Dubai’s maritime sector gears up for exponential growth

Dubai Maritime City, the world’s first purpose-built maritime centre and a member of the Dubai World Group of companies based in the United Arab Emirates, has announced that construction on the project – currently in the third and final construction phase - is progressing a full year ahead of schedule.

The project has already generated widespread interest because of its first-of-its-kind integrated maritime concept, as it aims to address the requirements of the global maritime community through its fully integrated facilities, infrastructure, services and regulations. On completion, Dubai Maritime City will incorporate six clusters, spread across a 227-hectare man-made peninsula; which include the Harbour Offices, Harbour Residences, Maritime Centre, Marina District, Dubai Maritime City Campus, and the Industrial Quarter. Several high profile attractions are being developed within the complex, including the UAE’s first National Maritime Museum, the Gulf region’s largest ship lift for ship maintenance and repair and a boat licensing facility. Dubai Maritime City is a 227 hectare fully-equipped, iconic and multidimensional maritime centre providing a world-class infrastructure and environment for the global maritime industry and related sectors. Dubai Maritime City capitalizes on the strengths of Dubai as a regional and international hub for trade and commerce, redefining the global maritime industry. It will provide a strategic location for the maritime industry sectors across the full spectrum of maritime business - maritime management, maritime services, maritime retail and recreation, maritime education and research, ship repair and maintenance, yacht repair and maintenance.

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Evergreen launches Far East Panama Service

Evergreen has launched a new container service linking Far East and Panama to satisfy the fast-growing shipping markets of Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean region.

Evergreen altogether deploys eight 2,728 TEU ships on the Far East Panama Service (FPS) and the maiden voyage was operated by Aphrodite, which departed in Kaohsiung port on May 24, a company statement of Evergreen said. Port rotation of the FPS is: Kaohsiung, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Ningbo, Mexico, Panama and Kaosiung. One rotation is expected to cost 56 days. FPS is specially designed for the two emerging markets of Central and South America and the Caribbean. The upgrade of the former China-US East Coast Service (CUE) of Evergreen will help to improve the carrier's service quality as it can deliver cargo from Far East to Central and South America and Caribbean in a much shorter time, the statement said.
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Subsea 7 buys Skandi Navica

Subsea 7 has acquired pipelay and construction vessel Skandi Navica for US$62 million from DOF Rederi.

At the time it was built in 1999, a purchase agreement order was struck between the pair and Subsea 7 started an eight year charter of the vessel. Now under Subsea 7 ownership, the ship will be renamed Seven Navica. The vessel has an overall length of 108 metres (354 feet) and a beam of 22 metres (72 feet). Capable of operating in water depths of up to 2,000 metres (6,561 feet), Skandi Navica has pipelay capability for installing both rigid and flexible flowlines and umbilicals, with one deck-mounted storage and deployment reel with capacity for pipe diameters of up to 16 inches, and a total weight of 2,200 tons (1,995 tonnes). Other features include an optional piggy-back 250 ton (226 tonne) reel, a lay ramp system, abandonment and recovery systems, a 60 ton (54 tonne) offshore crane, and a top tension capacity of 205 ton (185 tonne).

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Hyundai Mipo eyes block building site in Ulsan

South Korea's Hyundai Mipo Dockyard Co Ltd said it is likely to invest 190 billion won ($181.1 million) in a new block assembly factory, where ships are part-assembled, south of Seoul to expand its capacity.

Hyundai Mipo said in a filing to the Korea Exchange that it had reached preliminary agreement with a local government authority to build the factory in Ulsan where the shipbuilder has a shipyard.
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Fesco will issue shares to fund terminal

Fesco, parent of Russia’s biggest ocean container carrier, said it would sell shares worth nearly $770 million to fund acquisitions to boost its presence in the country's main foreign trade gateways.

The company will use part of the proceeds to finance the $200 million purchase of a further 50 percent of the Vladivostok container terminal from N-Trans, Russia’s largest private rail freight operator. Fesco already owns 25 percent of the terminal, which will have an annual capacity of 600,000 teu after an expansion program is completed.
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Dutch ship 'hijacked' off Somalia

A Dutch cargo ship is reported to have been hijacked by pirates off Somalia.

The MV Amiya Scan, with a crew of nine, was seized after leaving the Kenyan port of Mombasa on 19 May. The ship is believed to have been bound for the Romanian port of Constanta, said Andrew Mwangura of the Seafarers' Assistance Program in Kenya. More than 25 ships were seized off the Somali coast last year, despite patrols by an international maritime force based in Djibouti. "The ship was hijacked in international waters in the Gulf of Aden," the ship's owners, Dutch Reider Shipping, said. It said the crew were four Russian officers and five Filipino seamen. Somali pirates released a Jordanian-flagged vessel they had hijacked a week before.

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Croatia to privatize shipyards as part of EU bid

According to Balkan Insight, Croatia's Government is looking to privatize three struggling shipyards to meet European Union requirements for membership.

Croatia's shipbuilders currently receive ten per cent of the cost of each new ship in subsidies, but this plan will have to be scrapped for Croatia to join the EU in 2010. The yards, Uljanik Shipyard in Pula, Kraljevica near Rijeka and Brodotrogir near Split, are three of five shipyards in the country, which together employ more than 11,000 people and account for around 15 per cent of the country's exports.
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