U.S. court convicts five Somalis of piracy
A federal jury in Norfolk, Va., on Wednesday convicted five men from Somalia of engaging in piracy and related offenses in their attack on the USS Nicholas. It is believed to be
A federal jury in Norfolk, Va., on Wednesday convicted five men from Somalia of engaging in piracy and related offenses in their attack on the USS Nicholas. It is believed to be
The Indian Navy today fired warning shots ahead of a Restis Group bulker, the 57,000 dwt Bahamas-flag Dynamic Striker. The ship, managed by Restis’s Enterprises Shipping and Trading, arrived in Mumbai October
Eight Very Large Crude Carriers are achieving Very Large Carbon Cuts. A detailed performance analysis of a National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (NSCSA) tanker confirms that the company has achieved substantial
The Department of Justice, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the state of Rhode Island announced today that Bouchard Transportation Co. Inc. and its affiliates will pay more than $6 million to settle
Nuclear powered merchant ships could be sailing again sooner than many might suppose. That’s the view of Lloyd’s Register CEO Richard Sadler. The classification society is a member of a newly formed
Early this morning, Nov.11, the MV HANNIBAL II was pirated whilst on route from Malaysia to Suez. Eu Navfor says the 24,105 tonne chemical tanker, a Panamanian-flagged vessel ,was carrying vegetable oils
The award is the first made to Allied Defense,which has long been trying to resurrect Mare Island’s closed dry docks.
The two Suisun Bay ships could be delivered to two of the former naval shipyard’s dry docks as early as next month. But the Mare Island Strait must be dredged first.
The Reporter, Vacaville, Calif., quotes Jay Anast, Allied Defense Recycling business operations director as saying that dredging will begin soon after the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission grants a project permit,
The Reporter says the company received its overall environmental permits in recent months. It also signed a lease with dock owners Lennar Mare Island in August, and was qualified to bid on ship recycling contracts at the end of September.
The Maritime Administration offered Allied Defense Recycling a “no-bid” contract, citing delays and funding issues in its partnership with a Bay Area ship-cleaning facility that prepares ships for dismantling outside the area, according to The Reporter.
“The Obama Administration is running full-speed ahead in its commitment to cleaning up the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “These contracts will help the local economy while advancing our mission of maintaining the Fleet in a safe and environmentally-sound manner.”
In October 2009, the Obama Administration called for expedited cleanup of the fleet site and improved protection of the unique marine environment and surrounding bayside communities, setting a goal of removing 57 ships by September 30, 2017. Eleven ships were removed in the past year, surpassing the planned schedule of removing 10 ships in 2010.
“This is further evidence of our commitment to clean up Suisun Bay,” said Maritime Administrator David Matsuda. “The Mare Island recycling facility will bolster our efforts to remove obsolete ships and reduce environmental risks to the Bay.”
MARAD currently cleans the hulls of obsolete ships before towing them nearly 5,000 miles through the Panama Canal to recycling facilities on the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic coasts. Using the former Mare Island Naval Shipyard site will enable the ships to be recycled while avoiding the lengthy tow to ship recyclers in other areas.
In the past MARAD has sent ships for disposal to recyclers as far away as the U.K. provoking protests and headlines about “ghost ships” and “toxic ships.”
November 10, 2010
The 319,360 dwt, Marshall Islands registered, Samho Dream with a crew of five Koreans and 19 Filipinos, was released at around 11:30 p.m., Saturday night, according to the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The owner, Samho Shipping, reportedly paid a ransom of more than $9 million — the largest amount thus far extorted from a shipowner by Somali pirates.
The ship had been seized approximately 600 nautical miles off the Somali coast carrying roughly $170 million worth of Iraqi crude oil.
An official from the Foreign Ministry said yesterday that “the Samho Dream is currently being escorted to a safe location by the Korean naval ship Wang-gun from the Cheonghae Unit, and is expected to land at the port of Salalah in Oman this Thursday.”
The president of Samho Shipping, Sohn Yong-ho, told Joonang Daily that the crew is in good condition, but he would not disclose the exact amount paid to the pirates, nor how much of the ransom came from insurance payouts.
The Singapore-registered chemical tanker MV Golden Blessing was also released by pirates Saturday, It had been seized on June 28 and carrying a crew of 19 Chinese was released for a reported ransom of $2.8 million.
November 8, 2010
Galliano, La., headquartered Offshore Vessels LLC (OSV), formerly Edison Chouest Offshore Vessels LLC, was on Thursday sentenced in U.S. District Court in New Orleans to pay a criminal fine of $1,750,000 and remit a payment of $350,000 as community service to the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation. The community service funds are to be used to study polar water pollution and protection of vulnerable marine ecosystems in the Antarctic region. OSV also will serve a period of probation for three years, during which it will be required to operate under an Environmental Compliance Plan.
