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Join us as we report through 2021

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TODAY’S BULLETIN OF MARITIME NEWS

These news reports are updated on an ongoing basis. Check back regularly for the latest news as it develops – where necessary refresh your page at www.africaports.co.za

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Front Page: IVAR REEFER

• IN CONVERSATION: The toll and toil it took to cleave the Suez Canal through the Egyptian desert
• WHARF TALK: Coastal tanker service: Maersk Altus
• IN CONVERSATION: How insecurity affects the lives of everyone in the Niger Delta
• Romania’s border on the Black Sea: EMSA provides enhanced surveillance capacities
• Quark’s Ultramarine ready to sail the polar oceans
• Tullow Oil begins drilling at Ghana’s Jubilee Field
• Call back the past: Coaster Sunergon plies her trade to Africa
• MSC to base flagship MSC Virtuosa in UK waters for summer
• Egypt ready to open new naval base on Mediterranean coast
• NIGER DELTA KING: the story of a long-staying Cape Town visitor
• ECO SAVONA: Maiden call of Grimaldi’s Knud E Hansen-designed hybrid ship
• REFLECTIONS: Antarctic research ship Akademik Aleksandr Karpinskiy returns to Cape Town
• High calibre chefs
• IN CONVERSATION: Farming fish in fresh water is more affordable and sustainable than in the ocean
• WFO responds to emergency in harbour town of Palma
• USCG protecting America’s interests at home and abroad
• WHARF TALK: Yenisei River calls at Cape Town – first Suez diversion to enter SA port?
• REFLECTIONS: Bulkers in our ports
• Tanzania Ports Authority Director-General suspended over corruption charge
• PORT IS WHAT WE DO: Hamburg’s Marker Men are back on the Water
• Narcotics just keeps coming as CMF makes 5 seizures in 1 week
• Multiple cruise ship anchor failures: UK MAIB Safety Bulletin 1/2021
• Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment: What’s in a name?
• USCGC Walnut At homeport Pensacola, Florida

EARLIER NEWS CAN BE FOUND AT NEWS CATEGORIES…….

The Saturday masthead shows the Port of  Richards Bay

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Front Page:  IVAR REEFER

With the approach of the 2021 citrus season in South Africa, it is fitting to witness a reefer as our Front Page photograph, this being the former IVAR LAURITZEN, now renamed as IVAR REEFER (IMO 8819938). The 16,950-dwt ship arrived in Durban from Beira during February this year, seeking bunkers and hull cleaning, following which she sailed, at some speed, for Valparaiso in Chile from where she is currently operating. The high-capacity palletised reefer is one of six sister ships of which several operated locally in South African ports, carrying away export citrus fruit.  A feature of these refrigerated ships was their designed capability of operation by a mere eight crew – which may have been most appealing to the accountants but in practice was shown to be unworkable and was abandoned. The 164-metre by 24m reefer was built in 1990 and is homeported in Nassau.  She is currently sailing from Coquimbo  in Chile and heading for Los Angeles where she is due later this week. Ivar Reefer is owned by Greek interests and managed by Chartworld Chipping Corp of Athens.   Picture is by Trevor Jones

Added 5 April 2021

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Photographs of shipping and other maritime scenes involving any of the ports of South Africa or from the rest of the African continent, together with a short description, name of ship/s, ports etc are invited.

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IN CONVERSATION: The toll and toil it took to cleave the Suez Canal through the Egyptian desert

Lucia Carminati, Texas Tech University

For a little over a week the world’s attention zeroed in on the Suez Canal, an artificial channel connecting the Mediterranean and the Red seas across Egyptian territory. The canal offers the shortest sea route between Europe and Asia, funnelling around 10% of global trade. And so it made the headlines when a massive container ship, “Ever Given”, became wedged diagonally across the canal, creating a huge, expensive backlog of other vessels.

I am a social and cultural historian who has studied the region and the people who live there. While the economic benefits of the canal are readily apparent, its history of technical mishaps and failed ambitions is mostly buried.

The idea for a canal between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea was a long time in the making. The ancients must have talked about it. And Napoleon Bonaparte, who invaded Egypt in 1798, dreamed about it. Eventually, it was a French diplomat, Ferdinand de Lesseps, that vehemently promoted the scheme and was given permission to start working on it in 1854.

In 1858 La Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez (Universal Company of the Maritime Suez Canal) was formed with the authority to cut a canal. The company was under the joint auspices of the Egyptian government and the French Canal Company.

Prior to the mid-19th century, the Isthmus of Suez – the 125km strip of land that lies between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea – was a quiet spot. It was a hard and pebbly undulating plain intersected by ranges of hills. It was traversed by nomadic Bedouins and peripherally settled by a few fishermen.

In April 1859, works under the company began cleaving the isthmus in a north-south direction. In the following decades, this desert-like region experienced a dramatic transformation as a string of construction sites popped up. People poured in, bringing with them earth-moving equipment and livestock.

Work begins

Work on the canal kicked off in 1859. Components of locomotives, barges and dredgers, among other equipment, began streaming in from Europe. Most went to the northernmost canal worksite at Port Said, where they were assembled.

The excavation of the channel proceeded southwards. As the digging took strides, supplies were transported farther, using land and water, into the isthmus.

Along the new waterway, where scarcely a blade of grass was previously found, vegetation began to spring up.

From about 1861, there was also an influx of working animals including donkeys, horses and camels. The company vied tirelessly for control over settlements that cropped up and over their workers.

The company had a system of forced labour and started to conscript thousands of Egyptian workers in 1862. The workers, theoretically paid and fed by the Egyptian government, came from both the north and south of Egypt. They toiled alongside “free” workers, including Arabs and Europeans.

The forced labour of Egyptians formally ended in 1864 when a new ruler – Isma’il Pasha – took over and eliminated the practice. This act stalled the project and forced the company to introduce more machinery and lure more foreign workers through enlistment campaigns.

Canal labourers came from all over the Mediterranean basin, North Africa and the rest of the Ottoman Empire. Some came from as far away as the British Isles. These labourers worked in the company’s payrolls, offered services to workers, and lived off expedients such as thieving, contraband and prostitution.

