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World Bank News

25 Jan 2024

Panama Canal Appoints Chief Sustainability Officer

Ilya Espino de Marotta (Photo: Panama Canal Authority)

The Panama Canal announced that Deputy Administrator Ilya Espino de Marotta will now also serve as the Canal’s first Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO).As CSO, Espino de Marotta will spearhead the development of a comprehensive sustainability strategy focused on decarbonization, adaptation, and transition. Working with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group, the Canal is already in the process of finalizing an inventory of its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and aims to complete a climate risk assessment by the end of the year.

15 Jan 2024

Houthi Attacks Expose China's Commercial Stakes in Red Sea

© SASITHORN / Adobe Stock

China has called for an end to attacks on civilian vessels in the Red Sea that have dramatically widened the Hamas-Israel conflict and placed Beijing's commercial interests along the Suez Canal at risk.The Iran-backed Houthi militia from Yemen that seeks "Death to Israel" is challenging the ability of the world's biggest trading nation to defend billions in strategic investments in Egypt.Since President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi came to power in 2014, China has stepped up its investment and commercial activities along Egypt's Suez Canal…

18 Dec 2023

Bab al-Mandab Shipping Lane Becomes Target as Israel Fights Hamas

© AUUSanAKUL+ / Adobe Stock

Yemen's Houthis have been targeting vessels in the southern Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait in attacks that the Iran-aligned group says aim to support the Palestinians as Israel and Hamas wage war.Several freight firms including MSC, the world's largest container shipping line, said they would avoid the Suez Canal as a result, which could mean having to circumnavigate Africa instead.War risk insurance premiums have risen as a result.WHAT ARE THE RECENT HOUTHI ATTACKS?* Dec.

14 Dec 2023

Somali Pirates Are Back in Action, But Full Scale Return Unlikely

© andrej pol / Adobe Stock

An Iranian fishing vessel, Almeraj 1, was reportedly hijacked by Somali pirates in November 2023. According to media reports, the pirates demanded US$400,000 in ransom and threatened to use the Iranian ship for additional hijackings if the payment was not made.Two days later, other Somali pirates hijacked a tanker, Central Park, off the Yemeni coast. The tanker sent a distress signal during the attack. Forces from a nearby American warship captured the pirates as they tried to…

27 Nov 2023

COP28 Puts Spotlight on Methane Pledges

Source: Global Methane Pledge

Delegates at this year's U.N. COP28 climate summit are anxious to boost the world's climate change agenda with concrete plans for clamping down on the second-most prominent greenhouse gas – methane.While more than 150 countries have promised since 2021 to slash their methane emissions 30% from 2020 levels by 2030 under the U.S.- and EU-led Global Methane Pledge, few have detailed how they will achieve this.What is needed now is to turn those pledges into urgent action – with financial…

12 Oct 2023

US Sanctions Two Tanker Owners for Carrying Russian Oil Above Price Cap

The U.S. on Thursday imposed the first sanctions on owners of tankers carrying Russian oil above the G7 price cap of $60 a barrel, one based in Turkey and one in the United Arab Emirates, in an effort to close loopholes on the mechanism designed to punish Moscow for the war in Ukraine.The U.S., other G7 countries and Australia imposed the cap last year, seeking to reduce Russia's revenues from seaborne oil exports as part of sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine.The cap bans Western companies from providing maritime services, including insurance, finance and shipping, for Russian seaborne oil exports sold above $60 a barrel, while seeking to keep oil flowing to markets. Caps also were imposed on Russian fuel exports.U.S.

26 Jun 2023

Countries Push for CO2 Shipping Levy as Crunch Talks Loom

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Maritime nations including Denmark and the Marshall Islands are rallying support for a global carbon dioxide emissions levy on shipping, with talks at a critical stage ahead of a U.N. agency meeting next month that could back the measure.The levy could provide funds to help countries cope with climate change and help curb emissions from shipping - a sector that transports about 90% of world trade and accounts for nearly 3% of global CO2 emissions, but whose international nature means it often avoids national CO2-cutting regulations.Member countries of the U.N.

