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Golar completes Frost sale

Golar LNG has completed the sale of the LNG tanker Golar Frost to the offshore gas project at Livorno, OLT Offshore LNG Toscana S.p.a ("OLT-O"). The vessel, which was sold for $231 million, is scheduled for conversion into a floating storage and regsification unit at Keppler Shipyards in Singapore. Conversion costs are estimated to be some $90 million.

Golar will immediately charter back the vessel until mid 2009 when the vessel is scheduled to commence its conversion. Golar says the cash will be used for new investments in LNG infrastructure projects as well as for existing projects and will also partly be used to increase dividends to shareholders.

A.P. Moller – Maersk has placed an order with Daewoo for 16 containerships of 7,450 teu. The vessels, for delivery between 2010 and 2012, are destined for routes linking the east coast of South America with Europe and Asia. Each vessel has reefer points for 1,700 refrigerated containers - the highest number ever carried on a container vessel.

In the last five years, the trade between Asia and the East Coast of South America has grown more than 20% per year on average. In the next five years, growth is expected to remain in the double digits. The reefer trade on the route has grown an annual 15% over the same period. This growth is expected to remain strong with increased containerisation opportunities in the coming years.

Senior Vice President Michel Deleuran, Head of Network & Product in Maersk Line, says that “We expect a continued strong growth in these markets; we believe that this order shows our long-term commitment to providing service and support to our customers’ increasing business in the aforementioned trades”

Towing kite manufacturer Skysails says that its propulsion system is more than five times as efficient per square meter of sail than traditional wind propulsion systems, according to the latest measurements made aboard the multipurpose cargo ship “Michael A”. Depending on wind conditions, ships in the future should be able to post fuel savings of between 10% and 35% using this auxiliary propulsion system, the company claims.

“Our own measurements show that we were able to temporarily save far more than half the fuel by deploying SkySails in favorable wind conditions,” reports Gerd Wessels, managing director of Wessels, which owns the Michael A. “Alternatively we were able to increase the ship’s cruising speed from 10 to 11.6 knots with the help of this towing kite propulsion.”

The system has been undergoing pilot testing in European waters since the end of 2007. The test phase has so far resulted in the addition of a sea-state compensator, which allows the towing kite to be launched even under difficult weather conditions. “After installing the sea-state compensator we can now deploy the SkySails system more regularly than was the case at the start of the pilot testing phase and thus also extend the flight times,” says SkySails company founder Stephan Wrage.

Based on the success of the trial so far, Wessels has ordered additional Skysails systems for three 37.00dwt multipurpose newbuildings. The ships were financed through the Oltmann Group in Leer, which provided a major portion of SkySails’ seed money through private investors.

Stolt-Nielsen reported healthy demand in the second quarter of 2008, but said that profits continue to be impacted by increased bunker-fuel costs and the falling dollar. Surcharges and freigh increases had not been enough to compensate for the increase in the average cost of bunker fuel from $495 per ton to $550 per ton over the quarter, said Niels G. Stolt-Nielsen, Chief Executive Officer of SNSA.

However, demand for the service remained high, said Stolt-Nielsen: “We have not seen any significant changes in demand for our parcel-tanker services in the last quarter, despite the current weakness in some sectors of the global economy. Neither have we seen any impact on the market due to the increasing number of newbuildings being delivered.”

We have secured financing for our series of six stainless steel newbuildings under construction at Aker Yards Florø in Norway, as well as the coated newbuildings under construction at SLS Shipyard in Korea that will enter our newly announced joint venture, Gulf Stolt Tankers FZCO. In addition, we are underway with the financing for our eight ship stainless steel newbuilding programme with SLS Shipyard in Korea."

Operating profits for the quarter were $52.2 million, compared with $54.6 million in the first quarter of the year.

Profit from continuing operations for the first half of 2008 was $83.1 million, up from $82.1 million in the first half of 2007.