The cities that would outlive the comings and goings of this particularly transient population were Port Said (founded in 1859 on the northern Mediterranean shore), Ismailia (originating in a worksite in the middle of the isthmus that dated back to at least 1860), and Port Tewfiq (founded in 1867) facing the centuries-old Red Sea harbour town of Suez.

These cities still derive some of their economy from the canal. For instance, to this day, 9,000 workers toil in ship repairs and other maritime services for the seven subsidiary companies of the Suez Canal Authority in Suez, Ismailia and Port Said. But today there is a lot more to the local economy than the canal.

A rocky start

During the canal’s early days, life in these cities had its challenges. This was partly because of uneven infrastructural development. For instance, homes and sewers in the “Arab” quarters of Port Said and Ismailia were vulnerable to natural calamities, more so than those in “European” areas.

The canal, as a whole, was a haphazard project right until the end. My research in scattered archives found that just 10 days before the canal’s official inauguration date – on November 16, 1869 – 14 dredgers were still operating. They were meant to prepare the passage for festive vessels to pass through the first section near Port Said. But rocks were still being found along the waterbed and explosives were placed to set them off. Strong transverse winds, curves, sands and opposing currents also raised concerns for the ships trying to make it through.

The potential for disaster continued long after the canal’s launch. Indeed, in the late 1880s, Port Said was still devoid of warehouses for oil or other inflammable materials. Merchants in oil had to leave their full crates on the eastern side of the canal, exposed to the weather and possible accidents.

What the canal brought in its wake

The canal changed global trade in dramatic ways. It brings US$5 billion to Egyptian coffers each year, although it is unclear who exactly benefits from that boon.

It had geopolitical implications beyond the movement of goods. The canal cities experienced bombing and siege when British, French and Israeli forces attacked the canal in 1956, after Gamal Abdel Nasser proclaimed its nationalisation.

The canal also precipitated seismic shifts in the composition of sea life.

The opposite streams – one from the Mediterranean and the other from the Red Sea – merged some time in 1866. This allowed for the migration of different marine species along the waterway and the movement of numerous invading species – from water molluscs to cholera bacteria. This resulted in a pattern of invasions with long-term and large-scale damage to ecosystems.

For instance, Red Sea species – including fishes, crabs and prawns – successfully made their way up north. The pearl-oyster, previously unknown in the Mediterranean, became abundant on the northern coast of Egypt and reached as far as Tunisia’s coasts.

The Suez Canal’s history has been forged over a century by multiple entities and people. Despite its huge influence on the global scene today, its past has been marked by colossal stumbling blocks and wild dreams which, since its inception, re-directed the course of its story.

Lucia Carminati, Assistant Professor, Texas Tech University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Added 8 April 2021

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WHARF TALK: Coastal tanker service: Maersk Altus

One of the number of what appear to be long term chartered medium range shuttle tankers, that are based out of Durban and resupply all South African ports with refined products, made a 24 hour stop in Cape Town to discharge a small parcel of bunker fuel, after first discharging the majority of her cargo first in East London, and then Port Elizabeth, before a return to Durban.

The MAERSK ALTUS (IMO9724570) arrived in Cape Town on 7 April at 11h00 and after less than 24 hours sailed back to Durban on 8 April at 08h00.

Despite her name, and the fact that she is operated by Maersk Tankers AS of Copenhagen, Maersk Altus was built to the order of BP Shipping of London in 2017. She was one of five of the new ‘Cloud’ class of medium range tankers, launched as British Altus and at marginally under 40,000dwt, the Cloud class handysize newbuilds were the smallest tankers operated by BP Shipping at the time, but they offered an especially high degree of trading versatility.

The Cloud class was designed to carry clean and dirty products, and occasionally crude oil, on BP business, and also offers pristine tank containment for palm oil and vegetable oil.

While the handysize tonnage was expected to play an important role in the North European and Mediterranean distributive traffic, the series also provided the scope to support BP ventures in other areas, notably the US Gulf of Mexico and crucially, here in South Africa.

Yet, despite this huge investment by BP, it was a state visit in 2015 by China’s President Xi Jinping to the UK, that Chinese and UK enterprises concluded a number of heavyweight projects in various industrial, infrastructural and financial fields, and this included the Chinese taking over BP Shipping’s fleet development scheme.

Under the agreement, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s leasing arm, ICBC Financial Leasing, provided a package of 10-year leasing arrangements covering up to 18 of BP’s newbuild tankers.

All of the new ‘Mariner’ and ‘Cloud’ class product carriers, were registered in the ownership of Hai Kuo Shipping, but remained under the full operational control and management of BP Shipping as lessee. Hai Kuo Shipping, a subsidiary of ICBC, holds a great swath of one ship shell companies, with each same named company given a number to differentiate it from the next Hai Kuo company. In this case the Maersk Altus is nominally owned by Hai Kuo Shipping 1521 Ltd of Shanghai.

Built in 2017 by the Hyundai Mipo shipyard of Ulsan in South Korea, Maersk Altus is 183 metres in length with a deadweight of 39,999 tons. She is powered by a single HHI/MAN-B&W 2 stroke, 6 cylinder 6G50ME-20 main engine which provides 14,521 bhp (8,580 kW) to drive her single fixed pitch propeller, and she also has 3 main diesel generators, each providing 900 kW of power.

In 2020, with her ownership unchanged, Maersk Altus switched flag from the Isle of Man to Denmark and came under the operational management of Maersk Tankers with her current name change.

She has been a regular on the South African coast now for a while, and this current voyage is her fifth consecutive one out of the Island View Terminal in Durban since early February.

Story by Jay Gates
Pictures by ‘Dockrat’

Added 8 April 2021

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IN CONVERSATION: How insecurity affects the lives of everyone in the Niger Delta

Tarila Marclint Ebiede, KU Leuven

Nigeria has an urgent insecurity problem. News from the country often emphasises insecurity related to Islamic insurgents in Northern Nigeria, organised armed banditry involving Fulani herdsmen, farmer-herder conflicts, kidnapping and armed robbery.

