Singapore News

Venezuela’s oil exports rose in February to over 700,000 barrels per day (bpd), their highest level in 10 months, pushed by more sales of fuel oil cargoes to new clients in Asian markets, according to Refinitiv Eikon’s tanker tracking data and documents.A growing number of clients with no track record in oil trading has been helping Venezuela’s state-run PDVSA to allocate crude and fuel in Asia, especially since the U.S. Treasury Department halted oil swaps by PDVSA’s long-term customers in the last quarter of 2020 as part of tightening sanctions.These buyers…

US-based seabed survey and ocean exploration company Ocean Infinity on Tuesday said it had agreed to acquire the Sweden-based subsea survey firm MMT."Ocean Infinity and MMT are excited to announce an acquisition that brings together MMT’s deep expertise and established track record as a distinguished marine survey and data analytics provider and Ocean Infinity’s best-in-class robotic technology and operational expertise," the companies said without sharing the financial details…

About one third of the roughly 150 ships owned by companies controlled by Singapore tycoon Lim Oon Kuin and his family have been sold as part of efforts to repay billions of dollars of debt owed to creditors, two sources told Reuters.Accounting firm Grant Thornton, court-appointed supervisor of Xihe Holdings, put up several vessels for sale through shipbrokers in September last year. Xihe Holdings is owned by the Lim family and held the bulk of their fleet.The rest of the ships…

PT. Graha Trisaka Industri has awarded tug design contracts to Robert Allan Ltd. for a RAmparts 3200-W and a TRAktor 3200-V. The tugs will be built and operated by Taiwan Navigation Co. Ltd. under a long-term charter contract for CPC Corporation, Taiwan.PT. Graha Trisaka Industri is an affiliate of PaxOcean Group, Singapore with the shipyard located in Batam, Indonesia. PaxOcean and Robert Allan Ltd. have worked together successfully on a number of projects including dual fuel tug of RAmparts 2800-DF design for PSA Marine, Singapore. Four other Robert Allan Ltd.

An Israeli-owned ship, the MV HELIOS RAY, was hit by an explosion in the Gulf of Oman overnight Thursday and a U.S. defense official said the blast left holes in both sides of the vessel's hull. The cause was not immediately clear.The vehicle-carrier ship is owned by a Tel-Aviv based company called Ray Shipping through a company registered in the Isle of Man, according to a U.N. shipping database."Investigations are ongoing. Vessel and crew are safe," the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said in an advisory notice on Friday.

Singapore-based shipping company Pacific International Lines (PIL) will pay $3 million in fines after pleading guilty to felony dumping violations in Hagatna, Guam.The vessel operating company and two engineers were sentenced for illegally discharging oil and for maintaining false and incomplete records relating to the discharges of oily bilge water from the containership Kota Harum in 2019. PIL, chief engineer Maung Maung Soe, and second engineer Peng Luo Hai admitted that oily bilge water was illegally dumped from the Kota Harum directly into the ocean and into Apra Harbor…

Brazilian national oil company Petrobras has hired AqualisBraemar to perform DP acceptance and annual trials for their DP shuttle tanker fleet operating in Brazil over the next three years.Under the contract, AqualisBraemar will carry out trials to verify the integrity and capabilities of the station-keeping equipment for Petrobras’ shuttle tanker fleet.Shuttle tankers transport crude oil from offshore oil fields to terminals, refineries or bigger tankers where subsea pipelines are not feasible.AqualisBraemar…

Singapore's Pavilion Energy Trading & Supply Pte Ltd said on Monday it signed a six-year sale and purchase agreement with Chevron Corp for about 0.5 million tonnes per year of LNG supplies from 2023.Pavilion Energy, owned by Singapore state-owned investment company Temasek Holdings, struck the deal with Chevron's Singapore branch.Each cargo supplied to Singapore under the agreement will be accompanied by a statement of its greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) measured from wellhead to discharge port…

In early 2021, the somber news from the cruise sector continued. For some cruise brands, their own version of “lockdowns” will have spanned an entire year. By late January, 2021, Carnival and others were hesitantly pegging their restarts for April/May 2021, and for some markets, late summer, under a Conditional Sail Order promulgated late last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).What else to do but look ahead?In preliminary earnings guidance, Carnival Corporation (NYSE: CCL)…

Pacific International Lines (PIL) appointed Goh Chung Hun as General Manager, Fleet Division, effective from February 1, 2021, succeeding Captain R.S. Minhas from 15th February 2021. Goh will be overseeing the management of PIL's fleet, including technical, marine operations, safety and crewing at PIL.Goh brings nearly 30 years of fleet management, technical, marine operations and seafaring experience. Prior to joining PIL, he was Director (Shipping) / Director (Marine) at the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA)…

COVID-19 will continue to skew the floating production systems market for the coming 24 months, while buying power for a large portion of FPSO contracts will be centered in Brazil and Guyana/Suriname. These two areas are expected to account for more than 60% of the FPSO contracts awarded between 2021 and 2025.These are the findings shared in a recent floating production outlook report produced by International Maritime Associates (IMA) and World Energy Reports (WER).The 100+ page…

Shipbuilder Strategic Marine has delivered a Fast Crew Boat (FCB) to offshore support vessel owner Centus Marine.The 40-meter vessel, named Centus Eight, was built in Singapore. According to Strategic Marine, during the sea trials the vessel achieved a top speed in excess of 30 knots.Th hull form was developed in collaboration with Strategic Marine’s design partner Southerly Designs in Australia and was tested at the Australian Maritime College.Designed to meet the specific requirements of Oil Majors, Centus Marine will the Centus Eight vessel in Malaysian waters.

Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels are essential tools in the search for oil  in deeper waters, further from shore-based facilities. Typically, the large FPSO is stationary with a number of wells feeding oil into its holds. The oil can then be pumped off to shuttle tankers that transport it to shore side tanks and refineries.FPSOs are big expensive pieces of equipment. Some of them are converted from ocean going oil tankers. Such is the case with the 333 by 60-meter, very large crude carrier, VLCC Ariake, which was purchased for conversion to an FPSO.

DG Risk Group announced Monday it has acquired armed maritime security company Protection Vessels International, along with its trading division Halcyon Yacht Security. The acquisition was completed in 2020.UK-based Protection Vessels International (PVI) specializes in armed maritime security solutions for commercial and governmental agencies. Most recently PVI, in unison with DG Risk Group, supported and partnered with several navies in the Gulf of Guinea in support of two major…

Singapore's Keppel Offshore & Marine, a company famous for its offshore rig construction, is set to undergo a major transformation, look for opportunities as a developer and integrator of offshore energy and infrastructure assets, and exit the offshore rig building business.The company will be restructured into three parts, separating construction and ownership of legacy drilling rig assets from its core operations, "which will be slimmer, asset-light and people-light.""Keppel Corporation announced today that amidst the global energy transition and major disruptions facing the oil industry…

Many of the largest flag states—including the Marshall Islands, Hong Kong (China), Singapore as well as the Bahamas and Cyprus—continue to perform to an exceptionally high standard, with traditional flags and open registers performing equally well, according to the International Chamber of Shipping's (ICS) recently published Flag State Performance Table (2020/2021)."The table clearly indicates that distinctions between 'traditional' flags and open registers are no longer meaningful.

Iran has asked Indonesia to provide details about the seizure of an Iranian-flagged vessel, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Monday, a day after Jakarta said it had seized Iran and Panama-flagged tankers in its waters.Indonesia said on Sunday its coast guard had seized the Iranian-flagged MT Horse and the Panamanian-flagged MT Freya vessels over suspected illegal oil transfer in the country’s waters.Khatibzadeh said that the seizure was over a “a technical…

Indonesia said its coast guard seized the Iranian-flagged MT Horse and the Panamanian-flagged MT Freya vessels over suspected illegal oil transfer in the country's waters on Sunday.Coast guard spokesman Wisnu Pramandita said the tankers, seized in waters off Kalimantan province, will be escorted to Batam island in Riau Island Province for further investigation."The tankers, first detected at 5:30 a.m. local time (2130 GMT on Jan. 23) concealed their identity by not showing their national flags…

China's exports of clean marine fuels rose in December to a record since shipments began a year ago, taking 2020 exports of the ship fuel to 15.45 million tonnes, customs data showed on January 20, 2021.Chinese oil refineries began exporting very low-sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) in January to comply with emission rules set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), after Beijing granted tax incentives to boost production and help create a regional bunkering hub. In December…

Two offshore drilling rigs, previously used for oil and gas exploration beneath the seabed, could soon help with space exploration.Namely, according to multiple reports this week, a company linked to billionaire Elon Musk bought two deepwater semi-submersible drilling rigs last year, with plans - reportedly - to convert them into floating launch pads for Musk's SpaceX rockets.SpaceX, or Space Exploration Technologies Corp, was founded by Musk back in 2002 to cut space transportation costs and enable the colonization of Mars.According to CNBC…

Two liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers that had initially signaled they would load at Royal Dutch Shell's Prelude floating LNG facility in Australia have diverted elsewhere, ship-tracking data showed on Tuesday.This comes just a week after Shell said that Prelude would resume loading cargoes after production had been suspended for nearly a year following an electrical trip.The facility loaded its first cargo since coming back online on Jan. 8 onto the LNG tanker Symphonic Breeze…

A new liquefied natural gas (LNG)-hybrid tug—said to be the world's first—will be equipped with two mtu 16V 4000 M55RN gas engines from manufacturer Rolls-Royce.The harbor tug will be built by Sembcorp Marine Integrated Yard and operated in Singapore by Jurong Marine Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sembcorp Marine. The new LNG-hybrid tug is the first of 12 tugs that Sembcorp Marine plans to design and build to replace the existing diesel-powered ones between now and 2025.LNG as a fuel virtually eliminates sulphur oxide emissions…

More than 10,000 frontline maritime personnel to receive COVID-19 vaccinations by end of January.In the global seafarer crisis created by COVID-19, Sinagapore has emerged as a world leader in the treatment of seafarers and frontline maritime personnel. That streak continues as Singapore became one of the first countries to prioritize COVID-19 vaccinations for frontline maritime workers. The vaccination exercise is part of the national COVID-19 vaccination strategy to protect frontline personnel and their family members…