on Thursday.The tender for 2,000 megawatts (MW), launched two years ago when South Africa suffered some of the worst power cuts in a decade, aimed to find the cheapest and quickest options to ease a shortage that has cost the continent's most industrialized economy billions of dollars."The evaluation process has resulted in the selection of eight preferred bids totaling 1…

High shipping rates are set to continue for at least several weeks, despite new coronavirus lockdowns in Europe, boosted by demand for furniture, exercise equipment and home improvement goods, shipping group Maersk said on Wednesday.A surge in demand from shoppers sheltering at home in a worsening COVID-19 pandemic has upended normal trade flows and triggered a spike in the cost of moving goods around."There are simply not enough containers in the world to cope with the current demand…

Throughout the world, offshore wind is on a growth trajectory. With green energy mandates from states in New England and the mid-Atlantic, the U.S. is joining the fray. Consultants Wood MacKenzie, in its U.S. Offshore Wind Outlook 2020-2029, suggested that as much as 25 gigawatts (GW) of capacity could be deployed in the U.S. by 2030 (though estimates range from 14 GW to as much as 34 GW), accounting for a hefty portion of incremental capacity coming online.Shipyards in New England have already seen the tip of the offshore wind iceberg…

Indonesian authorities are considering two companies’ requests to dispose mining waste into the ocean, a senior government official said on Sunday, at a time of heightened sensitivity about the environmental impact of mining.The requests come as mining waste management is increasingly scrutinized after a nickel plant in neighboring Papua New Guinea spilled red mud into the sea last year due to an operational failure.Indonesia was a major nickel ore exporter until last year, before…

U.S. President Donald Trump revealed Thursday that Carnival Corp. chairman Micky Arison has said he will make some cruise ships from his idled fleet available to be used in addition to the U.S. Navy hospital ships being deployed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.“This morning, I spoke with Micky Arison of Carnival Cruise Lines and he’s going to make ships available. So in addition to the big medical ships that you have coming, if we need ships with lots of rooms, they’ll be docked at New York and Los Angeles and San Francisco…

Dozens more people onboard a cruise ship quarantined in the port of Yokohama, Japan, tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday and thousands of passengers remained confined to their cabins, only allowed on deck briefly for fresh air.The Diamond Princess, owned by Miami-based Carnival Corp, was placed on a two-week quarantine on arriving at Yokohama on Monday after a man who disembarked in Hong Kong was diagnosed with the virus.Japanese Health Minister Katsunobu Kato told a news conference that 41 people on the liner had tested positive for coronavirus on Friday…

Exxon Mobil Corp said it was fighting a fire that erupted on Wednesday at its Baytown, Texas, refining and chemical plant complex injuring 37 people and sending nearby residents indoors.As many as 37 people were being treated for non-life threatening injuries amid efforts to put out the fire, according to Exxon spokeswoman Sarah Nordin. Available air monitoring information showed "no adverse impact at this time," she said.More than three dozen people were treated for minor burns, none requiring hospitalization, said plant manager Jason Duncan in an afternoon media briefing.

The seaborne iron ore market appears to be in something of a sweet spot currently, with largely steady demand and prices that have been flatlining for the past couple of months. Of course, another way of saying that a market is enjoying relatively stable and good times is that it's boring, but in iron ore there is plenty of action bubbling beneath the seemingly calm exterior. It's not so much that iron ore prices or volumes are expected to shift dramatically in the coming months, it's more that structural changes in the world's biggest importer, China, are re-shaping how the industry works.

Guyana's Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman said while there is no perfect contract, the government is comfortable with the terms and conditions spelt out in the Stabroek Petroleum agreement between itself and ExxonMobil and prefers a long-term, stable relationship with one exploration company rather than several. “We recognised that we had with us a company that had made a discovery, had a binding contract with the government and people of Guyana which had been signed in 1999, was brave and committed to developing the resource, had the capacities [both] financial and technical capacity to do so and government believed that it should enter into a long-term stable relationship with this company,” Minister Trotman said.

Commanders of U.S. warship removed after cargo ship collision; seven sailors killed in June collision. The U.S. Navy has removed the two senior officers and the senior enlisted sailor on a U.S. warship that almost sank off the coast of Japan in June after it was struck by a Philippine container ship, the Navy said on Friday. Multiple investigations have yet to apportion blame for the accident that killed seven U.S. sailors aboard the guided missile destroyer the USS Fitzgerald. However, the punishments are the first public admission by the U.S. Navy that mistakes by the crew contributed to the deadliest incident on a U.S. warship since Islamist extremists bombed the USS Cole in Yemen's Aden harbour in 2000. "The collision was avoidable and both ships demonstrated poor seamanship.

Missiles flew about 200 km into sea off east coast - S.Korea; launch is fourth by Pyongyang in four weeks. North Korea fired what appeared to be several land-to-ship missiles off its east coast on Thursday, South Korea's military said, a day after the South postponed full deployment of a controversial U.S. anti-missile system designed to deter a North Korean attack. The launches, the latest in a fast-paced series of missile tests defying world pressure to rein in its weapons programme, come less than a week after the United Nations Security Council passed fresh sanctions on the reclusive state. South Korea on Wednesday said it will hold off on installing remaining components of the U.S.