Insecurity has long been a problem in the country’s oil rich Niger Delta region too. From the early 2000s, armed militants targeted oil industry infrastructure and kidnapped expatriates. This continued until the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua introduced an amnesty programme for militants in 2009. Hostilities decreased but the programme focused mainly on securing the oil industry. It did not address the overarching insecurity affecting ordinary people.

Thirty-one million Nigerians live in the Niger Delta area. Most have their roots in local ethnic communities. People in the region are engaged in both formal and informal employment. For many years their lives have been shaped by the political economy of the oil industry. And recurring oil spills have resulted in devastating environmental pollution that has had a brutal effect on their lives and livelihoods.

In our recent book Insecurity in the Niger Delta we identified emerging threats of insecurity, what’s driving it and how it affects the lives of everyone in the region. A major finding is that the Nigerian government has no coherent strategy to address the complex, multidimensional insecurity that has permeated the Niger Delta. To address this, we recommend that the Nigerian government decentralises its security structures and addresses the region’s development concerns.

Emerging insecurity

Our research was conducted in six states of the Niger Delta region: Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo and Rivers State. It showed that each state had unique and crosscutting forms of insecurity. These include cultism, piracy, land struggles, election violence and gangs. They are driven by issues like drug abuse, poverty, unemployment and environmental pollution.

We found that cultism involving young people was a common trend across all the states. Cult groups function as fraternities that engage in public violence. In the past, cultism tended to be restricted to cities and major towns, but now it’s seen in villages in areas such as Bayelsa State. Despite this, it is popularly held that cultists receive support from the political class, especially politicians who use these gangs to carry out acts of violence during elections.

Our study also revealed that internet fraud syndicates contribute to violence, which fuels insecurity in both Edo and Delta states. We found that these syndicates fund armed cult gangs. They also engage in ritual killings. They believe that these rituals can influence their victims to do their bidding.

In Bayelsa and Rivers states, piracy and sea robbery are significant problems. Poor governance, poverty and high youth unemployment are key drivers of piracy that originates from the Niger Delta. While piracy occurs mainly on the Atlantic coast in the Gulf of Guinea, sea robbery along the coast or the inland waterways of Bayelsa and Rivers states contributes to insecurity. One respondent, who is linked to sea pirates, described it like this:

When we were cooking crude oil (artisanal refining of oil), we were enjoying, we were making our money, and we were peaceful. Since the Joint Task Force (joint military force) said we should not do that job, they have burnt all our things so we don’t have any choice, which is why we came back to the river.

In all states across the Niger Delta, there are conflicts within and between communities. These conflicts are mainly driven by contentions over land and struggles over leadership. Local power struggles have been responsible for loss of lives and property in rural communities.

Periodically, elections also contribute to insecurity in the region. During elections, armed young people engage in violence. At least seven people died in one town alone during the 2019 elections in Rivers State.

Our study found a link between street children and insecurity in Calabar, Cross River State. Here, street children have formed groups known as Skolombo and Lacasera. Their presence in the streets makes them susceptible to sexual abuse and recruitment into violence by criminal gangs.

How insecurity affects lives

In Nigeria, political elites are often officially or unofficially protected by state security agents. Those who suffer the consequences of insecurity are ordinary people who don’t have protection.

First, insecurity in the Niger Delta has led to the loss of lives. Young people involved in cult groups or violent criminal activities have been killed either by Nigerian police or local mobs. People who are not involved in cult or criminal activities have also been caught in the crossfire during gang wars or targeted by criminal groups in cases of robbery.

The spread of cult and criminal groups into rural communities, where state security is scarce, leaves villagers at the mercy of gangs. One respondent in Bayelsa noted:

Our lives are not safe along this our Ekeremor waterways, we are living in hell in the hands of our own brothers and sons.

In Rivers State, armed gangs involved in control of public spaces, such as markets and vehicle loading points, make local people pay to use these spaces. Users who fail to pay are excluded or violently attacked.

Insecurity has also significantly affected investments in the Niger Delta. International companies and private investments have shunned the area, often citing cases of insecurity. The Nigerian government introduced laws to ensure that international oil companies engaged local business to provide services and facilities. But these international companies often engaged companies based outside the region. This stifled the demand for labour, contributing to high unemployment which in turn drives crime and insecurity.

Government action

The Nigerian federal and state governments should build a comprehensive framework to address the problem. This framework should address the underlying drivers of insecurity, such as lack of economic opportunities for young people, drug abuse and the absence of the rule of law. It must also address corruption in public office, unfair electoral processes and environmental pollution. The governments should also address weak institutions and poor security governance. State governments must stop giving political rewards to people involved in cult groups.

Finally, actions taken to address insecurity should involve local stakeholders in communities, such as traditional rulers, women and youth leaders.

Tarila Marclint Ebiede, Research Fellow, KU Leuven

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Added 8 April 2021

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Romania’s border on the Black Sea
EMSA provides enhanced surveillance capacities

On 7 April the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) reported that multipurpose coastguard support via a remotely piloted surveillance system (RPAS) services had been provided at the request of the Romanian Border Police.

 

The RPAS system will support a number of authorities in Black Sea waters including the Romanian Naval Authority and National Agency for Fishing and Aquaculture.

 

 

 

 

It is understood that the mid-sized RPAS craft can stay in the air for up to seven hours and has a range of up to 200km. It is equipped with a camera capable of day and night operations, a sea surface scanner, a distress beacon detector and a sensor that can detect vessel positions.

It can be used for a range of activities, including border control, monitoring naval traffic, search and rescue, and environmental protection. Data from the RPAS can be recorded and transferred to the EMSA RPAS data centre in real time, and then made immediately available to national authorities.

EMSA reported that the service has been allocated for six months, and will also contribute to specific missions conducted by the Romanian Border Police within the Multipurpose Maritime Operation 2021 in the Black Sea, in coordination with the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), EMSA and the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA).

RPAS integration was carried out in cooperation with the Romanian Air Force and the Romanian Air Traffic Control Service (ROMATSA), which provided specialised support.

We have been informed that later this year EMSA will add a second RPAS to the region (a light quadcopter), which will operate from the Romanian patrol vessel Stefan Cel Mare.