Wartsila has acquired the global ship design group Vik-Sandvik, which specializes in the design of high-end offshore vessels, as well as product and chemical tankers and more specialized vessels for EUR 132 millions. An additional maximum sum of EUR 38 millions is to be paid based on the performance of the business over the next three years. Wartsila says the move will allow it offer competitive solutions that will lead to better total efficiency, improved environmental performance, and reduced life cycle costs for its customers. "From a strategic point of view, the acquisition of Vik-Sandvik is a very important step for Wartsila as it brings us closer to our customers, both ship owners and ship yards. We can now enter into dialogue with them at an earlier stage, when the key specifications of a vessel are decided, and this will result in us being able to offer more competitive solutions," says Mr Jaakko Eskola, Group Vice President, Wartsila Ship Power.

"For Vik-Sandvik, this deal represents an opportunity to develop our business, in a way that meets the requirements of the market. We could have continued alone, but being a part of Wartsila, a leading equipment and after sales services provider with global presence, clearly has benefits. We believe this combination will create a unique and new kind of market leader," says Mr Svein Sandvik, Managing Director, Vik-Sandvik.

Dockwise has taken delivery of the m/v Treasure, the final heavy lift vesselin a series of four converted from single hull suezmax tankers. In January 2007, Frontline spun off a separate entity named Sealift to develop its heavy lift activity. Sealift acquired six single hull suezmax vessels from Frontline, four of which were for conversion into heavy lift vessels. In May 2007, Sealift combined businesses with Dockwise. Frontline expects a net cash generation of approximately $28 million from the heavy lift sector in the second and third quarter of 2008, and expects to record a gain of approximately $105 million, including deferred gain related to the transaction, in the second quarter of 2008.

A US Coast Guard cutter collided with the Block Island Ferry about three miles north of the island, the Coast Guard said.

The Coast Guard said 257 passengers and eight crew members were on the ferry. Eighteen people were on the Coast Guard boat. There were no reports of injuries.

The collision happened as the ferry was heading from Point Judith to Block Island and the 140-foot buoy tender Morro Bay was returning to its home base in New London, Conn. Visibility was reported to be about 200 yards.

The ferry was escorted to Block Island by another Coast Guard Ship.

The Coast Guard said the cutter was not assisting the ferry when the crash occurred and that it appears coincidental they were near each other. Neither vessel was taking on water.

Safmarine has commenced a regular, multi-purpose vessel (MPV) service between Asia and West Africa, targetting the breakbulk and project cargo trades.

According to Greg Ulicki, Safmarine’s MPV Executive, the route was launched following positioning voyages of the brand new, Chinese-built, Safmarine Angela, Safmarine Andisa and Safmarine Akwaba into Europe to test demand. "Based on our success we have decided to open up a monthly service and we will flexibly deploy our assets in order to serve our customer’s needs on this trade,” he said.

The monthly service, which will offer fast transits directly into West Africa, will start on July 22. Transit time from Zhangjiaganghis Chinese port to Matadi will be approximately 27 days. Major West Africa ports that will be served include Namibe, Lobito, Luanda, Pointe Noire, Libreville, Douala, Malabo, Sao Tome, Durban, Lome, Tema, Takoradi, Abidjan and San Pedro.

Inducement calls at East African ports and additional Asian load ports call will also be scheduled to meet customer needs.

The Baltic Exchange and Q88.com LLC announced the launch of www.baltic99.com a new website for the dry bulk shipping industry. In conjunction with the launch, the Baltic Exchange has revised Baltic99 its standard dry cargo questionnaire for owners and charterers. A new version is available for download from www.baltic99.com.

The Baltic Exchange claims that use of www.baltic99.com will significantly improve accuracy and efficiency when dry bulk shipowners complete and distribute vessel questionnaires to charterers and port terminals. This website allows for automatic completion by linking 90 of the currently required questionnaires to a common database. In addition, the web site allows the user to search the database for specific information about each vessel and to easily keep track of certificate dates.

