01 FEB 2020  The shipment of goods from the recently-built port of Gwadar, Pakistan to customers in Afghanistan has begun, according to Pakistani media. The boxship Diyala has offloaded two containers of fertilizer for Afghan customers at Gwadar, and the cargo will be trucked overland to the border town of Chaman, Kandahar. …

31 JAN 2020  Six seafarers aboard a French-operated container ship have fallen ill during a voyage from China to Egypt, raising concerns that they could be the first reported mariners to have contracted the new coronavirus strain originating in Wuhan. According to Sri Lankan media, six crewmembers aboard the container …

30 JAN 2020  Authorities in the UAE report that a tanker has caught fire at a position about 20 miles off the coast of Sharjah.  The UAE’s Federal Transport Authority – Land & Maritime (FTA) said in a statement Wednesday that it is “working to put out a fire that …

29 JAN 2020  The Seafarers Happiness Index published by The Mission to Seafarers this week highlights crew concerns about racism and a lack of support dealing with it along with concerns about a lack of shore leave to relieve stress. The index, undertaken in association with P&I insurer the Ship …

28 JAN 2020 The Baltic Exchange’s main sea freight index fell to its lowest level since April 2016, dragged down by lower vessels rates across categories. * The Baltic index, which tracks rates for capesize, panamax and supramax vessels ferrying dry bulk commodities, dropped 11 points, or 2.0%, to 546 …

28 JAN 2020 Founded little more than a decade ago, privately-held IMAT (Italian Maritime Academy Technologies) has quickly established itself as a global leader in maritime training. The former cruise ship captain had a dream. He’d just returned from a trip to the U.S. where he saw a state-of-the-art maritime …

27 JAN 2020  In 1969, while working for a ship agency in downtown New Orleans, one of the agents announced there was a ship at general anchorage which loaded barges into the vessel! A group took a launch to view the Acadia Forest, the first LASH vessel. She was quite a …

26 JAN 2020  What was once a dream is fast becoming a reality? With a request for a full-sized, battery-propelled, all-electric tugboat, Ports of Auckland was thought to be “dreaming.” And you might say a dream team was founded when the Netherlands-based Damen Group agreed that the request was feasible …

25 JAN 2020 In May, while President Donald Trump toured a new $10 billion plant designed to prepare natural gas for export, he made a vow. Such facilities would be good for the environment, he said, or they won’t get approved. The president has green lit 11 projects so far, …

24 JAN 2020 The price of low sulphur fuel oil has dropped steeply in recent weeks at the bunkering hub of Singapore in a sign that the bunker market is stabilizing following the implementation of IMO 2020 sulphur cap, according to BIMCO. Prices of low sulphur fuel rose in December …