Northern Europe News

Carnival Corporation's luxury cruise brand Seabourn introduced its newest vessel with a naming ceremony for Seabourn Ovation in the harbor of Valletta, Malta.Seabourn Ovation is the fifth ultra-luxury vessel to join the Seabourn fleet over the past decade, and the second of two ships designed for the line by hospitality design icon Adam D. Tihany.Seabourn Ovation was delivered on April 27 during an official handover ceremony at the Fincantieri shipyard in Genoa, Italy. Following the delivery ceremony…

Monjasa expands its reach to Northern France and goes from two to three supply vessels in Northwest Europe. Providing a niche market alternative to the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) bunker hub has proven relevant for a growing number of customers and volumes are increasing. Steadily growing demand in the English Channel allows Monjasa to expand its services to cover Northern France as well. Monjasa is able to cover port areas from Dunkerque, Calais, Dieppe, Le Havre and all the way to Brest.

Fischer Panda UK has supplied a Panda 25i generator and Seafari Mini 170 watermaker for the latest ROV inspection and survey boat designed by Fareham-based BW SeaCat for Norwegian company Rov AS. On show for the first time at Seawork, the 13m ROV1304 with SPEED-type fast displacement hull is leading commercial power catamaran manufacturer BW SeaCat’s fourth vessel of a well-proven similar construction, designed for deep water operation for the aquaculture industry, power plants, offshore sector and other contractors.

The advent of industry wide tightening of allowable sulfur emissions is getting nearer. Suddenly, with the deadline now little more than one year away, the countdown clock will very soon be ticking much louder. Simply stated, the cap on allowable sulfur content in marine fuels, presently at 3.5 percent in many geographical regions, will be reduced to 0.5 percent in January 2020. The 0.1 percent sulfur cap, already in effect since 2015 in coastal Emissions Control Areas (ECAs) in Europe and North America…

It took British Maritime Minister Nusrat Ghani just one go to activate the mechanism that sent a big champagne bottle crashing against the massive sidewall of the “Afif”. This marked the official naming of the 15,000 TEU container ship on 16 July 2018. The name “Afif” is of Arabic origin and means “purity” and “honesty”; also, Afif is a city in central Saudi Arabia. The ship is technically equipped to use LNG fuel. With its ten sisters, “Afif” belongs to the category of “Ultra Large Container Vessel”, the second-largest ship class in Hapag-Lloyd’s fleet.

The Korean container shipping company Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) has started a new, independent Asia-North Europe service in April. The first vessel of the AEX service to call at Eurogate Container Terminal Hamburg on 12 May was ‘Hyundai Forward’ with a capacity of the 4,700 TEU. A total of ten units of these comparatively small Panamax container ships will rotate weekly between Busan (Korea), Shanghai (China), Ningbo (China), Kaohsiung (China), Yantian (China), Singapore, Colombo (Sri Lanka)…

A giant vessel docked at the port of Moheshkhali in Bangladesh two months ago, propelling the populous but poor nation into the fast-expanding club of liquefied natural gas (LNG) buyers.The Excellence is the latest floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU), a type of carrier that has proliferated since 2015 as many countries switch to a cleaner and increasingly cheaper fuel than oil and coal.But the young FSRU industry has been beset by more project delays than successes in the past 12 months as fluctuating energy prices…

Ship owner Stena said it has decided to exercise its option to order its seventh and eighth E-Flexer vessels from Avic Weihai Shipyard. The two new vessels will be deployed within Stena Line’s route network with a planned delivery in 2022.Additionally, Stena RoRo has taken an option on the construction of a further four E-Flexer vessels that would also be built at the same Chinese shipyard.Niclas Mårtensson, CEO Stena Line, said, “We foresee increasing demand for freight capacity…

HISWA Holland Yachting Group and Port of Amsterdam are making real their ambition to establish Amsterdam more firmly as a major destination for superyachts. The diversity in berths located in the heart of the city centre, combined with excellent re-fit and maintenance facilities in the port area make Amsterdam a unique destination for superyachts. A quiet transformation has been underway in the superyacht world for some years now. Where the Mediterranean and the Caribbean used to reign supreme in terms of both facilities and interest…

French-based CMA CGM, one of the world's largest container shipping firms, has agreed to acquire Finland's Containerships from Container Finance Ltd Oy.Terms of the deal, which is expected to close in three to six months, were not disclosed.Containerships, which recorded sales of 227 million euros ($263 million) last year, ships cargo between Finland, Russia, the Baltic States, continental Europe, the UK and Ireland as well as in the Mediterranean region between Turkey and North Africa, it said in a regulatory filing.The acquisition will add to CMA CGM's regional network in northern Europe and

Danish shipping and logistics group DFDS has completed the acquisition of Turkey’s largest operator of Ro-Ro freight ships and will be a major player in the strong and continuously growing trade between the EU and Turkey. In April, DFDS signed an agreement with the owners of  U.N. Ro-Ro to acquire the shares in the company, said a press release from the company. “All relevant authorities have now approved the transaction and I am very pleased to announce that on 7 June we completed the deal. U.N.

The CMV Travel & Leisure Group said it has acquired the vessel Pacific Eden from P&O Cruises Australia. Pacific Eden’s new name will be announced on Tuesday, March 20 and the vessel will join CMV’s expanding fleet with delivery in Singapore in early April 2019 followed by a short docking period to include livery change, re-brand and some preparatory works before she positions westbound to Northern Europe via the Suez on her inaugural voyage. The ship’s final voyage for P&O will depart on March 16, 2019.

