Seacurus Daily: Top Ten Maritime News Stories 10/02/2015
1. Tanker Attacked Off Djibouti
A Kuwaiti tanker has been attacked by pirates en route to Djibouti, but has arrived safely in the East African country. The unnamed vessel was approached by gunmen in four boats, according to the state-run Kuna news agency, citing Kuwait Oil Tanker Co (KOTC) CEO Sheikh Talal Al-Sabah. AIS data shows KOTC’s 46,500-dwt products/chemical carrier Burgan (built 2014) in the area on 8 February. The tanker has berthed with the crew unharmed, Kuna said
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2. Seafarers Found Adrift After Attack
Fourteen Indonesian seafarers were found adrift in life rafts after their tanker was hijacked by pirates. The pirates left the crew in the life rafts and sailed off in the tanker. The crew were physically unharmed. The seafarers were found on 31st January near Indonesia’s Lembeh Island due south of the Philippines.

The Indonesian-flagged chemical tanker “Rehobot” is still missing.

The tanker was boarded by pirates near Lembeh Island, North Sulawesi in Indonesia.
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3. Polar Training Needs Agreed
The IMO has now agreed on training requirements for seafarers navigating Arctic and Antarctic waters. The requirements are to enhance safety of navigation in polar areas and to ensure that the crew is prepared for the special conditions, Danish Maritime Authority said in its press release. Last week, the IMO agreed on a set of new regulations for seafarers navigating Arctic and Antarctic waters including special training in order to navigate ships in ice.
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4. More Woes Await Security Teams
More security teams accompanying vessels are liable to detention according to sources in Nigeria. Indeed as Elections loom it is thought that Nigeria is looking to take control of ships carrying munitions – even those with a legitimate purpose. The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has apparently* warned the international shipping community, that it will not hesitate to detain any vessel entering the Country’s waters with security guards.
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5. Encouraging Ports to Do More on Welfare
A new website designed to encourage the formation of port welfare boards around the world to provide a welcome to visiting seafarers has been launched today by the UK based Merchant Navy Welfare Board (MNWB). An important element in a project managed on behalf of the International Seafarers’ Welfare Assistance Network (ISWAN), the website explains the role of welfare boards, which are an integral part of the MLC2006, now being implemented.
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6. Owners Hope More to be Done on Shoreleave
The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) is hopeful progress can now be made towards improving the facilitation of shore leave and crew transfers for the world’s 1.5 million merchant seafarers. The ILO meeting considered possible adjustments to the Seafarers’ Identity Documents Convention (Revised), 2003 (ILO 185), and outlined a pathway that could bring about improvements to the welfare of seafarers while addressing security concerns.
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7. More On the BIMCO Bunkers Contracts
Speaking on changes to BIMCOs Bunker contract, Grant Hunter, BIMCO’s chief legal and contractual affairs officer, said that previous attempts to create a standard bunker contract had failed because of bias toward buyers – which is to say that the owners had insufficient incentive to actually propose the standard bunker contract, so a more commercially viable balance has been tried.
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8. Hamburg Sees Biggest Boom
With total throughput of 145.7 million tons, representing growth of 4.8 percent, the Port of Hamburg achieved its best-ever result in 2014. Up by 6.1 percent at 102.7 million tons, general cargo throughput was outstanding. A 1.7 percent increase in bulk cargo throughput to 43.0 million tons also contributed to the new record for Germany’s largest universal port. In 2014 the Port of Hamburg set a new record for seaborne cargo handling, but 2015 could see more.
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9. List of Scrapping Shame
Out of a total of 1026 ships dismantled globally last year, 74% of the gross tonnage – or some 641 vessels – were sold to ‘sub-standard facilities’ in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, according to the NGO Shipbreaking Platform. The organisation has released a list of what it describes as the ‘worst global dumpers’ whose ships are dismantled directly on tidal beaches and are therefore ‘polluting the Indian sub-continent’.
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10. Migrant Deaths in Coastguard Hands
At least 29 migrants died of hypothermia aboard Italian coast guard vessels after being picked up from an inflatable boat adrift near Libya, the mayor of the Italian island of Lampedusa said on Monday. Two patrol boats picked up 105 migrants late on Sunday from the boat drifting in extreme sea conditions, with waves as high as 8 metres (26 feet) and temperatures just a few degrees above zero, the coast guard said in a statement.
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Daily news feed from Seacurus Ltd – providers of MLC crew insurance solutions www.seacurus.com
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S Jones
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