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US offshore wind gets RI go-ahead

The company due to build a massive offshore wind farm in Rhode Island Sound has won approval from the town of Quonset to build a 117 acre offshore wind turbine production facility. Deepwater Wind's Rhode Island project will be one of the first offshore wind farms in US waters. The company has leases to study the wind energy potential off the coast of New Jersey as well.

A study commissioned by the International Tank Container Organisation into the environmental performance of containerised liquid shipments has found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that tank containers massively reduce life-cycle carbon emissions compared to drum shipments, and are slightly better than flexitanks for equivalent volumes on identical routes. The key difference was that tank containers are multiple-use with lifespans of up to 35 years, whereas drums and flexitanks are single cargo only.

Supply chain consultancy firm LCP Consulting looked at a representative supply chain between the Shanghai region of China and the Ruhr Valley in Europe with both the tank container and flexitank considered in the study having capacities of 24,000 litres while the drummed shipment comprised 80 drums of 213 litres each loaded in a 20-foot freight container for a total payload of 17,040 litres. The investigation found that, on the basis of grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) per round trip litre shipped, the tank container shipment resulted in emissions of 268.9 g/litre, the flexitank 276.9 g/litre and the drummed consignment 502.3 g/litre.

An appeal court in France has handed suspended prison sentences to two workers from shipyard Chantiers de l'Atlantique and two from subcontractor Endel over the collapse of a walkway at the yard six years ago in which 16 died and 30 were injured. The men had initially been cleared, along with four others, by a criminal court, but the judgement has now been overturned and the men now have suspended prison terms of between 18 months and two years. The appeal court said the yard had promoted production speed over quality and safety standards, and that Endel had been more interested in cutting costs than work or management quality.

Troubled Icelandic shipping and logistics group Eimskip is to be taken over by its creditors in a rescue deal which will see some of its assets and subsidiaries partially sold. Icelandic bank Landsbanki will own 45% of New Eimskip, US investment firm Yucaipa will take a 32% stake and a 49% share in one of its subsidiary interests in return for a cash injection and taking over a Eur120m loan from ABN Amro, and the rest will be owned by around 50 smaller creditors.

Eimskip said it hoped its regular operations and payments would be unaffected by the changes, and said that thanks to its "unsustainable" levels of debt it had been in talks over a restructuring since late last year.

The Baltic Exchange has made changes to the way it calculates the Baltic Dry Index in a move it says is designed to help boost derivative trading. The new BDI calculations will now be made by taking the average time charter rates only of the Baltic's capesize, panamax, supramax and handysize indices. Voyage routes will no longer feature in the calculations. Baltic Exchange chief executive Jeremy Penn said the change was a significant one as it will enable financial market players to develop and trade derivative products on the index with greater ease and understanding.

"There has been considerable interest from the wider investment and commodity trading community in the BDI in recent years. Mutual funds, hedge funds and traders have an interest in exposure to dry bulk freight and may also wish to trade it in conjunction with shipping company equities. However, their interest is often in a more general exposure to dry freight rather than in the very specific existing liquid derivative contracts. By re-selecting the index so that it consists entirely of components which are already relatively liquid in the derivatives market, we believe we are making this process considerably easier. It will enable market-makers to offer pricing and hedge resultant positions easily."

Asian container lines Evergreen and Coscon are to merge their two jointly-operated services between the Far East-South America and Far East-South Africa into a single route. The move was, the companies said, a bid to cope with soaring bunker prices and the poor state of the box market. The new ESA service will operate with a total of eleven 3,500 teu vessels of which Evergreen will deploy seven with four coming from Coscon.

The Dutch parliament has agreed to a decision by the country's defence minister not to put armed soldiers on Dutch ships travelling through the high-risk piracy zone off the Somali coast. Eimert van Middelkoop was willing, he said, to ask the commander of the EU's anti-piracy mission to allow a Dutch frigate to escort especially vulnerable ships, those with a low freeboard and whose speed was less than 10 knots. This would apply to "six to eight ships" per year. Van Middelkoop opposes the placement of military personnel on civilian ships due to the uncertain legal implications, the costs and the risk of escalating violence from pirates.

