Orcas have rammed the ''Azurea', with two French crew members on board, off the northern coast of Spain on July 21, 2025, at around 2 p.m.. The yacht issued a mayday call after the attack left its steering disabled just north of the town of Deba in the Spanish Basque Country. The two sailors, one of whom was aged 60, were rescued by the Spanish Coastguard, and taken with their boat under tow to the port of Getaria. Sailors were urged to be cautious in the Bay of Biscay.
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TORM SPLENDID
On July 24, 2025, the 'Torm Splendid' has been detained in Fos-sur-Mèr following a port state control by the Ship Safety Center of the Mediterranean Interregional Directorate for Maritime Affairs (Dirm Med). The tanker had sailed from Bizerte on July 21 and arrived in Fos harbor on July 23.
Takoradi
Expansion works on the Takoradi Port have started with the construction of a multipurpose on-dock Atlantic Container Terminal. The project will see the port basin being dredged to create a 16-metre depth and land reclamation for the building of five new berths to hold bigger capacity vessels. A visit to the Takoradi Port in the Western Region revealed that the contractors were casting the foundation stones for the quay wall to herald the expansion project at the port. The project, being developed by Ibistek Ghana Limited at a cost of $475 million, marks the first time a wholly owned Ghanaian firm has been engaged in port development in the country. The Atlantic terminal, which will be the major development in the history of the Takoradi port when completed, will have a cargo holding space of one million twenty-footer equivalent units (TEUs), an upscale from the average container traffic of about 55,000 TEUs a year.
Vado Ligure
Terminal operator APM Terminals (APMT) has released a video of the final three ship-to-shore (STS) cranes arriving at the Vado Gateway terminal, which it hopes will be the next major logistics hub for the Mediterranean and Europe. The Vado Gateway terminal is scheduled to open on December 12, 2019, and will be built with a 700-meter deep-sea berth specifically to handle the latest Ultra Large Container Ships (ULCS), as well as an automated gate and stacking area. APMT announced the inauguration date in July 2019 – a story PTI reported on at the time. Located in the Vado Ligure Port Complex in the northwest of the country, it will be the first semi-automated port in Italy and be integrated with an already existing reefer terminal.
ICON OF THE SEAS
A crew member of the 'Icon of the Seas' has died after going overboard. A man overboard call went off aboard the ship on July 25, 2025, at around 7:00 p.m., a few hundred miles off the coast of the Bahamas. Crews deployed rescue efforts. The crew member was located and pulled onto a dinghy; however, he passed away.
EL.VENIZELOS
The 'El Venizelos' is expected to permanently join the Algérie Ferries fleet under a lease-purchase agreement. A lease agreement with a purchase option has been signed between the two parties, providing for a transfer of ownership after a five-year period. The 'El Venizelos' is one of the oldest vessels in the fleet of the Greek maritime group Attica. Since June 2025, the ferry has been operating between Algeria, France, and Spain under the Algérie Ferries banner. Its acquisition would bring the Algerian company's fleet to five, which currently includes the 'Badji Mokhtar III', the 'Tassili II', the 'Djazaïr II' and the 'Tariq Ibn Ziad'. The latter, which has been under repair for two years, is expected to return to service in Aug 2025.
Sabetta
Icebreaker assistance and ice restrictions for ships entering the basin of Section No.1 at the Port of Sabetta, Yamal and access channel are canceled as of 00:00 Moscow time, August 6. The corresponding order was signed by the Port Harbourmaster Nikolay Nesterov. The order says that there is a possibility of separately floating ice floes, therefore masters of ships sailing in this water area of the Port of Sabetta and on approaches to the port are advised to exercise caution. Arctic Port of Sabetta is built on the western shore of the Gulf of Ob (Kara Sea) for transshipment of hydrocarbons from the South-Tambey gas condensate field on the Yamal peninsula to the Western Europe, South America and APR countries under Yamal LNG project. The project envisages the construction of an LNG plant capable of producing 16.5 million metric tonnes of LNG and 1.35 million tonnes of gas condensate annually
Mumbai
The Government of Maharashtra, India, India has named the Virgin Hyperloop One – DP World Consortium as Original Project Proponent (OPP) for the Pune-Mumbai Hyperloop Project, making it the first hyperloop project in the world. In a statement, Virgin Hyperloop One described it as a “landmark announcement” for the building of the Mumbai-Pune hyperloop transportation system.
X-PRESS PEARL
The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka ordered on July 24, that the Singaporean shipping company X Press Feeders has to pay $1 billion in interim damages for the sinking of the "X-Press Pearl". The Sri Lankan authorities have requested $40 million in compensation the day after the accident, now up to $1 billion, which could increase further depending on the calculation of other compensation, according to the judgment. The accident caused an unprecedented ecological disaster, preventing all fishing activity for several months and causing significant deposits of chemicals and plastic pellets along 80 kilometres of coastline. Despite obtaining an order from a London maritime court in July 2023, limiting their liability to a maximum of $25 million, the Singaporean owners are facing an appeal of this decision by Sri Lanka and are now awaiting a decision from the London court. The owners have already had to pay $7.85 million for cleanup and compensation to the fishermen. Sri Lankan authorities believe the fire was caused by a nitric acid leak, which the crew appeared to have been aware of nine days before the fire began. Ports in Qatar and India had refused to unload the leaking nitric acid.
FREMANTLE HIGHWAY
Within a few days, it will become clear whether two Rotterdam buyers will be allowed to sell 260 brand-new BMWs or whether the vehicles must be destroyed. They were stored in the hold of the 'Fremantle Highway', when a fire broke out on board on July 25, 2023, approximately 27 kilometers off the coast of Ameland. while the ship was en route from Bremerhaven to Singapore with nearly 4,000 new cars, but ultimately had to be towed to Eemshaven. The entrepreneurs bought the seemingly flawless BMWs in Eemshaven for over five million euros. They intended to resell them. According to them, the BMWs are in excellent condition, but the German car manufacturer itself claims the cars were damaged in the fire. BMW seized the vehicles and, in legal proceedings, demanded that all 260 be destroyed. BMW is against the sale, partly because cars intended for the Asian market are not allowed to be sold in Europe. Furthermore, BMW can no longer guarantee the safety of the cars, the car manufacturer's lawyer argued in February 2024. BMW's position is that the cars have been damaged by the heat and soot, and by the ship itself, that the quality has deteriorated, and that any future claims will cause BMW problems. The judge will rule on the case no later than the first week of August. All 260 hybrid cars are still parked in an industrial estate in Moerdijk. If the judge in the main proceedings does decide that the cars must be destroyed, Bakker and his colleague buyer will face enormous expenses. Not only the demolition is expensive- The storage also costs money, and while the cars are getting older every day, their value decreases.
Immingham
On August 1, ABP announced new customers for the Port of Immingham this week: The port welcomed the first vessel in a new contract with customers Top Blue and The Fuel Trading Company. The new deal is expected to bring an extra 30,000 tonnes per year through the Port of Immingham – the largest Port by tonnage in the UK. The cargo being delivered is Prilled Urea which is a key part of the mixture for the AdBlue market.
Mombasa
The new Lamu Port in Kenya took a big step towards completion yesterday with the announcement that its first of 22 berths is finished. According to the South Sudan and Ethiopia Transport Corridor Development Authority, the second and third berths will be completed by December 2020.