The migrants bolted across a street and clambered over a fence into the Greek port at Patras, scouting around for trucks to stow away in. Dozens at a time scaled a 2-km stretch of fence one afternoon last week, playing cat-and-mouse with police officers who pushed them back only for the men to try again hours later. They are part of a growing number of migrants in Greece trying daily to smuggle themselves onto ferries at Patras to get to Italy. It's a dangerous passage but it has become more appealing since the closure in 2016 of the overland Balkan route to northern Europe.

The largest ever containership to call at the port on the Elbe berthed in Hamburg early on Thursday morning, March 15. The oceangoing giant CMA CGM Antoine de Saint Exupery made its maiden call at the Port of Hamburg's HHLA Container Terminal Burchardkai (CTB) where it will discharge approximately 7,000 TEU and load 4,000. The 400-meter-long CMA CGM Antoine de Saint Exupery, delivered to French owner CMA CGM earlier this year, has a capacity of 20,776 TEU. End-to-end, those containers would cover a distance of over 125 kilometers.

MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company, a global leader in transportation and logistics, is pleased to announce the launch of a new freight rail service between Seville, Spain, and the Atlantic, beginning 4 April 2018. The service is expected to run daily between Seville’s inland maritime port – Puerto de Sevilla – and the major coastal port hub of Sines, Portugal, with a capacity of more than 100 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) per return journey. Shippers will have the possibility to obtain customs clearance for cargo at Seville’s inland maritime port…

Seabourn Cruise Line's newest ultra-luxury vessel, Seabourn Ovation, achieved another important maritime milestone with the completion of its final round of sea trials in the Mediterranean off the coast of Italy. Seabourn Ovation departed the Fincantieri shipyard on March 14 for four days at sea, where a team of officers and engineers tested the ship's technical and mechanical systems. Seabourn Ovation returned to the shipyard in Genoa on March 18, and staff and workers are putting the final touches on the ship. The delivery ceremony of the ship is on schedule to take place on April 27, 2018.

Fifteen production floaters were contracted in 2017 – 11 FPSOs, two production semis, a wellhead TLP and an FLNG – and the number of deep water projects in the near-term planning queue indicates production floater orders are set to accelerate. This is a big change from 2016 when orders for new units totally dried up and the deepwater future looked pretty bleak. Here’s a round-up of contracts awarded last year and in January 2018. Tempera FPSO - Keppel in January 2017 received a contract from Dixstone Holdings…

DNV GL secured a leading role as technical advisor to GVO Wind Ltd and Bluemerang Capital Ltd, supporting the sale of an 80% stake of the 26.1 MW Ventus portfolio of wind projects. Ventus is the UK’s largest portfolio of feed-in-tariff wind turbines, comprising 53 operational projects located across the UK. The portfolio was acquired by Malaysian power utility Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB). This is TNB’s second acquisition in the UK, which brings its renewables portfolio to a total capacity of approximately 280 MW.

Shearwater GeoServices, jointly owned by GC Rieber Shipping ASA and Rasmussengruppen AS, has been awarded a new contract by geophysical company TGS. The project is expected to take approximately three months and is scheduled to be completed by the end of September, 2018. For the second consecutive year Shearwater has been awarded a contract for a seismic survey on the Atlantic Margin in the Norwegian Sea. The 2018 survey will cover 5,135 km2 and will be performed by one of Shearwater's high-end 3D vessels.

Danish shipping and logistics company DFDS has agreed to buy Turkish freight shipping operator U.N. Ro-Ro from Turkish private equity firms Actera Group and Esas Holdings for 950 million euros ($1.17 billion) on a debt-free basis. It marks a change of course for the Turkish company, which had planned an initial public offering for up to 57.7 percent of the company, a draft prospectus showed last month. U.N. Ro-Ro operates five freight shipping routes between Turkey, Italy and France. DFDS said U.N.

New study examines Japanese government strategy for creating infrastructure for environmentally-friendly ship fuel.A new report by the Intrernational Transport Forum at the OECD assesses Japan’s ambition to become an international bunkering hub for liquefied natural gas (LNG).The Japanese government is working to position the nation as a LNG bunkering hub as it expects the fuel's significance in shipping to grow.Japan is already the world’s largest importer of LNG by a large margin.

MSC Meraviglia officially made her maiden call at the port of Hamburg today, marking the start of her new as well as the brand’s best and most accessible-ever season in Northern Europe. At the traditional exchange of crests attended by Senator Horch from the City of Hamburg as well as representatives from the Ports and other institutions, media and travel partners, MSC Cruises, the Swiss-based world’s largest privately owned cruise line and now for the third consecutive year brand market leader across the whole of Europe…

Stena Oil has signed an agreement to create a new marine fuel terminal in the Port of Frederikshavn. The facility will be fully adapted for the new Sulphur Directive 2020 and its location will reduce the distances travelled by bunkering vessels. The oil terminal will be the largest of its kind in Scandinavia, with a capacity of 75 000 cubic metres. "We are delighted to be developing our business in Frederikshavn. We will create a state-of-the-art terminal that can handle all fuel types that meet the IMO’s global sulphur directive, which comes into effect in 2020.