Seacurus Daily: Top Ten Maritime News Stories 11/12/2018
1. Grimaldi Passes Away
Aldo Grimaldi, chairman of the Genoa-based Grimaldi Holding and former president of the Italian shipowners’ association Confitarma, has passed away at the age of 96. Grandson of the shipowner Achille Lauro, he began his own business creating with his other three brothers, Luigi, Mario and Guido, his first shipping company called Fratelli Grimaldi Armatori, first with cargo ships and then passengers, thus constituting the core of what would later become the Grimaldi Group. Aldo Grimaldi was chairman of Grimaldi Holding, Grandi Navi Veloci, Grandi Traghetti, Gilnavi and one of the board of directors of SIAT.
http://bit.ly/2Ee7X0o
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2. Sorry State for Crew
The U.K.-based charity Human Rights at Sea has documented a case of 40 seafarers abandoned in dire circumstances in the UAE. The charity was contacted by crew members from three Dubai-based Elite Way Marine Services EST vessels. They sent an urgent appeal for help. Their vessels, the deck cargo vessels Azraq Moiah and Tamim Aldar and the offshore supply vessel Al Nader, are at anchorage at the port of Sharjah in the UAE. The seafarers say that food and medical supplies are running low. Some have been on board for over two years, without pay, shore leave and without communication with their families.
http://bit.ly/2RLWGrT
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3. Making Breaking Transparent
The murky, deadly world of shipbreaking just became a bit brighter with the launch of a new platform, the Ship Recycling Transparency Initiative (SRTI) where owners, shippers and financiers can get a picture of who is the best at recycling their ships. The Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI) has created the SRTI as a tool for sharing information on ship recycling to drive responsible practice. The platform comes nine months after a group of shipping companies first announced their collective effort to use the market-drivers that transparency brings to make responsible ship recycling the norm.
http://bit.ly/2SDse3j
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4. BIMCO on Sulphur
BIMCO has published two sulphur content related bunker clauses which are now available on the BIMCO website and on SmartCon, BIMCO’s contract editing solution. The two clauses are, BIMCO 2020 Marine Sulphur Content Clause for Time Charter Parties and BIMCO 2020 Fuel Transition Clause for Time Charter Parties. The 2020 Marine Fuel Sulphur Content Clause replaces the BIMCO Fuel Sulphur Content Clause 2005 and can be incorporated into time charter parties as of now. The new clause forms an integral part of BIMCO’s Suite of Standard Bunker Clauses for Time Charter Parties.
http://bit.ly/2QpuFtw
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5. COSCO UAE Expansion
China’s Cosco Shipping Ports Ltd plans to expand its container terminal in Abu Dhabi in the next three to five years with an investment of $200 million as more Chinese companies set up in the emirates. Cosco’s new container terminal, with a capacity of 2.5 million TEUs (Twenty-foot equivalent units) at Abu Dhabi’s Khalifa Port, was inaugurated on Monday. Cosco has spent $300 million on the terminal and $130 million on a container freight station after it won a contract in 2015 from Abu Dhabi Ports. The bulk of China’s non-oil trade with the UAE currently goes through Dubai.
http://bit.ly/2UBmgSz
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6. Intrigue Hits LNG Tankers
The arrest of a top Chinese technology executive means the tariff war that ensnared LNG may not have reached a cease-fire, according to the developer of a U.S. project to export the fuel. Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd. has been cautioned by prospective Chinese buyers “that things are not resolved” on the trade front, Chief Executive Officer Greg Vesey said in an interview Friday. The potential purchasers’ comments came after Canada said the U.S. is seeking to extradite Huawei Technologies Co. Chief Financial Officer Wanzhou Meng over potential violations of sanctions on Iran.
http://bit.ly/2Pvbycq
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7. Infamous VLCC Sold
One of most famous VLCCs of all time has changed hands. The 2006-built Nerissa, owned by India’s Mercator, has been sold for $34m after much interest from Greek buyers. The ship is understood to have been bought by Greece’s NG Moundreas. The Chinese-built Nerissa achieved fame when it was sold 10 years ago for $170m, one of the highest prices ever paid for a single VLCC. Mercator had been operating the ship in the Seawolf Tankers pool managed by Heidmar. The sale marks Mercator’s exit from the VLCC sector.
http://bit.ly/2EmXctr
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8. Port Optimisation Evolution
Each day, the need for port call optimisation is growing, especially with the International Maritime Organization’s commitment to lower total annual greenhouse gas emissions from shipping by at least 50% by 2050. That was one of the conclusions of an Industry Input Workshop held to discuss and agree on global data standards for port call data, permitting machines to understand one another. At the workshop, attendees “readily accepted” proposed standards due to most of them being based on existing International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards.
http://bit.ly/2Uy2AyE
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9. Oil Leak in Gulf of Mexico
The U.S. Coast Guard has been responding to an oil discharge near Port Sulphur, Louisiana. Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector New Orleans received a report from the National Response Center that a crude oil well in Rattle Snake Bayou, southwest of Port Sulphur, was leaking. The amount discharged has not been determined; the well is rated to produce 5,476 gallons of oil per day, but it is not known when the discharge began. The source of the discharge has not been secured and the cause of the incident is under investigation.
http://bit.ly/2ruELdV
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10. Great Eastern’s Great Investment
India’s The Great Eastern Shipping (GE Shipping) has earmarked up to $50m over the next four years to upgrade its fleet for compliance with IMO’s regulations on low-sulphur fuels and ballast water treatment systems (BWTS). The plan for GE Shipping is to spend about $20m on fitting scrubbers on seven of its biggest ships, mostly large crude tankers, by December 2019, and another $30m on installing BWTS between 2019 and 2014 on all ships, according to G Shivakumar, executive director and cfo of the company, cited by the local media. GE Shipping operates a fleet of 48 ships.
http://bit.ly/2Gc9JS8
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Daily news feed from Seacurus Ltd – providers of MLC crew insurance solutions www.seacurus.com
