‘Unistar 24278’ completes yard trials

China’s Guangzhou Panyu Lingshan Shipyard completed yard trials of the newbuild, ‘Unistar 24278’, on April 14.

This vessel is the second of four 40-metre vessels being built. The keel-laying for Hull Number LS167 was held on July 1, 2008. Following this, the vessel was launched earlier this year on January 10. Yard trails were completed on April 14, ahead of sea trials, which begin on April 20. The vessel will be delivered to her new owner by the end of this month.

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Korean Register opens Mumbai branch

Mumbai: The Korean Register of Shipping (KR), a classification society and IACS member, announced the opening of its first branch in India at a glittering function in Mumbai on Thursday, April 16, 2009.

Addressing a gathering from the Indian maritime community Mr Oh Kong-gyun, Chairman and CEO of KR pointed out that in the twelve years since KR has been a member of IACS, the society had advanced to possess technological competence shoulder to shoulder with other IACS members. Working closely in Korea with shipbuilders, KR had acquired Technical and Surveying skills and looked forward to sharing these experiences with Indian shipping and shipbuilding industry Referring to the current global recession, Mr Oh said that on the back of strong domestic demand, industry and infrastructure development India would be one of the first to emerge and KR hoped to be a part of this exciting market. Mr Oh acknowledged the support from Indian maritime community and would be happy to offer assistance to promote safety on the seas and environment protection.
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Another Feeder Service from Hamburg

A new regular feeder service of the Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) shipping company now links Hamburg with St. Petersburg.

Every 14 days the feeder ship Robert puts in at the container terminals of the Port of Hamburg as required. The service is offered by HHM in partnership with Team Lines, a subsidiary of the Belgian shipping company Delphis.The first departure of the Robert from Hamburg has already taken place, on 25 March 2009. Built at the Sietas dockyard in Neuenfelde, the ship is 441 ft long and 74 ft wide, and has a container slot capacity of 868 TEUs, as well as 234 connections for refrigerated containers (reefers). With a load capacity of 11,260 tons, the ship has a maximum draught of 28.5 ft and a service speed of 18 knots.

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French Navy orders third projection and command vessel

As part of the French Government’s recovery plan for the global economic crisis, STX France and DCNS have been awarded a contract to build a third projection and command vessel (BPC) for the French Navy.

Work on the third BPC was launched last week on April 16 in Saint-Nazaire by Hervé Morin, the Defence Minister, and Patrick Devedjian, the minister in charge of implementing the recovery plan.Due to the tight economic constraints, the ship will be built solely at the STX Europe Saint-Nazaire site, as the sharing of the construction of the platform between two production sites would have generated additional costs, making it impossible to meet the government’s budget.STX France, in charge of the overall coordination of the project for the industrial part, will build the whole of the propelled platform, including fitting out the equipment onboard. Once trials are completed, BPC 3 will move to Toulon. DCNS will manufacture and integrate the combat system, which includes communications, navigation and combat management systems.

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Marathon completes sale of Irish assets to Petronas

HOUSTON: Marathon Oil Corp. (NYSE: MRO) completed the sale of its wholly-owned subsidiary, Marathon Oil Ireland Ltd.

(MOIL) to PSE Ireland Ltd., a subsidiary of Petronas. The transaction has a total value of US$180 million with an effective date of Dec. 31, 2007. This sale does not include Marathon's 18.5 percent interest in the Corrib natural gas development.Under the terms of the sale, PSE Ireland acquired Marathon's 100 percent operated interest in the Kinsale Head Area comprising Kinsale Head, South West Kinsale and the Ballycotton gas fields, as well as an 86.5 percent interest in the gas producing Seven Heads field, which is tied back to Kinsale, and a 100 percent interest in the company's gas storage business with current capacity of 7 Bcf. As part of the transaction PSE Ireland retains the 61 MOIL employees in Ireland.Net production from these operations averaged approximately 30 MMcf/d of natural gas for the first quarter of 2009. Marathon's total net risked resource associated with these assets as of the end of 2007 was 62 Bcf, of which 46.2 Bcf, or 7.7 million BOE, were net proved reserves.

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