About RPAS

RPAS services, offered free to all EU Member States by EMSA, have been developed to assist in maritime surveillance operations, in support of authorities involved in coastguard functions, and can operate in all seas surrounding the European Union. RPAS services can provide support to traditional coastguard functions, including search and rescue, maritime surveillance and pollution prevention and response.

The Black Sea service is an important part of EMSA’s regional RPAS strategy, which allows multiple coast guard functions in EU Member States to be supported by one or more RPAS services. Further expansion of RPAS regionally is planned in 2021 and 2022.

About EMSA

The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) is a decentralised agency of the EU, based in Lisbon, Portugal. EMSA serves the EU’s maritime interests for a safe, secure, green and competitive maritime sector through support for pollution prevention and response, maritime surveillance, safety and security, digitalisation and the provision of integrated maritime services, and technical assistance.

 

Edited by Paul Ridgway
London

 

Added 8 April 2021

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QUARK’S ULTRAMARINE READY TO SAIL THE POLAR OCEANS

Quark Expeditions, part of the UK-based TUI Travel PLC Group of Companies, which has for many years specialised in polar expedition cruises, has taken delivery of their new polar cruise ship from Croatian builder Brodosplit.

The 13,500-gt Marshall Islands-flagged ship is named ULTRAMARINE (IMO 9861017) and has a length of 128 metres, a draught of 5.1 metres, accommodation for 199 guests and 140 crewmembers, and onboard space for two helicopters and 20 rubber boats.

Ultramarine’s inaugural Arctic season will involve voyages to Spitsbergen, Greenland and the Canadian Arctic.

Onboard amenities include an auditorium, ready rooms, a spacious restaurant, an indoor/outdoor dining bistro, a spa, a sauna, a fitness centre, and a lounge/bar with large panoramic windows. Accommodation options involving 103 cabins include solo cabins, three-person cabins, two-person suites, and an owner’s suite.

Quark says that Ultramarine is designed to go beyond the familiar in polar exploration, to discover new places, and to immerse passengers in the best the region has to offer.

“Equipped with two twin-engine helicopters, Ultramarine offers the most robust portfolio of adventure activities in the industry, the most spacious suites in its category, breathtaking public spaces, and more outdoor wildlife viewing spaces than other expedition ships its size. It also features an innovative mix of sustainability features that exceed all industry standards,” says Quark.

The newbuild has ice class 1A+ and polar class 6 notation and can cruise at 16 knots in open water.

Technical aspects

On the technical side, Ultramarine incorporates features designed to minimise the ship’s environmental footprint in keeping with its Polar Promise sustainability framework.

According to Lyndsey Lewis, Quark Expeditions operations and sustainability manager, the ship employs “ultra-efficient energy systems.” The vessel has four main Anglo Belgian Corporation (ABC) engines of two different sizes in two separate engine-rooms, compliant with the stringent IMO Tier III requirements.

Each engine drives an electric generator which supplies power to the main propulsion motors at 3,000 kW each, and to the two bow thrusters at 600 kW each, a single stern thruster at 800 kW, and all onboard electrical consumption.

This configuration is said to allow for the most fuel efficient and low emissions operation over a wide variety of operating speeds and conditions.

The vessel also features a micro auto gasification system (MAGS), which according to Lewis, “….gasifies combustible waste. Mixed waste is converted into thermal energy and solid carbon matter, called biochar, decreasing the waste volume by 95%.”

She says that having two diesel engines sizes allows Ultramarine to meet fluctuating power needs, automatically shifting to the optimal combination and minimising fuel use and exhaust emissions.

A re-imagined hull and propeller design is designed to ensure the lowest possible resistance, reducing the power required to propel the ship.

Another feature involves reused heat. The ship’s enthalpy wheel, a heat recovery system, “salvages useful energy and returns it to the ship as fresh air, reducing the amount of energy required to heat the ship.” she says.

A consistent environment is also important. “Fan coil units, top-quality thermal insulation and low heat-transfer windows in every suite mitigate against high variability in HVAC usage, keeping temperatures stable.”

LEDs throughout the ship produce potential energy savings of up to 50% compared with standard fluorescent lighting. – trh

Youtube video [3:16]

Added 8 April 2021

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Tullow Oil begins drilling at Ghana’s Jubilee Field

Tullow Oil, the multinational oil and gas exploration company founded in Tullow, Ireland, has announced the start of a multi-year, multi-well drilling campaign off the coast of Ghana, following the commencement of drilling of the first well at the Jubilee Field this week.

The drill ship MAERSK VENTURER (IMO 9633563), which has been contracted for four years, is expected to drill four wells in total in 2021, consisting of two Jubilee production wells, one Jubilee water injector well and one TEN gas injector well.

The 2021 drilling campaign is the first part of Tullow’s 10-year Business Plan which was presented at Tullow’s Capital Markets Day in November 2020. The Ghana portfolio has a large resource base with extensive infrastructure already in place.

Through a rigorous focus on costs and capital discipline, Tullow says it believes that these assets have the potential to generate material cash flow over the next decade and deliver significant value for Ghana and investors.

Throughout this campaign, Tullow will continue to implement its ‘Shared Prosperity’ strategy through a strong local content programme with suppliers in Ghana, the professional and technical development of Ghanaian nationals and continued investment in STEM education, enterprise development and shared infrastructure.

“Today is an important milestone in the implementation of our long-term Business Plan. Working closely with the Government of Ghana and our joint venture partners in Ghana, I am confident that we will unlock the full potential from the Jubilee and TEN fields through this multi-year, multi-well drilling programme,” said Rahul Dhir, Chief Executive Officer, Tullow Oil plc.

Tullow Oil sells assets in Equatorial Guinea

In other news Tullow has completed the sale of its assets in Equatorial Guinea to Panoro Energy ASA from whom it received a payment of $88.8 million.

The sale was concluded at the end of March 2021.

The transaction includes contingent cash payments of up to $16 million which are linked to asset performance and oil price. The closing of this transaction follows the satisfaction of all completion conditions, including the approval from the Government of Equatorial Guinea and Tullow and Panoro shareholders and other customary third-party approvals.

Although Tullow will continue to have a financial link to the assets in Ceiba and Okume fields, the closing of this transaction marks Tullow’s exit from its licences in Equatorial Guinea after 18 years.

