Tanzania News

Typhoon Gaemi swept through northern Taiwan on Thursday, killing two people, triggering flooding and sinking a freighter offshore, before heading across the sea and into China where it is expected to dump more torrential rain.Gaemi made landfall around midnight (1600 GMT Wednesday) on the northeastern coast of Taiwan in Yilan county. It is the strongest typhoon to hit the island in eight years and was packing gusts of up to 227 kph (141 mph) before weakening, according to the Central Weather Administration.As of 8:30 am (0100 GMT)…

Salvage operations were in high-gear on Thursday to prevent a potential oil spill and pollution along South Africa's west coast from a grounded general cargo vessel, authorities said.The Panama-flagged "Ultra Galaxy" ran aground close to Doring Bay, some 300 km north of Cape Town, late on Tuesday after it started listing badly.

Shell has reached an agreement with Carne Investments, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek, to acquire 100% of the shares in Pavilion Energy, a Singapore-based global liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading business.Pavilion Energy is an LNG business with a contracted supply volume comprising about 6.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa).Headquartered in Singapore, Pavilion Energy’s global energy business encompasses LNG trading, shipping, natural gas supply and marketing activities in Asia and Europe.“The acquisition of Pavilion Energy will strengthen Shell’s leadership position in LNG…

The Paris MoU Committee has approved the 2023 inspection results and adopted new performance lists for flag States, with Tanzania and Cameroon graded as “very high risk” and Denmark topping the White List.The “White, Grey and Black List” presents the full spectrum, from quality flags to flags with a poor performance that are considered high or very high risk. It is based on the total number of inspections and detentions during a three-year rolling period for flags with at least 30 inspections in that period.The White List represents quality flags with a consistently low detention percentage.

Esgian provides an update on Noble and Diamond Offshore’s announcement of merger plans in its Week 24 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryContractsADES has completed the signing of a drilling contract for a jackup with Suez Oil Company (SUCO) in Egypt.Mergers & AcquisitionsNoble Corporation and Diamond Offshore Drilling have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Noble will acquire Diamond in a stock plus cash transaction. As part of the transaction, Diamond shareholders will receive 0.2316 shares of Noble…

Romanian rescue teams were searching on Saturday for three missing crew members of a cargo ship that sank off the Black Sea coast, the naval authority said.Officials said they were notified very early on Saturday that the Tanzania-flagged Mohammad Z had sunk 26 nautical miles away from Romania's Danube village of Sfantu Gheorghe.The naval authority's Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC), border police and two commercial vessels in the ship's vicinity were involved in the search and rescue efforts.Mohammad Z had eleven crew members on board, nine Syrian citizens and two Egyptians."Eight o

Negotiations for the development of Tanzania's $42 billion liquefied natural gas export plant have been delayed by proposed government changes to a financial agreement reached last year, a government spokesperson and two company sources said.The government and investors announced last May they had completed negotiations on the long-delayed project to unlock Tanzania's vast offshore gas resources.Equinor and Shell are joint operators while Exxon Mobil, Pavilion Energy, Medco Energi…

Singapore's Temasek Holdings has shortlisted energy giants Shell and Saudi Aramco among a handful of companies to purchase most of the assets of liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading firm Pavilion Energy, sources with knowledge of the matter said.The sale process comes a decade after the state investment firm set up Pavilion Energy to focus on LNG-related investments, and takes place as spot Asian LNG prices LNG-AS have fallen more than 40% since mid-August, potentially weighing on the deal's valuation.Temasek is evaluating bids for the sale of Pavilion Energy's assets…

African Heads of State have agreed a landmark moratorium on the donkey skin trade. The agreement was reached on February 18 during the 37th African Union Summit in Ethiopia.Over the last decade, Africa has seen its donkey population decimated due to Chinese demand for ejiao, a gelatine used in traditional Chinese medicine that is made from boiling down donkey skins. Believed to have unsubstantiated health benefits, demand for ejiao has obliterated China’s own donkey population…

Every day, nearly 60 fully loaded very large crude-oil carriers sail between the Persian Gulf and Chinese ports, carrying about half of the oil that powers the world's second-largest economy.As the vessels enter the South China Sea, they ply waters increasingly controlled by China's growing military, from the missile batteries and airfields at its bases on disputed islands to its stealthy Type 055 destroyers.But when crossing the Indian Ocean, joined by others headed to China from Africa and Brazil…

Tanzania on Sunday signed agreements with Dubai state-owned ports operator DP World to operate part of the Dar es Salaam port for 30 years, a deal that has previously been opposed by Tanzania opposition and rights groups.Plasduce Mbossa, director general of state-owned Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) which currently manages the port, said DP World will lease and operate four of the 12 berths at the country's largest port.Dar es Salaam also serves landlocked nations in east and southern Africa like Uganda…

Offshore oil and gas exploration spending will increase more than 20% globally this year and the growth will continue into the next, oilfield services firm SLB said on Wednesday."Offshore is experiencing a renaissance, with significant breadth and anticipated durability," SLB Chief Executive Olivier Le Peuch said at the JP Morgan Energy Power and Renewable Conference, according to a draft of the speech posted on the company's website.SLB, the world's largest oil services and equipment provider, said it expects to see a long tail of activity with 65 lease rounds concluding globally this year, i

