Along the 1,600-mile, ice gray arch of the St Lawrence Seaway, the 2020 Great Lakes commercial shipping season will lurch back to life on March 25 when the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. reopen.The ceremonial opening signals a passage with passable ice and the 114th Great Lakes season for its fleet of 45 venerable lakers.
There’s a barge full of reasons why many operators turn to ATBs.A mainstay of the U.S. coastwise dirty and refined products trades, articulated tug barges (ATB) have increasingly filled a void left as the fleet of Jones Act tankers (with crew complement requirements exceeding that of tugs) has aged out.
Classification society DNV GL had awarded a new class notation to mitigate fire risks on containerships to MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company. The notation, announced by DNV GL – Maritime CEO Knut Ørbeck-Nilssen in London, has been implemented on the largest containerships in the world, the 23,000+ TEU MSC Gülsün class.The new FCS notation is targeted exclusively towards containerships.
The final quarter of 2019 marked a massive decline of high-sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) sales, as the industry transitioned into compliance of the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) 2020 Sulphur Cap (IMO 2020). In Singapore, the world’s largest bunkering hub, the bunker sale landscape saw significant change as the sale of high-sulphur fuel oil dropped tremendously in a matter of months.
U.S. federal officials are calling for new safety rules following the fatal sinking of a Missouri amphibious passenger vessel in July 2018.Seventeen of the 31 people aboard the modified WWII DUKW amphibious passenger vessel, or "duck boat", Stretch Duck 7 died, when the vessel sank during a rapidly developing high-wind storm on Table Rock Lake near Branson, Mo.
Hindsight, they say is 20/20, and in this regard renowned design house Gibbs & Cox has nine decades in the rear view mirror on which to lean. We recently caught up with Chris Deegan, President and CEO of Gibbs & Cox, celebrating its 90th anniversary in 2019, to discuss the organization’s rich history and promising future.
New capabilities allow “roboats” to change configurations to form pop-up bridges, stages, and other structures.MIT’s fleet of robotic boats has been updated with new capabilities to “shapeshift,” by autonomously disconnecting and reassembling into a variety of configurations, to form floating structures in Amsterdam’s many canals.
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) today announced the designation of nine Marine Highway Projects and a Marine Highway Route that will benefit Connecticut, Florida, Michigan, New York, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington State and American Samoa. Marine highways are navigable waterways that can be used as alternate options to traditional shipping methods.
Now that the United States finally can envision steady winds blowing from the Atlantic Seaboard due to a pipeline of offshore wind farms on the horizon, the maritime industry can finally step up and earn some of the benefits. This includes shipbuilding, port construction, and worker training. This article reviews the key developments and forecasts the growth in maritime jobs.
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) announced $19.6 million in grants to support capital improvements at 28 U.S. small shipyards as a part of its Small Shipyard Grant program. The grants enable small shipyards to modernize equipment and processes to fuel future growth.
VT Halter Marine of Pascagoula, MS has emerged the victor in one of the most prized and coveted shipbuilding contracts in recent memory, a $746m deal to build the Coast Guard's lead Polar Security Cutter. If two additional ship options are exercised, the total deal could approach $2B.The U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy, through an Integrated Program Office (IPO), awarded VT Halter Marine Inc.
BIMCO has developed a monitoring service for bunker prices, with data provided by MABUX, which is now available to all BIMCO members. The new interactive graphs allow price fluctuations in the major bunkering hubs of Singapore and Rotterdam to be tracked. They will show the bunker prices for 380cST HSFO (high sulphur fuel oil) and MGO LS (marine gas oil low sulfur), both in USD per metric ton