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On April 30 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published a notice, requesting public comments, on a proposed “incidental harassment authorization” (IHA).  An IHA is a legal and enforceable document presenting the terms and conditions with which a company must adhere in order to protect wildlife.  In this case, the draft IHA was for Vineyard Wind, the wind energy company ready to start construction on an 800 MW offshore wind farm in the Atlantic, covering about 675 square kilometers, starting 14 miles from the coastline of Martha’s Vineyard.

Maritime Reporter & Engineering News recently visited the Blount Boats facility in Warren, Rhode Island. The year 2019 might be the ‘year of the woman’ in the eyes of the IMO, but the two women at the head of Blount Boats – Julie & Marcia Blount (pictured) – have been a driving force in the U.S. boatbuilding market for decades, building on the business that their father Luther Blount built starting in 1949. As 2019 is Blount Boat’s 70th anniversary, a full story on the yard, it’s history and evolution will appear in the October 2019 edition of Maritime Reporter & Engineering News, our own 80th Anniversary edition following our founding in 1939.

Vessel owners rarely carry cargo for their own account.  More commonly by far, a vessel owner will charter its vessel to another party to carry their (or their sub-charterer’s) cargo.  The contracts can vary widely – from voyage charters or contracts of affreightment to time charters to negotiable bills of lading (not to mention the more complex arrangements that one often sees for container cargos).  But in most instances, vessel owners are in the business of transporting cargo on behalf of others and, all going well, of being paid to do so.  This article is about one mechanism the vessel owner may use to ensure that it gets paid: the maritime lien against cargo.

According to the latest monthly climate report from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), July 2019 was hottest month on record for the planet and Polar sea ice melted to record lows.Much of the planet sweltered in unprecedented heat in July, as temperatures soared to new heights in the hottest month ever recorded. The record warmth also shrank Arctic and Antarctic sea ice to historic lows.The average global temperature in July was 1.71 degrees F above the 20th-century average of 60.4 degrees, making it the hottest July in the 140-year record, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.

ExxonMobil Asia Pacific has signed a two-year time charter agreement with Singapore-based Sinanju Tankers Holdings Pte Ltd to lease Singapore's first liquefied natural gas (LNG) powered bunker tanker, Sinanju said in an statement on Friday.The 7,990 deadweight tonnage (dwt) newbuild will be the first LNG bunker tanker for Singapore and Sinanju and will deliver ExxonMobil's new Engineered Marine Fuels (EMF.5) to ocean-going vessels within Singapore port limits from the first quarter of next year.EMF.5 marine fuels are designed to comply with the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) global rules that limit the sulphur content in marine fuels to 0.5% from 2020, from 3.