News

Canada is working to increase its ship recycling capacity on the West Coast in order to accommodate an influx of end-of-life vessels in the near future. The Royal Canadian Navy is expected to retire several of its warships starting this fall.

Nearly two years after the project was unveiled, construction started today in China for what is likely to become the world’s first ammonia-fueled containership. The project, which is being led by CMB.TECH, as part of its efforts to accelerate the transition in the shipping industry, will launch a vessel that they report will transform short-sea shipping and demonstrate the potential of ammonia as a low-emission fuel.

Last week, South Africa announced postponing a key naval exercise with China and Russia slated for November. This has been interpreted as a move to avoid the exercise coinciding with the G20 summit, scheduled in South Africa in the same month.

Leidos, the IT and defense tech company behind the Sea Hunter drone boat, has come up with an autonomous commando team delivery craft for the Royal Navy - a new and unusual application of naval autonomous technology.

Russian officials are again highlighting the growth of shipping and specifically containership along the Northern Sea Route. In just 10 days, they expect the first containership following an international route to European ports will start an NSR transit, while data shows a slight increase in traffic so far this year along the Arctic shipping route.

The Portuguese Navy confirmed earlier media reports that an operation is underway off the coast after a containership requested assistance. The vessel said there were boarders aboard, and unconfirmed media reports said at least two crewmembers had been locked in the engine room.

Electric vehicle fires have been a major source of concern for ro/ro operators for years, and several operators have banned them from carriage. EV battery packs can self-ignite if cells overheat or develop internal faults; they can also catch fire from a nearby heat source, like a burning conventional vehicle.

A supervisor identified as a Brazilian national overseeing construction of an FPSO vessel at the Hanwha Ocean shipyard in Geoje, South Korea, was killed on September 3 during testing on the under-construction vessel.

The transition brings the CCG's maritime domain experience into the mission of defending Canadian sovereignty, Canada's government said in a statement, much like the U.S. Coast Guard model. Some elements from Fisheries and Oceans Canada are also making the switch.

A man who claimed to be a survivor of the 2014 Sewol ferry sinking has been arrested outside a government office in Seoul after he demanded a meeting with the president's office. The man was allegedly in possession of a weapon in a public space, a chargeable offense in South Korea. 

New sanctions announced on September 2 by the U.S. the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) targeted the business network of a UAE-based businessman, Waleed al-Samarra’I, and nine Liberian-flagged tankers, which the U.S. says have generated millions of dollars in oil revenue.

It was revealed in a court filing on Friday, August 29, that the Trump administration, through the Department of the Interior, plans to reconsider permits issued last year to the SouthCoast offshore wind project.

The authorities were responding to a collision off Singapore on Monday, September 1, in which a bunker barge and a bulker made contact. The Maritime & Port Authority of Singapore is reporting that there was a small fuel spill that was expected to evaporate and break down in the environment, and that both vessels were stable.

Dongfang Electric Wind Power completed the hoisting of the 26 MW offshore wind turbine for testing on August 29 as the industry races forward with the huge next generation of turbines. It is one of several large offshore wind turbines currently in design or testing to break the 20 MW barrier and continues China’s emergence as the leader in the technology.

The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) is calling attention to the fate of 19 seafarers abandoned on a sanctioned product tanker that has been lying off the UAE for months. The organization has been warning that seafarer abandonment is on track for its worst year, but the situation of the Global Peace (6,191 dwt) is compounded by the fact that the tanker was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in April.

As Europe ramps up funding for its defense, German ports want to see some of the new resources used to strengthen transport infrastructure against potential military attacks. In a recent letter to the German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, the Central Association of German Seaport Operators (ZDS) emphasized that ports form the first line of attack in a war scenario.

A high-profile research expedition to explore the deep sea in Uruguayan sovereign waters has suffered a setback after the research vessel Falkor (too) suffered technical issues. The vessel was forced to return to port for repairs.

Information from multiple sources suggests that the Royal Navy is now unable to meet commitments in several important areas, contrary to UK Ministry of Defence insistence that it is continuing to meet its operational tasking.

Havila Voyages, which already operates four Norwegian coastal cruise ships fueled with LNG and equipped with batteries, reports it is preparing to take the next step: a climate-neutral round trip along the Norwegian coast.

Nearly six months after the tragic incident in which one of the tankers Crowley manages for the US’s Tanker Security Program was damaged after it was hit by a containership, the shipping manager reports it has received US permission for a replacement.