Maritime Safety News Archives - Page 153 of 259 - SHIP IP LTD

PUBLISHED AUG 31, 2021 2:15 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

The UK-based charity Human Rights at Sea is calling on the International Maritime Organization to increase its level of transparency in reporting cases reflecting human and labor rights abuse of seafarers. The call is part of the maritime industry’s continued efforts to highlight the challenges facing seafarers ranging from difficult and unreasonable working conditions to the persisting challenges brought on by the pandemic.

DNV Maritime’s Knut Ørbeck-Nilssen used his remarks in an update to the media to point out that the crew change crisis “rumbles on” more than 16 months after the industry sought to call attention to the impact on COVID-19 related travel restrictions on seafarers. Highlighting that DNV believes there are at least 90,000 seafarers still unable to come ashore, Ørbeck-Nilssen highlighted the continuing need to recognize seafarers as key workers and the slow pace of COVID-19 vaccinations for seafarers.

“Seventy percent of member states have still not signed up to the IMO’s circular designating seafarers as key workers,” said Ørbeck-Nilssen. He went on to highlight the slower than average pace at getting vaccinations for seafarers in the global drive against COVID-19. “Only 15 percent of the world’s seafarers have been fully vaccinated compared to approximately 25 percent of the global population.”

The NGO Human Rights at Sea is also seeking to highlight the continuing welfare issues for seafarers highlighting to the IMO the charity’s continuous drive for greater public transparency to provide accurate levels and sources of abuse within the shipping industry. They are calling for an objective and fact-based approach to highlight these issues.

“The change being requested is needed to address the perception that ‘protectionist blue-washing is occurring’ in relation to those entities involved in sub-standard, manipulative, and/or unlawful activities affecting crew and their families,” said the NGO in its public statement.

The charity contends that the IMO does not appear to help itself by the vagueness in its current reporting style. HRAS questions why the IMO takes the approach it does to reporting calling on the organization to “identify entities by name who are factually known to be involved in cases of proven abuse be they human or labor rights’ failures ashore or at sea.” HRAS contends that if there is little, to no deterrent effect in the current public reporting system, the perception is that irresponsible entities cut deals, look the other way, and look after their own.

IMO representative, Natasha Brown, responded to HRAS saying “We have decided not to engage in ‘name and shame,’ and instead, we have found that the more successful approach is to engage with the countries at the diplomatic level, forge solutions and then report these as examples for others to follow. This is not about hiding anything; we’re trying to use methods that provide the best chance for solutions.”

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https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/hras-urges-imo-to-increase-transparency-in-reporting-of-seafarer-abuse

PUBLISHED AUG 31, 2021 4:49 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

The first large containership arrived at Israel’s new terminal over the weekend in advance of the official opening of Haifa’s Bay Port on September 1. Six years in the making, the private terminal has been a controversial project as it was developed and will be operated by the Chinese Shanghai International Port Group.

With an investment valued at over $1.5 billion, the new Bay Port terminal is one of the largest infrastructure projects in Israel’s history. The project is seen as a critical step for the Israeli economy as it expands the northern port of Haifa to handle among the largest containerships in the world. There are more than 2,600 feet of wharf as well as state-of-the-art automated container handling equipment. The SIPG terminal will be capable of handling containership with a capacity of up to 18,000 TEU.

The COSCO Shipping Alps, a modern 14,568 TEU boxship arrived in Haifa on August 28 from Piraeus, Greece. The 153,679 dwt vessel also became the largest containership to arrive in Israel. While it is the first official commercial visit to the new port, the vessel is largely a demonstration of the port’s capabilities. During its stay, it will only be loading empty containers that have been stuck in Israel through much of the pandemic.

In July, the first vessel arrived at the new Bay Port terminal as a practice session. The MSC Marylena, a 23,487 dwt boxship made a test call at the port. The smaller vessel, with a capacity of 1,658 TEU, also loaded empty containers in a trial of the facilities.

While the new terminal marks a significant advancement in capabilities, SIPG admitted to the Israeli news outlet The Globes that it will take some time to build traffic. The Chinese company said that many of the shipping companies operate under annual contracts with terminals and as such it only expects two to four ships a month at the terminal during 2021. They have begun negotiations with the shipping lines for 2022.

The port project, which was awarded by the state-owned Israel Ports Company, faced stiff criticism. There was political opposition to the awarding of the contract to a Chinese company and numerous efforts to block the development. The Globes reports that much of the infrastructure around the port is behind scheduled and only partially completed. For example, the newspaper says “the access road to the new port is partly paved,” with many parts of the support infrastructure only expected to be completed in two years.

The new terminal is also likely to face competition in the future. A second private port is under development at Israeli’s southern port of Ashdod. Due to open in a few months, it too will have a deep water terminal.