17 Mar 2023

Gabon Transport Minister Resigns in Wake of Fatal Ferry Accident

Gabon's transport minister stepped down on Thursday, the presidency said, one week after more than 20 people were killed in a ferry accident that sparked outrage across the West African nation.The presidency's statement did not say why Brice Paillat handed in his notice.But it followed widespread calls for his resignation over the sinking of the Esther Miracle ferry close to the coastal village of Nyonie on March 9.The boat was carrying 161 passengers from Libreville to Port-Gentil…

28 Feb 2023

World Trade Boom Keeps De-globalization at Bay

© Darunrat / Adobe Stock

Globalization may have peaked, but the resilience of world trade in the face of mounting headwinds means a reversal of the past three decades is not inevitable.Since the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine shattered global supply chains, debate has raged over how integrated the global economy will be in the future compared with the previous 30 to 40 years.'Globalization' is an amorphous subject. According to the International Monetary Fund, economic globalization refers to "the increasing integration of economies around the world…

08 Dec 2021

Offshore Renewable Energy: A Port Puzzle for Floating Offshore Wind

The (current) world’s largest floating offshore wind farm; Kincardine. Sitting off north east Scotland, it has 9.5MW turbines on semisubmersible type foundations moored to the seabed. Photo from Cobra Group.

After being very much on the margins of the offshore wind industry, floating offshore wind now appears to be ready to hit the mainstream. With gigawatt scale developments already on the horizon, what will the infrastructure needed to build and support them look like? Over the past 12 months, the floating offshore wind sector appears to have had a major dose of adrenaline. While the largest development, to date, is the relatively small-scale 50MW Kincardine project off northeast Scotland (which will be outdone by the 88MW Tampen project in Norway later next year [2022])…

20 Oct 2021

California Ports, Key to US Supply Chain, Among World's Least Efficient

© Mariusz / Adobe Stock

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…

14 Oct 2021

US Port's Supply Chain Fix Challenge: Selling 24/7 Shifts

© Paul Bradbury/KOTO / Adobe Stock

The Port of Los Angeles is beginning the hard work of convincing terminal operators, importers, warehouses owners and trucking firms to embrace moving more cargo at night."It's not a single lever we can pull today to open up all the gates," Executive Director Gene Seroka said on Thursday.On Wednesday, the White House gathered stakeholders including retailers Walmart and Home Depot, logistics firms United Parcel Service and FedEx, and electronics supplier Samsung. The companies…

16 Sep 2021

Can LNG Retrofits be Economically Viable as Bridge to Net Zero?

© momentscatcher / Adobe Stock

While we await a definite ‘fuel of the future’, can retrofits be an economically viable option? Earlier in the year, the World Bank report denouncing liquefied natural gas (LNG) as not being environmentally sound left many owners who had invested in LNG perturbed. However, not all is lost, explains Tiago Braz, VP Product Area for Energy at Høglund Marine Solutions.When the World Bank released its report ‘Charting a Course for Decarbonizing Maritime Transport’ citing ammonia and hydrogen as the ‘most promising’ zero-carbon bunker fuels within the shipping industry…

14 Sep 2021

Iranian Tanker Seen in Syria Discharging Gasoil for Lebanon

TankerTrackers.com has visual confirmation that an Iranian tanker is discharging gasoil in Syria's Baniyas port which is destined for neighboring Lebanon, the online oil shipment tracking service said on Tuesday."Unable to deliver directly by sea to Lebanon due to sanctions, the vessel went instead to Baniyas, Syria, for land transfer," the firm said on Twitter, referring to U.S. economic sanctions on the government in Tehran. Syria is also under U.S. sanctions, so has nothing to lose from receiving the oil.It will require 1,310 trucks to transport the cargo to Lebanon, it added, estimating the cargo at 33,000 metric tons of gasoil.Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah…

12 Aug 2021

Wilhelmsen, NorSea Acquire Stake in Norwegian Deep-sea Mining Firm

From left: Wilhelmsen’s Jan Eyvin Wang (Executive VP New Energy) and Espen Gjerde (VP Strategy and M&A). Photo: Wilhelmsen Group/Hans Fredrik Asbjørnsen.

