NORMAND BALTIC

South Korea's HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and U.S. military shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls have agreed to jointly build U.S. navy auxiliary ships, the South Korean shipbuilder said on Sunday.HHI has a strong track record in this field, having delivered its first auxiliary vessel, HMNZS Endeavour, to New Zealand in 1987, followed by the HMNZS Aotearoa in 2020. The company has also supplied the Republic of Korea Navy with three Cheonji-class and one Soyang-class auxiliary ships.Leveraging HII’s complex shipbuilding experience and HHI’s expertise with proven designs, the two companies will team to respond to the U.S.

Italy's antitrust regulator said on Friday that Shipping Agencies Services (SAS), a unit of maritime group MSC, would drop its acquisition of a 49% stake in ferry operator Moby after the watchdog opened a probe into alleged restriction of competition.Moby, majority-owned by Onorato Armatori group, runs ferries linking Italy's mainland to tourist islands such as Sardinia and Corsica.The Italian authority, which opened an investigation into the acquisition last year, said the deal could have weakened competition on routes where Moby and ferry company Grandi Navi Veloci (GNV), controlled by SAS, operate.

The U.S. military killed five alleged drug smugglers in strikes against two vessels in the eastern Pacific Ocean, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday, in an expansion of the Trump administration's use of the armed forces in its counter-narcotics campaign.On Wednesday afternoon, Hegseth said the military attacked a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean and killed two men on Tuesday. It was the first known U.S. military operation in the Pacific since President Donald Trump kicked off a new offensive against the drug trade.Hours later, Hegseth said the military had struck another vessel in the eastern Pacific on Wednesday, killing three men.

Singapore’s Seatrium has received a notice of arbitration from Maersk Offshore Wind’s affiliate, regarding the dispute over the termination of a $475 million contract for a nearly completed wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV) originally intended for Equinor’s Empire Wind 1 project in the United States.The arbitration notice, received on October 21, comes just one day after Seatrium Energy (International) (SEI), a subsidiary of Seatrium, informed the buyer that the vessel would be ready for delivery by January 30, 2026.

The Panama Canal launched a consultation process with representatives of the maritime industry to identify potential partners interested in developing port terminals on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the waterway.Following a process similar to that followed for the introduction of the gas pipeline project, the Panama Canal convened a group of representatives from companies with proven experience in container port operations and container shipping lines.According to institutional rules and regulations, this session was a working meeting, accessible only by invitation to each participant.