Original news was published on 5 August, 2014

Van der Vlist’s Russian office has recently received two flight simulaters at its 560-square-meter warehouse.

The 15-ton simulators were dismantled into 20 pieces each. The largest pieces measure 2.5 meters long, 2 meters wide and 3.5 meters high, Van der Vlist said in a statement.

The simulators were brought into the St. Petersburg office as part of a project to develop facility’s storage operations. Over the past month, the facility has been home to several MAN TGM fire trucks, which were stored on the 20,000-square-meter secured warehouse while waiting to be delivered to the local fleet.

Despite these recent influxes of cargo there is still available space on the secured site for storage of machinery or other cargo, short term or long term.

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was published on 4 August, 2014

Output to be exported to other African countries and to Europe

China’s Shandong Iron and Steel Group (Shandong Steel) will construct a US$150 million steel pipe plant in Morocco.

The new plant will have a production capacity of 250,000 tons of pipes per year and be built at a 14-acre site in Tangier Exportation Freezone  south of Tangier in northern Morocco.

All of the plant’s pipes will be exported, according to a report from African agency Agence Ecofin. The majority of the output undefined 70 percent undefined  will be exported to European countries with the remaining 30 percent to other African countries. The deal is part of Moroccan government’s initiative to bring in more Chinese investment to the country.

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was published on 4 August, 2014

US$2.5 billion project to generate 1,500 megawatts

Global Edison will build a US$2.5 billion gas-fired plant in Anambra State, Nigeria.

The 1,500-megawatt plant will be fueled by gas from the Nigeria’s eastern supply axis. The plant is part of a memorandum of understanding signed between Nigeria and the U.S. Power Africa Initiative. Also included in the agreement is a 70-megawatt solar panel manufacturing plant, which would be the largest in West Africa, the U.S. Diplomatic Mission to Nigeria said in a statement.

The energy investment will have an enormous impact on Nigeria’s generating capacity.

“That means if you think of what Nigeria currently is producing, you are talking of 250 per cent per current generation capacity and Power Africa is designed to give two and half times that to the whole of Africa. We appreciate Global Edison for what they are coming to do,” Nigeria’s Minister of Power Chinedu Nebo said at the signing ceremony.

The initiative aims to add at least 10,000 megawatts of electricity in sub-Saharan African nations, including Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia and Tanzania.

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was publsihed on 1 August, 2014

Repairs and renewal to Seajacks Leviathan and Seajacks Kraken have been completed for Seajacks UK by Shipdock Amsterdam, a Damen Shiprepair & Conversion shipyard.

Work on the two self-propelled jack-up vessels was performed between jobs at North Sea offshore wind and oil & gas installations, Damen said in a statement.

For Seajacks Leviathan, first its blade racks were cut loose and removed. Next a heli deck was installed, including related drain and firefighting piping, in Shipdock’s 250-meter Panamax dock. The heli deck was prefabricated in Amsterdam by Niron Staal, which is also a subsidiary of the Damen Shiprepair & Conversion. Below deck reinforcements were then installed to support heavier mounts in preparation of lifeboat davits replacement.

For Seajacks Kraken, Shipdock Amsterdam replaced the vessel’s two lifeboat davit sets. This included installing Niron Staal prefabricated foundations and the four new davits with their powerpack, cable, winch, electricity and hydraulic systems. This was finished off by surveyor-assessed test runs and loads test. The Kraken’s four legs were restored after an initial joint inspection round with the principal’s inspectors.

In addition to crane tests and crane hook certification update surveys, both Seajack vessels underwent miscellaneous minor steel work and had four new satellite dome platforms installed.

In June, Seajacks took delivery of its fourth self-propelled jack-up vessel, the Seajacks Hydra. Next year, Seajacks will receive its largest vessel to date, the Seajacks Scylla, which is being built by Samsung Heavy Industries in Korea.

*NEW SOURCE

Original news was published on 31 July, 2014

THE United Arab Shipping Company (UASC) has arranged to take slots from Evergreen on the Far East-Red (FRS) service that Evergreen operates jointly with COSCO, under a slot exchange arrangement through which Evergreen will take slots on the ARC2/REX 3 jointly operated by UASC, CSCL and CMA CGM.

The slots on the FRS allow UASC to add direct Far East-Northern Red Sea connections, complementing the Far East-Southern Red Sea connections that UASC offers with the ARC 2. The carrier currently serves the Northern Red Sea ports of Sokhna and Aqaba through slots on the Intra Red Sea service offered by Egypt-based International Associated Cargo Carriers (IACC), according to Alphaliner.

The FRS, which turns in eight weeks with eight ships of 5,500 - 8,500 TEU deployed by Evergreen and COSCO, serves Shanghai, Ningbo, Kaohsiung, Xiamen, Kaohsiung, Shekou, Tanjung Pelepas, Singapore, Aden, Jeddah, Sokhna, Aqaba, Jeddah, Singapore, Yantian and Shanghai.

The first UASC sailing left Shanghai on 26 July on the 7,024 TEU Ever Steady.

The ARC 2 service calls at Xiamen, Yantian, Shekou, Port Kelang, Djibouti, Jeddah, Port Sudan, Djibouti, Port Kelang and Xiamen.

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was published on 31 July, 2014

The Maritime Authorities of the Paris and the Tokyo Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) on Port State Control will launch a joint Concentrated Inspection Campaign (CIC) with the purpose of establishing that watchkeeping personnel are meeting the requirements regarding hours of rest as per STCW 78 as amended (including the Manila amendments).