The US Coast Guard’s Office of Commercial Vessel Compliance has released its U.S. Port State Control Annual Report for 2022, with Latvia noted as having the highest detention ratio, ahead of Bolivia.The report lists highest risk flag administrations based on their 2020-2022 detention ratio as: Latvia (57.14%), Bolivia (31.25%), Togo (7.69%), Curacao (4.88%), Italy (3.39%), Turkey (2.90%) and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (2.30%).Medium risk flag administrations were Cyprus…

On October 31, 2022, global maritime leaders of tomorrow graduated from the World Maritime University (WMU). The Class of 2022 has received the education required to contribute to maritime and ocean matters in their home countries and more broadly to the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). Overall, the graduating class includes 276 graduates from 70 countries, and sets a record of 94 women graduates.WMU President Dr. Cleopatra Doumbia…

Shell's incoming Chief Executive Wael Sawan is set to accelerate the group's drive to build its renewable energy business, including through a possible "transformative" clean power acquisition, company and industry sources said.Sawan will from January take on a firm with a strong balance sheet after a surge in oil and gas prices, but whose renewables capacity has lagged peers like TotalEnergies and BP as green issues come increasingly into vogue. Shell aims to halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and to become a net-zero emitter by 2050…

A ferry serving Lake Victoria in East Africa has been fitted with new Schottel propulsion systems.With an area of nearly 69,000 square meters, Lake Victoria is the largest lake in Africa—and a vital resource for around 30 million people who live on its shores. It is not only a source of water and fish but also provides them with transport routes. Every day, almost 40 ferries travel across the lake between Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. One of these ferries is the 1985-built Sengerema…

A merchant vessel was towed to safety after losing power in heavy seas off the coast of Somalia.On July 19, the EU's counter-piracy forces EU NAVFOR ATALANTA received a request for assistance from the Somali Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation after the Tanzania-registered merchant ship Anatolian suffered a complete propulsion and power plant failure, and was without food or fresh water. At the same time, ATALANTA assets were granted permission to enter Somali territorial waters.For about a week…

Southern California’s Los Angeles and Long Beach ports handle the most ocean cargo of any ports in the United States, but are some of the least efficient in the world, according to a ranking by the World Bank and IHS Markit.In a review of 351 container ports around the globe, Los Angeles was ranked 328, behind Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam and Alaska’s Dutch Harbor. The adjacent port of Long Beach came in even lower, at 333, behind Turkey’s Nemrut Bay and Kenya’s Mombasa, the groups…

A Briton and a Romanian were killed when an Israeli-managed petroleum product tanker came under attack on Thursday off the coast of Oman, the company said on Friday, in an incident that Israel's foreign minister blamed on Iran and said deserved a harsh response.There were varying explanations for what happened to the Mercer Street, a Liberian-flagged, Japanese-owned ship, with Israeli-owned Zodiac Maritime describing the incident as "suspected piracy" and a source at the Oman…

Two crew members, a Briton and a Romanian, were killed when a petroleum products tanker managed by Israeli-owned Zodiac Maritime came under attack on Thursday off Oman's coast, the company said on Friday.London-based Zodiac said on its website that the attack in the Arabian Sea on the Mercer Street, a Liberian-flagged Japanese-owned ship, was still being investigated.Earlier on Friday it had described the incident as suspected piracy but the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), which provides maritime security information, says it was not piracy."Details of the incident are still being established and an investigation into the incident is currently underway.

A cargo ship owned by an Israeli company was damaged by a missile in the Arabian Sea on Thursday in what was suspected to be an Iranian attack, an Israeli security official said.The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the ship was on its way from Tanzania to India and was able to continue its voyage after the attack.The official did not provide further details.According to Israel's Ynet news website, the ship sailing under a Liberian flag did not sustain serious damage and Channel 12 news reported the ship is owned by XT Management, based in the port city of Haifa.Reuters could not reach officials at the company for comment.

Pirate attacks against merchant ships off the African coast have been reported regularly over the past decade. And despite measures to suppress it, Somalia-based piracy remains a concern. On the other side of the continent, the Gulf of Guinea is now viewed as presenting a much more serious piracy problem.Last year a record 130 crew members were kidnapped in 22 separate incidents, according to the International Maritime Bureau. The cluster of attacks in November and December has…

SCHOTTEL has secured a contract with Cheoy Lee Shipyards, Hong Kong, for the supply of propulsion units for a total of four azimuth stern drive (ASD) tugs. Each of the new vessels ordered by Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) will be equipped with two SCHOTTEL Rudderpropellers.Three of the four tugs will each be equipped with a pair of SCHOTTEL Rudderpropellers type SRP 460 featuring fixed-pitch propellers measuring 2.60 m in diameter and each driven by a 2,210 kW diesel engine at 750 rpm. This configuration will enable a bollard pull of 70 tonnes.