Pipe Dream News

Korean carrier Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM)’s expansion plans are incompatible with market stability. Will it settle for more limited ambitions? An Analysis by Drewry. South Korean carrier Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) is back in the news with an impending order for as many as 14 Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCV) of 22,000 teu and for its intriguing re-entrance into the Asia-Europe market as a vessel provider, with reports suggesting a new standalone service called Asia Europe Express (AEX) using 10 Classic Panamax ships of 4,700 teu will commence in April. The AEX ships would be the smallest deployed on the route that is usually reserved for ULCVs…

Flights of Fancy? No longer a pipe dream, aerial drones find a home in maritime. Price Waterhouse Cooper estimates the global commercial drone market at $127 billion. Shipyards, offshore wind-farm developers, cruise lines, blue water cargo agencies, maritime marketing departments, first responders, admiralty lawyers, shore-to-ship package couriers, insurers, classification societies, salvors, container ports and the military are all using or actively exploring drones to accomplish tasks heretofore impossible without greater risk or cost.

USD 100 per barrel oil  is but a “pipe dream,” Wells Fargo said in a new investor note, reports MarketWatch. The report quoted Wells Fargo’s John LaForge saying that he’s doesn’t expect oil prices to climb anywhere near $100 a barrel over the next few years. Barrels price will bounce between $30 and $60 in the coming years, according to top bank’s diagnosis. “We continue to hear that big cutbacks are on the cusp of happening,” he said. “The evidence, however, implies otherwise. Shale production has caused American output to stand higher than it did in 2014, before the oil price crisis began. Wells Fargo data shows current production at 15.5 million barrels per day, compared to 14 million bpd three years ago.

The revival of the idea of building the Kra Canal through Thailand to enable shipping to bypass the narrow Straits of Malacca has been in the news recently. The plan would be to build a 750 mile (1,200Km) canal at an estimated cost of $28 billion, which would provide greater support to current supply chain. The notion of creating a new sea lane that slashes shipping times between the Andaman Sea in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea in the Pacific Ocean has never lost its powerful magnetism. According to a report in AsiaOne, the latest chapter in the Kra Canal epic came last month when Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, a proponent of the ambitious scheme when he was prime minister in the late 1990s, reportedly signed a Thai-Chinese deal to develop this project. However, Chavalit denied it.

In Nicaragua, a Chinese company is busy building what will become one of the world’s largest transoceanic canals. One of the largest engineering projects in history - They call it the Grand Inter-Oceanic Canal. Engineers say it will surpass the nearby Panama Canal in size and capacity. The canal would be three times as long as Panama’s and able to accommodate larger ships for the world’s cargo traffic. The new project is the largest in Latin America in 100 years. The $50 billion pharaonic project by a Chinese billionaire, Wang Jing, to cross Central America aims to unite the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by halving the Central American nation, has raised a firestorm of criticism even before it begins. And some in Nicaragua are gearing up for the fight of their lives to stop it.

Wind Assist Technology: Pipe Dream or Reality? Barry Parker examines wind assisted propulsion in commercial ships. LNG Impacts Ship Design: The use of LNG as a marine fuel is changing ship and boat design. Maritime Recruitment: The Shipyard Roundtable: Leading shipyard recruiters weigh in on trends in U.S. shipyard recruitment.

W&O designated preferred North American distributor of first United States Coast Guard-approved marine plastic piping system. W&O, a global supplier of marine pipe, valves and fittings, valve automation, and engineered solutions, has partnered with Georg Fischer Piping Systems to bring to market the first and only commercially available United States Coast Guard-approved marine plastic piping system in the world, known as SeaCor™. SeaCor is the only thermoplastic piping system that meets the IMO and USCG requirements for flame spread, low smoke and toxicity. It also carries Type Approval from the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS). As the preferred distributor in North America, W&O will bring SeaCor to the commercial marine, military, and upstream oil and gas industries.

When Iridium, the $5 billion satellite company, fell into bankruptcy on March 18, 2000, it went down as one of the costliest corporate fiascoes of all time. More than one year later, Iridium is back in business, though under completely new ownership. Iridium raised a few eyebrows and a fair share of skeptics with its decision to launch its global satellite communications services. How could the new company prosper when the previous one — using the same technology had failed? Enter Gino Picasso, the company's CEO. Up front and honest, Picasso says that the new Iridium is no pipe dream. Speaking via telephone from a restaurant near Iridium's Tempe, Ariz. offices, Picasso shared his visions and ideas with MR/EN regarding the future of the new company.

A motorway under the sea between Britain and France was mooted last week in a study issued by Eurotunnel Plc on a second cross-channel link. Almost 200 years after a Channel road link was first presented to Napoleon by French engineer Albert Mathieu, Eurotunnel's study envisages cars zooming along a four-lane highway. But with the existing rail tunnel struggling to make money, a new one may never happen. Millions of passengers, cars and trucks have sped underwater since Britain's Queen Elizabeth and President Francois Mitterrand opened the Channel Tunnel in 1994. By launching a road link, Eurotunnel could cut car journey times by half, analysts said. Under its original concession agreement, Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel had until 2000 to submit a study for a second road link.