Shipping News

U.S. Coast Guard and Port of Virginia personnel are assisting the crew of a bulk carrier that ran aground near Norfolk, Va. on Wednesday night.Watchstanders at the Coast Guard Sector Virginia command center received notification from crewmembers aboard the the Panamanian-flagged Hong Dai stating the 738-foot bulk carrier ran aground on a soft sandy bottom approximately 400 meters Northwest of Sewell’s Point, the Coast Guard said on Thursday.The Hong Dai crew reported no injuries…

Ship management and marine support services giant V.Group said on Wednesday it has appointed René Kofod-Olsen as the company’s chief executive officer, taking over from Graham Westgarth who will become chairman. Kofod-Olsen will join V. Group on November 1.Kofod-Olsen brings to the role almost three decades of global shipping industry experience. In 2012 he was appointed CEO of Topaz Energy & Marine, a position he held until the company’s successful divestment in 2019. Earlier in his career he worked for the A.P.

Three years ago, an Ecospeed hull coating was applied on Antarctic, a shallow draft anchor handling tug supply (AHTS) vessel owned by Ark Shipping Company. The success of this application led the vessel's owner to order the same protection for its next two shallow draught AHTS vessels: Polar and Polus. Building of these vessels will start in 2021 and will again take place at the Atlas Shipyard in Kocaeli, Turkey.Ark Shipping is a Russian river and sea shipping company that has been operating in the transport and logistics market since 1992.

U.N. shipping agency the International Maritime Organization (IMO) said on Thursday its website and intranet had been disabled by a sophisticated cyber attack and its IT specialists had shut down key systems to prevent further damage.This is a crucial time for the IMO, which is responsible for regulating shipping and is currently working on ways to reduce carbon emissions from the sector, with a virtual session of its Maritime Environmental Protection Committee slated to take place later this year.The IMO said services had been affected since Sept.

The world is in the midst of the second coronavirus wave and with that comes the natural question of how the current dynamics will play out for the dry bulk shipping market. Demand and the subsequent cargo flow of the major dry bulk commodities are critical for the freight market, as we enter the final quarter of the year.Iron ore…has without question performed well this year, on occasion even better than gold, driven by the robust demand generated by China, as the world’s leading iron ore consumer.

CMA CGM suspects a cyber attack affecting its servers led to a data breach, the global shipping line said on Wednesday as it continued to restore online services."We suspect a data breach and are doing everything possible to assess its potential volume and nature," it said in a statement.CMA CGM, the world's fourth-largest container shipping company, first reported the incident on Monday, saying it had shut down access to its online services after malware targeted its peripheral servers.The group's e-business website remained unavailable, with customers directed to alternative channels, but ba

Taiwanese shipping company Evergreen Marine has been awarded Digital Safe Security certification from classification society Lloyd’s Register (LR) for its latest 12,000 TEU containership, Ever Forward, which was built by South Korea's Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) and delivered on Monday.SHI used its smart ship solution, SVESSEL, to develop the digital ship system onboard Ever Forward. This solution provides operators and shore-based staff with instant access to operating data from onboard systems for monitoring and diagnostics through the cloud…

The United States domestic maritime sector recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of the passage by Congress of the Jones Act. It is considered the most significant of various US cabotage laws. Few mariners though appreciate the long history of cabotage laws in this country.Cabotage laws here are older than our nation. The British Navigation Acts and its predecessors were designed to develop, promote, and regulate British ships, shipping, trade, and commerce between other countries and with its colonies, including the restriction of foreign participation in its colonial trade.

French container shipping company CMA CGM Group said Tuesday that its maritime and port operations were functioning normally after a cyber attack hit its servers on Monday."All communications to and from the CMA CGM Group are secure, including emails, transmitted files and electronic data interfaces (EDI)," it said in a statement, adding that its booking functionalities are up and running.CMA CGM is offering alternative access for customers after making its e-business website unavailable on Monday in order to prevent the spread of malware…

It will take well-defined goals and a mix of new green technologies to meet the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) target to achieve net-zero shipping emissions by 2050, oil major Shell said in a newly published report.In the report, Decarbonizing Shipping: Setting Shell’s Course, Shell highlights the role that hydrogen and fuel cells could play in achieving a decarbonized shipping sector. Calling for the IMO to adopt a clear trajectory to net-zero emissions by 2050,…

Russia's top shipping company Sovcomflot plans to sell a 15.5%-17% stake in new shares and raise around 42.25 billion roubles ($534 million) in an initial public offering (IPO) on the Moscow Exchange, the company and analysts said on Monday.Sovcomflot's IPO comes at a difficult time for the Russian currency as rising coronavirus cases worldwide threaten an oil price recovery and reduce risk appetite among investors.The rouble was trading close to a 6-month low against the U.S.

