Seacurus Daily: Top Ten Maritime News Stories 14/07/2016
1. Pilots Injured in Contact
Three Milford Haven ship pilots have been injured after their pilot boat made ‘hard contact’ with an LNG carrier during a routine transfer, the port authority has confirmed. The Port of Milford Haven says the incident occurred early Sunday morning when its pilot vessel St Davids made hard contract with the LNG carrier "Lijmiliya". The impact was so hard in fact that three of the five crew members on board the pilot boat suffered injuries, which the port authority described as minor in nature but serious enough to require hospitalization. The pilot boat also suffered significant damage, the port authority said, but no pollution resulted.
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2. Nervous About South China Sea
Global oil and shipping markets reacted nervously to the international arbitration court ruling against Beijing’s claims for large swathes of the South China Sea, fuelling geopolitical tensions in the vital waterway. A tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, found China had breached the sovereign rights of the Philippines and had no legal basis to its historic claims in the South China Sea, a major shipping lane between Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The ruling will be seen as a victory by other regional claimants such the Philippines and Vietnam, but with China rejecting the ruling, saying its military would defend its sovereign rights.
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3. Hyundai Join 2M Alliance
Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) has signed on to join the 2M alliance from April next year. HMM will join Maersk and MSC in the vessel sharing partnership, marking the latest sign that the Korean line is finally coming out of its financial woes. “By accessing 2M VSA network, HMM will be able to strengthen its service offering and achieve improved cost competitiveness. The 2M carriers will benefit from a reinforced service competency in Asia and improved network cover in the transpacific area,” HMM said in a release. No new name for 2M has yet been revealed.
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4. Anchorage Pirate Attack Warning
Earlier this week, according to the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre, six robbers in a boat armed with machine guns and knives boarded an anchored heavy lift vessel at Conakry Anchorage in Guinea. Vessel believed to be the Boskalis ship "Teal". The ship sails under the Curaçao flag. They attacked the duty O/S causing injuries and took the 2/O hostage. They opened fire to threaten the crew members and damaged the accommodation. Under gun threat, they robbed the crew members of their cash and personal belongings before escaping. Master tried to contact the port control, but received no response.
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5. Dealing With Over Supply
Dealing with the obvious oversupply problem in the dry bulk market is the main solution for the dry bulk market to recover sooner, rather than later. As such, based on data from shipbroker Intermodal, in the first half of 2016, 373 bulkers and General Cargo ships were scrapped, representing 23.8 million tons of dwt carrying capacity. In its latest weekly report, the shipbroker noted that “comparing the first half of the year with the same period in 2015, we observe that there is an increase overall in terms of dwt and a small decrease in terms of vessels, indicating that bigger dwt vessels have been scrapped so far this year.
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6. Deutsche Bank Rides to Rescue
Germany’s biggest lender has emerged as a surprise contender to take on a multibillion dollar shipping finance business even as its share price barely hovers above record lows. Sky News has learnt that Deutsche Bank has expressed an interest in buying part or all of a $3bn (£2.3bn) Greek shipping portfolio owned by the taxpayer-backed Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). The involvement of Deutsche in the auction is unexpected in the context of speculation last week that it was looking to sell $1bn (£760m) of shipping loans in an attempt to boost its capital position.
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7. Extended Ballast Compliance
The U.S. Coast Guard revised the Alternate Management Systems (AMS) Program for BW treatment systems by further extending the current five year “extended compliance date” for ships fitted with an AMS. An installed AMS can be used for additional five years from the “extended compliance date” provided the AMS is installed prior to the expiration of the vessel’s extended compliance date. Since the publication of the new policy, the Coast Guard has granted nearly 6,000 extensions, surpassing the number of all previous extensions by over 200 percent.
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8. Berth Allision Ship in Dock
Two days after it rammed a berth in Antwerp the Korean built "Dali", a 10,000 teu containership on long term charter to Maersk Line, remains moored at the Belgian port suggesting the damage it has sustained at its stern is serious. The state of the berth it hit also remains unclear. A dramatic video posted on Facebook shows the moment the 2015-built giant vessel backed into the berth, the video has been seen more than 58,000 times. AIS data from MarineTraffic shows it has since remained moored in Antwerp. The Marshall Islands-flagged ship is owned by Oceanbulk Containers.
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9. Ship Arrested for Crew Wages
A ship called "Amur" with 12 Ukrainian seafarers on board has arrested in Port of Burgas, Bulgaria, under the decision of the District Court. The cargo ship under the Bulgarian flag has been remaining off the harbour since 24 June. The ship was delayed because the Amur Shipping ship-owners did not pay wage arrears to the crew. Amur Shipping owes a total of USD 150,000 to 12 Ukrainian-born crew members. The ship was previously named Asian Dream. The name was changed in March, when the company Amur Shipping became an owner of the dry-cargo vessel.
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10. Lawyers on Cybersecurity
Companies are becoming increasingly alive to the importance of cyber-security and the need to protect themselves against the risk of cyber-attacks; the marine sector is no exception, says Clyde & Co’s Shipping Newsletter. Earlier this year, BIMCO published guidelines to assist the shipping industry identify, prevent and mitigate the risk of such attacks on board ships. Shipowners and operators rely increasingly on on-board IT and Operational Transformation (OT) systems to gather data about their operations, oversee a ship’s functions, and monitor on-board security. A cyber-attack could impair a ship’s operation,
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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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