This inspection campaign will be carried out for three months, commencing on September 1, 2014 and ending on November 30, 2014.

The deck and engine room watchkeepers’ hours of rest will be verified in more detail for compliance with the mentioned scope of the CIC during a regular Port State Control inspection conducted under the regional ship selection criteria within the Paris and Tokyo MoU regions.

Port State Control Officers (PSCOs) will use a list of 10 selected items to establish that watchkeeping personnel are meeting the requirements regarding hours of rest, focusing attention on the Minimum Safe Manning Document (MSMD) and records of rest.

In addition information will be gathered on the watch system, whether the MSMD requires an Engineer officer and whether the ship is designated UMS (Periodically Unattended Machinery Space).

For this purpose, PSCOs will apply a questionnaire listing a number of items to be covered during the concentrated inspection campaign.

When deficiencies are found, actions by the Port State may vary from recording a deficiency and instructing the master to rectify it within a certain period to detaining the ship until serious deficiencies have been rectified.

In the case of detention, publication in the monthly detention lists of the Paris and Tokyo MoU web sites will take place. It is expected that the Paris and Tokyo MoUs will carry out approximately 10,000 inspections during the CIC.

*NEW SOURCE

Original news was published on 30 July, 2014

Volga-Dnepr Group’s Engineering & Logistics Center created a loading frame to help transport a 30-ton oil and gas shipment from Johor Bahru, Malaysia, to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia, for freight forwarder Panalpina.

The oil and gas shipment consisted of five pieces, including 13-meter-long pipes weighing 18 tons.The cargoes were loaded onto Volga Dnepr’s IL-76TD-90VD air freighter.

Normally, loading such cargo would require the use of six tons of special loading equipment but at the time of the customer inquiry, Volga-Dnepr already had an aircraft positioned in the Asia Pacific region, so the ELC team devised a solution that eliminated the additional time and cost of moving the specialist loading equipment from Europe, the company said in a statement.

“We created a solution by developing a compact 600-kilogram frame that enabled the pipes to be loaded using the aircraft’s roller tracks,” Azat Yakupov, senior load planning engineer for dangerous cargo at Volga-Dnepr Airlines, said. “We prepared the necessary drawings and contracted a company in Johor Bahru to manufacture the frame for us. This enabled us to load the shipment safely at Johor Bahru Senai International Airport using the IL-76TD-90VD’s onboard crane as well as an external crane and lifting equipment without any delay to the planned flight schedule.”

Air charter sales of IL-76TD-90VD flights carrying oil and gas equipment doubled in the first half of 2014 to 32 percent of all flights operated by the aircraft compared with the opening six months of last year.

*NEW SOURCE

Original news was published on 29 July, 2014

The governments of China and Argentina have signed an agreement that paves the way for a third Canadian reactor to be built at Argentina’s Atucha nuclear power plant, and effectively voids an agreement made with Russia earlier this month that included a proposal from Russia to build Atucha III.

The agreement was signed last week by President Xi Jinping of China and President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina during a conference in Buenos Aires. State-owned China National Nuclear Company will work with utility Nucleoelectrica Argentina, which holds the technology rights for Candu reactors. Candu Energy is a subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin Group, which is headquartered in Montreal.

Under the agreement, CNNC will provide goods and services under long-term financing provided by China. CNNC operates two Candu 6 units at its Qinshan plant in China’s Zhejiang province. The two companies will work together on the engineering, operation and maintenance of reactor pressure tubes as well as the manufacturing, licensing and storage of nuclear fuel. Nucleoelectrica Argentina will operate the plant once it has been completed.

But the agreement extends beyond a new reactor at Atucha. It calls for the transfer of Chinese technology to Argentina, which means Argentina could act as a technology platform, supplying third countries with nuclear technology, according to World Nuclear News.

The new reactor would bring Atucha’s generating capacity up to about 2,000 megawatts, about double its current capacity. While construction began on a second reactor at Atucha in 1981, but was delayed for 18 years as a result of political and economic volatility. Atucha II began generating power just last month. Argentina may also add a fourth and fifth unit to the nuclear complex, a plan that was addressed in the earlier Russian agreement, but may go to China now that it has bagged the Atucha III deal.

*NEWS SOURCE

Original news was published on 28 July, 2014

At 1,144 tons, shipment one of heaviest transported on Pacific Service line

Austral Asia Line (AAL) delivered a pair of LNG tanks and an engine for the world’s first LNG-powered container vessels. The cargoes were loaded at Masan in South Korea and shipped to General Dynamics’ NASSCO’s shipyard at the Port of San Diego in California, where two new Marlin-class vessels are under construction for TOTE.

With a combined weight of 1,144 tons, the shipment was one of the heaviest handled by AAL on its Pacific Service, the carrier said in a statement. Each tank weighed 380 tons and measured 26 meters long and 8.3 meters wide. These massive stainless steel cryogenic tanks were manufactured by Cryos and will store liquefied natural gas on the new Marlin-class ships.

The Doosan-built main engine weighed 384 tons and was 12 meters long and 5 meters wide. The cargoes were loaded on AAL’s A-Class AAL Singapore, a 31,000-deadweight-ton vessel with a combined lifting capacity of 700 tonnes from its twin 350-tonne onboard cranes.

The first Marlin vessel is about 40 percent complete, according to NASSCO. Construction began on the second vessel earlier this year in May. Delivery of the two ships is scheduled for late 2015 and early 2016.

*NEWS SOURCE

Retrieval pit digging already behind schedule