Strategic Marine Wins Tug Deal

Western Australian shipbuilder Strategic Marine has broken new ground by winning a contract to build a 23.9m new generation compact tug – the first tugboat signing in the company’s history.

The vessel, which has a 60-ton bollard pull, has been ordered by the Port of Napier – another breakthrough since the Port becomes Strategic Marine’s first New Zealand client. The steel vessel, which will have a deadweight of 105 tons and a free-running speed of 12 knots, will be powered by a Voith Water Tractor. Strategic Marine, which has built its reputation on high performance aluminum patrol boats and offshore service vessels, won its first contract to build steel-hulled vessels earlier this year from Singapore’s Marfield Limited. The new generation tug and the Marfield order for two 143m steel dive support vessels will be constructed at Strategic Marine’s new 136,500sqm Vietnamese shipyard located in Vung Tau, a facility fully equipped to build steel boats. The yard is also currently building the base pontoon for the $62 million Floating Dry Dock on order from the Australian Marine Complex at Henderson in Western Australia, four 20m landing craft, and 40 12m offshore service vessels. Strategic Marine’s order book currently stands at more than $200 million, with most of those orders won in the past 18 months, the majority of them from overseas.

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MJP Wins Record Order in S. Korea

The Coast Guard of Taiwan has recently taken delivery of CG hull 123 and CG 125, which form part of Taiwan's 500-ton project.

These two new vessels were built by Jong Shyn shipyard and are equipped with 4 x MJP 850 jets provided by Sweden-based MJP Waterjets. Comparing these new waterjets with the CP propellers of the preceding conventional ship, the results are striking. The new MJP propulsion arrangement is said to cost 40% less, while, at the same time, propulsion efficiency, fuel economy, acceleration and ship speed have been improved significantly. The jet sizing is selected to ensure 100% power, even if running on two jets only. A rudder arrangement is fitted on the hull and is fully integrated with the jet control system. This maximises ship speed and manoeuvrability in rough seas, which are typically found outside Taiwan. Further to the above successful delivery, MJP Waterjets announces its biggest order to date, worth $14m. MJP Waterjets is to supply water jet propulsion systems for the ongoing 500 ton project in South Korea. “MJP's record order is thanks to an explicit focus on Asia and South Korea in particular. The total order sum is now well above $25m since our first order in March 2007,” said Österby Marine's managing director Hans Andersson. Marine Jet Power AB (MJP) is a part of the Swedish industrial group Österby Marine, also including Österby Gjuteri and Alcopropeller. Österby Marine is a wholly owned subsidiary of Termo Holding.

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China Shipping partners with IRISL in the Mediterranean

China Shipping Container Lines and the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line have set up a joint Asia-Mediterranean service that will operate with eight post-panamax ships averaging around 6,000 teu and sailing on a weekly basis in Shanghai.

The service, launched this month, ranks among the top 10 services in the business in terms of capacity, and predominantly covers the central and western Mediterranean. IRISL will eventually deploy four new 6,500 teu vessels, currently being built in South Korea, on the route, while CSCL has transferred four similar-sized vessels that previously served the transpacific route. Importantly, the service turns in Malta, thereby offering important trans-shipment facilities to North Africa for IRISL, which is fast developing an important feeder market in this region, mostly in Libya. This will be IRISL's first direct Asia-Mediterranean service from China and Southeast Asia. The port rotation of the new service is Tianjin, Dalian, Pusan, Shanghai, Ningbo, Shekou, Port Kelang, Suez, Malta, Valencia, Barcelona, Genoa, Damietta, Tianjin. Meanwhile, IRISL is also restructuring its service known as the Europe Container Line that covers the Far East, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Northern Europe. While the Northern Europe-Far East leg will continue to be served through slots offered by CSCL's Asia Europe Express 1 (AEX1), the Northern Europe-Middle East sector will be served by a new loop deploying seven to eight vessels of around 2,700 teu capacity on a weekly basis.

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Premuda fingers Woollybutt hitch

Italian company Premuda said it has identified the reason for mechanical failures on board its floating production, storage and offloading vessel at Eni's Woollybutt oilfield off Western Australia.

Premuda said the failure of safety valves on board the FPSO Four Vanguard was "caused by materials (that) originated from the wells and, therefore, the existing damages and possible future erosion risks are currently been evaluated". The FPSO was banned from producing earlier this month by Australia's petroleum safety authority due to safety concerns. It was already shut down when the prohibition notice was issued to Premuda subsidiary Australian FPSO Management. Premuda said all parties are "working together to ensure that the production operations of the FPSO will be restored in full compliance with all requirements" of the safety regulator. The FPSO has been problematic all of this year. Various mechanical faults have kept it shut down for all but eight days in 2008. The Woollybutt field sits in Block WA-25-L where the partners are operator Eni (65%), ExxonMobil (20%) and Tap (15%).
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DVB Group posts profitable start into 2008

German shipping lender DVB Group's net interest income and net fee and commission income for the first quarter of 2008 outperformed the levels achieved in the same quarter of the previous year.

Profit from ordinary activities before tax amounted to €31.5 million (US$48.9 million) for the first quarter of the current business year, down 7.6 per cent from 2007. The figure for the first quarter of the previous year however was influenced by the sale of a fund investment. "We experienced a strong development in our Transport Finance business during the first three months," noted Mr Wolfgang F. Driese, Chairman of the Board of Managing Directors of DVB Bank. "Typically, the focus during the first quarter is on preparing, rather than closing, transactions: this relationship tends to be reversed in the fourth quarter. "These are good signs for DVB's performance during the remainder of the current year, for which I do remain optimistic. Thanks to our business model, we are not directly affected by the financial markets crisis. The indirect impact, in the form of higher refinancing costs, is passed on in full when originating new business."

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