The Israeli government has been seeking to encourage private port development along with a plan to sell off assets of the Israel Ports Company. The strategy is designed to support the modernization of the ports and investments in the infrastructure as well as create new competition. The hope is that it will drive down costs for imports as 99 percent of imported goods arrive via Israel’s main ports. Earlier this month, Reuters reported that at least four major international groups were partnering with Israelis for the upcoming bidding on the old port of Haifa. Bidding is expected to officially begin in the fall with the proposal calling for the successful bidder to make significant investments to upgrade the port facilities.

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https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/large-containership-arrives-in-israel-for-opening-of-haifa-terminal

PUBLISHED AUG 31, 2021 3:21 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

Carbon capture and storage continues to be one of the leading technologies, especially at production sites to help achieve the global goals for decarbonization. Multiple efforts are underway to advance the technology with news that China has launched its first model offshore CCS project. Similarly, South Korea announced that it has received class approval for the first design of a platform to be used in offshore carbon storage.

China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) announced yesterday, August 30, that it has launched the country’s first offshore storage project as part of an oil field located approximately 118 miles Southeast of Hong Kong in the South China Sea. China has previously experimented primarily onshore exploring the potential for CCS.

CNOOC expects to extract and store up to 300,000 tons of CO2 annually from its Enping 15-1 oilfield with a total of 1.46 million tons of CO2 during the project’s lifetime. The CO2 will be injected into seabed reservoirs.

While the CNOOC project is the first to launch in China, other major Chinese oil companies are also actively pursuing CCS technology. Sinopec is also planning a CCS element for one of its new large projects in eastern China. CNOOC said that it hopes its project will serve as a catalyst for the expansion of the technology. CNOOC plans by 2025 to invest up to 10 percent of its annual budget on green energy projects.

In another advancement for CCS, Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co. and Hyundai Heavy Industries received an Approval in Principle (AiP) from DNV for an offshore platform to store carbon dioxide under the ocean floor. Designed as part of a project with the state-run Korea National Oil Corp., the platform will be used to inject CO2 into a decommissioned gas field located approximately 35 miles off South Korea’s coast. The field is due to end production in 2024 and the following year they plan to begin injecting CO2 into the old wells with the goal of storing 400,000 tons of CO2 each year for the next 30 years

Experts point out that there are about two dozen CCS projects in operation today with more than 30 additional pilot projects in development. By 2050, global CO2 capture and storage could top more than seven billion tons annually.

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https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/china-s-first-offshore-co2-ccs-project-south-korea-receives-dnv-aip

PUBLISHED AUG 31, 2021 5:34 PM BY KATI ENGEL

Bernice Gertrude Rosenthal was born on 1 September 1912 in New York City. After attending Long Island University, she earned her doctorate of medicine from Woman’s College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1936. After graduation, she moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin, to complete her internship and her residency at St. Francis Hospital. She spent another 18 months working on her specialty in anesthesia at the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago. After drawing a 50-mile circle around Philadelphia, she chose Somerville, New Jersey, to establish her general practice with the hope of getting extra training in surgery at her alma mater.

Never one to sit still, Dr. Walters became a licensed pilot while waiting for patients for her new practice. After the outbreak of World War II, she briefly served as a medical officer with the Civil Air Patrol (CAP). In late 1942, she applied to join the Women’s Auxiliary Service Pilots (WASP). Dr. Walters later said that she flew with the WASPs for three months before the President of the United States agreed to allow women doctors to join the Medical Corps. She immediately decided to make a switch. In July 1943, she accepted her commission as a medical officer in the Naval Reserve.

The newly commissioned Lieutenant (j.g.) Walters was sent to Bethesda, Maryland, where she spent three months in training on tropical medicine. Her first assignment was the dispensary at the Boston Navy Yard. She later served at the Naval Air Station at Cape Cod and at Bainbridge, Maryland. She wanted more training in anesthesia, but the Navy was not offering training to reserve officers. In 1946, she decided to go inactive for two years to train at the veterans’ hospital in Dallas, Texas and Alexandria, Louisiana. It was during this time when she met and married her husband, Lieutenant Herbert “Walt” Walters, a naval aviator.

When Walters returned to active duty in 1948, she reported to the naval hospital in Pensacola, Florida. In the spring of 1950, her husband reported to Norfolk, Virginia. He was assigned to an aircraft carrier, USS Wright (CVL-49). In hopes of following her husband, Walters applied to be selected for shipboard duty. After completing her required twenty-four months’ active duty at Pensacola, she received orders to serve aboard ship. Before this decision, only nurses had been allowed to serve at sea. After she received her orders, a columnist in a Florida newspaper targeted her marital status as being an issue. Nor was the fact that she outranked her husband overlooked by reporters.

