Seacurus Daily: Top Ten Maritime News Stories 20/09/2016
1. Ballast a Challenge Too Far
As if ship owners didn’t have enough on their plates already, with the Hanjin crisis spreading and freight rates subdued across most ship types, a new factor should be included in their future business plans. The ratification of the BWM Convention, has caught the industry by surprise. Roughly thirteen and a half years after its adoption the BWM Convention is finally set to enter into force on September 8th 2017. From then, the requirement for vessels to fit a BWM system at their next dry docking will create an additional and significant cost that will need to be recouped in the market.
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2. Get the Home for Christmas
The Sun newspaper has waded into the British guards held in India argument. The paper claims that Military top brass back the campaign to free six innocent British war heroes left to "rot in prison" for a crime they did not commit. The innocent ex-soldiers got five years after officials mistook their anti-piracy ship for a gun-running vessel. Military figures are urging the Government to intervene as the men’s loved ones plead: “Get them home for Christmas.” Col Richard Kemp, who led British troops in Afghanistan, said: “These men are patriots and we owe them a huge debt". They are pushing India to "see sense".
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3. Vessels to Return To Owners
All Hanjin Shipping chartered vessels that have completed unloading their cargo have been told to cancel their charter agreements and return the ships to the shipowners, a South Korean judge said on Monday. Dozens of Hanjin’s ships have been blocked from docking with ports and lashing firms fearing they won’t be paid. Some vessels have also been seized and some sold. The company had a total of 141 vessels, including 97 container ships as of early September. Out of the 97 container ships, 60 were chartered and 37 owned by Hanjin. The company returned three bulk carriers earlier this month.
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4. Falling Short on Orders
It was confirmed that South Korea’s three largest shipbuilders recorded a little more than 10% of their order goals of this year. With only three months to go until the end of this year, it seems that it is impossible for them to achieve their goals set early this year. According to the shipbuilding industry on September 18, although the local three major shipbuilders set US$35.8 billion in new orders as their goals for this year, down 20% from about US$47 billion in the previous year, their new orders were a mere US$3.4 billion.
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5. Cargo Owners Suffer
The top 10 container carriers are the engines of global trade. The further up the list, the bigger the systemic risk in case of a breakdown. They are not too big to fail and they are organised in large consortiums, which are spreading out the consequences of a possible collapse of a single carrier all over the world. The maritime network is suffering from the sudden collapse and in the middle, the customer, who is going to pay the ultimate price. Who is taking care of the cargo interests? The cargo owners are struggling to find out where their containers are and how to get them. They are being ignored or taken advantage of.
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6. Flag of Convenience Fight Flares
Australia’s inquiry into flag of convenience shipping has resumed after federal elections halted it earlier this year. Australia announced a Senate Inquiry into flag of convenience shipping last year after a Four Corners program highlighted the suspicious deaths of three seafarers on board a Japanese-owned ship. Over a six-week period in 2012, three crew members died working on board the Sage Sagittarius, dubbed the Death Ship, a bulk carrier that carries coal between Australia and Japan.
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7. Lifejackets Signal Horror Scale
Aid organizations laid out 2,500 lifejackets symbolizing refugee crossings to Europe in a demonstration outside the British parliament. The orange lifejackets spread out on the lawn of Parliament Square were worn by adults and children traveling from Turkey to Greece, part of a wave of migrants attempting the Mediterranean crossing to get to mainland Europe. The United Nations refugee body UNHCR, International Rescue Committee, Migrant Voice, World Vision, and Médecins Sans Frontières collaborated for the display, which they called a "lifejacket graveyard" to illustrate the risks migrants take.
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8. Saving Spaceship Earth
Will the world achieve the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030? What can business do to lead the charge? DNV GL set out to answer these two critical questions in its new forecast examining the future of “Spaceship Earth.” The report concludes that, while many of the goals will make good progress across several world regions, action will not be fast enough or fair enough and will come at an unacceptable environmental cost. Business is uniquely positioned to drive this magnitude of action, says DNV GL. The report highlights 17 global companies at the frontier of progress on the SDGs.
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9. Reef Wreck Agreement
The Australian government has agreed a $29.6m (£22m) settlement with the owners of a Chinese coal carrier that caused significant damage to the Great Barrier Reef. The "Shen Neng 1" hit a shoal in April 2010, leaking tonnes of heavy fuel oil. Conservationists have described the settlement, which is less than a third of the full clean-up cost of $105m (£80m), as "woefully inadequate". The clean-up operation will begin mid next year. The 230m (750 ft) ship had ground against a coral shoal for more than a kilometre, turning coral into dust. Shenzhen Energy Transport refused to accept responsibility for the damage for six years.
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10. From Sailing to Sunk
A Turkish general cargo vessel sank yesterday one hour after the master had SOS’d that the ship’s engine room was taking on water. All the crew managed to evacuate onto lifeboats and were picked up by a passing Arkas containership, "Electra A". The 32-year-old, 2,061 dwt ship, "Murat Hacibekiroglu II", was carrying a cargo of cement when it ran into difficulties northwest of Cyprus. The ship’s owner is Istanbul-based Hacibekiroglu Denizcilik.
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S Jones
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