The Valencia Containerized Freight Index (VCFI) continues its upward trend, reaching 2,314.89 points in April, an increase of 17.39% over the previous month. In a global context marked by the generalized growth of freight rates, the VCFI links its ninth consecutive month of growth and exceeds two thousand points for the first time in its history since the index began in January 2018. The effects of the incident with the Ever Given vessel in the Suez Canal, released at the end of March, have added to the complexity of an already stressed market. To this, we must add the upward forecasts for world GDP which reinforce market demand, the congestion in the main US ports and the increase in the price of some fuels.

Thus, the April World Economic Outlook, published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), points to an increase in world GDP in 2021 of 6%, compared with the estimate of 5.5% in January and 5.2% in October 2020. Regarding trade in goods, the projection is for a growth of 9.4%, 1.1 points higher than in the previous report. With regard to port traffic, the RWI/ISL Container Throughput Index benchmark reflects an increase in March (latest available month), which places shipping levels above the pre-pandemic situation.

According to Alphaliner data, the commercially idle fleet remains at minimal levels, i.e. 56 vessels, representing 0.8% of total capacity. In terms of equipment, some shipping lines have announced orders for new units to alleviate the market situation.

With regard to bunker prices, the behavior during this month has been fairly stable. According to Shipandbunker data for the main bunkering ports, the price of low sulphur bunker fuel closed April at 514 dollars per tonne, which represents an increase of 3% compared to the beginning of the same month.

By geographical areas, and given their relevance in Valenciaport’s relations, it is worth highlighting the increase in export freight rates to the U.S. and Canada of more than 30%, which has now increased for nine consecutive months. In addition to demand factors, the congestion situation that some US ports have been suffering for weeks is exerting constant pressure on freight rates. The trend seems to be pointing, albeit timidly, towards an improvement, even if the problem remains serious, as illustrated for example by the 7.5 days waiting time required for ships to berth in the ports of Los Angeles or Long Beach. Problems of capacity or availability of equipment are thus aggravated. In fact, this situation is being extended to the entire American continent and the restrictions are also causing freight rates to rise.

Source: maritimetoday

This annual report summarizes the port State control developments and activities of the Tokyo MOU in 2020. Moreover, the report also provides port State control statistics and analysis on the results of inspections carried out by member Authorities during the year.

The activities of the Tokyo MOU were also seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Due to the impact of COVID-19, the number of inspections has reduced by approximately
40%, and the inspection rate is reduced by 20 points compared with the previous year.
Furthermore, the joint concentrated inspection campaign (CIC) on Stability in General with
the Paris MoU scheduled in 2020 had to be postponed by one year. In addition, almost all the planned technical co-operation activities were either postponed or cancelled.

Looking through the statistics in 2020, the notable increase trend of deficiencies relating to
Working & Living Conditions or Maritime Labour Conditions can be identified, which reflects
the severe impacts by COVID-19 on crew change and seafarers’ repatriation. In line with
previous years, ISM is the most common category where detainable deficiencies are recorded in 2020. Moreover, percentages of ISM related deficiencies and detainable
deficiencies are higher than the previous year, which also reflect inefficient and inappropriate responses by ships and their companies to the COVID-19 crisis. The safety management system, which is already a vital part for ensuring ships to sail safely, securely and to minimise pollution events, is even more important during the pandemic situation.

Currently, the COVID-19 situation is still evolving and the challenges emanated could be
expanded and prolonged. Recognizing the importance of port State Control activities to
ensure maritime safety, marine environment protection and living and working conditions of seafarers, the Tokyo MOU has initiated some countermeasures for reducing and minimizing impacts of COVID-19 to the activities and will further explore and employ necessary pragmatic steps so as to maintain appropriate and effective maritime operations under this difficult time.

Source: maritimecyprus

Seven foreign-flag vessels have been detained in Oregon since November after Coast Guard examiners found shortcomings during Port State Control inspections – including one case where a ship’s carbon dioxide firefighting system was inoperable.

In that most recent instance the Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit Portland found 100 CO2 cylinders still had in place safety pins that prevent accidental discharges of the gas during transportation and installation. That mistake would have prevented extinguishing any fire in the ship’s cargo holds or machinery spaces, Coast Guard officials said.

Foreign vessels are detained in the U.S. when serious lifesaving, firefighting, machinery, pollution prevention, or security failures are discovered during an examination.  A detention controls the movement of a foreign commercial vessel until after the serious deficiencies are rectified.

“The Coast Guard maintains the safety of the port by preventing damage to property or the marine environment,” said Capt. Tom Griffitts, commanding officer, Marine Safety Unit Portland, in a prepared statemnent. “Inspectors from our unit do a great job of identifying major non-conformities aboard vessels and through this identification we ensure vessels are safe, secure, and environmentally sound to transit the complex Columbia River System.”