The sale of the Dussafu Asset in Gabon to Panoro is expected to complete in the second quarter of 2021.

Added 7 March 2021

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Call back the past: Coaster Sunergon plies her trade to Africa

The appearance of a true ‘coaster’ sized vessel on the South African coast is considered a rare thing nowadays. Long gone are the days when small coasters plied the trade between all Southern African ports between Walvis Bay and Beira.

With the government allowing cabotage for all comers in South African waters, today it is the big European and Asian operators who conduct coastal and feeder operations of South African cargo destined for another South African port.

The demise of Unicorn Lines on this long established trade with their variety of coastal products tankers, general cargo, container, Ro-Ro and small multi-purpose ships has left South Africa with no locally owned shipping concern capable of conducting domestic voyages in home waters. This picture is not likely to change soon.

On 31 March at 11h00, the small Dutch flagged SUNERGON (IMO 9362580) arrived in Cape Town from Takoradi in Ghana. Whilst small in stature, Sunergon is very much a deepsea voyager, she had loaded at Antwerp and Emden and departed northern Europe on 18 February, calling in at Nouakchott, Dakar, Abidjan and Takoradi en route to Cape Town.

Her call in the Cape was only for bunkers and stores and she sailed on 1 April at 11h00 for Mozambique after a stop of just 24 hours. Her pedigree at undertaking such big voyages are borne out by the fact that she has, over the last three years, made several voyages between ports in Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, India, Central America, the Caribbean, West Africa and her current voyage to Southern Africa.

She was previously in Cape Town back in October 2016 on a voyage from Sao Tome with general cargo and back to Bata, in Equatorial Guinea, with containers loaded in the Ben Schoeman Dock.

Built in 2006 by the Instalho Shipyard at Werkendam in Holland, Sunergon is 88 metres in length with a deadweight of 3,212 tons. Owned since 2019 by Valparola Sunergon BV of Rhoon in Holland, she is operated by the Vertom Group, also of Groon.

Designed as a multi-purpose vessel capable of carrying dry bulk cargoes, breakbulk cargo or containers, Sunergon has one flush, single deck, box shaped hold, running the length of the vessel, and serviced by a single 30 ton crane, and has a container carrying capacity of 164 TEU.

During her call at Cape Town she was carrying a breakbulk cargo of steel products to Maputo in Mozambique, and on completion of discharge is expected to be making the long voyage back to Europe, again via the west coast of Africa, which will probably have her calling once more at a South African port for bunkers and fresh stores, for her return voyage.

Added 7 April 2021

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MSC to base flagship MSC Virtuosa in UK waters for summer

MSC Cruises will stage its 181,000-ton cruise ship MSC VIRTUOSA, the line’s current flagship, in British waters for the coming summer months, making its debut on 20 May and sailing from Southampton in the first of 3 and 4-night mini cruises ahead of 7-night cruises from 12 June while utilising three embarkation ports in England and Scotland.

As has become the custom with MSC’s successful Mediterranean cruising all voyages will be, in this case, for British residents only and for passengers of all ages who are either waiting for a COVID-19 vaccine or who have already been vaccinated.

All passengers will be tested before they embark the ship and non-vaccinated guests will also be required to show proof of a negative test conducted up to 72 hours prior to embarkation.

Other pre-boarding and onboard measures will also apply to both guests and crew, in line with MSC Cruises’ industry-leading health and safety protocol.

The range of four-night mini-cruises will offer a late sail from Southampton and will provide the ultimate short getaway for couples or friends in search of a quick escape. The ship will call at the Isle of Portland in Dorset, part of the Jurassic Coast, where guests will be able to go ashore to enjoy the perfect day out at the beach. The itinerary will also include two days at sea.

From 12 June, holidaymakers will have on offer seven-night sailings that will include stops in Portland and the cultural city of Belfast in Northern Ireland and offer multiple ports of embarkation including Liverpool and Greenock, close to Glasgow in Scotland.

“It’s time for UK holidaymakers to get back on board and enjoy a well-deserved break from what has been a very challenging 12 months for everyone in so many ways,” said Antonio Paradiso, managing director MSC Cruises UK & Ireland.

“Our hope is to offer every type of holidaymaker the chance to escape this summer – from grandparents to teens and even the smallest of passengers looking to explore.”

MSC Virtuosa, one of the Meraviglia class vessels, was delivered in February. See our report CLICK HERE

The ship was previously scheduled to serve itineraries in Northern Europe out of Germany, she will be replaced by MSC Seaview.

Added 7 March 2021

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Egypt ready to open new naval base on Mediterranean coast

Egypt is preparing to open a new naval base near its border with Libya, on the African country’s Mediterranean coast.

The base is seen as a necessary safeguard against unrest in Egypt’s neighbour, Libya, as well as a means of asserting itself and the country’s boundaries and economic interests.

The naval base, to be known as the 3rd of July Naval base is situated in Gargoub, a little-known port town about 155 miles (250 kilometres) from the border with Libya. It will become a homeport to Egypt’s Northern Fleet.

The base is close to the the city of Dabaa where Egypt’s nuclear power plant, to be constructed by Russia’s Rosatom, is intended. The northwestern coast is regarded as the country’s next economic hub, with several other major projects underway or in the pipeline.

These include the under-construction New Alamein City close to the coastal city of Marsa Matruh and a former World War II site. Egypt plans to establish other cities or large towns along this coast to help redistribute its population of more than 100 million, most of whom live along the Nile River and the immediate Mediterranean coast.

The northwestern coast is seen as full of security challenges, particularly in light of developments in Libya, a retired Egyptian navy admiral, Mohamed Mitwali told the Egyptian newspaper, Al-Monitor. But, he said, the fleet is well equipped to counter these challenges and defend national economic interests in the same area.

The Al-Monitor report said that Libya has become a major concern for Egypt since 2019 when regional rival Turkey stepped up its involvement in Libya by sending military advisers and thousands of Syrian mercenaries into Libya to take part in the civil war in that country.

In June 2020, President Sisi declared most of eastern Libya an Egyptian red line, threatening a military intervention if Libya’s UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) troops or the mercenaries paid by Turkey crossed it.

