Ministry Of Oceans And Fisheries News

The Korean Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and Ulsan Port Authority have announced a world first with the completion of a ship-to-ship (STS) bunkering of green methanol to the 16,000 TEU container ship Ane Maersk at Ulsan Port, South Korea.The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries established the relevant institutional foundation, including the ‘Guidelines for Approval of Self-Safety Management Plan for Methanol Supply’ and accumulated know-how through two methanol supply demonstrations…

Korean Register (KR) has published a report titled: Research Report of Material Compatibility for Liquid Hydrogen Storage on Marine Application.The report provides detailed technical information on materials suitable for onboard liquid hydrogen systems. For safe and efficient storage and transport of hydrogen, it must be handled in its liquid state, says KR. This necessitates a cryogenic environment. However, until now, there has been a notable lack of research infrastructure…

Maersk's first-of-its-kind methanol dual-fuel containership made history on July 16 when it became the first to bunker methanol.The newly built vessel bunkered 1,000 metric tonnes of the cleaner burning fuel at Odfjell Terminals Korea in Ulsan  before embarking on its 21,500-kilometer maiden voyage toward Copenhagen, where she will be officially named in September.“This journey is an important step in our efforts to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, as it will allow…

South Korean port company Busan Port Authority (BPA) said that it signed a contract with Samsung SDS to operate a logistics center in Rotterdam.BPA will begin a construction of the logistics center in September this year and complete and operate it in around June 2021.Samsung SDS, a subsidiary of Samsung group has been providing information technology services,  will provide comprehensive logistics services for small and medium-sized companies conducting business between Europe and South-Korea for 10 years from the opening of the logistics center.The signing ceremony was attended by Hong Won-pyo, CEO of Samsung SDS, as well as Joanne Doornewaard, Dutch Ambassador in South-Korea and officials from the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.

The implementation of e-navigation - the user-friendly collection, harmonization and display of essential maritime information - will contribute to enhanced maritime safety and security and support efficient shipping while protecting the marine environment, says International Maritime Organization (IMO).Various e-navigation solutions are being developed, taking into account IMO guidance and regulations.The SMART-Navigation Project, organized and funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, Republic of Korea, was presented during an IMO regional workshop on e-navigation for the Asia-Pacific region, held in Busan, Republic of Korea…

Auditing  International Maritime Organization (IMO) Member States to assess how effectively they administer key IMO treaties is an important part of the Organization's work to ensure its regulatory framework is universally adopted and implemented.According to IMO release, a regional training course for auditors under the IMO's Member State Audit Scheme (IMSAS) took place in Busan, Republic of Korea (29 October - 2 November).The training provided specific skills in auditing Member States using the IMO Instruments Implementation Code as the audit standard. Participants were made up of senior maritime administration personnel who are, or will be…

South Korean midsized shipping company H-Line, owned by local private equity firm Hahn & Co, has ordered two liquefied natural gas (LNG)-powered 180,000 dwt capesizes at Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries (HSHI).A report by Yonhap, quoting the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries sources, said that the LNG-powered 180,000-ton vessels will be used on a route between South Korea and Australia starting from 2021.According to the Ministry, the bulk carriers will be the first LNG ships in South Korea to sail on a foreign shipping route.Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., the world's largest shipbuilder by sales, owns 80.54 percent of Hyundai Samho Heavy.South Korean shipyards have outstanding expertise in building LNG carriers and bunkering shuttles…

This month we caught up with Jeong-kie Lee, Chairman and CEO of the Korean Register and also the Chairman of the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS), for his insights on the dominant trends moving the maritime industry into the future.The maritime industry has been challenged, to say the least. Today, where do you see challenge? Where do you see opportunity?The maritime industry is in a state of extreme upheaval, with private and public organizations having to deal with a wide range of ever changing…

The state-run Korea Ocean Business Corporation (KOBC) said it will offer support to 10 small and medium shipping lines as part of its effort to revive the country's maritime transportation sector.According to a report in Yonhap, KOBC selected the shipping lines as its primary negotiation partner with so-called sale and lease back (S&LB) assistance to be provided. KOBC aims to provide different services to rebuild shipping industry, including management of trade, support for replacement with eco-friendly ships and financial work for shipping terminals.KOBC which formed under the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries on July 4 said that S&LB refers to the buying of a ship from a shipping line and then leasing the ships back to the owner.