New subscribers can use this service at no cost until January 1, 2009. Thereafter each subscriber will be charged an annual fee per ship.

Fritz Heidenreich, President of Q88, said, "This system has been successfully used in the tanker industry for the past 7 years. It was logical to expand the service to the dry bulk industry as the need for questionnaires has grown and many of our tanker customers have been asking us to support dry bulk vessels as well."

Jeremy Penn, Baltic Exchange Chief Executive, said, “ We believe this system offers real benefit to all users and are delighted to be able to offer a discount to Baltic Exchange members.”

New subscribers can use this service at no cost until January 1, 2009. Thereafter each subscriber will be charged an annual fee per ship.

Pirates have attacked a tug off Malaysia, reports the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia. The Singapore-registered tug boat, Wecoy 6, was towing the barge Cakrawala from Can Tho, Vietnam to Singapore when the attack took place. At 0130 hrs on 29 June 2008, the tug boat was approximately 10 nm south of Pulau Tioman when six men armed with long knives and axe boarded the tug boat from a long white speedboat with twin outboard motors. Four other men stood by and waited in the speedboat. After stealing personal items belonging to the crew, they sped off towards Pulau Pemanggil. No crew were injured in the attack. The Singapore Port Operations Control Centre (POCC) has initiated a NAVTEX broadcast warning ships in the vicinity to look out for fast moving craft approaching their ships and to increase anti-piracy watch.

The IMO reports good progress during the first intersessional meeting of the Working Group on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions from Ships, held in Oslo last week.

The week-long session was tasked with developing the technical basis for reduction mechanisms that may form part of a future IMO regime to control GHG emissions from international shipping, and with developing drafts of the actual reduction mechanisms themselves.

In particular, the Oslo meeting made progress on developing a mandatory CO2 Design Index for ships and an interim CO2 operational index. Once finalized, the index will serve as a fuel-efficiency tool at the design stage of ships, enabling the fuel efficiency of different ship designs, or a specific design with different input such as design speed, choice of propeller or the use of waste heat recovery systems, to be compared. The design index will contain a required minimum level of fuel efficiency which will among the matters that will be considered by MEPC 58 in October.

The IMO also held extensive discussions on best practices for voluntary implementation and economic instruments with GHG-reduction potential.

IMO is working to have measures in place to control GHG emissions from international shipping before the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of 2011.

The North of England P&I club has warned its members to check their contractual position carefully before slowing down to save on fuel. The club says chartered ships which slow down to save on ever-rising bunker costs risk being sued for breach of charterparty. Examples might include failing to ‘proceed with the utmost despatch’ under a New York Product Exchange (NYPE) 1946 time charterparty, and failing to ‘proceed with reasonable despatch’ under a voyage charterparty. Slowed ships may also be exposed to claims under the bills of lading for deviation by delay. ‘Another possible risk might be indemnity claims under the charterparty for losses suffered under the bill of lading contract,’ says Tony Baker, North of England’s head of loss prevention. ‘Mirroring similar actions in the air, road and rail transport industries to offset costs and reduce environmental impact, many ship operators are considering whether to adopt a ‘slow-steaming’ policy. However, before making the decision to slow steam, owners and charterers alike need to ensure their position is protected – both under the terms of the relevant charterparties and under the bills of lading.’

United Arab Shipping Co (UASC) has signed a contract for nine 13,100-teu ships with Samsung Heavy Industries. The first of the vessels is due for delivery in October 2010, with all nine ships due for delivery by the end of 2011.

The contract constitutes the biggest containership building order ever placed by a state company in the Gulf region, and is valued in excess of $1.5 billion, said a UASC spokesman. The vessels will bring UASC’s boxship fleet to more than 60 modern container ships, with a total capacity of more than 270,000 teu

Bocimar International and Conti 7 have founded a new joint venture company, BoConti Shipping NV. The two Antwerp-based companies will be pooling their expertise to develop a tramp operating company with a modern handysize fleet(25,000 up to 45,000 dwt).