Lieutenant Commander Walters refused to accept the resistance to women doctors serving on ships. In a 1952 interview, she said “There were twenty-nine nurses on board…What’s the difference between twenty-nine nurses and one woman doctor? A woman is a woman.” In spite of her reluctance to step into the spotlight, Dr. Walters was the envy of other Navy doctors who wanted to serve overseas.Lieutenant (j.g.) Patricia Pear, who was working at St. Alban’s Naval Hospital, said, “The place I’d like to go most right now is Korea, because that’s where the action is. But I’d take any overseas assignment.” Walters was one of five women physicians on active duty in the U.S. Navy at the time.

A month after she received orders to USS Consolation (AH-15), Lieutenant Commander Walters received notice that her husband, the flight deck officer aboard Wright, had been killed in a helicopter accident on the last day aboard his carrier. They had not seen each other since Christmas. She had to deal with the death of her husband and new orders halfway around the world. Four months later, she left for Korea.

In spite of her press coverage for her appointment aboard Consolation, Lieutenant Commander Walters seemed dispassionate to her position as a role model to other women. In an interview with the reporter from Collier’s Weekly in November 1950, she rejected her significance as a subject. She said, “Why should I be written up just because I’m a woman? I want to be accepted as a doctor, and that means, without the ‘woman’ always in front of it.”

Captain Robert E. Baker, of Consolation, complimented her bravery, intelligence, and even her stubbornness while aboard his ship. Although she was an accomplished surgeon, Walters was assigned to the ship as an anesthesiologist, and she was their only one. Therefore, she had not yet been sent to the frontline medical units in Korea, despite her regular requests to Captain Baker. She served for two years aboard ship in Korea and later received the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal for her service.

After her service aboard Consolation, she served for seven months in Japan before she reported to Corpus Christi, Texas. In March 1953, Lieutenant Commander Walters spoke at the founders’ day banquet for her alma mater, the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, during a brief absence from her new command. In Texas, she met and married Lieutenant Commander Harry C. Nordstrom, on 31 July 1954, at the NAS Dispensary in Corpus Christi, Texas. As a physician, he had served as a medical officer since 1943. After they married, they both continued to serve in the Navy. They were both transferred to California and later Hawaii.

Walters gave twenty years of service after she was given her first orders aboard ship, and she served in the reserves until January 1970. She retired with the rank of commander, which she received 1953. She continued to live in Hawaii serving as the chief of Anesthesiology Service at Queen’s Hospital from 1967 until she retired from civilian service in 1974. She died in Kailua, Hawaii, on 10 Feb, 1975. She was survived by her husband.

Kati Engel is a writer and editor for Naval History and Heritage Command’s Communication and Outreach Division. This article appears courtesy of NHHC and is reproduced here in an abbreviated form. 

The opinions expressed herein are the author’s and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

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https://www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/bernice-walters-the-u-s-navy-s-first-female-doctor-to-serve-at-sea

PUBLISHED AUG 31, 2021 3:38 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

Louisiana is the heart of America’s offshore oil and gas industry, and the region’s energy production quickly shut down in advance of Hurricane Ida, with more than 90 percent of all offshore oil output shut in as a precautionary measure. Most of the industry’s assets appear to have survived unscathed, but Port Fourchon – the primary support hub for the deepwater U.S. Gulf of Mexico – was hit hard and may be closed for weeks.

In order to minimize harm from the hurricane, offshore operators evacuated about half of all platforms in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, along with nine out of 11 currently operating non-DP drilling rigs. Four DP-enabled rigs ceased operations and relocated to avoid the storm’s path. As of Monday, 93 percent of offshore oil production and 94 percent of offshore gas production were still shut in, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. About 17 percent of the United States’ domestic oil production comes from offshore Gulf of Mexico wells.

The storm also affected refiners. According to S&P Global, about 75 percent of Louisiana’s refining capacity went offline as a result of the storm. These facilities are experiencing challenges due to downed powerlines and intermittent electricity supplies, and at least one facility located well outside of the storm’s path was forced to shut down because it did not have electrical power. Others wound down their operations in advance of Ida’s arrival as a precautionary measure.

Extensive damage in Port Fourchon

The logistical effort for getting U.S. Gulf platforms back up and running could be complicated by disruption in Port Fourchon, the hub for vessel support activity for Louisiana’s offshore industry. Aerial surveys showed extensive damage, including missing roofs and flooding. The port’s executive director, Chett Chiasson, told The Advocate that the area experienced damage from an extreme storm surge of 12-15 feet.

Video of Hurricane Ida from a property owned by David Tallo Jr. in Port Fourchon

As of Monday, the highway leading to the port was still shut due to downed power poles, debris and washouts, limiting the ability of port staff to begin damage assessment and cleanup. Fully restoring the port’s operations will take weeks, Chiasson told NPR.