A South Korean company’s claims that it has discovered the wreck of a Russian warship containing $130 billion in gold “treasure” off South Korea has been met with scepticism from researchers and regulators in Seoul.Shinil Group, which was established last month, said on Tuesday it had discovered the wreck of the Dmitrii Donskoi, a Russian armored cruiser built in the 1880s and sunk in 1905 after battling Japanese warships.The company said the ship held 150 trillion won ($130 billion) in gold and it would provide evidence next week to support its claim.

South Korean shipowners Heung-A Shipping and Sinokor Merchant Marine have confirmed that they are in talks to merge their container businesses, reports Pulse News. According to various media reports, the South Korean liner companies have decided to merge their container shipping services by the end of the year before joining forces with Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM). HMM had already agreed to become a strategic partner to Sinokor and Heung-A by creating an HMM+K2 consortium. The two companies would sign the deal on April 3, according to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and the Korea Shipowners’ Association. It said that Korea Shipping Partnership (KSP)…

Fire rages for 4th day; tanker collided with freight ship on Saturday. Rescue crews were forced to retreat from a stricken Iranian oil tanker in the East China Sea on Wednesday following an explosion on the ship as a fire raged for a fourth day after a dramatic collision. The blast happened on board the tanker in the afternoon after rescue crews were dousing the ship with foam in an attempt to put out the fire, China's Transport Ministry (MOT) said in a statement on Wednesday. The cause and damage to the tanker from the incident were not clear. The ship was carrying condensate, a highly flammable ultra-light crude, to deliver to South Korea when it collided with a Chinese freight ship on Saturday.

Strong winds, high waves and toxic gases are hindering dozens of rescue boats struggling to locate missing sailors from a stricken oil tanker in the East China Sea and to extinguish a fire that has burned for the past three days on the ship. The poor conditions, with rain and waves as high as 3 metres (10 feet), frustrated efforts to tame the fire and search for the 31 remaining tanker crew members, China's Ministry of Transport said in a statement on Tuesday. The flames were forcing the South Korean Coast Guard's search and rescue team to stay as far as 3 miles (4.8 km) away from the tanker, two South Korean officials told Reuters.

In an effort to go green amid looming strict emission rules, South Korea will launch a pilot program to build the world's largest vessel powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG), reports Yonhap. South Korean Ministry of  Oceans and Fisheries  said it will join forces with local shipyards, builders and state institutes to develop a class of 180,000-ton LNG-propelled vessels. The government launched a task force in January made up of local companies to develop the emerging marine transport sector to comply with the International Maritime Organization's sulfur cap on bunkers, set to be enforced in 2020. "This pilot program is aimed at building the world's largest LNG-propelled ship…

Korea Maritime Promotion Corporation (KMPC), a dedicated support organization for the shipping industry, will be established in Busan in June of next year with capital of 5 trillion won (US$4.5 billion), reported BusinessKorea. KMPC is set to offer financial and industrial policy support, in order to reform and upgrade the shipping industry in Korea, in response to the Hanjin Shipping bankruptcy. At Seoul meeting of the ministers of economic affairs, on 24 August, South Korea’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries announced a plan to establish Korea Maritime Promotion Corporation, a support organization for the shipping industry, in Busan, in June 2018.

The risk of cyber attacks targeting ships' satellite navigation is pushing nations to delve back through history and develop back-up systems with roots in World War Two radio technology. Ships use GPS (Global Positioning System) and other similar devices that rely on sending and receiving satellite signals, which many experts say are vulnerable to jamming by hackers. About 90 percent of world trade is transported by sea and the stakes are high in increasingly crowded shipping lanes.

