SRTS News

Energy majors Equinor and Shell have signed an MOU on digital collaboration to develop solutions through the exchange of expertise within areas such as data science, artificial intelligence and 3D printing. The collaboration will lead to co-innovation across the whole value chain, and will be further detailed on a project ... read more

South Korea is grappling with supply chain chaos not seen since Hanjin Shipping collapsed four years ago. The escalation of the coronavirus in South Korea has caused major burdens on many industries in the country, including manufacturing, shipping, ports and shipyards. South Korea has raised its alert status to the ... read more

Shipping stands accused today of being worse than Big Tobacco when it comes to human rights and sustainability. It is almost a decade since the United Nations adopted its principles on business and human rights, but a new report out this week suggests shipping continues to ignore the livelihoods of ... read more

The financial health of SS Teo-led Pacific International Lines (PIL), the world’s tenth largest container carrier, has been the source of much conjecture of late with ships being detained and late charter and bunker payments all making headlines. The privately held Singapore liner is quitting the transpacific tradelane this month ... read more

The world’s largest port has mapped out a significant expansion to its far flung set of container terminals. Ningbo-Zhoushan port, which handled 1.1bn tonnes of cargo last year, a higher figure than most national port throughputs in the world, has earmarked new areas to build another 5.6m teu in capacity. ... read more

Mark Stokes, a director at BLUE Communications, has some communications advice for the shipping industry. Thought leadership is seemingly in vogue, a now mainstream buzzword amongst PR professionals seeking to add value to their profession. Creating assets to feed through communications channels, and providing considered comment in order to engage ... read more

Chinese owners have decided capes are now as cheap as they’re going to get and are diving into the market. Baltic Exchange data shows secondhand capesizes are now 12.7% cheaper than a year ago, proving too tempting for some despite the ongoing awful cape trading conditions with the Baltic Capesize ... read more

Singapore’s Eastern Pacific Shipping has signed a shipbuilding contract with Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding for the construction of two 158,000 dwt suezmax tankers. The two vessels are expected to be delivered in 2022. The value of the contract has not been disclosed. The contract follows Eastern Pacific placing an order at ... read more

Maersk Drilling has been awarded a one-well contract for 2009-built semi-submersible rig offshore Egypt. The contract is set to commence this month in direct continuation of the rig’s current contract with Edison E&P. It has an estimated duration of 21 days, and is worth around $3.8m. “We’re pleased to add ... read more

Kuok Group company PaxOcean has signed a contract with Japanese general contractor Penta-Ocean Construction to construct a self-elevating platform (SEP) for use in the offshore wind sector in Japan. The platform is of a GustoMSC design, and is scheduled for completion in the third quarter of 2022. Tan Thai Yong, ... read more

A major explosion injured at least 31 people at Lotte Chemical’s plant at Daesan Port in South Korea early this morning. The blast occurred in a naphtha cracker of the plant, starting a fire in the facility. Over 200 firefighters were dispatched to the plant and managed to contain the fire ... read more

The container shipping industry is facing up to acute shortages of boxes at ports in Europe and North America, a situation that could worsen in the coming weeks. Data from Hamburg-based Container xChange, an online box repositioning platform, shows that thanks to the coronavirus and record numbers of blanked sailings ... read more

Maersk risks irking the shipper community by doubling down on Panama Canal tariffs. In the wake of the canal authority’s decision to raise a $10,000 per transit fresh water surcharge for all ships longer than 38.1 m, a measure that came into effect last month to fight an ongoing drought ... read more

Polaris Shipping, the Korean owner of the grounded, fully laden VLOC off Brazil, reports that the oil sheen seen around the stricken four-year-old ship has disappeared but anti-pollution measures remain in place. Police have opened up an investigation into the accident that saw the huge ship come to rest on ... read more

South Korea’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries has decided to roll out financial measures to support domestic shipping firms as the escalation of coronavirus places increasing financial pressure on the industry, local newswire Yonhap reports. Under the plan, South Korea will provide around KRW90bn ($76m) in low interest loans to local ... read more

China Shipbuilding Group, the shipbuilding conglomerate merged by CSSC and CSIC, has issued RMB5bn ($716m) worth of short-term bonds with a maturity of 270 days. The proceeds will be offered to the group’s affiliate units for coronavirus prevention and control and production resumption. The so-called ‘epidemic bond’ issued by China ... read more

Malaysia’s AET is widely tipped to be the Asian owner behind yesterday’s stock market announcement from South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries regarding a trio of shuttle tanker orders. Samsung Heavy announced yesterday it had won a KRW361.1bn ($302.2m) order to build three suezmax sized shuttle tankers. The ships will start ... read more

Qatari bulker owner S’hail Shipping has acquired the 2006-built 82,800 dwt panamax bulker from Italian owner D’Amico Dry. Shipbroking sources confirmed that the Tsuneishi Zosen-built vessel was sold to S’hail for a price of around $9.25m. MSI values the vessel at . S’hail Shipping was established in 2017 and has ... read more

Dutch heavylift specialist Jumbo Shipping has been awarded a contract by DEME Offshore to provide transportation services for Ørsted’s Hornsea Two offshore wind farm. Jumbo will transport 165 monopiles from Rostock to Eemshaven and 135 transition pieces from Aalborg to Eemshaven, utilising a K3000 class vessel commencing August 2020. The ... read more

Malaysian offshore vessel shipbuilder and operator Nam Cheong has clinched chartering contracts for six OSVs worth MYR116.4m ($27.6m) including options. The six vessels are made up of two accommodation work barges, three AHTS vessels and one PSV. The vessels will be mainly operated in East Malaysian waters to support the ... read more