Hanjin Shipping adds 6,500-TEU newbuilding to FEX

Hanjin Shipping, based in South Korea, plans to deploy an additional 6,500-TEU vessel on its Far East Europe Express service.

The new deployed ship is Hanjin Chongqing, recently named at the Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard in Ulsan City and is the last in a series of the eight 6,500-TEU vessels on order since 2004. As well as the other seven 6,500-TEU vessels delivered earlier, the Hanjin Chongqing is equipped with a state-of-the art engine, which allows for 27 knots with minimum fuel consumption. The ship is also air pollution-free as the engine completely burns the fuel. Hanjin Shipping said the latest 6,500-TEU box ship would replace the existing 5,500-TEU ship used on the FEX service. As a result, all vessels in the service will be upgraded from 5,500 TEU to 6,500 TEU. The port rotation for the Far East Europe Express service is: Xingang, Gwangyang, Busan, Yantian, Singapore, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Felixstowe, Singapore, Kaohsiung, returning to Xingang.
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Inchcape Shipping opens agency in Vietnam through JV

INCHCAPE Shipping Services has started providing full agency services in Vietnam by establishing a joint venture called ISS-Gemadept with the Gemadept Corp.

SS-Gemadept has its own offices and staff and already handles vessels in Ho Chi Minh City and Vung Tau. The office in Ho Chi Minh City will oversee all agency related matters at other ports where a network of subagents is in place.
Expansion into other ports is currently being evaluated, an Inchcape statement said. The new joint venture will be responsible for developing new business as well as handling existing ISS clients, to provide a high level of data integrity and boarding and agency related services.
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CMA CGM, Maersk, MSC launch two joint China-California services

CMA CGM, MAERSK and MSC, the world's three biggest container lines, are launching two joint services in April, the "Yangtze", serving central and south China, and the "Bohai Rim", serving central and north China.

The new services will deploy ten 8 000 TEU vessels (5 on each loop) creating a weekly direct service between China and the United States. For the Yangtze service, the rotation will be: Hong Kong, Yantian, Kaohsiung, Shanghai, Qingdao, Los Angeles and Hong Kong. For the Bohai Rim service the rotation will be: Dalian, Tianjin Xingang, Shanghai, Ningbo, Long Beach, Oakland and Dalian This rationalises current services into a more powerful customer-responsive offering, said a CMA CGM statement. They also provide customers with extensive port coverage in China with direct calls twice a week between China (Hong Kong, Yantian and Shanghai) and California ports.

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Raft of changes in top management at NYK Line

NYK LINE is removing directors and making sweeping changes in management this month, issuing a list of new appointments and departures at the executive level effective April 1.

Departing March 31 will be NYK executive vice presidents, Minoru Sato and Takao Manji, who "will resign as directors with the right to represent NYK". Also departing will be managing corporate officer Naoki Takahata at the "expiration of his term of service".
Two new directors have been appointed, Hidenori Hono, currently serving as managing corporate officer and Hiroshi Hattori, the company's existing chief representative for China, will assume their new roles as director managing corporate officers at the end of the month.
Mr Hattori will also continue to serve in his current post as well, the NYK statement said.
Other executive changes include Yasushi Yamawaki, now representative director, executive vice president corporate officer, who becomes executive vice-chairman, executive vice-chairman corporate officer.
Hiromitsu Kuramoto, now representative director, senior managing corporate officer, becomes representative director, executive vice-president corporate officer.
Yasumi Kudo, now representative director, senior managing corporate officer, becomes representative director, executive vice-president corporate officer.
Hiroshi Sugiura, now representative director, senior managing corporate officer, becomes representative director, executive vice-president corporate officer.
Shinji Kobayashi, now director, managing corporate officer, becomes representative director, senior managing corporate officer.
Makoto Igarashi, now director managing corporate officer, representative director, senior managing corporate officer, becomes representative director, senior managing corporate officer.
Masamichi Morooka, now director, managing corporate officer, managing director of NYK Group Europe Ltd, director, senior managing corporate officer, becomes managing director of NYK Group Europe Ltd.
Toshinori Yamashita, now corporate officer president of NYK Line (Japan) Ltd, managing corporate officer, corporate officer, becomes president of NYK Line (Japan) Ltd and managing corporate officer.
Tomoyuki Matsubara, now corporate officer general manager of Technical Group, becomes managing corporate officer.
Hiroshi Sekine, now corporate officer general manager of safety and environmental management group, becomes managing corporate officer.
In the container trade, Hiroyuki Shimizu, appears to have his role largely unchanged. He is currently representative director, senior managing corporate officer in charge of the container trade management group, logistics group, logistics integrator group, Yokohama branch, Kansai branch, and matters related to Tokyo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd and NYK Line (Japan) Ltd. According to the NYK statement, the representative director will now be in charge of the Harbour Group as well, where he previously served only as an assistant to the director.
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World's coastal waters riddled with invasive species