Bocimar is known as a large bulkcarrier operator, while Conti 7 is well established in the breakbulk market through its daughter company Conti-Lines, where it has acquired a strong reputation in operating multipurpose and small bulkcarrier vessels in liner services and parcel trades.

Six newbuildings of 35,000 dwt, to be delivered in 2009 and 2010, are already assigned to BoConti Shipping, which has ambitions to grow to a substantial player in the handysize sector through further acquisition and long term chartering.

Jean-Frédéric Brion, Managing Director of Conti 7 and Conti- Lines says: “Creating this new set-up with Bocimar as a strong and solid partner, is a unique and promising opportunity which will surely further enhance both our positions in the global maritime scene. I consider it a real asset to exploit a fleet of young modern vessels, most of which will be flying Belgian flag.”

Chemoil has chartered a second tanker to meet growing demand for offshore fuel deliveries in the Gulf of Mexico. The 36,000 dwt tanker, named the Nordic Ruth, is nearly double the size of Chemoil's original vessel, the MY Atlantic. The two tankers will work in tandem to significantly increase supplies at key locations including, but not limited to, Offshore Galveston, Texas and the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP).

Built in 2000, the Nordic Ruth is double-hulled and will be fully equipped to deliver marine fuels via Ship-to-Ship (STS) operations. Through operating both tankers with a combined capacity of over 50,000 DWT, the company will be able to undertake more voyages each month, increase available tonnage and ensure that there is always at least one vessel at sea to make deliveries. The Nordic Ruth will be operational in the second half of July 2008.

Adrian Tolson, Chemoil's Vice President of Sales and Marketing, said that the Gulf of Mexico service has provided customers with an alternative to making time consuming and costly voyage deviations to traditional supply locations in the Caribbean.

A survey by Moore Stephens shows that overall confidence in the shipping market for the next twelve months remains unaffected by the global credit crunch. But two-thirds of shipping interests expect finance costs to rise - a ten per cent increase on levels reported in the last survey, in March 2008 – while there has also been a fall in the number of owners who expect to make a major business investment in the next twelve months.

On a scale of 1 to 10, the overall confidence shown in the market by those who responded to the survey was unchanged at 6.8. Owners and managers expressing the highest levels of confidence at 7.0 (marginally down on the previous survey) against the 6.3 recorded by charterers.

Some respondents acknowledged that the current financial crisis could affect world trade. But this was balanced by the expectation that continuing high demand from Asia and the Far East, in particular, would ensure that shipping would ride out the financial slump. Meanwhile, a shortage of suitably qualified crew – which could ultimately lead to owners being forced to lay up vessels and default on mortgage repayments – and the escalating cost of fuel impacting on the ability to invest in other areas, were recurring themes among respondents.

Demand trends and competition emerged as the factors deemed most likely to influence performance over the next twelve months. Operating costs, which were cited as the most significant factor in this category in the last survey, came in fourth, behind the cost of finance. Other concerns included doubts about the industry’s ability to build sufficient numbers of new ships to meet demand, and the inability of freight rates to keep pace with the rocketing price of oil.

Opinions about the direction in which freight rates in the tanker market were likely to move over the next twelve months showed some sharp variations, with 64 per cent of charterers expecting rates to increase, and only 31 per cent of owners sharing that view.

In the dry bulk sector, meanwhile, there was evidence of a levelling-out in market expectations, with a 4 per cent increase, to 32 per cent, in the number of respondents who expected rates to be higher in twelve months’ time, and a corresponding fall, from 40 to 35 per cent, in those who were predicting lower rates.

The Lake Carriers Association reports that trade on the Great Lakes continues to suffer from a lack of investment in dredging. Despite an increase in shipments of both coal and iron ore in May over the same period last year, top loads again represented only about 90 percent of the largest vessels’ designed carrying capacity. As a result, coal shipments in May were limited to 4.4 million net tons.

