Maersk awarded jack-up drilling contract

Maersk Contractors has been awarded a contract by Dubai Petroleum Establishment for Jack-up drilling operations offshore Dubai in the Arabian Gulf.

The drilling contract has a duration of three years and will commence when the rig arrives in Dubai at the end of the first quarter in 2008. The mobilisation from the construction yard in Singapore to Dubai is estimated to take 15 days. The rig is the first in a series of four identical high efficiency jack up drilling rigs presently under construction for Maersk Contractors at KeppeIFELS Shipyard in Singapore. This latest generation 106-metre jack up rig, which has yet to be named, distances itself from conventional jack ups in several areas, not least on the drill floor where the highly mechanised equipment leads to increased safety for the crew.

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Efforts in progress to rescue typhoon-trapped cargo ship

Rescuers in East China's Zhejiang Province are making efforts to rescue a Hong Kong-registered cargo ship, which has 27 International crew members aboard, trapped in typhoon "Krosa".

The cargo ship, ALADDIN DREAM, was 27.78 kilometers off Wenling, southeast Zhejiang on Saturday morning, because of motor malfunction. Rescue ships failed to approach the cargo ship because of billows triggered by the strong typhoon "Krosa", which is slamming its way onto the Chinese mainland. The trapped 27 crew members include sailors from Russia, India and the Philippines.

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RIL, ONGC, BG to invest $1 bn for developing PMT fields

Reliance Industries, ONGC and BG, which jointly operate the Panna Mukta and Tapti (PMT) oil and gas fields in Western offshore, are planning to invest about $1 billion in the next few years to improve productivity from the area.

The three partners plan to increase production by about 60% by 2009, said petroleum minister Murli Deora while dedicating the new Tapti Compression and Processing Platform (TCPP) to the nation at a ceremony held in Mumbai. The PMT fields account for 8% of India's total hydrocarbon production and its gas output has increased by 48% to feed the nation's growing demand for energy. Gas output from the PMT fields has risen to 17 million metric standard cubic meters per day with investment of $500 million from the JV partners.

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Rina launches corrosion prevention training

Italian classification society Rina has joined forces with UK-based coatings testing company Bodycote to launch a global Corrosion Prevention and Coatings (CPC) program.

Rina says the heart of the program will be a CPC Training Course for shipyard and shipowner staff, and testing facilities for type approval of coatings according to the new IMO requirements. A Rina statement says the aim of the program is to substantially raise awareness of modern coating standards and regulations, deliver practical knowledge on the application, inspection and verification of coatings and provide facilities to enable customers & suppliers to meet the new IMO requirements.

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DCT Gdansk celebrates phase 1 completion

The completion of the first phase of development of Poland’s new deepwater container terminal, DCT Gdansk, was celebrated with a reception onboard the cruise vessel Lady Assa.

DCT Gdansk management and directors were joined by public, city and port officials, representatives from the international shipping community, and civil engineers involved in the construction process as the vessel sailed from her berth at Motlawa in Gdansk’s ‘old town’ to DCT Gdansk’s 650m of completed quay. With Phase One of the terminal development up and running, DCT Gdansk recently announced weekly calls by leading global container line CMA CGM and feeder specialist Team Lines, while Lithuania-based feeder operator ISN has also initiated a weekly call between DCT Gdansk and Kaliningrad.

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Aboitiz Transport buys new vessel from Japan

Aboitiz Transport System Corp. (ATS) announced that it bought a vessel from Japan to increase its passenger and cargo capacity.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the shipping company said it purchased a vessel from Nankai Ferry Co. Ltd. in Japan for $2.4 million. The 2,137 gross tonnage vessel arrived in the Philippines on October 6, 2007, and added 800 passenger capacity and 50 TEU cargo capacity to its current existing fleet, the company said. The company said the vessel purchase is still part of a greater strategy to build a new ATS.

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SeaMobile wins NOAA contracts

SeaMobile Enterprises has beeen awarded two major contracts by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

SeaMobile has signed a three-year contract to provide global VSAT satellite services to the entire fleet of ships operated by NOAA throughout the globe. SeaMobile has also been awarded the integration, installation, operations and maintenance of a 3.7m VSAT terminal system for the new NOAA ship, Okeanos Explorer. NOAA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce and conducts environmental research and serves as the primary source of expert information on weather data, forecasts, warnings and climate change.

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