Oil Tanker News

Iran is running short of options to replace its ageing fleet of tankers and keep oil exports flowing because renewed U.S. sanctions are making potential sellers and flag registries wary of doing business with Tehran, Western and Iranian sources said.Since U.S. President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions in November, exploratory talks with South Korea for up to 10 new supertankers have stalled and Panama has also removed at least 21 Iranian tankers from its registry forcing Tehran to put the vessels under its own flag…

Iranian naval forces intervened to repel pirates who attacked an Iranian oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden, state television reported on Friday.The broadcast said pirates in 11 speedboats attacked a tanker with a cargo of 150,000 tonnes on Thursday. It showed naval forces opening fire on speedboats, without saying whether the footage was from the latest incident.Iran’s navy has extended its reach in recent years, dispatching vessels to the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden to protect Iranian ships from Somali pirates. (Reuters, Reporting by Dubai newsroom Editing by David Goodman)

Iranian naval forces intervened to repel pirates who attacked an Iranian oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden, state television reported on Friday.The broadcast said pirates in 11 speedboats attacked a tanker with a cargo of 150,000 metric tons on Thursday. It showed naval forces opening fire on speedboats, without saying whether the footage was from the latest incident.Iran’s navy has extended its reach in recent years, dispatching vessels to the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden to protect Iranian ships from Somali pirates.(Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by David Goodman)

Salvors used a unique lift method that combined two heavy lift vessels and four cranes to raise a Norwegian frigate that had become partially submerged following a collision with an oil tanker off the coast of Norway in November.On November 8, 2018, Norwegian heavy frigate KNM Helge Ingstad collided with the tanker Sola TS near Bergen, and sank on the inclined slope of a fjord. The accident injured eight people and caused the temporary closure of the Sture Oil Terminal near Bergen and the nearby Kollsness gas-and-condensate terminal…

The tanker market improved significantly in the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2018 driven by continued strong oil demand, said Bermuda-based tanker shipping company Frontline Ltd.According to the world's largest oil tanker shipping company, crude inventory draws reversed in the quarter, after having fallen below five-year levels and reduced the demand for crude tankers in the process.There is a historical correlation between inventory cycles and tanker rates, it said. Crude…

The 570-foot Singapore-flagged chemical & oil tanker Bow Mariner sank 15 years ago when the ship caught fire and sustained two explosions, resulting in the deaths of 21 out of 27 crew members, 45-miles off the coast of Virginia, Feb. 28, 2004.The vessel was transporting over three million gallons of ethyl alcohol on a voyage from New York to Texas. It had previously carried methyl tert-butyl ether, MTBE, in its other 22 cargo tanks that were discharged in New York.The cause of…

Royal Norwegian Navy conducts an operation to partially raise the sunken vessel HNoMS Helge Ingstad, starting from February 26. The operation is estimated to take five to six days.The Norwegian frigate was involved in a collision with the oil tanker Sola TS just outside the coast northwest of Bergen in western Norway on November 8, 2018. Many operations have been made aiming to prevent the vessel from sinking.The operation has been delayed many times due to weather conditions. In order for the operation to be conducted safely, wind and waves must be calm for the duration of the operartion.

Two crane ships early on Tuesday began raising a submerged Norwegian navy frigate which collided with an oil tanker in November and has remained stranded off Norway's west coast since, the armed forces said.The accident injured eight people and caused the temporary closure of a North Sea crude export terminal, Norway's top gas processing plant and several offshore fields.Raising the Helge Ingstad, one of Norway's five frigates, is expected to take five to six days and will require calm weather."The work must be synchronised, so the cranes must be completely stable, next to each other," Norway'

The Hong Kong and Vancouver-based shipowner Valles Steamship has ordered a new 112,000 dwt crude oil tanker from South Korea’s Sumitomo Heavy Industries Marine & Engineering (SHIME).Ship set to be fitted with a scrubber and will enter the market before the end of 2020, said a release from Valles, which was founded by C.S. Koo in Shanghai as a family business in 1917."We take great pleasure in concluding a newbuilding contract with the esteemed yard and the we look forward to further strengthening their relationship with SHIME…

ChartWorld launched its next generation eGlobe G2+ ECDIS, reported by the company to be the world's first 4K ECDIS..“ENCs and ECDIS, like paper charts before them, are at the heart of modern navigation," said Steven Schootbrugge CEO, ChartWorld, in a press release on the product. "One of the great advantages of digital navigation is our ability to navigate more accurately and update charts quickly as more detailed, or even specific, information becomes available.”ChartWorld’s…

Singapore's Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) said that a small supply and personnel vessel with three Indonesian crew memebers had capsized and sunk in its territorial waters, near where a similar incident occurred a month ago.All three crew members aboard the Ocean Cooper 2 are safe and no injuries or oil pollution were reported, the MPA said in a statement, adding that the incident is being investigated.The MPA said it received a report at 7:15 a.m. on Thursday (2315 GMT on Wednesday) that a Dominica-flagged supply vessel had capsized and sunk in the westbound lane of the Traffic Separation Scheme, about 3 nautical miles from Pedra Branca.The incident happened in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes…

The National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (Bahri) on Sunday clarified that its very large crude carrier (VLCC) tanker Abqaiq was not breaching the US sanctions on Venezuela.Earlier, the US Senator Marco Rubio accused Bahri of trying to sell diluents to the Venezuelan regime."Abqaiq is in ballast condition with no cargo onboard and on her way from the Red Sea to pick up a cargo from the Port of Jose Terminal in Venezuela for one of its regular customers in India," said a statement…