Shipments of iron ore on the Great Lakes totaled 7.3 million net tons in May, an increase of 15.4 percent compared to a year ago, and some 16.4 percent better than the month’s 5-year average. Rising water levels and high steel demand have helped push trade levels up, but many of the largest vessels could have carried another 5,000-6,000 tons per trip if sufficient dredging was carried out, says the LCA.

The London P&I Club has recently launched an enhanced charterers liability insurance facility following detailed analysis and consultation with a number of members, operators and brokers. Bilbrough underwriter Nigel Martin, says, “A strength of the club’s new combined single-limit cover is that it reflects a great deal of feedback from members and others involved in chartering and trading about their practical insurance needs. This has emphasised that the protection provided by standard P&I - along with cover for liability to hull - remains extremely important, but that charterers also face a range of increasingly varied risks, requiring individually tailored insurance solutions. “There may be a need, for example, for cover against loss of bunkers, or for the sort of serious potential exposure that can arise in a number of jurisdictions in connection with the ownership of cargo carried at sea. At the same time, there is an additional need for a top quality and responsive club claims handling service, of the type which the London is renowned for delivering. As a result, the club has developed and upgraded its charterers cover, gearing it towards the provision to members of flexible and appropriate protection against a growing spread of risks”.

PIRATES holding the 2,546 gt, Antigua and Barbuda-flag general cargo ship Amiya Scan released the vessel on Tuesday evening. All on board were reported safe but conditions on board were such that, once clear of the Somali coast, the master declared a Mayday.

Owner Reider Shipping and Scan-Trans initially said that, after Somali pirates had been in control for 31 days, all nine crew members were well and unharmed.

Later the companies clarified this in a statement saying: “Amiya Scan was released by the hijackers near Eyl on Tuesday evening. Immediately following the release the vessel sailed away from the Somali coast in order to get to a safe position. At that time, the vessel had no food and water supplies any more and it was also running out of fuel. On top of this, two crew members were reported ill (possible food poisoning). There were no medical supplies available, since the pirates took them. Based on this critical situation, the master decided to issue a distress call.”

The statement continued: “This Mayday was received by the German warship FGS Emden that was in the area. The FGS Emden responded immediately to the emergency call and sailed towards the Amiya Scan. A navy medical emergency team was placed on board by helicopter. The FGS Emden supplied Amiya Scan with emergency water, food and first aid equipment. Also emergency fuel was supplied, so that the Amiya Scan is now able to sail under her own power to meet with the supply vessel ordered by the owners some time ago.”

While previous hijacks have been resolved by payments of ransoms the two companies said that they believe “it would be irresponsible to provide any details of the on-going dialogue with the hijackers over the course of this incident, or to release any details of the operational issues involved”. They added: “Any such details provided in the public domain could, we believe, encourage would-be pirates and add further danger to the victims of such attacks. We hope and trust that the national and international media will respect this point of view.”

Meanwhile it has been reported that Somali pirates kidnapped four Europeans from a yacht in the Gulf of Aden and are holding them in the semi-autonomous Puntland region of Somalia. The region's security minister Jama Hirsi Farah says a German family of three and the yacht's French skipper were abducted Monday. He said Puntland's security forces were trying rescue the captives.

UK-based shipping services group Clarkson has settled the claims against it made by Russian-based companies Sovcomflot and Novoship by agreeing a “further and final” payment of £13m ($26m). This appears to bring total provisions relating to the case to some £27m. The company said that the details of settlement were confidential.

However Clarkson chairman Tim Harris is reported as saying the settlement was made based on detailed professional advice. The company decided it was better to settle than drag on with expensive litigation, “the outcome of which is always uncertain”.

The settlement comes soon after Andi Case, previously chief operating officer, took over as chief executive officer with immediate effect. He replaced Richard Fulford-Smith who was asked to step down in April.