Thursday, June 25, 2009

Sailors Use Improved Navy Lighterage System

Sailors assigned to Amphibious Construction Battalion (ACB) 2 had the opportunity to test the Improved Navy Lighterage System (INLS) during the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) exercise June 15-21.

The JLOTS exercise was a test of the military's ability to move equipment and sustainment supplies to specific areas without the benefit of a fixed port facility. The exercise increased interoperability and improved military readiness by alleviating situational sustainment issues.INLS played a large role in the JLOTS mission by acting as a floating pier, or causeway system, which is comprised of powered and non-powered floating platforms.

New tug ‘Horcon’ for LNG terminal in Chile

The new LNG tug ‘Horcon’, delivered this week to Ultratug Santiago from the ASENAV shipyard, will be stationed at the new LNG terminal in Quintero, Chile.

With a length of 32.5 metres, a beam of eleven metres and a draught of 4.9 metres, the vessel achieves a 64-tonne bollard pull. The tug features a JonRie Series 250 LNG Escort Winch, with a 75-tonne line pull at a 20-metre/minute line speed. The winch also features a line date chart recorder, Scope indicator and three tension metres and a foot control for the winch.
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Yards fight for Great Offshore acquisition

Mumbai: Yesterday saw a large scale bidding war between two Indian shipyards kick off for the acquisition of Great Offshore.

Earlier this month, Bharati Shipyard (pictured) offered INR 344 (US$7.10) to acquire some 7.83 million shares of Great Offshore, or about a 20 percent interest. Bharati Shipyard already held over 5.53 million shares in Great Offshore. Yesterday, however, ABG Shipyard offered INR 375 (US$7.74) per share for about a 34 percent stake in Great Offshore. ABG already holds a small interest in Great Offshore.Yesterday’s offer prompted Bharati Shipyard Managing Director P.C. Kapoor to say, "We will be making another revised offer, the timing will be a few days hence, and what the price will be I cannot say right now."
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Shipbuilding - a challenge for the entire industry

What happens in the shipbuilding sector will play a fundamental role in shaping the fortunes of the wider shipping market for the next decade.

There has been a lot of talk in recent months about the state of world shipbuilding, but much of the commentary has been based on supposition, gut instinct or pure guesswork. There has been little rigorous assessment of the likely cancellation risk associated with the current bulging orderbook. Do commentators know the likely level of future shipbuilding demand, or the shipping demand that drives it? Do they know how many orders have been cancelled, and how many “cancelled” ships will be built anyway? Do they know what shipbuilding capacity really is? How much of today’s order slippage is the result of a planned slowdown in production and how much is a measure of shipyards’ over-optimism? Now, in a new 200-page report, Drewry Shipping Consultants analyses the facts and explodes some of the myths surrounding the future of this crucial sector. The lack of knowledge has led to some assessments that are cock-eyed or just plain wrong – sometimes dangerously so. But several things can be stated without equivocation.
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Anadarko Strikes Oil at Samurai Prospect in Gulf of Mexico

Anadarko announced a Miocene discovery at the Samurai prospect in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico in Green Canyon block 432.

The discovery well, located approximately 12 miles north of the Marco Polo platform, encountered more than 120 feet of net oil pay in several high-quality sands.” Samurai marks our third discovery in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico this year," said Bob Daniels, Anadarko Sr. Vice President, Worldwide Exploration. "We are very pleased with the results of this initial well, which is located in close proximity to existing infrastructure, demonstrating the value of our hub-and-spoke approach. We look forward to drilling a sidetrack appraisal well within the next year. The continued success of our worldwide exploration program reinforces our expectations of discovering approximately 350 million BOE (barrels of oil equivalent) of net resources in 2009, which is a 50-percent increase from the expectations we communicated at our investor conference in March of this year."
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