MarEx Newsletter | Moratorium Causes Rig Closures, Oil Spill Closes St. Lawrence Seaway

Please Click Here if you are unable to view the newsletter July 13th, 2010 Vol. 8, No. 49 Moratorium Forces Oil Rig Closure Diamond Offshore Drilling, a Houston Company is moving a rig out of the Gulf because of the moratorium on deepwater drilling. The Ocean Endeavor has a new drilling contract in Egypt. Diamond has six other rigs in the Gulf that are sitting idle because of the ban. The move means 30 workers from Louisiana and Mississippi will lose their jobs. Those positions ... Read More>>>Back to Top New Gov. Order Expands Deepwater Drilling Suspension The federal government announced Monday it is issuing a new order to suspend deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of California until as late as November 30. The new order expands the drilling operations to include not only the Gulf of Mexico but also rigs off California in what is called the Pacific region. Read More>>>Back to Top George Steinbrenner Dies at 80 George Steinbrenner(July 4, 1930 – July 13, 2010) died today after suffering a massive heart attack. George Steinbrenner, best known as the owner of the New York Yankees, got his start in shipping. In 1957, Steinbrenner joined Kinsman Marine Transit Company, his father's Great Lakes shipping company, and worked hard to successfully revitalize the company, which was suffering through ... Read More>>>Back to Top Deepwater Horizon Update July 13, 2010 Ram Capping Stack Installed Yesterday The three ram capping stack was installed on the Deep Water Horizon LMRP at 7 p.m. CDT. The stack completes the installation of the new sealing cap. Following installation of the capping stack and in line with the procedure approved by the National Incident Commander and Unified Area Command, the well integrity test ... Read More>>>Back to Top Oil Spill Closes St. Lawrence Seaway A freighter carrying wheat ran aground near Montreal, after losing power. The ship hit a bank near the Cote Ste-Catherine locks on Monday night around 7:30 p.m., causing its fuel tank to be punctured. The environmental emergency response team reported that a breach was fixed but that some of the bunker oil leaked into the waterway. Read More>>>Back to Top U.S. Rig Count Continues to Increase Rig exploring and producing in the U.S. totaled 1,567 for the week ended July 9, 2010, up 10 from the previous week. The current rig count is up almost 79% over 2009's low of 876 (set in the week ended June 12, 2009). It rose to 22-year high in 2008, peaking at 2,031 in the weeks ending August 29 and September 12. The number of ... Read More>>>Back to Top Ship Accidents & Collisions July 13, 2010 Maersk boxship on fire off Port Klang A fire started in a container carrying "dangerous goods" onboard the CHARLOTTE MAERSK in the Malacca Strait after leaving Port Klang bound for Oman. Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (APMM) said it received a call at about 10.10pm on Wednesday and rushed a rescue ship and speedboat to the scene at about midnight. Read More>>>Back to Top Cargo Ship Captain, 4 Companies Charged in Oil Spill Off Australia Capt. Bernardino Gonzales Santos of the cargo ship, PACIFIC ADVENTURER, along with the ship's owner and manager were charged with disposal of oil in coastal water, and not reporting a spill. Capt. Santos is out on bail. Containers on the Pacific Adventurer tumbled overboard in a March 2009 storm, piercing the hull of the ship, which spilled 71,300 gallons (270,000 liters) of ... Read More>>>Back to Top Oil Rises 4th Day as China's Crude Imports Hit Record Oil rose for a fourth day after China, the world's second-biggest energy consumer, increased crude imports to a record in June. Oil climbed as China's net purchases rose to 22.14 million metric tons or 5.39 million barrels a day, beating the previous record of 10.98 million tons in April. U.S. fuel demand rose 3.2 percent in the week ended July 2, according to the Energy ... Read More>>>Back to Top False Jones Act Criticism Distracts From Oil Clean-up The Maritime Cabotage Task Force (MCTF) today said that recent Jones Act criticism is false and is only distracting from the job of cleaning up the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Responding to these misleading and inaccurate claims, those leading and coordinating the response as well as independent news organizations have said that the Jones Act is not preventing or delaying foreign vessels' ... Read More>>>Back to Top THE UN-COMFORT ZONE with Robert Wilson "The First Million" Until I was thirty years old, I wasn't much of a fisherman. I'd take a rod and reel along on a camping trip, but I never expected to catch much of anything. In my mind, fishing was a relaxing past time you enjoyed with friends and beer. Then my buddy Brian asked me to go fishing. I took him ... Read More>>>Back to Top ERA Helicopters & Priority 1 Air Rescue Establish Training Center Era Helicopters and Priority 1 Air Rescue (P1AR) announced Monday, they have launched a joint Helicopter Search and Rescue (SAR) Training School – the first ever established in North America solely dedicated to train commercial, law enforcement and foreign military aviation professionals and their aircrews in performing Helicopter SAR and HEMS (Helicopter Emergency Service). The Era-P1AR SAR Training Center now offers an ... Read More>>>Back to Top Taiwan's Evergreen Buys 10 Vessels from CSBC Taiwan's Evergreen Group will order 10 ships from the island's leading shipyard, China Shipbuilding Corporation (CSBC) for 1.03 billion US dollars, as part of a plan to more than double its container fleet. They expect to obtain the order before the end of this month. If finalized, the contract would require construction of 10 8,000 TEU (Twenty-foot equivalent unit) ... Read More>>>Back to Top Feds Probe FL College Ship's Untaxed Repairs U.S. Immigration and Enforcement officials are investigating a ship owned by Florida Atlantic University (FAU) that underwent untaxed repairs in the Bahamas. An estimated $200,000 worth of work was performed on the R/V SEWARD JOHNSON, a research vessel, when the ship sailed out of U.S. waters in April. Renovations performed out of the country come due when a ship returns home. Read More>>>Back to Top Ship Management Corp. to Pay $4 Million Penalty for Concealing Deliberate Pollution Irika Shipping S.A., a ship management corporation registered in Panama and doing business in Greece, pleaded guilty on July 8, 2010 before Maryland U.S. District Court Judge Frederick J. Motz, to felony obstruction of justice charges and violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships related to concealing deliberate vessel pollution from the M/V IORANA, a Greek flagged cargo ship that made port calls ... Read More>>>Back to Top Anchor Ship Investment Co. May Buy First Iron-Ore Vessels Anchor Ship Investment Co., Japan's largest ship-fund manager, may invest part of a planned 200 billion yen ($2.3 billion) fund on its first dry-bulk vessels in anticipation of a rebound in Chinese iron-ore demand. The company plans to start raising money for the new fund in September. The company says the new investment vehicle is targeting an average annual return of 10 ... Read More>>>Back to Top UN Condemns S. Korean Ship's Sinking The United Nations yesterday condemned the sinking of a South Korean warship Cheonan in the Yellow Sea in March, killing 36, but stopped short of blaming the attack on the North. North Korea's ambassador to the UN swiftly welcomed the statement and said his country would continue to take part in six-party nuclear talks, which have been stalled since Pyongyang left the ... Read More>>>Back to Top TORM A/S to Install Veson Nautical's IMOS6 IMOS to increase efficiencies; manage Chartering, Operations, and Accounting related functions Veson Nautical, the premier provider of Maritime Enterprise Resource Planning (Maritime-ERP) solutions and services, today announced that Copenhagen based TORM A/S, ranked by Tanker Operator as one of the world's top 30 leading carriers of refined oil products, will install version 6 of Veson's Integrated Maritime Operations System (IMOS). Veson Nautical's ... Read More>>>Back to Top Helmerich & Payne to Build New FlexRigs for "paying customers" The drilling company announces new commitments; and CEO Hans Helmerich expresses concern for their peers in Venezuela after Chavez seized 11 of their rigs on June 24. Helmerich & Payne, Inc. announced that the Company has entered into agreements to build and operate seven additional FlexRigs. These rigs will be built under multi-year term contracts for four exploration and production companies, and ... Read More>>>Back to Top Two Major Orders for Wartsila 34 slow streaming upgrade kits & 80 main engines for bunkering tankers Wartsila Wins Order for 34 Sets of Slow Steaming Upgrade Kits from A.P. Moller Slow steaming has become a recognized means of operating in order to reduce fuel consumption. These cost savings can be further enhanced through the fitting of the Wärtsilä Slow Steaming Upgrade Kit, which ... Read More>>>Back to Top Moratorium Causes Significant Harm to Economy, API Looks to Appeals Court The American Petroleum Institute urged the U.S. Court of Appeals to uphold Judge Feldman's decision to stay the federal moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling. "The government took the proper steps to review the safety and operations of all rigs in the Gulf, following the Deepwater Horizon incident, but a blanket moratorium was a step too far," said Jack Gerard, president and CEO ... Read More>>>Back to Top Click Here to Unsubscribe Copyright © 2010 The Maritime Executive. 3200 S. Andrews Avenue, Suite 100 Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316