Resolute, one of two high-speed passenger catamarans delivered by Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding, Duclos Corporation to Bermuda's Ministry on Transport in 2002, has returned to the shipyard for a complete refit. The project’s completion is scheduled for May 2021.Designed by Incat Design (currently Incat Crowther), the all-aluminum 250-passenger vessel measures 84 feet long, 30 feet abeam and draws 5.3 feet.Among myriad items to remove, repair or replace is replacing the vessel’s Detroit Diesel engines with new engine controls and monitoring systems to operate twin MTU 10V2000M72 diesel engines…

Container shipping group CMA CGM said on Monday it is dealing with a cyber attack impacting its peripheral servers.The attack did not concern the systems of its subsidiary CEVA Logistics, it added in a statement.CMA CGM said external access to its IT applications was made unavailable to prevent the malware from spreading while its IT teams work to resolve the incident.The French-based firm later said in an update that access to the group's information systems is gradually resuming…

The number of mariners stranded on ships at sea is steadily rising as the crew change crisis brought on by the coronavirus pandemic continues with no end in sight.Travel and transit restrictions in place due to COVID-19 have severely impacted seafarers, the number of crew members whose contracts have been extended by several months has continued to rise despite multiple pleas to governments to designate them as essential key workers and to facilitate their travel.According to the International Maritime Organization (IMO)…

Japanese shipping company NYK Line and shipbuilder Japan Marine United Corporation (JMU) say they plan to introduce a new shipbuilding contract that guarantees propulsion performance in actual sea conditions, factoring in heavy sea states encountered by vessels at sea.Typically, shipbuilding contracts guarantee ship speed based on horsepower in calm sea conditions, without waves. Mutual confirmation then occurs during sea trials before the ship is delivered.However, as any mariner can attest…

Classification society RINA has announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Shanghai Merchant Ship Design & Research Institute (SDARI) to create an interface to the SDARI 3D Ship Model, marking another step toward 3D design verification.SDARI is a member of the China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) and is one of the largest and most prolific research and design institutes in China. Its services cover the full design life cycle from preliminary feasibility study…

Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation has been awarded a $105 million Base and Option B contract award on the Jacksonville Harbor Construction Dredging, 47-Foot Contract C Cut-42 Project, the U.S.' largest dredging services provider announced Friday.Great Lakes said it expects the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to award additional option work items on the contract by mid-2021 with a value of $11.5 million, resulting in a total contract award of $116.5 million.Dredging is scheduled…

Commodities trader Trafigura on Friday proposed a carbon levy of $250-$300 per tonne of carbon-dioxide (CO2) equivalent on shipping fuels to make zero and low carbon fuels more economically viable and competitive.The International Maritime Organization (IMO) wants to halve the sector's greenhouse gas output by 2050 against 2008 levels.

Norwegian engineering and equipment company TECO 2030 ASA said it has signed a letter of intent with Austrian-based powertrain deveolper AVL List GmbH and Dutch shipping company Chemgas Shipping B.V. for the use of fuel cell technology as the main energy source for tugboats in the Blue Danube hydrogen project and similar projects.The Blue Danube project is among Europe’s most ambitious hydrogen projects. It involves production of 80,000 tons of green annually based on wind power in Romania…

Speaking at the International Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI) annual conference, IUMI Data and Digitalization Forum Chair, Patrizia Kern discussed big data, the use of digital technologies, and how the COVID-19 pandemic has put digitalization on the fast track.“Digitalization is not an option anymore - it is here to stay - and the marine insurance sector needs to keep pace," said Kern. "For some time now, the shipping industry has been seeking cost-effective ways to operate and key logistics players have already begun to partner and digitalize the global marine supply chain.

Royal Dutch Shell has provisionally booked a tanker to load a crude cargo at Libya's Zueitina terminal on Oct. 3, potentially the first since January at the recently reopened port.The Amoureux tanker is expected to load a 1 million barrel cargo and then discharge in Singapore on Oct. 22, Refinitiv Eikon shipping data showed.Shell declined to comment on the booking.Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) lifted force majeure on crude loadings at the port on Sept. 22.The north African…

An ammonia-fueled tanker design developed by South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) has received approval in principle (AIP) from classification society Lloyd’s Register (LR).The project to develop the novel, emissions-slashing aframax tanker was announced in January as maritime stakeholders consider cleaner-burning ammonia and other zero-carbon options to meet the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) target to halve shipping’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from 2008 levels by 2050.Together…

Saudi Arabia warned the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday that an "oil spot" had been seen in a shipping transit area 31 miles (50 km) west of a decaying tanker that is threatening to spill 1.1 million barrels of crude oil off the coast of Yemen.The Safer tanker has been stranded off Yemen's Red Sea oil terminal of Ras Issa for more than five years. The United Nations has warned that the Safer could spill four times as much oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska.In a letter to the 15-member body, reviewed by Reuters, Saudi Arabia's U.N.