Seacurus Daily: Top Ten Maritime News Stories 18/12/2018
1. Support for Decarbonisation
Maersk has had a huge response from maritime peers keen to join its ambitious 2050 fleet decarbonisation bid. The company has announced its intention to become carbon neutral by the middle of the century. To achieve this goal, it has said carbon neutral vessels must be commercially viable by 2030, and an acceleration in new innovations and adaption of new technology is required that will require pan-industry collaboration. While there might be less than two weeks left of 2018, and the year 2050 may seem a long way off, for Ole Graa Jakobsen the clock is now very much ticking.
http://bit.ly/2EzaTFH
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2. Toyota Eyes Shipping
Japan’s largest car manufacturer has put money towards developing autonomous ships. Boston-based Sea Machines Robotics announced yesterday that it has closed a $10m Series A investment led by Accomplice VC and Eniac Ventures, with participation from Toyota AI Ventures, Brunswick Corp, through investment partner TechNexus Venture Collaborative, NextGen VP, Geekdom Fund, Launch Capital, LDV Capital and others. Sea Machines is currently developing advanced perception and navigation assistance technology for a range of vessel types, including containerships.
http://bit.ly/2QAVtqW
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3. New Way of Stacking Containers
DP World and materials-handling firm AMOVA have signed an agreement to develop a rack-storage system for shipping containers at Jebel Ali Terminal. Instead of stacking containers directly on top of each other, the system places each container in an individual compartment within an eleven-story-tall steel rack. This method creates three times the capacity of a conventional container terminal of equivalent size. As an added benefit, the rack carries the weight of the upper containers in the stack, so a container towards the bottom can be accessed without restacking all the boxes on top of it first.
http://bit.ly/2EA8Z7S
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4. USCG Leads Clean Up
The U.S. Coast Guard has taken over the task of containing the long-running Mississippi Canyon Block 20 oil spill, which may well be among the largest oil releases in North American history. According to the Coast Guard, the MC20 site may be releasing oil at a rate of “hundreds of barrels per day.” It has been active since 2004, when Taylor Energy’s MC20 platform was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan: storm surge from the hurricane set off an underwater mudslide that destroyed the platform and buried its subsea infrasructure under 100 feet of sediment.
http://bit.ly/2rGgIc7
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5. Access to Medical Care
The limited ability to provide medical care at sea has been classified as one of the “special risks” for seafarer stress. The authors of a 2015 article published in the Review of Psychology observed that stress resulting from treatment of disease at sea is due, in part, to the fact that medical care on board is administered by someone who is not a medical professional and that treatment options are generally limited. The uptake of telemedicine in recent years has helped change all that. Expert medical advice at sea is now just a phone call away.
http://bit.ly/2PLirGq
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6. Pilot Boat Explosion
On Friday evening, six seafarers were injured when a pilot boat exploded alongside the LPG carrier Gas Infinity at an anchorage off Batu Pahat, Malaysia, in the Strait of Malacca. Four crewmembers from the pilot boat and two more from the tanker suffered burn injuries due to the blast, according to the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA). The crew contacted the MMEA, which deployed five first responders to the scene. “As soon as we arrived, we found that an explosion had occurred on the pilot boat that was docked beside the gas tanker that was transferring items,” said the MMEA.
http://bit.ly/2EA06uX
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7. Pollution Caught on Camera
Greek shipping company Navimax Corporation has been sentenced to pay a $2,000,000 fine by a federal district court in the United States for violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships and obstructing a Coast Guard investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday. Navimax is incorporated in the Marshall Islands and has its main offices in Greece. According to court documents and statements made in court, Navimax operated the Nave Cielo, a 750-foot crude oil tanker registered in the Cayman Islands.
http://bit.ly/2STTiM0
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8. Shipping’s Political Effect
If the threat of higher diesel taxes was enough to cause riots on the streets of Paris, then the impact of an obscure new rule forcing shipping companies to use cleaner fuels in commercial vessels has the potential to turn the “gilets jaunes” movement apoplectic with rage unless policymakers wake up to the danger. In just over a year, the IMO will introduce radical new guidelines forcing shippers around the world to stop using dirty fuel oil and instead shift to low-sulphur marine diesel to help clean up the environment. However, the impact of the change will reverberate far beyond the world’s merchant fleets
http://bit.ly/2Cjc5ef
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9. Hi-Tech Shipmanagement Hub
Columbia Shipmanagement has opened a new high-tech Performance Optimisation Control Room in Cyprus. The control room, manned 24/7, is set to optimise vessel safety, crew rotation and training, performance (speed, consumption, delay, weather routing), disaster avoidance, maintenance (including preventive maintenance through sensor and camera technology), and contractual compliance. The web-based function means information can be easily uploaded to other Columbia offices and clients’ offices allowing remote monitoring. The control room is also acting as a management hub.
http://bit.ly/2rQJuXH
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10. Massive Year for Carnival
The world’s largest cruise company, Carnival Corporation, will launch four new cruise ships in 2019 as part of its ongoing fleet enhancement with 20 new ships scheduled for delivery through 2025. The ship’s scheduled to launch next year will be delivered across three of Carnival’s global brands – Carnival Cruise Line, America’s Cruise Line; Costa Cruises; and Princess Cruises. On New Year’s Day, Carnival Cruise Line will debut the Carnival Panorama, which will be its first new ship based in California in 20 years. The new vessels also include Sky Princess, Princess Cruises’ fourth Royal-class ship; and Costa Smeralda.
http://bit.ly/2QzKo9D
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Daily news feed from Seacurus Ltd – providers of MLC crew insurance solutions www.seacurus.com
