SEA AARYAN

Australia said on Wednesday it would invest billions of dollars over the next two decades to expand a shipyard in Western Australia that would become the maintenance hub for its nuclear-powered AUKUS submarine fleet.The government will make an initial investment of A$127 million ($85 million) over three years to upgrade facilities at the Henderson shipyard near Perth, Defense Minister Richard Marles said in a statement."The Defense Precinct at Henderson will optimize Australia's shipbuilding and sustainment industry while supporting continuous naval shipbuilding in Western Australia and Australia's nuclear-powered submarine pathway," Marles said.

Russia has begun designing nuclear-powered submarines to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Arctic to Asia to try to nearly halve the journey time along the Northern Sea Route (NSR), a senior state official has said.Russia already uses nuclear-powered ice breakers to pave the way for such transport via the NSR, which runs along Russia's Arctic shores from Murmansk in the west to the Bering Strait in the east, a route Moscow sees as a faster alternative to the Suez Canal and has plans to develop.

Greek shipowners have spent an unprecedented $18 billion on newbuild gas vessels since 2021 as companies diversify their portfolios away from traditional tanker, bulker and container asset classes according to new research by Veson Nautical's data intelligence arm VesselsValue.Approximately $13.8 billion of the figure has been spent on 59 liquefied natural gas (LNG) vessels, and approximately $4 billionn on 41 liquid petroleum gas (LPG) vessels, according to the new report, ‘Greek Speculative S&P Investments’. This compares to Greek shipowners spending about $12.2 billion on 167 tanker vessels, $4.1 billion on 109 bulkers and $3.1 billion on 39 containerships.

Nearly four tons of cocaine were seized and 16 people arrested from a a pair of vessels off the coast of the Canary Islands.The major drug bust was a collaborative effort involving both French and Spanish customs under the authority of the Atlantic maritime prefect, in conjunction with the public prosecutor in Brest. The month-long mission involved customs officers on the Beechcraft KA350 aircraft, the patrol vessel Jean-François Deniau, and the Spanish customs patrol vessel Petrel.The first seizure occurred on September 26.

The Indian government will offload a stake of about 5% in shipbuilder Cochin Shipyard COCH.NS, an exchange filing showed on Tuesday.The floor price for the sale is 1,540 rupees, an 8% discount to the stock's Tuesday close, the filing showed. At this price, the stake is valued at 20.26 billion rupees ($241.2 million).The base size of the offer will be 2.5%, amounting to about 6.6 million shares, with an option to sell an additional 2.5% stake.The government has raised 31.61 billion rupees through divestments in the ongoing fiscal year, including 23.46 billion rupees from selling its stake in General Insurance Corporation of India GENA.NS, according to its website.