FRANTSEN JUNIOR

An unprecedented level of investment in multi-deck vehicle carriers is being driven by tonnage replacement and scale economy strategies, but emphatically also by explosive growth in China’s automotive exports.Global deep-sea automotive shipments, excluding the Russian trade, were estimated at some 15.6 million units in 2025, up 5 percent on 2024, maintaining recent years’ trajectory. China’s inexorable rise as a producer and exporter is the conspicuous influence on traffic development.Notwithstanding the impacts of sometimes fraught political relations between the USA and China, and between Europe and China, and the prevailing Middle East conflict

Spanish shipyard GONDAN Shipbuilders has launched a 120-metre Ocean Energy Support Vessel (OESV) for Østensjø Rederi, the largest vessel built by the shipyard to date.The C513 OESV was launched at GONDAN's Figueras facility and will now undergo final outfitting and sea trials ahead of scheduled delivery in late 2027.Designed by Salt Ship Design, the vessel has a beam of 23 meters and is intended for operations including walk-to-work personnel transfers, commissioning service operation vessel (CSOV) support for offshore wind, offshore construction, subsea installation, ROV inspection and cable laying and repair.

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis on Friday reached the strategic island of Perim in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, four Yemeni government sources told Reuters, potentially tightening their grip on one of the world's vital shipping routes and further increasing the threat to energy markets in the widening Middle East war.Earlier, two sources from the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised Yemeni government said its forces had withdrawn from Perim and that the Houthis had also taken the mainland Red Sea coastal town of Dhubab, which faces the island.

New analysis from Sofar Ocean finds that widely used marine forecasts can miss wave conditions associated with dangerous vessel rolling and cargo losses.Most forecasts tell ships how high waves will be, but height alone doesn't identify the impact on a ship. Wave period and direction, together with the vessel's heading, speed, and loading, can create dangerous rolling even when waves don't appear extreme.Most marine forecasts have limited direct, in-water observations of the full wave field. As a result, wave period and direction can be harder to resolve accurately, even though both can be critical to how a vessel responds at sea.

Korean Register (KR) has granted Approval in Principle (AIP) to a newly developed 50,000-cbm LPG carrier, jointly designed with HD Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI). The AIP was presented on September 16 at Gastech 2026 in Bangkok, Thailand.LPG carriers require precise control of cargo temperature and pressure to keep LPG cargo stable throughout storage and transport. Achieving both safety and cargo-loading efficiency in LPG transport calls for advanced engineering at every stage of design and construction.The new 50K design fills the gap between the established 45K and 60K designs, positioning it to serve the varied requirements of the mid-size LPG carrier segment.