Egypt’s navy has undergone a modernisation programme with the acquisition of modern naval ships, including the two French-built Mistral-class amphibious assault ships originally intended for Russia, various patrol boats, four German-made Type-209 diesel-electric attack submarines, six German-made MEKO A-200 frigates, a FREMM multipurpose frigate and four Gowind-class corvettes.

This is in addition to its ageing, largely Soviet-era fleet of naval ships.

In January 2020, Egypt opened the Bernice military/naval base on the Red Sea, close to Egypt’s border with Sudan, the southern entrance to the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

No date has been provided for the official opening of the new Mediterranean base but an invitation was recently issued on behalf of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to Jordan’s King Abdullah II to attend its opening. source: Al-Monitor

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NIGER DELTA KING: the story of a long-staying Cape Town visitor

Many of the oil and gas industry vessels that arrive in Cape Town for maintenance purposes are generally in for only a short period of time, a few weeks or months at most, before sailing back on charter to the oil company, usually in West Africa. However, every now and then a vessel arrives and, for no apparent reason, then tends to stay on in the confines of the harbour for years.

The reasons for these long stays are numerous and can be for reasons of lay-up, between contracts, admiralty arrest, abandonment or awaiting disposal.

One such ‘long staying’ vessel is the Nigerian flagged NIGER DELTA KING (IMO 9413212). She arrived in Cape Town way back on 9 April 2015, under tow by the South African tug SMIT LOMBOK (IMO 9366316) from Walvis Bay. Her tow had started from Lagos in Nigeria, where she had suffered a serious engine room fire in late 2014. She appears to have been alongside in Cape Town ever since.

The Niger Delta King was launched in 2012 at the Tebma Shipyard of Chennai in India, originally ordered as TRICO SEA for Trico Marine Services of Houston. She was soon acquired by Nkrah Marine of Calabar in Nigeria, a company which started out in 1997 as a marine catering service supplier and Niger Delta King is their only offshore supply vessel. Designed as a multipurpose supply vessel Niger Delta King is 73 metres in length and had a deadweight of 3,419 tons.

Prior to her arrival in Cape Town, Dormac Marine Engineering surveyors had attended to the vessel to assess its fire damage in the port of Lagos. The fire had started in the vicinity of the lower engine room and it had moved upwards through the remainder of the engine room and then into the accommodation. Extensive damage had occurred throughout the vessel due to direct fire, smoke, heat, water, humidity and unseen voltage spikes.

The work undertaken by Dormac Marine Engineering in Cape Town was quite intensive and included structural repairs and replacement carried out to steel bulkheads and decks, piping and cabling was replaced throughout the vessel, electrical systems and lighting replaced, the entire accommodation was rebuilt over 5 decks, including galley and laundry equipment installed and navigation, communications, fire detection and suppression, plus steering systems and tank sounding systems were replaced on the bridge and throughout the vessel.

Repair and rebuilding work on Niger Delta King was virtually complete by the end of 2016, but she continued to remain in Cape Town. However, not everything appeared to be fine with the vessel as on 13 June 2019 a Court Application for the sale of the vessel was brought against Niger Delta King by a Cape Town Shipping Agency, and promulgated in the Western Cape High Court roll. This was followed by Legal Notices being published in local newspapers, such as the Cape Times and the Mail and Guardian, advertising that the vessel was to be offered for sale at Public Auction.

This was the start of a protracted legal battle as the High Court Roll of 9 July 2019 included a Rule Nisi [to show cause] in the case. This was followed by yet further Rule Nisi, published in the High Court Rolls on 8 August 2019 and 29 August 2019.

On 5 September 2019 a further Legal Notice was published in the Cape Times newspaper to serve notice that a Judicial Auction of the vessel had been ordered. Then on 16 October 2019 a further Court Application, on behalf of the Shipping Agency, appeared in the Western Cape High Court roll, against the ‘Niger Delta King’ plus ‘one other’ and again for the sale of the vessel.

This was followed by a further Rule Nisi 4 November 2019 on Niger Delta King plus ‘one other’. As of March 2021 it is presumed that the conditions of the High Court Rule Nisi were all met, as the vessel appears to still remain under the sole ownership of Nkrah Marine.

Despite all of this high drama, and with the time spent lying in Cape Town harbour mostly on Dormac’s 502 maintenance berth in the Ben Schoeman Dock, Niger Delta King is now lying on the end of the Repair Quay in the Duncan Dock, where there are rumours circulating in the harbour that she will be sailing in the not too distant future, possibly within weeks. As they say… ‘Watch this space’.

Reporting by Jay Gates
Pictures by ‘Dockrat’

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ECO SAVONA: Maiden call of Grimaldi’s Knud E Hansen-designed hybrid ship

The call at Durban port on Monday of a new RoRo vessel was for bunkers only but it afforded the opportunity of witnessing a RoRo Hybrid vessel unlikely to be seen in these parts for at least some years to come.

The ship was the ECO SAVONA (IMO 9859569) which is on her delivery voyage from the Chinese Nanjing Jinling shipyard to her owner/operator, the Grimaldi Group, and it is thought that she was diverted round the Cape of Good Hope on account of the blocked Suez Canal.

The bunker call took only a matter of hours, with the ship arriving on Monday night 5 April and sailing at 08h00 the following morning, Tuesday 6 April. Eco Savona is currently heading south-west along the Eastern Cape (Transkei) coast into a Force 5 fresh breeze at an impressive 21.3 knots, slightly above her given service speed of 21 knots, with her destination and arrival shown as Valencia on 19 April.

Eco Savona is the fourth of a planned nine similar hybrid RoRo ferries, all to the Danish Knud E Hansen-inspired design and embracing 600m² of solar panels charging batteries for use while in port. Her departure from Durban said little about the rest of her emission control, with smoke emitting from her scrubbers to add to the poor photographic visibility brought about by facing into a rising sun partially hidden in cloud.

Technical aspects

The length o.a. of each of the nine vessels is 238 metres with a moulded breadth of 34 metres. They have a depth to main deck of 9.3 metres and a draught to summer load line of 7.2 metres. The gross weight is 67,000 tons and a summer deadweight of 24,000 tons.

