Plant Operations News

Fort Lauderdale, Fla. based maritime and industrial mechanical service repair specialist Advanced Mechanical Enterprises (AME) announced it has appointed Paul Savage as its new Operations Manager.With over 30 years of leadership and project management experience, Savage joins the AME management team from Veolia North America, where he served as Vice President, managing complex industrial and government contracts. At Veolia, Savage was at the helm of commercial, state, and federal contracts…

Kenny Ballard has been appointed Mustang Survival’s new President, taking over responsibilities from Juanita Killen, who stepped into the role of Interim President in 2023. Additionally, Lance Richardson takes on the newly created role of VP, Manufacturing and Innovation for the Wing Group, Mustang Survival’s parent company.Ballard brings a wealth of experience from previous executive roles with renowned brands, including Osprey, SwissGear, Wenger Outdoor, Kelty, and, most recently, his own successful consulting firm.

America's largest military shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) announced on Tuesday that Karey Malyszko has been promoted to vice president of Plant Operations at its Newport News Shipbuilding division in Newport News, Va. Malyszko succeeds Dru Branche who retired in December.Effective immediately, Malyszko assumes overall responsibility for waterfront support services, facilities, environmental health and safety, and security. She reports to Jennifer Boykin, president…

A strengthening Hurricane Delta dealt the greatest blow to U.S. offshore Gulf of Mexico production in 15 years, halting most of the region's oil and nearly two-thirds of its natural gas output.An already large and powerful storm, Delta could intensify further on Friday as it churns through the Gulf's prime oil-producing area. Its winds reached 120 miles per hour (195 kmh), according to the National Hurricane Center.Delta has shut 1.67 million barrels per day, or 92% of the Gulf's oil output…

Energy companies, ports and refiners raced on Monday to shut down as Hurricane Sally grew stronger while lumbering toward the central U.S. Gulf Coast, the second significant hurricane to shutter oil and gas activity over the last month.The hurricane is disrupting oil imports and exports as the nation's sole offshore terminal, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), stopped loading tanker ships on Sunday, while the port of New Orleans closed on Monday.The U.S. government said 21%…

Oil prices fell in early trade on Friday as a massive hurricane raced inland past the heart of the U.S. oil industry in Louisiana and Texas, with a storm surge weaker than predicted.U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 16 cents, or 0.4%, to $42.85 a barrel as of 0014 GMT, adding to overnight losses.Brent crude futures for October, set to expire on Friday, fell 9 cents, or 0.2%, to $45.00 a barrel, while the more active November contract slipped 7 cents to $45.53.Hurricane Laura hit Louisiana early Thursday with 150 mile-per-hour (240 kph) winds…

Latest move to Enter El Salvador with Energía del Pacífico will Reinforce SAAM Towage's Presence in Central America.The Managing Director of SAAM Towage, Felipe Rioja, celebrated the company’s upcoming launch in the new market: El Salvador. “We will provide services for the Energía del Pacífico (EDP) project at the Port of Acajutla, which reinforces our presence in Central America and our commitment to the region,” he commented.The long-term agreement with EDP calls for allocating three tugs, two of which are new, to power plant operations.

Closing the St. Lawrence Seaway in December to accommodate higher water outflow at the Moses-Saunders dam would cost the Canadian and U.S. economies $250 million/per week — impacting farmers’ grain exports, manufacturing plant operations and disrupting deliveries of fuel, construction materials and road salt for winter safety to cites throughout the region.The Chamber of Marine Commerce is issuing today’s comments to provide a wider context of the economic repercussions related to calls to increase the water outflow at Moses-Saunders dam to levels that would be unsafe for navigation and halt shipping on the St. Lawrence Seaway during December.Increasing outflows above the safe navigation limit to the highest levels possible would lower Lake Ontario levels less than 4 centimeters a week.

