WESTERN AUSTRALIA

As the maritime industry faces numerous environmental and efficiency challenges, the future is ship automation and Wärtsilä Voyage is a driver. Sean Fernback, President, and Thomas Pedersen, Director, Automation & Dynamic Positioning, Wärtsilä Voyage discuss the path and the pace with Maritime Reporter TV.Sean, to start, it seems many define “autonomy” differently. How do you define Wärtsilä's smart-autonomy approach?Sean Fernback, President, Wärtsilä VoyageAutonomy is a journey and there is no question that, at some point, various vessels in different classes will be fully autonomous. The question is; which vessels will be first? Will they be coastal? Will they be tugs? We don't know.

After a turbulent year, low demand looks set to plague the market in the coming months combined with too many ships fighting for too few cargoes in both the crude oil and oil product segments, says the oil tanker shipping overview and outlook released today by BIMCO.Demand drivers and freight ratesThe realities of the pandemic are setting in for the tanker market. The record-breaking Q2 2020 is a distant memory and, instead, the market faces a slow recovery with low demand, stock drawdowns in consuming countries (with products already where they need to be and therefore not being transported by sea) and loss-making rates.

Singapore-based shipping company Pacific International Lines (PIL) will pay $3 million in fines after pleading guilty to felony dumping violations in Hagatna, Guam.The vessel operating company and two engineers were sentenced for illegally discharging oil and for maintaining false and incomplete records relating to the discharges of oily bilge water from the containership Kota Harum in 2019. PIL, chief engineer Maung Maung Soe, and second engineer Peng Luo Hai admitted that oily bilge water was illegally dumped from the Kota Harum directly into the ocean and into Apra Harbor, Guam without being properly processed through required pollution prevention equipment.

Baker Hughes Co and AXA Group and 16 other companies recently quit work on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline and will not be sanctioned, according to a document the Biden administration sent to Congress last week which was seen by Reuters.Russian energy company Gazprom and its western partners are racing to build the pipeline to take Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea, and hope to finish it this year. President Joe Biden believes the pipeline is a “bad deal” for Europe.Many U.S. lawmakers and officials say the pipeline would increase Russia’s political and economic leverage over Europe.

Brazilian national oil company Petrobras has hired AqualisBraemar to perform DP acceptance and annual trials for their DP shuttle tanker fleet operating in Brazil over the next three years.Under the contract, AqualisBraemar will carry out trials to verify the integrity and capabilities of the station-keeping equipment for Petrobras’ shuttle tanker fleet.Shuttle tankers transport crude oil from offshore oil fields to terminals, refineries or bigger tankers where subsea pipelines are not feasible.