The ship requires a crew of 31 in service and can carry 12 passengers. The 7,800 lane metres available provides space for the equivalent of around 500 trailers.

The Grimaldi Green 5th Generation (GG5G) class was conceived by the Grimaldi Group Technical and Energy Saving Department in partnership with the Knud E Hansen naval design studio and the Nanjing Jinling Shipyard and incorporates various innovative elements that are partly patented and protected by copyright.

Among other features incorporated into the ship is a Silverstream Technologies air lubrication system that enables the ship to ride on a carpet of micro bubbles, reducing the frictional resistance between the hull and the water. The vessel uses a Rolls-Royce Promas Lite propulsion system, and a waste heat recovery system as well as silicone coating on the hull.

The GG5G class ships use latest-generation electronically-controlled engines which are powered by fossil fuels during navigation, with exhaust gas cleaning systems (scrubbers) reducing sulphur and particulate (SOx) emissions.

While at berth electric batteries provide sufficient power to meet energy demands on the ship, thus providing ‘Zero Emissions in Port’ The lithium batteries are recharged during navigation thanks to shaft generators and the solar panels.

The first ship in this class is the ECO VALENCIA, followed by ECO BARCELONA and in February by the ECO LIVORNO. All nine of the GG5G class will be deployed in the Mediterannean while an additional three of the class will be operated by the Grimaldi Group subsidiary, Finnlines in Northern Europe. The GG5G are reputed to be the largest short sea RoRo vessels in the world. – trh

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REFLECTIONS: Antarctic research ship Akademik Aleksandr Karpinskiy returns to Cape Town

Cape Town is, not for nothing, known as ‘The Gateway to Antarctica’ and every Austral summer there are upwards of a dozen visits of Icebreakers, Antarctic Supply Ships and Oceanographic Research Ships using the port to conduct crew and scientific staff changes, take on stores and bunkers, onload and offload cargo, and for medical evacuation purposes from the Southern Continent. Not unexpectedly, the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic put a stop to that.

Not only were base resupply voyages severely cut back, but the signatory nations of the Antarctic Treaty also cancelled almost every scientific voyage that was planned to be conducted by specialised oceanographic research ships. The reason for this was obvious, the inability to safely transport scientists and crew from their home nation to the port of departure, and conduct the reverse, not helped by almost every coastal nation banning international air travel into and out of their port cities.

So it was pleasing to see that the Russian Government was almost the only nation to conduct an oceanographic voyage to Antarctica in early 2021. That voyage would be undertaken by the Russian research vessel AKADEMIK ALEKSANDR KARPINSKIY (IMO 8227238).

The vessel, which was already docked in Cape Town undergoing a significant maintenance period over the Cape winter, was readied to sail south on completion of her maintenance.

She sailed south for Antarctica from Cape Town on 4 February at 16h00, and she arrived back in Cape Town on Thursday 1 April at 10h00 after 56 days away. She initially went alongside on the outermost point of the harbour, on the far outside of Quay 700 of the Ben Schoeman Dock, in an area known at one time as ‘The Can Opener’ because of all the ships that had clipped this little bit of breakwater and quayside whilst entering port.

Built in 1984 the Akademik Aleksandr Karpinskiy is 104 metres in length and with a deadweight of 1,959 tons. She is one of the Soviet designed Pulkovskiy Meridian class of stern trawler, which with eight other units of this class under Project 12883M was selected for conversion into a research ship whilst being built. As with all of the 113 vessels of this class, she was built at the Chernomorskiy Shipyard of Nikolaev in Ukraine and was upgraded in 2014.

As with most Russian research ships, Akademik Aleksandr Karpinskiy is a Russian government owned and operated vessel subordinated out to a civilian (non-naval) agency of the government, in this case the Polar Marine Geosurvey Expedition (PMGE) of St Petersburg, which is itself a branch of the state run Geological Survey, known as RosGeologia.

 

The Akademik Aleksandr Karpinskiy is well equipped to carry out her stated mission, and is a multi-disciplinary vessel capable of conducting 2D Seismic Surveys, Hydromagnetic Surveys, Gravimetric Surveys, Geological Sampling and Multibeam Oceanfloor Mapping. Undertaking such scientific voyages with Akademik Aleksandr Karpinskiy, Russia stoked political tensions back in 2017 with the start of an open hunt for Antarctic oil and minerals, despite the Antarctic Treaty not allowing the commercial mining, or extraction, of all minerals and oil or gas. This hunt is still going on using this vessel.

The first such scientific research voyage based on geological exploration, was intensified after 2017. The initial stage of the Russian government policy was carried out between 2017 and 2018, when PMGE conducted a series of research expeditions primarily aimed at seismological and geophysical exploration of the Antarctic Weddell Sea and its shelf. It was also revealed in government statements that the work, carried out by the Akademik Aleksandr Karpinskiy, had the goal of geological and geophysical study and assessment of the mineral potential of the subsoil of Antarctica and its marginal seas, and the assessment of the oil and gas potential.

That expedition explored the Riiser-Larsen Sea, the Cosmonauts Sea, the Commonwealth Sea, the Davis Sea, the Mawson Sea and the D’Urville Sea of Antarctica. During the second stage (2019–2020), research focus shifted to the Riiser-Larsen Sea, the least-studied area in the southern part of the Indian Ocean.

On 12 February 2020, when Akademik Aleksandr Karpinskiy arrived back in Cape Town from that Antarctic voyage, PMGE reported on the successful completion of a complex of marine geophysical exploration work, within the scope of the 65th Russian Antarctic Expedition.

This current voyage, which ended on 1 April in Cape Town also had the vessel conducting similar research in the far South Indian Ocean, just off the Antarctic coastline. Interestingly, every Antarctic voyage of the Akademik Aleksandr Karpinskiy, since the 2016-2017 season and through to the 2019-2020 season, has been submitted by the Russian Government on the Antarctic Treaty Electronic Information Exchange System (EIES).

However, this voyage for the 2020-2021 season does not appear to have been made public and it was not listed on the EIES site.