Seven people are dead and 23 are still missing after a tug bound from Dubai to Doha sank near the entrance to the Doha Canal. The 1979-built Demas Victory sank in bad weather yesterday morning. The exact cause of the tragedy is unknown. Rescue efforts are ongoing and five people have been found alive. Most of those on board the support vessel were workers from HBK Power Cleaning.

The latest confidence survey from shipping accountant and consultancy firm Moore Stephens shows a negligible increase in confidence in shipping and ongoing concern over the glut of newbuildings due for delivery. The average confidence level expressed by respondents, on a scale of 1 to 10, was 5.5, compared to 5.4 in the previous survey in February this year. Owners, managers and charterers all exhibited a small increase in confidence in connection with the shipping markets in which they operate. Confidence among brokers, meanwhile, was marginally down, and the lowest among all categories of respondent. Geographically, the highest confidence level was recorded by respondents in Asia.

Comments generally reflected the downturn in economic markets worldwide. One respondent noted: "The volume of work is the same, but the payments are late, and that is what is killing us." But there was also some optimism, with another respondent commenting: "The shipping market will be stable until September, and then should slowly improve."

The most commonly recurring area of concern involved the newbuilding market. "The weight of the orderbook is a serious problem," commented one respondent, while another noted, "There is more toxic debt on the newbuilding front still to be revealed". Other comments included: "The glut in the newbuilding orderbook exerts strong downward pressure on confidence levels" and "We are doomed by the oversupply of ships".

Moore Stephens partner Richard Greiner said: "The high level of concern expressed by respondents about the effect that the glut of newbuildings may have on the market is not a great surprise. In a way, shipping is paying for the success it enjoyed in the boom years before the markets tumbled, on the basis of which it went on a shopping spree at the world’s shipyards. It is to be hoped that a continuing return of confidence and a resurgence in trade will be instrumental in dealing with a significant part of that glut, while the ingenuity and resources of shipping companies and their financiers will undoubtedly be needed to help ameliorate some of the other more pernicious consequences of an oversupply of tonnage."

Attempts by the operator of the box ship Cosco Busan, which struck San Francisco's Bay Bridge in 2007 and spilled 53,000 gallons of fuel oil, to set a limit on the fine it could face to US$215,000 has been turned down by a federal appeals court. Prosecutors will now be free to seek up to US$40m in punishment for Hong Kong's Fleet Management Ltd. The company had last month offered to plead guilty to two pollution misdemeanour charges that would have exposed it to the smaller fine, but prosecutors obtained a new indictment citing them for causing US$20m in damage and exposing them to punitive damages of twice that amount. The company argued that it was unfair of prosecutors to seek a revised indictment so late, but prosecutors said, and a district court agreed, that they were entitled to do so.

In addition to the two pollution charges, Fleet Management also faces six felony counts of making false statements and obstructing justice by falsifying transit documents after the accident.

Oil giant Exxon Mobil has announced that it will not appeal the most recent decision over damages to be paid for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, and will now pay US$470m in interest on top of the US$500m in punitive damages awarded to some 33,000 Alaskan plaintiffs who'd sued the company in a class action suit.

The legal struggle over the spill has been going on for 25 years, with the original award of US$5bn being repeatedly reduced on appeal. Exxon's decision seems likely to end the damages battle once and for all.

Athens-based TOP Ships has paid US$11.75m to terminate the bareboat charters of four handymax tankers early and return them to their owners. The vessels had originally been chartered back for five years under the terms of their sale from TOP to their new owners three years ago. The company's fleet now comprises eight handymaxes, one newbuilding and five bulk carriers on long term time charters.

