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The Canadian government on Friday said Lockheed Martin Corp would be given first chance to bid on a contract to design 15 warships that will end up costing Canada around C$60 billion ($46 billion).The ministries of procurement and defense said Ottawa and Irving Shipbuilding, a Canadian firm which will actually build the vessels, had identified Lockheed Martin Canada as the "preferred bidder to provide the design and design team."The ministries said in a joint statement that Lockheed Martin would have to go through a due diligence process before a contract was awarded later this year. It did not say how much the design deal could be worth.

In an unexpected reversal, it has been reported that the Houston Pilots yesterday notified Chairman Janiece Longoria of the Port of Houston Authority that they had withdrawn their latest application for a change in pilotage rates. Beyond this, the pilots requested in their letter dated October 18 that the application be removed from the agenda for the upcoming October 30 Board of Commissioners meeting.Upon being notified of the rate change application in September, no less than 15 shipping companies, many of them top 10 liner companies, wrote to Port of Houston Chairman Janice Longoria to reject the latest call for substantial rate hikes on the Houston Ship Channel. Like any other major U.S.

Some of France's spectacular Riviera beaches have been shut as volunteers with shovels and sacks try to rid the coastline of a thick oily residue that washed ashore after two ships collided off Corsica earlier in October.The clean-up operation is taking place on beaches in the glitzy resort of Saint-Tropez and nearby Ramatuelle, where pristine waters and mountainous backdrops draw tycoons and A-list celebrities."Last year it was forest fires, now the pollution is coming from the sea," said Roland Bruno, mayor of Ramatuelle. "In spite of our misfortune, at least it's happened in October, when the tourist season is behind us.

Security guards aboard a Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship repelled an attack by pirates in a gunbattle off Somalia's coast this week, the European naval force in the region said on Friday.It was only the second reported attempt by Somali pirates to seize a commercial ship this year, after a resurgence of attacks in 2017 following years of relative calm brought about by regular patrols of the European Union Naval Force (EUNAVOR).On Tuesday, pirates approached and opened fire at the Hong Kong-flagged MV KSL Sydney freighter 340 nautical miles off Somalia, but private security guards aboard the ship acted quickly to foil the attack, EUNAVOR said in a statement.

Following years in the pricing doldrums, LNG is hot again, with business prospects for floating production and regasification looking strong through 2023. We talk to Jim McCaul of International Maritime Associates (IMA) for his insights, as he is fresh off of a 12-month stint investigating the market in depth."We wanted to take a fresh look at the market, to identify opportunities both in the production and regassification of LNG" is how McCaul, founder of IMA, best describes his team’s 12-month effort to study and report on the industry. The culmination is a 150+ page study published by World Energy Reports, as well as a live 24/7/365 database of information that is available for purchase.