2008 the 'best year ever' for tanker owners

2008 has been ‘the best year ever’ for tanker owners, according to leading broker RS Platou.

According to its tanker index, which is derived from six different sizes of crude and product carriers, average daily earnings for owners were $64,000. This figure is marginally higher than 2004 levels which previously held the record, stated an RS Platou report. The report pegged suezmax and aframax earnings for this year at $67,200 and $49,800 per day respectively. According to the Norwegian brokerage, both product and chemical tanker rates “have bucked the general trend in shipping of slumping returns, particularly in the dry-bulk and container shipping sectors,” reports said. Other brokers Tankerworld spoke to said they agreed with the report from RS Platou. They said 2008 saw several instances of counter-seasonal strength in spot tanker rates which pushed earnings for many owners to record levels. This counter-seasonal strength in spot rates has been attributed to heightened oil demand from the US, China and India and rising exports from tonne-mile intensive OPEC producers.

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Enterprise repairs High Island Offshore System

Houston: Enterprise Products Partners has completed repairs to its High Island Offshore System pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico after the pipeline was severed during Hurricane Ike in September.

Federal regulators have approved Enterprise's inspection and start-up procedures and authorized Enterprise to resume full service on the pipeline. The 42-inch diameter section of pipe damaged during the storm was located in around 130 feet (39.6 m) of water. Now repaired, the pipeline system has the capacity to transport up to 1.8 Bcf/d of natural gas. The High Island Offshore System consists of a 291-mile (468.3-km) pipeline system that transports natural gas from fields in the Galveston, Garden Banks, West Cameron, High Island and East Breaks areas of the Gulf of Mexico to various third-party pipeline systems. The system also includes eight pipeline junction and service platforms. Enterprise President and CEO Michael A. Creel said, "Customers and investors alike can feel confident that our personnel expedited the repair process and managed the asset following the storm as professionally and efficiently as possible”.

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Keppel O&M ends year with additional contracts

Singapore: Keppel Offshore & Marine has ended 2008 with additional signed contracts worth S$200m through its wholly owned subsidiaries.

The new orders include the upgrading and conversion of a Floating, Storage and Offloading (FSO) vessel into a Floating Production, Storage and Offloading facility by Keppel Shipyard for Single Buoy Moorings, the building of two RAmpage 5500 Z-M offshore support tugs by Keppel Singmarine for Seaways International and the construction of three tugboats at Keppel Cebu Shipyard in the Philippines. Work on the FPSO Okha is expected to commence in the first quarter of 2009 and will be completed in the fourth quarter of 2010. The facility is being developed for the Cossack Wanaea Lambert Hermes oil field 135km northwest of Karratha in Western Australia. The two DP2 multi tasking Anchor Handling Tugs (AHT), each with 100-tonne bollard pull, are due for completion in the first half of 2011 and will be deployed in West Africa, Asia or the Middle East. Keppel Singmarine is currently building a similar AHT for the same owner for delivery in end 2009.
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Iran readies gas deal without India

Iran will sign a deal with Pakistan to sell gas to the neighbouring country, even if India, a third party to the deal, walked out.

India stayed away from talks in Tehran on a proposed $7 billion pipeline in September, saying it wanted to agree transit costs through Pakistan on a bilateral basis first. Iran Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said a delegation from Pakistan had arrived in Tehran for two days. Iran will sign a deal with Pakistan, if India does not take part in the project. In July, Iran said India and Pakistan had accepted Iran's demand for gas price reviews based on market changes, denying reports by some Indian newspapers that the pipeline talks had failed after Iran demanded a review every three years. The pipeline would initially carry 60 million cubic metres of gas daily to Pakistan and India, half for each country. The pipeline's capacity would later rise to 150 million cubic metres. Iran says it has completed 18% of the work for the pipeline to bring gas from its South Pars field to the Iran-Pakistan border. Pakistan has yet to begin work on a 1000 kilometre stretch of the pipeline to link Iran with India. Iran has the world's second-largest gas reserves after Russia.
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Steamship Mutual launches new crew Pre-Employment Medical Examination scheme

Steamship Mutual, a leading P&I Club providing marine liability insurance worldwide, today announces it is launching a structured Pre-Employment Medical Examination scheme.

The PEME scheme will provide enhanced medical test and screenings to Members’ crew and forms part of the Club’s overall loss prevention initiative. Initially based in the Philippines and using only pre-approved, recommended clinics to conduct the high quality PEMEs, the scheme is designed to ensure that crew are fit to serve at sea and to protect shipowners and the Club against the risk of unnecessary loss and liability arising from crew illness. Chris Adams, Steamship Mutual’s Head of Loss Prevention, said, “Whilst many crew already undergo medical screenings prior to employment, the quality and range of tests conducted can be variable. It is evident from the Club’s claims experience, that it is not uncommon for symptoms of serious illness to manifest themselves within just a few days of a crew member joining a ship, with inevitable and expensive consequences.” “The enhanced Steamship Mutual PEME will be more rigorous in order to detect unfit crew and reduce the potential for unnecessary claims. Our scheme aims to reduce the likelihood that individuals who are medically unfit are given clearance to serve at sea.” Steamship Mutual (managed by Steamship Insurance Management Services Limited) is a leading provider of Protection & Indemnity (P&I) insurance.
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Navy Signs 3rd Virginia-Class Contract

The Navy signed a five-year, $14b Multi-Year Procurement contract for eight Virginia-class submarines Dec. 22.

The contract, the third, or Block III, for the Virginia-class, calls for one ship per year in fiscal years (FY) 2009 and 2010 and two per year in FY 2011, 2012, and 2013. The contract also meets the Chief of Naval Operations' (CNO) and Virginia Class Program's mandate to reduce acquisition costs by approximately 20 percent for the FY 2012 ships. "This contract is a prime example of what you can do when you provide motivated people with a task and a deadline," said Virginia-class Program Manager Capt. Michael Jabaley. As Jabaley explained, "in FY 2005, then-CNO Admiral Michael Mullen said that if we could cut $400 million from the $2.4 billion authorized for that year's Virginia by FY 2012, the Navy would buy two Virginias each year. This contract achieves both goals – the price target and the two per year build rate." To reach its cost reduction goal, the Virginia-class Program established a three-element strategy. The first element, which accounts for one-half of the required savings, involved increasing production to two ships per year in an MYP contract in order to spread the shipyards' overhead costs over more ships. To achieve the remaining cost savings, the Navy invested $600m to redesign portions of the ship for more efficient production and to improve construction processes reducing the construction span from 84 to 60 months.

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India: Ministry to speed up work on Marine Emergency Fund

The Ministry of Shipping is planning to speed up its efforts to create a Marine Emergency Fund to be used for relief operations in the aftermath of marine casualties, including loss of ships and oil spills in the Indian territorial waters.

Measures such as the early creation of the fund and putting in place an emergency response mechanism have climbed higher on the Shipping Ministry’s priority list in the wake of a sharp increase in the number of marine casualties across Indian waters in the last few years. The proposal for creation of an emergency fund emerged after a high-level committee, headed by the Directorate-General of Shipping, made a string of recommendations to reduce such incidents. The Ministry is also considering a proposal to have an emergency response mechanism for responding to emergency situations, such as salvaging sunken ships and combating oil pollution. Some of the proposed measures may require suitable legislative changes. The committee made a sharp focus on the need to restrict movement of older vessels, as these vessels accounted for a bigger slice of the casualties. Ministry figures indicate that in the last three monsoons alone some 30 ships sank, out of which about 60 per cent were above 25 years old.

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