Seacurus Daily: Top Ten Maritime News Stories 20/12/2018
1. Vision of Cleaner Future
The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) has announced its commitment to reduce the rate of carbon emissions across the industry fleet by 40 percent by 2030. Progress toward the 40 percent target will be measured against a 2008 fleet baseline, and emissions rates will be calculated based on the fleet’s total carbon emissions, total ship berths and total distance travelled. CLIA plans to report annually on the industry’s progress toward the commitment. The reduction will be fuelled by technologies for energy efficiency in ship design and propulsion.
http://bit.ly/2GvEK3J
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2. 2M Alliance Shake Up
Maersk and its 2M alliance partner MSC are overhauling their Asia-Europe routes, adding six ULCVs, dropping eight port calls and implementing slow-steaming on ten separate service strings. According to the partners, the change is intended to address problems with schedule reliability brought on by a combination of external factors. “Port congestion and unfavorable weather conditions have resulted in delays. We are now progressing on the improvements made earlier in 2018 to further enhance our schedule reliability across our Asia-Europe Network,” Maersk said in a statement.
http://bit.ly/2R4dYDG
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3. Noble Phoenix Rises
Asian commodity trader Noble Group has completed its restructuring and is now under a new holding company called Noble Group Holdings Limited (New Noble). The company spent much of this year getting creditors to agree the complex restructuring. The company has been brought low by accounting fraud allegations first reported by Iceberg Research in 2015 which have seen hundreds of millions of dollars wiped off its market cap. The company has stressed its belief in the underlying business and people, both of whom they claim “have been unbelievably resilient.”
http://bit.ly/2SdvWRh
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4. Busy Christmas Ahead
Brokers predict a busy Christmas for Japanese shipping major Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K Line). The active outfit is offloading ships at a rapid speed during the last month of the year. Last week, K Line sold a nine-year-old aframax, the 115,000 dwt Singapore River, for $23.3m. A new sale is in the pipeline this week with K Line’s Singapore subsidiary just committing the ten-year-old supramax, Luisia Colossus, for $15m. K Line Singapore’s selling spree is expected to continue as a third ship is now up grabs, with a similar aged supramax, Ocean Colossus, being circulated for sale.
http://bit.ly/2PQH2K0
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5. Madagascar Seizes Vessel
Madagascar on Wednesday said it had seized a Panamanian-flagged ship with Chinese crew in its waters and said the vessel, that authorities had tracked for some time, was being used to plunder its resources. Prime minister Christian Ntsay told a press conference in the capital Antananarivo the ship had “crisscrossed the territorial seas of Madagascar” for two to four months before it was seized overnight. He said some steps were taken to stop it from illegally accessing the Indian Ocean Island nation’s waters but that those efforts were fruitless.
http://bit.ly/2rI3Pye
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6. Vessel Runs Aground
On Wednesday morning, the Comoros-flagged freighter Natalia ran aground on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, driven ashore by heavy weather. The vessel suffered a mechanical casualty at about 0430 hours at a position off Sile, an outlying district of Istanbul located about 20 nm from the Bosporus’ northern entrance. The Natalia’s crew dropped anchor to prevent her from drifting and continued repair work. The master declined assistance from response vessels, according to Anadolu Agency. The Natalia succeeded briefly in regaining propulsion, but at 0900 hours, she ran aground on a peninsula.
http://bit.ly/2GtCQjV
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7. Batteries Are the Future
As part of a joint project with Singapore owner Masterbulk, Japan’s Eco Marine Power (EMP) has announced that an UltraBattery battery pack manufactured by the Furukawa Battery Company has been installed on the large general cargo ship, Panamana. This battery pack will later form part of an Aquarius Marine Solar Power solution developed by EMP and be evaluated jointly with Masterbulk and Zeaborn Ship Management. The battery pack installed on the ship incorporates class-approved UB-50-12 valve regulated lead acid (VRLA) batteries along with a marine-grade battery frame kit.
http://bit.ly/2Se3zTa
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8. UK Seafarer Census
There are almost 26,000 active UK seafarers at sea, according to new Government statistics. The annual Seafarer Statistics from the Department for Transport, which were released last week, showed just under half of the total active at sea were officers (10,480 certificated and 1,460 uncertificated) with a further 1,760 officer cadets in training during the financial year 2017/18. There has been an overall downward trend in the number of UK seafarers over the past 15 years. Recent years’ numbers have been broadly stable, however in 2018 the estimated total was 8% higher than the previous year.
http://bit.ly/2A9OmeT
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9. New Cover for Autonomous Vessels
According to a press release, for almost 160 years, Shipowners Club has provided peace of mind to owners of small and specialist commercial vessels. This heritage is now evolving as the Club is seeking to provide cover for autonomous vessels. There are a team of dedicated autonomous vessel underwriters working closely alongside leading brokers. Indeed, they have insurance policies developed specifically for the owners and operators of autonomous and remotely operated vessels. This has long been seen a problem area for the development of future vessels.
http://bit.ly/2T1QE70
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10. Rescue off New York
The 2016-built asphalt carrier Amber Bay was disabled by an engine room fire off Queens, New York, in the evening hours of December 19. According to data provided by the US Coast Guard, the 479-foot tanker suffered an engine room fire as it began to depart the New York Harbor area shortly before 8:00 p.m. Amber Bay’s crew of 22 seafarers managed to extinguish the fire using their installed fire suppression system, however, the incident left the vessel disabled some three miles south of Breezy Point..
http://bit.ly/2ScSaTE
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Daily news feed from Seacurus Ltd – providers of MLC crew insurance solutions www.seacurus.com