Singapore-based marine fuel suipplier Chemoil founder Robert Chandran's family members are in talks to sell the 51% majority share in the company they inherited following his death in a helicopter crash last year. While the company has said it has held talks with multiple interested parties, it is reported that the sole remaining bidder is international commodity trading group Glencore International, with the value of the deal placed somewhere around US$240m. Chemoil was forced to issue a statement to the Singapore Stock Exchange following a share price spike on speculation that a deal was close to conclusion.

Somali pirates have released the Belgian dredger Pompei, which had been seized in April near the Seychelles. The 1,482 gt vessel's 10-man crew are reported to be in good health, according to a statement from the Belgian Prime Minister. A ransom demand is reported to have been met by the ship's insurers after lengthy negotiations.

The International Maritime Bureau has issued an alert for ships travelling near Indonesia's Mangkai Island in the South China Sea following a trio of attacks in as many days by what the IMB believes to be the same gang of 5-8 pirates armed with long knives and batons. In the most serious incident, the group tied up the master, second officer and a third crewman on watch duty on board the 12,300 dwt LPG carrier Sigloo Discovery before robbing them.

Germany's already insolvent Lindenau shipyard is close to collapse after the owner of the 43,550 dwt tanker newbuilding Seapike refused to accept delivery of the vessel, claiming that the view from the bridge over the bow of the ship was inadequate. The yard had already had to take out a Eur28m loan to complete the vessel and if German Tanker Shipping continues to refuse delivery, the yard could go under. Talks between Lindenau and GTS are ongoing.

Pirates "destroy abandoned ship"

Somali pirates claim to have destroyed the Seychelles-based maritime research ship Indian Ocean Explorer after releasing her seven crew for a ransom. The vessel was seized by pirates in March and a ransom demand of US$1m dollars was made to the ship's owners. The crew were released this week after a settlement of US$450,000 was reached. The pirates claim they burned the ship because the owner refused to pay the whole ransom, although there has yet to be independent verification that the ship has been destroyed.

The International Union of Marine Insurance has come out in support of the changes imposed on the International Association of Classification Societies membership criteria following an EU antitrust investigation. IUMI welcomed the shift to what it described as "qualitative rather than quantitative" criteria for membership of the organisation. IUMI secretary-general Fritz Stabinger said: "IUMI has always supported and endorsed industry efforts to achieve greater quality and transparency in its operations no matter which sector is involved. The chairman of IACS, which is an affiliate member of IUMI, has said that the primary concern of all its member societies is to promote the safety of life, property and the natural environment. IUMI fully aligns itself with these aims, which are the cornerstone of marine insurance practice, and welcomes what may be a new chapter in the classification of ships."

The Brazilian-owned tanker Livramento, which was placed under quarantine by Argentinian authorities on Saturday after one crew member was diagnosed with swine flu, has been released from the port of San Lorenzo and allowed to resume its voyage to Tramandai and the north east coast of Brazil. The ship was initially placed under a 40-day quarantine, but with the infected crew member recovering well in a hospital in Rosario and no further symptoms presenting on board, the ship was allowed to leave.

A European Commission-funded project aiming to tackle the problem of seafarer fatigue has been launched with an inaugural meeting at Warsash in the UK. Project Horizon brings together 11 academic institutions and organisations with a broad range of interests from the shipping industry in a 30-month research programme to examine the way in which fatigue affects the cognitive performance of ships' watchkeepers. The project seeks to improve safety at sea by developing a fatigue management toolkit for the industry, as well as recommendations for improving work patterns at sea.

"Whilst we now have evidence to show the scale of the problem associated with fatigue amongst seafarers, this project will take the understanding to a new level based on robust and reliable empirical data that can be used to make concrete fact-based recommendations for avoiding or mitigating the dangers," said project manager Graham Clarke.

Sixty deck and engineer officers will be taking part in the project, with their performance being measured by researchers as they undertake typical watchkeeping duties on simulators over a succession of seven-day periods. Experts will use a variety of scientific methods to measure the fatigue levels experienced by the officers and any resulting degradation in performance during a wide range of regular onboard operating conditions.