Friday, June 10th, 2005

The Daily News is available at http://www.maritime-executive.com.


June 3, 2005

Pirates Take Tanker Crew

The master and a crew member of a Thai product tanker transiting the Malacca Strait have been kidnapped by pirates, who have demanded ransom. According to the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Center, the boarding of the tanker occurred on the evening of June 1st.
The tanker was confronted speed boats and armed pirates who fired warning shots before boarding the ship. The pirates, believed to be Indonesians, took the vessel's trade documents along with the captain and the crew member, the Kuala Lumpur-based center said.

It is the first kidnapping of a crew since March, 2005, when three crew members from the Japanese tugboat "Idaten" was taken for ransom. They were released after the ransom was paid. A Malaysian patrol vessel was sent to the location off Pangkor Island, north of the Strait.

June 6, 2005

China Begins Construction on Mega-Shipyard

China is constructing what will eventually be the world's largest shipyard. It is part of its plan to dominant the shipbuilding industry.

The new Chinese yard will be a 5-mile-long facility on an island in the Yangtze River, north of Shanghai, state media reported.

The $3.6 billion shipyard will quadruple the country's current shipbuilding capacity to 12 million tons by 2015.

China, which is already the world's third-largest shipbuilder, is eager to cash in on a global boom in shipping, which has been pushed by its own surging exports and importation of raw materials.

The 130-year-old "Jiangnan Shipyard" that sits on Huangpu River in the center of Shanghai, builds half of all China's orders, and has an annual capacity of more than 3 million tons, accounting for 4.6 percent of the world total. This yard will move into the new facility.

China currently does approximately 10 percent of the world shipbuilding. While, South Korea and Japan, combined, controls about three-quarters of the world's ships.

June 7, 2005

Bulk Carrier Sinks after Collision with Container Ship

A Malaysian-flagged bulk carrier sank after colliding with a container ship 14 nautical miles from Pulau Batu Putih, off Mersing.

The bulk carrier reported one crew member missing and a number of injured. There are concerns of oil spillage and the Malaysian marine authorities have deployed several spill response vessels to the area.

The "Everise Glory" was sailing from Western Australia to Singapore, when the Taiwan-registered container ship "Uni Concord" collided with it in open seas. The "Uni Concord" suffered damage at its bow. The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said bulk carriers crewmen were rescued by the Singapore Navy, Coast Guard, and passing vessels.

There was no immediate evidence that the vessels were aware of one another or communicated prior to the collision.

This incident comes about a year after the "MV Hyundai 105," carrying 4,190 cars, sank in waters between Singapore and Indonesia. The car carrier sank after the Panama-registered tanker, "MT Kaminesan," which was transporting 280,000 tons of crude oil, slammed into the it off the coast of Sentosa Island.

In January 2003, a Singapore warship was crushed in a collision with a container ship in Singapore's worst-ever naval accident near Pulau Batu Putih. The "RSS Courageous," an anti-submarine vessel, collided with the Dutch-registered "ANL Indonesia."

June 8, 2005

Kvaerner Philadelphia Announces Final Agreement to build 10 Double-Hulls

The final agreement between Kvaerner Philadelphia Shipyard and Overseas Shipholding Group to build and bare boat charter 10 Veteran MT46 class Jones Act product tankers has been finalized.

The preliminary agreement is $1 billion in new ship construction. The bareboat charters between American Shipping, a Kvaerner ASA of Norway subsidiary, and OSG, a Overseas Shipholding subsidiary, will be for five and seven years with extension options for the charter customer. The charter agreement is worth $500 million to Kvaerner.

The agreement is subject to government approvals.

June 10, 2005

Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach will Get Container Radiation Detectors

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will receive radiation detectors to inspect incoming cargo container for nuclear weapons or dirty bombs, according to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

The 20-foot-high devices will be in place in the Southern California ports by the end of the year. They are part of the U.S. government's strategy to prevent a possible attack by terrorists using nuclear or radiological weapons at the nation's busiest port complex.

"A key element of that strategy is detection," Chertoff said after touring the waterways surrounding the ports aboard a Coast Guard ship. "If we know this radiological material is coming in-- we can take the appropriate steps to intercept a threat."

Approximately 4.3 million containers are shipped to the ports of LA and Long Beach each year. In April, the port of Oakland became the first major harbor to install enough radiation machines to check all incoming cargo with 25 portals.

"The ultimate objective is to get complete coverage of all our maritime ports," Chertoff said.

Three of the machines will be up and running at the LA-area ports by month's end, with a total of 90 installed by January.

Trucks carrying containers unloaded from ships will pass through the detectors. If the machines find signs of radiation, the container will get another scan and possibly inspection by hand-held devices to help identify how much and what kind of radiation is present. The scanning process takes approximate five-seconds to move through the portals.

The portals cost approximately $250,000 each, and are funded by federal homeland security funds. Union officials representing port workers criticized the measure, saying some cargo containers linger on the docks for hours or days before being placed onto trucks.