Beached at Chittagong 10.04.24
News
MANANNAN
Some passengers on the 'Manannan' were kept on board for more than three hours when the vessel docked after wind and tidal conditions in the River Mersey made it unsafe to disembark. The ferry arrived and docked in Liverpool on April 8, 2024, at about 09:45 a.m. BST. But letting the passengers off the vessel was paused by the ship's master after the conditions worsened, affecting the motion of the vessel next to the berth. However, the vessel left on its return journey to Douglas at 2:45 p.m.
Tanger-Med
Tangier will today celebrate the opening of the largest container port in capacity terms in the whole of the Mediterranean, something that will bring enormous competition to the likes of Algericas just 25 nautical miles away across the Strait of Gibraltar. The $1.6bn expansion of Tanger Med port, located to the east of the Moroccan city of Tangier, due to be unveiled today will create Africa’s largest port with an annual capacity of 9.5m teu. The port is operated by APM Terminals, Eurogate and a local firm.
Ho Chi Minh
Samsung C&T Corp., a construction unit under Samsung Group, said Tuesday it has won a US$179.5 million project to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Vietnam. Under the deal with Petrovietnam Gas Corp., Samsung C&T and Vietnamese firm PTSC will build the Southeast Asian country’s first LNG terminal, in the coastal area 70 kilometers southeast of Ho Chi Minh City for 40 months. The project also calls for the construction of LNG tanks and other related facilities, according to Samsung C&T. Samsung C&T has a 61 percent stake in the project. Source: Yonhap
DALI
The U.S. Navy's Supervisor of Diving and Salvage (SUPSALV) has released new sonar imagery of the wreckage of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge, showing the full extent of the damage and the work that will be required to restore the main shipping channel. The depiction showed that the tangled wreckage has significantly reduced the navigable depth of the center of the federal channel, including areas where no wreckage is visible above the surface. As the USACE has warned before, the steel truss span disintegrated into a tangled mess when it hit the bottom, and its girders were visibly twisted together and embedded in the mud. It is a massive, cantilevered, mangled mess of wreckage that is contorted and making it extremely difficult to identify any kind of structural integrity. The 3D sonar survey was created by Navy salvage divers, who operated in darkness and near-zero visibility to assess the contours of the wreckage. The diagrams show two separate areas of focus for the Army Corps-led salvage team. The first is a "Limited Access Channel," a 35-foot-deep fairway that contractors will clear on the north side of the center span. This will be big enough to allow ro/ros, barges and government vessels to go through. Clearing that channel will resolve minor national-defense effects of the bridge collapse: Four Military Sealift Command cargo ships are currently on the landward side of the bridge and cannot get out; meanwhile, several larger Coast Guard cutters are due to call in Baltimore for repairs and cannot get in. The Limited Access Channel includes areas with significant underwater wreckage, which may be challenging to clear. However, it is also further away from the difficult operation to remove the 'Dali', which is entangled with a section of the bridge truss. The delicate task of cutting the 'Dali' free is just beginning. When the channel is restored, thousands of stevedores and others who depend on the Port of Baltimore will be able to get back to work. While the primary focus has been on containerized and ro/ro cargoes, Baltimore is also home to America's second-largest coal terminal, which has been shuttered by the channel closure. In its April outlook, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said that U.S. coal exports will drop by fully a third this month and by 20 percent in May. The impact will reduce U.S. coal exports by six percent for the full year. Reports with photos: https://maritime-executive.com/article/new-sonar-data-shows-the-challenge-of-clearing-baltimore-bridge-s-wreckage https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/baltimore-bridge-collapse-1.7168668
LIBERTY OF THE SEAS
On April 9 the US Coast Guard has called off the search for a 20 year old American Levion Parker, who jumped off the 'Liberty of the Seas' on April 4 at 4 a.m. during drunken argument with his dad as it sailed off the coast of the Bahamas. The ship had set sail from Fort Lauderdale on a four-day Caribbean cruise on April 1 and was hours away from docking at Fort Lauderdale in Florida when the man was confronted by his father as he emerged from a hot tub packed with revelers. He said to his dad, 'I'll fix this right now,' and he jumped out the window on dec 11, 57 miles off Grand Inagua. The ship stopped and immediately started a search, but resumed its journey just before 9 a.m. when the US Coast Guard cutter 'Seneca' arrived at the spot. Report with photos: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13293251/Caribbean-Liberty-dad-Levion-Parker-argument-overboard.html
Charleston
South Carolina Ports Authority (SCPA), Southeast's deepwater port, said that five rubber-tired gantry (RTG) cranes arrived at Wando Welch Terminal to further modernize operations. The Port has received 14 of the 24 new cranes ordered for the Wando terminal; the terminal currently has 52 RTGs overall. Meanwhile, SCPA reported its strongest May on record, with 204,457 twenty-foot equivalent container units (TEUs) handled last month.
Brownsville
The Port of Brownsville is closer to deepening the Brownsville Ship Channel after receiving a key permit June 6 from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to advance the Brazos Island Harbor Channel Improvement Project (BIH) to its construction phase.
CG JOSEPH TEZANOS
On April 8 the US Coast Guard has repatriated 101 migrants back to the Dominican Republic after nabbing them on the high seas as they tried to make their way to American soil over the weekend. The 'Joseph Tezanos' had intercepted three different crafts with migrants during the weekend of April 6/7. The migrants were transferred to Dominican Republic authorities during two separate rendezvous with the Dominican Republic Navy vessel 'Capella' just off Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Report with photo: https://www.news.uscg.mil/Press-Releases/Article/3734747/coast-guard-repatriates-101-migrants-to-dominican-republic-following-3-interdic/
MAERSK YORKTOWN
The USS 'Laboon' destroyed an anti-ship ballistic missile fired by Houthi militants in Yemen on April 8, 2024, which was targeting the 'Maersk Yorktown' in the Gulf of Aden, which was being escorted by the U.S. Navy destroyer. It was determined the ABSM presented an imminent threat to U.S., coalition, and merchant vessels in the region. There were no injuries or damage reported. Yemen’s Houthi militants confirmed that a missile shot down was targeting the AP Moller-Maersk ship. The group also claimed to have launched two more operations against MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company vessels nearby.
Rotterdam
Container throughput continues to grow in Rotterdam. Following a record year in 2018 and a record quarter in 2019, April of this year was the best month ever for the Port of Rotterdam. 13.6 million tonnes of container freight was handled in April 2019. The previous record month was August 2018 (13.2 million tonnes). Measured in TEU, the standard unit for containers, April 2019 was the second-best month ever, with 1.3 million TEU, just a fraction lower than the record month of August 2018.
San Diego
Matson, Inc., a leading U.S. carrier in the Pacific, and General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard christened the largest combination container/roll-on, roll-off (“con-ro”) ship ever built in the United States in a ceremony at the NASSCO shipyard in San Diego, CA on Saturday, June 15. The new vessel is named ‘Lurline,’ an iconic name in Matson’s long history, dating to the construction of Captain William Matson’s first ship of that name in 1887. Four more ships were given the name in subsequent years; this vessel will be the sixth. The new Lurline is the first of two new ships being built for Honolulu-based Matson by NASSCO at a total cost of approximately $500 million for the pair, and the third of four new vessels that Matson will put into service during 2018, 2019 and 2020. Named in honor of the ocean deity revered in the native Hawaiian culture, Matson’s two “Kanaloa Class” vessels under construction at the NASSCO shipyard are being built on a 3,500 TEU* vessel platform.