Source: workboat

Source: balkaninsight

The U.S. Navy recently awarded a multi-million dollar contract to Hawaii-based Pacific Shipyards International, or PSI, to service up to three Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers.

PSI secured the contract — which is worth $49.7 million — through competitive solicitation, and the work will be completed at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility during a post shakedown availability, or PSA. Officials with PSI say that the company plans to begin the work after the ship’s transit from General Dynamics Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine, to Pearl Harbor.

Source: bizjournals

PERSIAN GULF,   –  

Climbing down a steep ship’s ladder 60 feet into a hot, humid, and dark environment to inspect a fuel tank’s lining for blistering and chipping is all part of the job.

Defense Logistics Agency Energy Middle East Quality Assurance Representatives Mark Mizrahi and Army Sgt. 1st Class Elizabeth Grace received hands on training conducting an internal tank inspection of the oil tanker LEFKARA in the Persian Gulf on April 9.

“Tank inspections are one of the more physically demanding parts of the job as a quality assurance representative, especially in the environment we’re in,” Mizrahi said.

Overseeing the training was DLA Energy QAR Kelley Warren who has over 17 years’ experience in fuels.

Previously, she had been a petroleum laboratory specialist in the Army.

“The entrance for the tank is small but opens up after you get down the first ladder,” Warren said. “The tanks were 18 meters deep or 59 feet.”

Find training opportunities for QARs has been challenging.

“There has been little opportunity to conduct internal tank inspections due to COVID-19 restrictions,” Warren said. In February, the two QARs received virtual training to enable them to complete the required confined space training.

Grace and Warren are two of DLA Energy’s four females QARs in the field.

“I think being a military QAR has been an eye-opening experience, but more than that being a female QAR has given me the opportunity to show other females that we can do anything when given the opportunity,” Grace said.

To get to the ship for the inspection, the QARs had to take the motor launch from the government-owned Bahrain Petroleum Company dock to the ship moored at an outer anchorage, which is about a 15–20-minute ride.

“On the oil tanker, the QARs were able to physically observe and touch what our reference material refers to as flaking, peeling, or blistering,” Warren said. “While not all the tanks on this vessel had these deficiencies, it was important for the training to find examples of them.”

Louis Sampract is the Quality Manager at DLA Energy Middle East at Naval Support Activity Bahrain. He supervises 11 quality assurance representatives and ensures the critical quality support and oversight of bulk fuel procurement, storage depots and distribution contracts throughout the Middle East area of operations.

DLA Energy QARs will inspect a ship’s tank depends on mission requirements and average an inspection every two or three months he said.

“The LEFKARA vessel inspection is a great example of why we do these inspections,” Sampract said. “Several of the tanks could have caused a quality issue with the product we intend on receiving and distributing to the warfighter.”

The LEFKARA was the second internal tank inspection for Mizrahi and Grace and qualified them to perform tank inspections on their own.

“I’ve been a part of several internal inspections up to this point,” Mizrahi said. “Each vessel tank inspection can present unique issues and challenges which creates an equally unique training opportunity.”

The importance of the QAR mission cannot be understated.  As a result of the ship’s inspection, the stowage plan had to be revised.

“A couple of the offered tanks were not acceptable for use due to large areas of blisters and chipping of the epoxy lining,” Sampract said. “Being able to physically see these types of deficiencies in person provided a great learning opportunity for QARs Mizrahi and Grace.”

Source: dla.mil

Virginia-based startup HawkEye 360 has come up with a unique idea to bolster maritime domain awareness. The firm uses a constellation of small satellites to detect and locate the source of commercial radio frequency emissions – everything from VHF push-to-talk radios to maritime radar transmissions, AIS beacons, satellite mobile comms and more.

HawkEye recently partnered with Amazon’s ML Solutions Lab to incorporate machine learning algorithms into their analytics. Using AWS’s Amazon SageMaker Autopilot, they generated AI models to be used for an automated maritime vessel risk assessment process.

Why is this revolutionary? Because it has the potential to uncover hidden patterns and relationships among vessel features that previous ML algorithms failed to do. Potential vessel behaviours of interest include illegal fishing, human trafficking, ship-to-ship transfers, sanctions-busting, GPS jamming and smuggling.

When bad actors turn off their AIS signal to hide their vessel’s position, HawkEye can still spot the traces they leave by tracking their radar and their VHF calls. “RF signals can provide valuable insight into commercial vessel activity across the globe, even when some seek to hide their location,” said HawkEye 360 vice president of products Tim Pavlick. “With these machine learning-backed capabilities, we will empower customers to cut through an ocean full of noise to obtain more timely and critical insights from maritime RF data to improve mission outcomes and prevent illegal and illicit activities.”