“What we’re seeing is tons of damage . . . there’s vessels in places they’re not supposed to be, to say the least, and navigable waters have to be surveyed because there’s things everywhere,” Chiasson said. “In just a few hours we’re going to be clearing Highway 1 down to the port with heavy equipment.  . . . There is no electricity and there will be no electricity for a long time. In our community we have no running water, so that’s really key at this point.”

In an advisory to shipping, the port authority said that waterways into and within Port Fourchon and along Bayou Lafourche are blocked by “multiple obstructions and sunken vessels.” NOAA’s Coast Survey teams are still en route to the area to conduct channel surveys in the port, and shipping interests should expect delays. “Vessels should not attempt to enter or exit the port until the Port Commission’s damage assessment has been completed and the all clear is given,” the authority advised.

When the highway is restored, port tenants will have first priority for entry from the shore side. All others are advised to stay out of the area until the port gives the all-clear, and the port’s harbor police are keeping watch, the authority said.

Images courtesy Rep. Garrett Graves

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https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/port-fourchon-hit-hard-by-hurricane-ida-may-be-closed-for-weeks

Despite elevated ldt prices for ship scrapping, vintage tanker tonnage and more particularly VLCCs, have remained far from the scrapyards so far in 2021, adding to the supply side of a lackluster tanker market. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Gibson said that “the latest VLCCs that have been reported as scrapped have joined a small, but up to recently growing number of tankers heading to recycling yards. The Sea Coral (1996-built, 298 k dwt) and the Jubilee Star (1996-built, 310 k dwt) have both been sold for record high scrap prices. The Jubilee Star was sold for $24.5 million, or equivalent to $572 per ldt, while the Sea Coral was sold for $24.7 million, equating to $578 per ldt. The timing of their departure from service has coincided with, what is seen as the peak of scrapping prices as well as the removal of vessels from the floating storage fleet”.

Source: Gibson Shipbrokers

“However, we had both vessels as FSOs and as such they were already removed from the active VLCC fleet as they were on permanent fuel oil storage off Malaysia. It may come as no surprise that these older vessels have been scrapped as the requirements for floating storage has been falling. Last June, at the peak of the storage cycle, according to Gibson Floating Storage database there were 77 non-Iranian VLCCs involved in all forms of storage, including crude, clean and dirty products. As oil production was moderated to take account of the developing Covid-19 pandemic, storage requirements declined. According to our records, there are 30 non-Iranian VLCCs currently providing some form of floating oil storage. Perhaps surprisingly, as the demand for floating storage declined, there hasn’t been a corresponding rise in scrapping of older vessels. So far this year, according to the Gibson Fleet Database there have been five active VLCCs scrapped. The oldest vessel was the 1996-built Em Vitality (343 k dwt), whilst the youngest has been the 2003-built Eurodestiny (343 k dwt). This compares to just one VLCC that was reported as scrapped during the whole of 2020, the 1996-built Sam (338 k dwt)”, Gibson said.

According to the shipbroker, “nearly non-existent levels of scrapping during 2020 were partly understandable due to record high TCEs reached in spring 2020. However, the drop in crude production levels and the decline in demand for storage vessels witnessed since 2H 2020 would normally have seen an uptick in scrapping candidates. However, this did not happen to a significant level. We wrote back in May that this might be due to demand for vintage tonnage to operate in sanctioned trades. Embargoes against Iran and Venezuela had forced buyers and sellers of sanctioned crude to find owners willing to undertake such trades. At the time we estimated that up to 10% of VLCCs were involved in such trades. This could partly explain the hiatus in scrapping. But what is surprising is that more vessels have not been sold for scrap during the recent run on scrap price. The average tanker scrapping price during 2020 in Pakistan was $357 per ldt, whilstup to July 2021 the average price was $509 per ldt. There was a rise in scrapping prices from August last year. This was partly due to the rise in commodity prices, including rising steel plate prices. But, this bull run seems to have come to a halt. Recent reports that scrapping deals have not reached conclusions as prices have been falling have meant that owners are unwilling to commit tonnage to a falling market. This is despite scrap prices still remaining historically high”.

“So what ray of hope can we provide? Well, there is the scheduled OPEC+ 400,000-bpd increase in crude exports every month. However this will only require around four VLCCs per month. Unless scrapping levels bounce back, it is highly unlikely that if current market conditions continue, there will be any prospects of tanker earnings lifting from their present doldrums”, Gibson concluded.
Nikos Roussanoglou, Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide

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Just Five Older VLCCs Have Been Scrapped During 2021

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Pemex use of nitrogen to restore output at Ku-Maloob-Zaap could prove problematic

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Jadroplov orders up to three bulkers in China