Six fragments of remains found, official says; DNA tests planned to identify remains. The remains of what appears to be at least one unrecovered victim of South Korea's sunken Sewol ferry were found near the salvaged vessel on Tuesday, an official said, nearly three years after the disaster that killed 304 people. The ferry was structurally unsound, overloaded and travelling too fast on a turn when it capsized and sank during a routine voyage off the southwest coast on April 16, 2014. Most of the victims were children on a school excursion. "Six pieces of remains that were found are 4 cm to 18 cm long," Lee Cheol-jo, an official of the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, told a briefing.

Korean Register (KR) has opened a new ICT (information communications technology) Center to enhance the application of advanced information and ICT across the maritime and ship classification industries. According to KR, the new high-tech facility has been launched in response to demand from the Korean shipbuilding and marine transport industries, keen to be more competitive in a challenging market. It seeks to address the fact that advanced onshore technologies have been difficult to adapt for maritime applications, because of the poor communication environment at sea and unique attributes of ships. In line with the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) e-Navigation strategy…

The volume of cargo processed at South Korea's seaports reached a record high last year despite a global economic slump and the collapse of the country's leading shipper, Korea Herals quoted the government as saying. Cargo handled at seaports across the nation totaled 1.5 billion tons in 2016, up 2.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries. Trade cargo totaled 1.23 billion tons, while domestic shipments came to 265 million tons. The increase came mainly from the 3.1-percent rise in non-container cargo to 1.06 billion tons. "Meanwhile, container cargo also increased 1 percent (on-year) to 25.9 million twenty-foot-equivalent-units (TEUs) in spite of many difficulties including a global economic slump and the court receivership of Hanjin Shipping…

(i) Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the Republic of India and  the Islamic Republic of Iran over partnership of India in development plan of Chabahar Port, signed on 06 May, 2015. (ii) Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Shipping of the Republic of India and the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries of the Republic of Korea on Cooperation in the fields of Maritime Transport and Logistics, signed on 18 May, 2015. Scope of cooperation under the MoU, inter-alia, includes utilization, development and management of domestic and overseas ports. (iii) Agreement between the Government of the Republic of India and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan on Maritime Transport, singed on 11 October, 2015.

Training for oil pollution preparedness, response and cooperation (OPRC) is underway in Jeju Island, Republic of Korea (7-11 November). On completion of the course, Government officials from seven Southeast Asian countries  (Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Timor‑Leste) will play a significant role in advancing their respective countries’ OPRC capability, as well as regional and international cooperation in the case of major oil spills. The course includes a focus on the OPRC capacity in the Republic of Korea as an example of the level of oil spill preparedness and response in developed countries. The event is organized by International Maritime Organization (IMO)   and the Korea Marine Environment Management Corporation (KOEM)…

With Ocean Alliance released its long-awaited network information, with members CMA CGM, China Cosco Shipping, Evergreen Line, and Orient Overseas Container Line to offer 40 services on the east-west trades with 498 port calls, battle looms in the global market as it challenges 2M, another major global container carrier alliance. According to China Daily, with a total carrying capacity of 3.5 million twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, OCEAN Alliance will be able to provide a service coverage in the market on a number of trade lanes including 20 trans-Pacific and six Asia-Europe shipping services. Formed by Denmark's Maersk Line and Switzerland's Mediterranean Shipping Co SA…

Members of the OCEAN ALLIANCE, COSCO Container Lines, CMA CGM, Evergreen Line and Orient Overseas Container Line,  signed a document entitled the Day One Product, which sets out the proposed OCEAN ALLIANCE’s network, including port rotation for each service loop. The Day One network intends to deploy around 350 container vessels with an estimated total carrying capacity of 3.5 million TEUs to provide one of the most comprehensive service coverage in the market on the following trade lanes. The vessel deployment details for each service loop, will be released around end of this November. 20 Transpacific services (estimated 160 port pairs, with 13 Asia - West Coast North America services, 7 Asia - East Coast North America and U.S.