News

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced it will open a 60-day comment period while soliciting input to lead to the next round of sites planned for a future lease auction. This comes just a week after the first auction was completed for the region.

After failing in two previous attempts against Greece’s Delta Tankers, the Houthis struck a tanker operated by Delta early today in the Red Sea. The situation is still unfolding with a series of at least four attacks and reports of a fire and “material damage,” according to Greece’s Ministry of Shipping.

Scottish ferry operator Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CalMac) is facing further operating challenges with news that the Turkish yard building the first of four new ferries is further delaying delivery.

Nearly five months after the fatal allision of the containership Dali with Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, offloading of the vessel has been completed in Norfolk, Virginia. TV station WTKR in Norfolk caught pictures of the vessel in recent days with its decks cleared of containers.

The bulker segment continues to be at the forefront of the deployment of wind-assisted propulsion with Mitsui O.S.K. Lines and Brazilian mining giant Vale reporting the first retrofit of rotor sails to a capesize bulker.

Testing has begun on the first U.S.-built offshore wind turbine installation vessel, the Charybdis being built to operate for Dominion Energy. The company told investors last week that the expected delivery of the vessel, late this year or early in 2025, remains unchanged but the cost of the project continues to rise as further changes are made for its capabilities.

As part of a wave of measures to stimulate demand, China's government has announced new subsidies to incentivize domestic shipowners to renew their fleets with more efficient, green-fueled tonnage.

A research effort to develop possibly the first floating offshore wind project in the United States received a research lease today from the U.S. Department of the Interior. It comes almost three years after Maine first filed for the research license to further research projects undertaken by the University of Maine.

For the second time in approximately a month, one of CMA CGM’s large containerships, the newly inaugurated CMA CMG Belem (13,000 TEU) has lost boxes overboard in storms off South Africa.

The carrier Minsk was a Kiev-class carrier built in Mykolaiv for the Soviet Navy in 1978. Along with sister ships Novorossiysk and Kiev, she served Russia's navy into the 1990s, when she was decommissioned and put up for sale. She was purchased by a South Korean firm in 1995 and towed to East Asia for scrapping.

Maersk is joining in with a collaboration between Lloyd’s Register and CORE Power that could provide the long-term pathway for nuclear-powered commercial shipping. Using a feeder containership operating in a European port, the collaboration will determine the safety and regulatory considerations and necessary framework for nuclear-powered commercial shipping based on a fourth-generation nuclear reactor.

To meet California’s pending emissions regulations for vessels on berth, tankers docking at Shell’s Mormon Island Terminal in the Port of Los Angeles will be using an emission capture and filter system based on movable barges.

Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) have introduced new legislation that would alter the 170-year-old law that limits shipowners' liability when something goes wrong.

Defying forecasts of a potentially slowing U.S. economy, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach each had record volumes in July in part as imports accelerated to avoid potential disruptions due to the Red Sea as well as a possible fall port strike on the U.S. East Coast.

HD Hyundai Mipo kicked off its first building program for the emerging market of gas carriers to transport captured CO2. In addition to being the first LCO2 carrier to be built in South Korea, the vessel is significantly larger than the ones currently being built in China.

While the containership orderbook has already reached record levels, leading owners and operators continue to place a new wave of orders in part for expansion and also to address environmental pressures.

French authorities are detaining two vessels and investigating the circumstances of what amounted to a “fender bender” that left a tanker dented and a bulker holed above the waterline. Both ships remained buoyant with only minor pollution and five minor injuries that did not require hospitalization. 

With the number of ships using LNG continuing to grow and spurring demand, two U.S.-based companies partnered to launch a new small-scale LNG terminal in Salina Cruz, Mexico. According to the partners, GFI LNG and Pilot LNG, the project is designed with a focus on speed to market and will be strategically located to serve a key shipping market.

German propulsion company Schottel has completed a research project for Transport Canada and BC Ferries to investigate solutions for underwater noise. Ship noise is a major issue in the Salish Sea because of its effects on the region's endangered orca population.

With grain shipments continuing to grow and a shortage of storage space after the Russian attacks on port facilities, the Ukrainian Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA) plans to turn the tables on Russia.