Global maritime group Wilhelmsen and the Norwegian offshore supply base firm NorSea have together acquired an 18% stake in the Norwegian deep-sea mining company Loke Marine Minerals."As the energy transition continues to gather pace, we are actively looking at new projects and business areas, outside of the oil and gas industry, where NorSea’s unique port infrastructure and proven service and supply know-how can continue to be a key driver of success. The development of the seabed mineral industry in Norway is far from certain…

22 Jun 2021

S.Africa to Revamp Ailing Port System

© donvictori0 / Adobe Stock

South Africa's National Ports Authority (NPA) will operate as a stand alone business under the aegis of state-owned freight logistics group Transnet, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Tuesday, as the country tries to overhaul some of the world's worst-performing ports.A report last month ranking container ports by the World Bank and IHS Markit saw South Africa's major ports at the bottom of the list, with Durban faring the worst among local peers by coming in at 349 out of a total of 351 ports assessed globally.The Container Port Performance Index considered the total port hours per ship call,

24 Aug 2020

How to Recycle a Ship Safely and Sustainably

© saintmichel85 / Adobe Stock

Shipbreaking is among the most dangerous jobs in the world, according to the International Labor Organization. This is the process of breaking up huge old ships into spare parts. It almost always happens in developing countries and comes with an unacceptably high level of fatalities, injuries and work-related diseases.In November 2016, 17 people were killed in a series of explosions on an oil tanker at a shipbreaking yard in Gadani, Pakistan. In 2019 alone, it was reported that 26 shipbreakers died in Bangladesh.

18 Aug 2020

Op/Ed: Government Response Should be Investigated After Wakashio Spill

(Satellite image ©2020 Maxar Technologies)

The stranding of the MV Wakashio is one of the biggest environmental disasters in the history of the western Indian Ocean. While the full scale of the disaster is not yet known, the 1,000 tons of oil and diesel that leaked close to one of the greatest marine treasures of Mauritius threatens to destroy this precious habitat. Recovery will be long and the disaster will occupy Mauritius for years to come.Questions now arise: could the accident and the spill have been prevented? Was the country prepared?

23 Jul 2020

Life on Hold for Many Philippine Seafarers

© yaniv / Adobe Stock

He had a visa and just the job—six months of work at sea and thousands in pay to send home. Then the virus struck.And like millions of other migrant workers who leave the Philippines to work abroad and send their earnings back to a myriad of dependents, a whole family saw its lifeline cut.“I was broke. Things were not easy for me and my family. I badly needed to go back to work at that time so I was looking forward to that trip,” said sailor Carlos Salvador Jr.Salvador was all…

16 Jun 2020

Suez Canal Ship Transits Rise Amid COVID-19

© Igor Yu. Groshev / Adobe Stock

Transits through the Suez Canal, the beating heart of the Egyptian economy, have stayed remarkably resilient to the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic if judging by total transits of the three commercial shipping sectors which are up 8% year-on-year. This is despite bleak economic growth prospects world-wide following the pandemic, and highlights that shipping remains the backbone of the global economy.It is often said that a picture says more than 1,000 words, but 6,166 ship transits in the Suez Canal can certainly also tell an interesting tale.

20 Dec 2019

Maersk India Trade Report Q3 2019

Photo: Maersk

India’s import and export container trade in Q3 2019 (July-September) remained flat as compared to global growth of 1.5%. The slowdown is aligned closely with the weaker domestic demand, as well as a reflection of the broad-based cyclical weakening of the economic environment in all the main global economies. The negative effects from escalating trade restrictions also weighed on trade growth in the quarter. The trade restrictions have reduced bilateral trade between the United States of America and China…

15 Oct 2019

Mozambique LNG Project Moves Ahead

With a second Final Investment Decision (FID) in just 2 years, Mozambique has officially positioned itself as a key player in the global gas and LNG market for years to come.The latest FID on the US$20 billion Mozambique LNG project, makes it the largest sanction ever in sub-Saharan Africa oil and gas.Described by His Excellency President Nyusi as “one of the most important and transformational projects in the country’s history”, Mozambique LNG is set to be a game-changer for this East African nation of 31 million people.According to Wood Mac, from the early 2030s state revenue from Mozambique LNG alone will reach US$3 billion per annum, single-handedly doubling today’s revenue as calculated by the IMF and World Bank.And this is not the only mega-LNG project on the drawing board.

24 Sep 2019

IMO Progressing in Global Climate Action

The UN Climate Action Summit in New York (23 September) is giving global leaders the chance to show the world concrete proposals and tangible actions being taken in the fight against climate change.IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim has been reporting on the solid progress being made by the Organization to reduce GHG emissions from international shipping, in support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in particular SDG 13 on Climate change.Lim delivered a keynote address at the opening of the World Economic Forum event on decarbonizing shipping. He then delivered a presentation at the launch of the Sustainable Ocean Principles, under the banner of the UN Global Compact.