U.S. crude oil exports to India hit a record in June and so far this year are almost double last year's total as the Asian nation's refiners move to replace supplies from Iran and Venezuela in a win for the Trump administration.U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has been pressuring its allies to cut imports of Iranian goods to zero by November and India's shift advances the U.S. administration efforts to use energy to further its political goals.The United States has become a major crude exporter…

Oman Drydock Company (ODC) appointed Said bin Homoud Al Mawali as Chief Executive Officer replacing Stephan Aumann who announced earlier last year by the ASYAD (formerly Oman Global Logistic Group) board of directors in Duqm/Oman. Prior to his role at ODC, Said was providing leadership and governance for the Executive Management of OTTCO since February 2014. With the 21 years extensive experience in construction, asset management, plant operations, supply chain, cost control, business development…

Oil and natural gas producers began evacuating staff at U.S. Gulf of Mexico platforms on Thursday ahead of Tropical Storm Nate, the second storm in as many months to threaten Gulf Coast oil and refining facilities. Nate, which has already killed three people in Costa Rica, according to local authorities, is forecast to scrape past Honduras and Mexico, enter the Gulf and strengthen into a hurricane before making landfall early on Sunday in Louisiana, near several major refineries. That path takes it through an area populated by offshore oil and natural gas platforms, which pumps more than 1.6 million barrels of crude per day, about 17 percent of U.S. output, according to government data. Forecasts for Nate have shifted in the past 24 hours.

Nearly a quarter of U.S. refining capacity out; Motiva down for two weeks; Corpus Christi starts to reopen. Retail U.S. gasoline prices hit two-year highs and global shipping routes were scrambled as the nation's largest refiners remained shut on Friday, even as Harvey was losing strength. Major fuel pipelines feeding the U.S. Northeast and Midwest have been either closed or severely curtailed, prompting shortages in some areas and dramatic spikes in wholesale prices. The storm has roiled global fuel markets and tankers carrying millions of barrels of fuel have been rerouted to the Americas to avert shortages. European refining margins hit a two-year high on a surge in exports.

Motiva Enterprises' Port Arthur, Texas refinery, the nation's largest, may be shut as long as two weeks for assessment of the plant and repair of any damage, sources familiar with plant operations said on Thursday. The 603,000 barrel per day (bpd) Port Arthur Refinery was shut on Wednesday due to flooding from Tropical Storm Harvey. Reporting by Erwin Seba

Brunswick Commercial & Government Products (BCGP) has officially broken ground on a facility expansion at the company's Edgewater, Fla. headquarters. The addition includes a new large-boat building with added manufacturing space and other facility improvements. The new 10,500-square-foot facility will be located on the east side of the commercial boats manufacturing campus and will increase the company's manufacturing capacity by 50 percent. "Today, by breaking ground on the BCGP facility expansion, we are greatly increasing our capabilities," said Boston Whaler Group President Nick Stickler.

April 14 marked 10-years without a lost time incident for Brunswick Commercial & Government Products (BCGP). BCGP's employees have worked 1,817,000 hours without a lost time incident and maintained a recordable incident rate of zero in 2016. "This monumental milestone illustrates our dedication to safety and manufacturing excellence, said John Ratto, BCGP Director of Manufacturing and Plant Operations. BCGP was also recently presented the Sustained Safety Performance Award from its parent company - the Brunswick Corporation.

In the last two months of 2016, IHC saw a substantial increase in the sale of its vessels, equipment and engineering packages. Almost half of the total order intake over 2016 was secured in this period. “We see market recovery in the dredging and renewables industry, and are positive that this will continue in 2017,” says IHC CEO Dave Vander Heyde. One of the highlights of the year end includes the sale of a trailing suction hopper dredger (TSHD) Easydredge 2700 from stock. Supported by the Argentinean bank BICE, the vessel was sold to Dragados Argentinos DASA S.A. (DASA) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. DASA is a new company, established by three leading dredging contractors in the country.