OSV pleaded guilty on July 22, 2010, to knowingly discharging waste oil from one of its vessels, in violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS).
“The criminal fine in this case will serve as a strong deterrent to all vessel companies, American and foreign, against deliberately violating the laws enacted to protect oceans,” said Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney General of the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice. “The required payment will provide a means of studying polar water oil pollution and its impact on Antarctica’s fragile marine ecosystem.”
OSV owned and operated the R/V Laurence M. Gould (R/V Gould). The R/V Gould was a 2,966 gross ton American-flagged vessel that served as an ice-breaking research vessel for the National Science Foundation on research voyages to and from Antarctica. In its guilty plea earlier this year, OSV admitted that crew members knowingly discharged oily wastewater from the bilge tank of the R/V Gould overboard to the high seas, in violation of APPS. In doing so, they bypassed the ship’s oily-water separator, a pollution-control device. Regulations promulgated under APPS require that oily wastewater be discharged only after it has been sent through an oily water separator.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Coast Guard Criminal Investigative Service. The case is being prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorney Daniel Dooher of the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice and Assistant U.S. Attorney Dorothy Manning Taylor.
November 6, 2010
It is looking to order ten ships from Austal USA and ten from the Lockheed Martin, Marinette Marine team.
The Navy says that “effective competition between industry bidders to build the littoral combat ship (LCS)” led it to discuss the ten ships each plan with key Defense Committee members and their staff, as well as industry.
It says that “consideration of this option is separate from the ongoing LCS down select process, and if congressional approval for a dual block buy is not received, the Navy will proceed to down select in accordance with the terms of the current solicitation.”
It maintains that either a down select or a dual ship block buy approach will ensure the Navy procures affordably priced ships.
“This option is good for the taxpayers because it enables us to buy more ships for the same money and allows us to lock in a lower price for all 20 ships,” said Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus. “It’s good for the Navy because it gets us more ships faster and increases our flexibility, and it’s good for industry because it maintains and even expands jobs at two shipyards.”
Unlike the current solicitation, this option would require Congressional action to authorize two block buys by mid-December 2010.
“The Navy’s LCS acquisition strategy to down select to a single design resulted in a highly effective competition and an industry response that signals a significant potential savings in the LCS program,” said Sean Stackley, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition. “These competitive bids, coupled with the Navy’s desire to increase ship procurement rates to support operational requirements, create an opportunity to award each bidder a fixed-price, ten-ship block buy – a total of 20 ships from fiscal year 2010 to fiscal year 2015.”
The Navy says it remains committed to the LCS program and the requirement for 55 of these ships to provide combatant commanders with the capability to defeat anti-access threats in the littorals, including fast surface craft, quiet submarines and various types of mines.
Though Secretary Mabus’s proposal seems to have caught most observers by surprise, a recent Congressional Research Service report by veteran analyst Ronald O’Rourke, published October 14, had this to say:
One alternative [to the down select would be a strategy that would keep both LCS designs in production, at least for the time being. Such a strategy might involve the following:
- the use of block-buy contracts with augmented EOQ authority, as under the Navy’s proposed acquisition strategy, to continue producing both LCS designs, so as to provide stability to shipyards and suppliers involved in producing both LCS designs;
- the use of Profit Related to Offer (PRO) bidding between the builders of the two LCS designs, so as to generate competitive pressure between them and thereby restrain LCS production costs;18 and
- designing a new LCS combat system that would have a high degree of commonality with one or more existing Navy surface ship combat systems and be provided as government-furnished equipment (GFE) for use on both LCS designs–an idea that was considered by the Navy at an earlier point in the program.
Supporters of an alternative like the one outlined above could argue that it would
- provide stability to LCS shipyards and suppliers;
- use competition to restrain LCS production costs;
- permit the Navy to receive a full return on the investment the Navy made in creating both LCS designs;
- reduce the life-cycle operation and support costs associated with building two LCS designs by equipping all LCSs with a common combat system;
- allow the Navy to design an LCS combat system that is, from the outset, highly common with one or more of the Navy’s existing surface ship combat systems;
- achieve a maximum LCS procurement rate of four ships per year starting in FY2011 (two years earlier than under the Navy’s proposal), thus permitting more LCSs to enter service with the Navy sooner;
- build both LCS designs in substantial numbers, thereby avoiding a situation of having a small number of orphan LCS ships that could have potentially high operation and support costs;
- preserve a potential to neck down to a single LCS design at some point in the future, while permitting the Navy in the meantime to more fully evaluate the operational characteristics of the two designs in real-world deployments; and
- increase the potential for achieving foreign sales of LCSs (which can reduce production costs for LCSs made for the U.S. Navy) by offering potential foreign buyers two LCS designs with active production lines.
Maybe the Secretary of the Navy read Ronald O’Rourke’s report. Maybe Mr. O’Rourke is a seer.
Nov 5, 2010