Eighty-four percent of the world's coasts are being colonized by foreign aquatic species, according to a Nature Conservancy study.

San Francisco Bay is the most invaded aquatic region on Earth, the study finds, with 85 invasive species in its waters, 66 percent of them considered harmful. More than half of San Francisco Bay fish and most of its bottom-dwelling organisms are not native to the Bay, and new invaders are constantly being introduced. Invasive species are non-native species that have been introduced into a new landscape, freshwater system or ocean region. Because this new area often lacks natural competitors and predators, the invaders tend to displace native plants and animals, disrupt food webs, and alter fundamental natural environmental processes. 'The scale of this problem is vast,' said Jennifer Molnar, conservation scientist at The Nature Conservancy and lead author of the study, 'Assessing the Global Threat of Invasive Species to Marine Biodiversity. 'Every day, thousands of vessels cross our oceans with invasive species hitchhiking on their hulls,' Molnar said. 'Because of this, as many as 10,000 species are estimated to be in transit at any one time.' Throughout the world's oceans, aquatic alien invasive damage economies by diminishing fisheries, fouling ships' hulls, and clogging intake pipes.

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Oil discovery in the North Sea

An oil discovery has been made by StatoilHydro due south-west of the Grane field in the North Sea.

The size of the find is estimated to be in the order of 20 - 30 million recoverable barrels of oil. StatoilHydro Petroleum, as the operator of production licence 169, has completed the drilling of wildcat well 25/11-25 S. The well is located just to the southwest of the Grane field in the North Sea. 'The find is a continuation of the good start to exploration activities on the Norwegian continental shelf in 2008,' says Tim Dodson, director of exploration in Exploration and production Norway. 'This find is the fourth discover we have been involved in so far this year,' he says. StatoilHydro has previously reported a discovery in the Fram area of the North Sea and Gamma at Haltenbanken. A discovery was made at Marulk on Haltenbanken where ENI Norway is the operator and StatoilHydro has a 50 per cent ownership stake. The well is the thirteenth exploration well in production licence 169. The licence was awarded in the thirteenth concessionary round in 1991. The Grane oil is transported through a 212 kilometre long pipeline to StatoilHydro's Sture terminal in Øygarden, west of Bergen. The discovery in the M prospect is interesting and may be relevant for further investigation when seen in the context of other discoveries in the area.
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China steps forward as Venezuela's key oil buyer

China could be the near monopoly buyer of Venezuelan fuel oil after Beijing stepped up financial aid to cash-strapped Caracas, but it will be years before higher volumes of crude from the OPEC member begins flowing East.

Venezuela is struggling with multiple problems including a cash crunch caused by President Hugo Chavez's use of oil money to fund socialist projects, surplus fuel oil due to refinery outages and must seek alternative buyers for the crude it stopped shipping to Exxon Mobil Corp due to a legal row. In an unprecedented move to ease its cash squeeze, state-run PDVSA had asked for $1 billion upfront payment in a tender to sell eight fuel oil cargoes of 1.8 million barrels each. The tender was scrapped when potential buyers balked, but PDVSA is still holding talks with PetroChina, traders said. If a deal comes through, it would mean China soaking up nearly all the Venezuelan fuel oil exports to Asia and raise term imports by the world's second-largest oil consumer by a further 20 percent over a year, traders said. China, which is keen to secure long-term supplies to meet its surging demand, has more than doubled liftings of Venezuelan fuel oil, a heavy residue used to power ships and make road-paving bitumen, since fourth-quarter 2007. PetroChina, China's main proxy in energy deals with the Latin American nation also aims to raise crude oil imports from Venezuela by a quarter or more this year to at least 100,000 bpd. The trader ships about half its Venezuelan imports into China's booming domestic marine fuel market.

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