General News

It is unacceptable to place orders at foreign shipyards if similar ships can be built in Russia according to the press center of RF Government citing RF Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as…

Qatar investor wants to buy the historic Gdynia shipyard in Poland according to a report in the Polska newspaper. The investor is thought to be Qatar Investment Authority QIA), which is interested…

Container shipping faces a long recession that will force some lines out of business, AP Moller-Maersk chief executive Nils Andersen predicted. He cast doubt on whether urgently-needed consolidation could be achieved, given…

Shipping markets face at least two more years of strife as newbuildings stifle rates, Tor Olav Troim says. John Fredriksen's lieutenant also feels the time is not yet right to pick up…

Four domestic yards are in the running for a Russian state tender to build a rescue and salvage vessel. The federal agency of the Russian sea and river fleet, Rosmorrechflotom, says the…

There are few more dirty and dangerous jobs than scrapping old ships with scores of poorly equipped workers being killed each year in South Asia where most ships are broken apart. The…

Iridium reports that its new-generation global marine satellite communication system, Iridium OpenPort, has successfully completed sea trials on a number of different vessels, and worldwide commercial rollout is now underway."The feedback from…

Rolls-Royce has won an order to design and equip a UT 755LN offshore support vessel (OSV) with an integrated power, propulsion and motion control system, for use in the Canadian oil and…

CBO (Companhia Brasileira de Offshore) has purchased two further Rolls-Royceoffshore vessel design and equipment systems in a £13 million order. This latest contract, for two UT 715L construction/ROV vessels, follows a series…

Italy-based classification society RINA has reported continuing growth in both turnover and returns for 2008. Turnover for the 2008 year was Euro 183m, up 17% on 2007, and EBITDA was Euro 30…

Italy-based Siba Ships and Netherlands-based Seaarland Shipping Management have been named as the inaugural investors in a $300m Green Recycling Initiative (GRI) which aims to integrate the needs of shipowners to recycle…

Howe Robinson's research boss Paul Dowell was pulling no punches at a recent London conference when he warned of large-scale container and bulk carrier overcapacity for the next five years. Delegates at…

Korean shipyards topped a list of newbuilding cancellations, at 194 ships. Research from Norwegian classification society DNV estimated that more than 19.2m dwt on order at South Korea's yards would not be…

Chinese oil giant CNOOC has signed a contract with Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Company for the construction of two UT788 CD deepwater AHTS vessels at a cost of $205 million. The vessels will…

FBMA Marine (FBMA), the Aboitiz-owned shipbuilder based in Cebu, Philippines, has recently launched the ?Wight Ryder II? for UK operator Wightlink Ferries. The 40m single-deck passenger catamaran, which was launched on 30…

Australia-based Incat-Crowther?s latest design for Lomprayah High Speed Ferries, Thailand, was launched at a naming ceremony held at the Sea Crest shipyard in Samut Prakarn Province, Bangkok. Like previous vessels for Lomprayah,…

The future of the Hellenic Register of Shipping appears grim, after the EU?s official decision to implement a 17-month ban of the classification society. Under this decision, the Register won?t be able…

Classification society ABS has adopted new structural requirements for the evaluation of converted floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) units. The criteria are contained in a revised version of the society?s ABS…

The 43 maritime authorities of the Paris and the Tokyo Memoranda on port state control will begin a joint concentrated inspection campaign with the purpose to ensure compliance with SOLAS Chapter III…

Half of the offshore support vessel newbuildings slated for delivery in 2009 will fail to hit the water this year, ODS Petrodata says. A maximum 200 of the planned 393 anchor handlers…

The privatisation of the shipyards in Malta will eventually lead to the company's liquidation, a prospect that only came to light yesterday in a report published by the European Commission. In its…

The Indonesian government may reduce the maximum age of ships allowed for import because of safety concerns and the domestic shipyard industry's increasing ability to manufacture internationally standardized ships. Budi Darmadi, the…

Keppel Corp has been forced to cancel a newbuilding order worth SGD181m ($122m) after the owners failed to finance the project. The Singapore yard said it had received a notice from Romanian…