AL BAWARDI MARINE SERVICES

A naming ceremony was held in Kumamoto Prefecture at the Ariake Shipyard of Japan Marine United Corporation for a new VLGC (very large gas carrier) that NYK will charter under a long-term contract to Astomos Energy Corporation,  pre-eminent liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) company.The ship was named “Lily Promenade” by Kazuhisa Otsuka, senior operating officer of Astomos Energy Corporation, and the ceremonial rope holding the vessel in place was cut by Mariko Kurokawa of Astomos. Akira Kono, NYK managing corporate officer, attended together with others from the company.

Damen recently delivered a pair of FCS 3307 high-spec patrol vessels to be operated by Homeland Integrated Offshore Services (Homeland IOS Ltd) in Nigeria, and now the boats are being prepared for their assignments. The boats will be deployed in the Gulf of Guinea to protect and support the offshore assets of Homeland’s clients which include many international oil companies.Features of the 33-m vessels include Damen’s trademark Axe Bow hull form that delivers excellent fuel economy and a top speed of 29 knots together with superb maneuverability and excellent seakeeping.

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.When you took the top spot at Gibbs & Cox in 2016, what were your goals for the organization?As a company that designs everything from yachts to work boats to destroyers, I wanted to reassert G&C as the global leader in the naval architecture and marine engineering industry.

A Singapore company has paid a NOK 7 million ($763,000) fine after it was caught trying to illegally export a barge carrier vessel from Norway for scrapping on the beaches in Pakistan, Norwegian authorities said.In 2017, inspectors from the Norwegian Maritime Authority (NMA) detained the Harrier, previously named Tide Carrier, when it suffered an engine failure and started to drift outside Jæren in Rogaland. Wirana Shipping Corporation, a company which buys discarded ships and sells them to scrap yards at beaches in India and Pakistan, was the commercial manager for the voyage and in charge of the ship's route, the purpose of the voyage and its execution.

Tankers that had been scheduled to install emissions-cutting equipment ahead of stricter pollution standards starting in 2020 have deferred their visits to the dry docks to capitalize on an unexpected surge in freight rates, three trade sources said.U.S. sanctions on subsidiaries of vast Chinese shipping fleet Cosco in September sparked a surge in global oil shipping rates as traders scrambled to find non-blacklisted vessels to get their oil to market.The rates for chartering a supertanker from the U.S. Gulf Coast to Singapore hit record highs of more than $17 million and a record $22 million to China earlier this week.By comparison, prior to the sanctions, shipping crude from the U.S.