General News

ABB has announced a three-year maintenance agreement with dredging specialist Van Oord, covering global maintenance of turbochargers for 2014-2016.

A different approach to the ballast water controversy has been proposed by Praveen Kumar Mishra, vice president of the Indian Register of Shipping (IRClass), the most recently-appointed member of IACS.

DNV GL has launched a new service called Build2Design to help shipyards and shipowners improve the fuel economy of their ships by reducing variations in the shipbuilding process.

MacGregor, part of Cargotec, is to design and deliver key components for ro-ro access equipment for two Damen ice-class ro-Pax ferries.

Marine and offshore classification society ABS has released a report on LNG bunkering in North America.

Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s first deputy prime-minister, has said that Russia is considering the establishment of large commercial shipbuilding along the Crimean coastline, writes Eugene Gerden.

The European Union is funding a €1.2m grant contract, signed between the IMO and the African Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP), to support training and capacity-building activities in Africa.

Wärtsilä Ship Design (WSD) Singapore has unveiled a Platform Supply Vessel (PSV) design package aimed at ship owners and shipyards in the Asia-Pacific region.

Wärtsilä is to retrofit two Condor ro-ro ferries with its new Aquarius Ready ballast water management system (BWMS).

Leading power group, ABB has won an order from a Spanish ferry operator to supply energy management systems for one of its largest vessels.

AEC Maritime, based in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, says that its closed-loop scrubber installation on the Scandlines ferry ‘Schleswig-Holstein’ has been commissioned and is now fully operational.

Tokyo-based classification society ClassNK is to acquire the Finnish maritime software house NAPA, in a deal which is claimed to help improve safety and performance of the maritime industry as a whole.

Bourgas Shipyards, a shipbuilding and repair yard located on the country’s Black Sea coast, has been put up for sale, writes Jaroslaw Adamowski.

Vard Holdings has announced contracts for the design and construction of two Vard 1.08 PSVs for offshore contractor Mermaid Marine Australia (MMA), which is based in Fremantle, WA.

MacGregor, part of Cargotec, is to supply deck equipment for a series of eight 58,500 tonne bulk carriers under construction at New Times Shipbuilding in China.

France’s high-technology group, Orolia, has signed a strategic partnership with the global hardware and software provider, Transas, to develop new e-maritime solutions for the shipping industry.

ABB reports that its modular liquid-cooled drives and programmable logic controllers (PLCs) are part of an application-specific propulsion and thruster power system for offshore supply ships from Vard Electro.

Insurer The American Club has warned its members that customs authorities in Argentina are becoming particularly strict regarding declaration of ships stores.

ClassNK, the Tokyo-based classification society, has established a new inspection panel into large containership safety, following the Japanese government investigations into the ‘MOL Comfort’ incident.