Belgium's crude oil tanker company Euronav NV announced that it has sold the Suezmax vessel Felicity (2009 – 157,667 dwt) to a global supplier and operator of offshore floating platforms.The vessel has been delivered to her new owners and will be converted into an FPSO and therefore leave the worldwide trading fleet.The buyer's name and financial terms are not disclosed. However, the NYSE-listed company revealed that a capital loss on the sale of approximately USD 3.0 million will be recorded in Q4 2018.The cash generated on this transaction after repayment of debt will be USD 21.1 million…

An oil tanker caught fire in Hong Kong's southern waters on Tuesday, killing one crew member while at least 21 were rescued, police said, with witnesses reporting a loud blast that shook windows several kilometers away.Rescue operations were going on about one nautical mile south of Lamma Island."There are still some crew that haven't been saved," a police spokeswoman told Reuters. She was not immediately able to provide more details including the name of the tanker, or its size.A…

VLCC owner DHT Holdings announced that its Co-CEOs have relocated to Singapore. The relocation follows changes in the tax law in Norway from 2019 for tax residency of companies formed outside of Norway.The crude oil tanker company said that the new legislation takes into account the place of daily management as well as the place of management and control on board level. The Company's tax residency will remain unchanged in Bermuda.The Company's office in Singapore will hold senior management…

Florida-based oil tanker operator  Overseas Shipholding Group (OSG) has entered into a Bareboat Charter Party Agreement with the owner of the vessel known as the Oregon Voyager.The provider of energy transportation services for crude oil and petroleum products in the U.S. Flag markets said in a press release that it will rename the 1999-built U.S. flagged product tanker the Overseas Key West and intends to use this vessel in the U.S. coastwise trade under the Jones Act.The Bareboat Charter extends for 10 years, into 2029.

Bermuda-based crude oil tanker company DHT Holdings plans to fit exhaust gas cleaning systems on two thirds of its very large crude carriers (VLCCs) to comply with the impending 2020 sulphur cap.The oil tanker owner-operator said that the retrofit program encompass 16 ships built between 2004 and 2012, representing the ships within our fleet that stands to gain the greatest economic benefits. Additionally, the two newbuildings delivered from Hyundai Heavy Industries this year had scrubbers installed…

Russia's new far eastern Zvezda shipyard has cancelled a tender to import key parts for a crude oil tanker from South Korea's Hyundai, RIA news agency reported on Monday, citing a database of state purchases.Kommersant newspaper had reported that Zvezda issued a tender to import a stern, bow sections an anchors for an Aframax crude oil tanker ordered by Rosneft despite an earlier plan to construct the tanker at the shipyard.The Zvezda shipyard, which is being built by a consortium of oil giant Rosneft…

Maersk Rosyth, the Handysize vessel, has been on time charter with an ExxonMobil marine affiliate for 15 years and has recently completed her 1,000th voyage, demonstrating Maersk Tankers' long-term relationship with the customer."A voyage Maersk Rosyth has done 1,000 times over the past 15 years, Rotterdam to Port Jerome and back, as part of a time charter agreement between an ExxonMobil affiliate and Maersk Tankers," said a press statement from the oil tanker company.A time charter agreement commenced in 1999 and since then…

Kuwait Oil Tanker Co. (KOTC), a subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, has ordered three giant liquefied petroleum gas tankers (LPG) from Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), the South Korean shipbuilding giant.According to the government's media outlet Kuwait New Agency (KUNA), the order for very large gas carrier (VLGC) is worth KD 64.8 million (around USD 213.3 million).KUNA quoted CEO of KOTC Sheikh Talal Al-Khaled Al-Sabah as saying that the VLGC-LPG gas tankers are part of a tanker-building contract signed with HHI…

As the cost inflation is set to accelerate on higher insurance premiums, average vessel operating costs rose modestly for the second year in succession following two years of marked declines, according to the latest report published by global shipping consultancy Drewry.The report titled 'Ship Operating Costs Annual Review and Forecast 2018/19' said that typical ship operating costs accelerated moderately in 2018 as the uncertain recovery in freight markets across most cargo sectors gained momentum.Opex costs are heavily linked to developments in the wider shipping market as some costs…

The six activists who were detained for 33 hours on board a shipment carrying dirty palm oil into Europe have been released by Spanish authorities in Algeciras.The Greenpeace International volunteers climbed onto the Stolt Tenacity tanker at dawn on Saturday, and delayed its journey from Indonesia to The Netherlands for almost two days.The climbers were protesting a 185-metre long cargo loaded with palm oil products from Wilmar, the biggest palm oil trader in the world, which…

CEO says increasingly upbeat on tanker profits. OPEC cuts, Iran sanctions may impact tanker demand.Frontline, one of the world's largest oil tanker firms, posted a surprise third-quarter profit on Friday, helped by rising rates for its fleet.The Oslo-listed shipper, controlled by billionaire investor John Fredriksen, said the outlook was improving due to rising global demand for crude after a lengthy downturn for shippers."We are increasingly optimistic that the tanker market will generate profits going forward," Chief Executive Robert Hvide Macleod told an investor call.Net earnings for July to September swung to a profit of $2.2 million from a $24.1 million loss in the same period last year.Adjusted for one-off gains…