Hurricane moves on east Caribbean

The Atlantic season's first hurricane is rapidly approaching the islands in the eastern Caribbean, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) says.

It says Dean has top sustained winds of 100mph (160km/h), making it a Category Two hurricane. A hurricane warning has been issued for Martinique, Guadeloupe and other French dependencies, and also for Dominica and St Lucia. The hurricane centre was some 305 miles east of Martinique at 2100 GMT. Forecasters said the storm could dump as much as 10 inches of rain in some mountainous areas, which could trigger flash floods and mudslides.

A tropical warning remains in several other islands of the Lesser Antilles, and a tropical storm watch is in place in the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, the NHC says. It says Dean is moving westwards at about 23mph, and this motion is expected to continue on Friday. For more details

K-Sea completes acquisition of Smith Maritime

K-Sea Transportation Partners L.P. has completed its recently announced acquisition of Smith Maritime, Ltd. of Honolulu, Hawaii and Sirius Maritime, LLC of Seattle, Washington.

The acquisition immediately increases the barrel-carrying capacity of K-Sea by 770,000 barrels. In addition, ongoing vessel newbuilding program, under which there are ten new tank barges under construction, will add 524,000 barrels over the next three years. For more details

Petronas keen on Jizan project

Malaysian state oil and gas firm Petronas is keen on taking a role in Saudi Arabia's Jizan oil refinery, chief executive Hassan Marican said.

The refinery is to be part of an 'economic city' in the impoverished region of Jizan in the far south of Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea coast near Yemen. The plant will have capacity to process between 250,000 and 400,000 barrels per day (bpd). Saudi Arabia aims to boost refining capacity to 3.4 million bpd in 2012 from 2.1 million bpd last year. Jizan is one of four new refineries the kingdom plans to build.

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The kingdom has already signed deals worth $12 billion for two new refineries - one with France's Total at Jubail and one with US firm ConocoPhillips in Yanbu. They will produce 800,000 bpd of products by the end of the decade.

For more details

Crowley christens new ATB

Crowley Maritime Corporation christened the third of ten new 185,000-barrel Articulated Tug-Barge (ATB) tank vessels that the company will take delivery of by the end of 2010.

The vessels christened were the 9,280 HP-tug Resolve and barge 650-3. The ceremonies were held at the Mobile Convention Center on South Water Street. Crowley's Petroleum Services group will charter the VT Halter Marine-built ATB from VMS, and operate it for BP under a seven-year agreement.

The 650-3 is the first vessel in the United States to be certified by Lloyds Classification Society as complying with the requirements of the International Maritime Organization's (IMO's) Green Passport program. Crowley already has four, 155,000-barrel ATBs and two 185,000-barrel ATBs operating. The barge 650-3 was built at Halter's shipyard in Pascagoula. For more details

Sea consortium to start India east coast service

Sea consortium is launching another service to the Indian port of Chennai from north China starting from September.

The new service, called the New India East Coast Service, follows the successful Straits Madras X-press (SMX) service, which has been operating for 15 months. The North China Chennai (NCC) service has been modeled around another of the Sea Consortium Far East services, the Korea Strait India (KSI) service, which calls at ports in China and on the west coast of India.

The NCC is jointly operated with Wan Hai Lines & CNC and will make stops at three China ports; Qingdao, Lianyungang and Shanghai, before carrying on direct to the Straits and Chennai.

The first sailing will be undertaken by the 1,700-TEU King Byron, which is scheduled to depart from Qingdao on September 12. Together with the current SMX, Sea Consortium will provide a bi-weekly sailing between Chennai and the Straits. With the new NCC service, Sea Consortium will provide two separate direct services connecting China to both the east and west coasts of India. For more details