For over one year the HUMMEL has been contributing to improved air quality at the port of Hamburg. Becker Marine Systems’ LNG Hybrid Barge will also be supplying lower mission power to the AIDAsol this year. The cruise ship has already made three calls since the middle of May and will have made a total of 16 stops at the Hafencity terminal by October. Operations of the HUMMEL LNG Hybrid Barge have started up again at the beginning of the new cruise ship season. “Due to some restrictions making the work more difficult…

Phillips 66 has purchased a cargo of Algerian crude oil for its Bayway refinery in New Jersey for the first time since 2013, two sources said, the latest U.S. refiner on the East Coast to shun domestic crudes in favor of cheaper imports. The rare shipment suggests East Coast refiners are ramping up efforts that started in the past year to shift to a diet of foreign crudes as the era of cheaper domestic supplies continues to fade. A Panamax-sized vessel named Energy Century carrying about 433,000 barrels of Saharan Blend crude oil arrived in New York Harbor on Monday after leaving the Algerian port of Skikda on March 29, according to Reuters Eikon shipping data. BP was listed as the charterer, shipping records show. The oil, which is very similar to U.S.

Asian liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices for December delivery rose this week, buoyed by a short-term tightness in supply, though an imminent wave of new projects is expected to put prices under pressure in the new year. The price of Asian spot cargoes for December delivery rose to $7.70 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), from around $7.50/mmBtu last week. Traders said that prices for January were also firm, in line with December, but then weakened from February as more supply was expected to come online from new projects. "Not as many cargoes have come out in November and December as had been expected because AP LNG is being a bit delayed and Gladstone is towards the back-end of when people had expected it," said a trader referring to new Australian supplies.

Cheniere Energy's landmark Sabine Pass liquefied natural gas export plant in Louisiana will receive its first tanker for loading on Jan. 12, according to ship tracking data and a source with knowledge of the plant's operations. The Energy Atlantic LNG tanker, which was last seen on Thomson Reuters ship tracking data on Monday steaming west across the Indian Ocean, is the first in a string of test cargoes that will be loaded before commercial operations begin later in the year. The expected arrival of the tanker to Sabine Pass was confirmed by a source and by IHS Waterborne consultants that track LNG shipments globally. It marks a milestone for the long-awaited project, the first of its kind to be built in the United States in nearly 50 years, and for the U.S.

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus hosted a ship-naming ceremony today to announce that SSN 799, a Virginia-class attack submarine, will bear the name USS Idaho. The submarine will be named to honor the history its namesake state has with the Navy. Idaho is home to the former Farragut Naval Training Station, which was the second largest training facility in the world during World War II. From the early 1950s to the mid-1990s, the Naval Reactors Facility (NRF) located within the Idaho National Laboratory, trained nearly 40,000 Navy personnel in surface and submarine nuclear power plant operations with three nuclear propulsion prototypes including the first nuclear-powered submarine prototype, S1W.

Keppel Group has clinched 35 awards at this year's Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Awards, organised by the Workplace Safety and Health Council (WSHC) and Ministry of Manpower (MOM), Singapore. It is the highest number of awards won by a single organisation this year. Of the 35 awards, Keppel Offshore & Marine (Keppel O&M) bagged 31 awards under the Safety and Health Award Recognition for Projects (SHARP) category for its exemplary safety performance as well as good safety and health management systems. Keppel Shipyard also clinched the WSH Innovation Award with the Coupler Repair Workbench. The winning project team developed a jig to help to lock the coupler in place, thus reducing physical contact that workers have with the coupler and impact wrench, thereby minimising risks of injury.

The Great Lakes Towing Company, which operates the largest fleet of shipdocking tugboats on the U.S. Great Lakes-Saint Lawrence Seaway, has announced the addition of four more tugboats to its fleet. The four newly purchased tugs will be named after four of the Great Lakes; Tug Michigan, Tug Huron, Tug Ontario and Tug Erie. The company’s Tug Superior has been in service for years, operating in the Port of Detroit. “These four tugs will be immediately added to the fleet, and provide some new life and operational stability to our day-to-day business,” said Gregg Thauvette, Vice President – Operations, The Great Lakes Towing Company. “The equipment and machinery onboard…