The ability to use ML algorithms to counter illicit drug smuggling would be a first for the industry, even though the same approach has been implemented on land. The reason is that there are so many variables and complexities involved in the process for seagoing targets. With Amazon’s help, HawkEye 360 says that it has overcome these challenges.

“By combining HawkEye’s data and deep domain expertise with Amazon SageMaker Autopilot, HawkEye 360 is able to halve the time for machine learning model development and deployment. That frees up time for data scientists to focus on creating new and innovative solutions to the world’s problems,” said Amazon’s senior manager for machine learning solutions, Sri Elaprolu.

Source: maritime-executive

The European Commission adopted today a Sustainable Finance package with the aim of improving the flow of investments towards sustainable activities and hence using financial instruments to make Europe climate neutral by 2050. ECSA welcomes that the European shipping industry has been recognised under the Taxonomy as a transitional sector. However, ECSA emphasises that in order to drive a successful transition, it is vital that the technical screening criteria is realistic and technology neutral.

ECSA welcomes that the shipping industry has been recognised as a transitional sector. “The European shipping industry is committed to achieve its decarbonisation and environmental objectives.. At the same time, being a capital intensive industry where many vessels are one of a kind, it is also key to ensure access to innovative and sustainable solutions, which can drive the entire maritime industry towards a greener and more sustainable future. Hence transition financing is vital.” said Martin Dorsman, ECSA Secretary-General.

This Climate Delegated Act delivers the first set of technical criteria for defining which shipping activities contribute substantially to climate mitigation and adaptation, the first two of the six environmental objectives defined by the Taxonomy Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2020/852). ECSA warns, however, that the technical screening criteria for maritime transport in its current format, as defined by the Climate Delegated Act, is far too restrictive, which bears the risk of endangering the transition. As the Commission communication states, the EU Taxonomy does not currently define how activities other than green are to be treated.

In this light, ECSA welcomes the clarification from the European Commission that the EU Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act is a living document, which will be subject to regular necessary updates. “Besides the technical details, there are however principles that should be the building blocks when developing and updating the technical screening criteria.” added Martin Dorsman.

ECSA welcomes the Commission’s commitment to ensure  that the taxonomy remains science-based and technology neutral. Along this principle, European shipowners find it important that the technical screening criteria remains consistent along the entire supply chain, which needs further improvement. One example is the consistency between rules applicable for manufacturing of a vessel and the operation of the vessel. Furthermore, when seeking to  lower emissions and to improve on other environmental objectives, the shipping industry is not only dependent on other stakeholders (e.g. shipbuilders, engine manufacturers, the fuel supply chain, port infrastructure). It also has to be carefully assessed where the shipping industry has power to influence the transition due to their economic activities. Given that the shipping’s economic activity is asset-based (the vessels) and that the cargo it carries is dependent on market demand and supply of stakeholders from other industrial sectors, considering cargo as part of the shipping maritime activity under the shipping taxonomy will lead to negative and unintended consequences. “It would be highly counterproductive and unfair to penalise financing for the shipping industry based on cargo carried.  In addition to driving away financing for innovative solution, it bears the  risk to accelerate an inefficient modal shift. With all this in mind, we are dedicated to provide expertise and will continue to work with the regulators on the technical details to ensure a smoother transition” emphasized Martin Dorsman.

Source: ecsa

A multi-regional manual for the response to maritime pollution incidents involving hazardous and noxious substances (HNS) was recently jointly developed by the Bonn Agreement, HELCOM and REMPEC.

The new Marine HNS Response Manual – Multi-regional Bonn Agreement, HELCOM, REMPEC offers a comprehensive operational guidance for first responders and decision makers on marine incidents involving HNS. It also replaces the HELCOM Response Manual Volume 2, as agreed by the Helsinki Commission during its latest meeting in March 2021 (HELCOM 42-2021).

The guidance includes specific annexes for the Mediterranean, Baltic and Greater North Sea. The decision to develop the manual was taken during the Thirteenth Inter-Secretariat Meeting between Regional Agreement Secretariats, DG ECHO and EMSA that was held in Lisbon, Portugal in 2017.

The HNS manual was developed under the Western Mediterranean Region Marine Oil and HNS Pollution Cooperation(West MOPoCo) project in collaboration with the Bonn Agreement, HELCOM and REMPEC. Financed by the European Union’s DG ECHO, the project was further supported by Cedre, ISPRA and ITOPF.

The manual was also presented during the closure event of the West MOPOCO project that was held online on 14 April 2021. West MoPoCo supports Algeria, France, Italy, Malta, Morocco, Spain and Tunisia, in collaboration with Monaco, in their cooperation on oil spills and HNS marine pollution. The project was supported by HELCOM.

Sourcre: helcom