Story by Jay Gates
Pictures by ‘Dockrat’

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HIGH CALIBRE CHEFS

MCTC, a leading international catering management and training provider, has transformed seafarers into high calibre chefs showcasing their techniques and skills through its annual Cooking Competition.

Galley crews were invited to create their own award-winning recipes or bring their own twist on a special variation of a well-known Sweet Pie recipe and they created gastronomic delights resembling works of art with food carvings and complex recipes (see illustrations here). Chefs were also challenged with making short crust pastry and a delicious filling to whet the diner’s appetite.

Each client’s vessel was invited to participate with winners across a range of categories.

Tonia Drousiotou, Culinary Training Consultant at MCTC, commented: “The annual Cooking Competition is designed to highlight the sophisticated level of training that galley crew receive as well as inject some fun into the kitchen. We want to encourage seafarers to feel passionate about food and the dishes they create. It’s one of our favourite times of year judging the creations because the crew all work so hard and create some amazing dishes.”

Christian Ioannou, MCTC Managing Director, added: “This year we’ve been really impressed with the complexity of some of the dishes. As a fully trained chef, I understand the skills required to craft some of these recipes. Everyone has gone above and beyond the brief for entering the annual Cooking Competition. We have been delighted at the number of entries we received and want to say congratulations to everyone for the fantastic dishes they created.”

MCTC offers a full Catering Management Programme covering the vessel’s entire catering management needs such as ordering supplies, recipe planning, menu management, health and nutrition – all of which reduce vessel running costs. It also provides a Catering Competency Development Programme designed to increase standards in the galley through a safe food handling and nutrition course; onshore upgrading culinary course; trade tests, briefings, on board visits and also crew conferences.

About MCTC

MCTC (Marine Catering Training Consultancy) is an international catering management and training business, offering a full Catering Management service as well as a range of training programmes.

Its Catering Management service covers a vessel’s entire catering management needs such as recipe planning, menu management, health and nutrition, including ordering supplies, which all reduce vessel running costs.

MCTC uses distinctive training methods which it offers to clients day in, day out, year round. This incorporates a very broad degree development and upgrade training with a range of programmes, onshore and offshore.

HQ is in Limassol and there are offices in Makati City (Philippines), Singapore and Hamburg.

More information about MCTC is available CLICK HERE

 

Edited by Paul Ridgway
London

 

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IN CONVERSATION: Farming fish in fresh water is more affordable and sustainable than in the ocean

Ben Belton, Michigan State University; Dave Little, University of Stirling, and Wenbo Zhang, Shanghai Ocean University

A tidal wave of interest is building in farming the seas. It’s part of a global rush to exploit oceanic resources that’s been dubbed the “blue acceleration.”

Optimistic projections say that smart mariculture – fish farming at sea – could increase ocean fish and shellfish production by 21 million to 44 million metric tons by 2050, a 36%-74% jump from current yields. Other estimates suggest that an ocean aquaculture area the size of Lake Michigan might produce the same amount of seafood as all of the world’s wild-caught fisheries combined.

This story is part of Oceans 21

Our series on the global ocean opened with five in depth profiles. Look out for new articles on the state of our oceans in the lead up to the UN’s next climate conference, COP26. The series is brought to you by The Conversation’s international network.

Our work as interdisciplinary researchers studying aquatic food systems shows that these claims exaggerate mariculture’s true potential, and that increasing mariculture in a sustainable way is fraught with challenges.

We see freshwater fish farms as a better way to help fight hunger and bolster food security. In our view, governments, funders and scientists should focus on improving aquaculture on land to help meet the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals.

Questionable assumptions

Ocean aquaculture advocates often cite limited supplies of wild-caught fish and call for cultivating them to feed the world. As they see it, aquaculture on land is limited by scarce land and freshwater resources, while the oceans offer vast areas suitable for farming.

Framed this way, mariculture seems to offer boundless potential to meet future demand for seafood and feed vulnerable populations with little environmental impact. But our research paints a different picture. We see far fewer technical, economic and resource constraints for freshwater aquaculture than for ocean farming, and far greater potential for land-based fish farms to contribute to global food security.

Freshwater aquaculture has grown steadily over the past three decades. Asia is at the center of this boom, accounting for 89% of world aquaculture production, excluding plants.

The most important species groups – carp, tilapia and catfish – are herbivorous or omnivorous, so they don’t need to eat animal protein to thrive. While they may be fed small amounts of fish to speed growth, their mainstay diet consists of inexpensive byproducts of crops like rice, groundnut and soy, as well as natural plankton.

It’s relatively cheap and easy to grow freshwater fish in small earthen ponds. Aquaculture has been an economic boon, especially in Asia, providing jobs and income for vast numbers of family farms, workers and small businesses. Farmed freshwater fish tend to be an affordable staple food for millions of low- and middle-income consumers – and many better-off ones, too.

Raising marine fish

Raising marine fish is a different proposition. The harsh ocean environment makes production risky, and the biology of these species makes many of them difficult and costly to breed and grow.

Most marine aquaculture species are carnivores, so they need other fish as part of their diets. About 20 million metric tons of fish caught each year is used instead to feed farmed fish. It’s a contentious environmental and ethical issue, as some of these fish could otherwise be food for humans.

Improvements in technology have reduced, though not eliminated, the amount of fish used in feeds, especially for farmed salmon. It now takes half as much fresh fish to raise salmon as it did 20 years ago.

These innovations were achieved through massive investments by the Norwegian government and the industry, dating back to the 1970s. Research focused on genetic improvement, nutrition and production systems, and it’s paid off. Farmed salmon now accounts for 45% of all fish farmed from the sea.

However, it’s unlikely that other less popular fish, like grouper, sea bass or cobia, will be as thoroughly researched or farmed with the same efficiency. The market is too small.

For a land-based analogy, think of chickens. Like salmon, they have long been the focus of intensive research and development. As a result, they now grow to market size in just 45 days. On the other hand, the guinea fowl – a chickenlike bird raised for specialty markets – has undergone limited selective breeding, develops slowly and yields far less meat, making it more costly to raise and more expensive to buy.

Farming the open ocean

Marine fish farming is currently done in sheltered bays and sea lochs. But there is growing interest in a new high-tech method that raises fish in huge submersible cages anchored far from land in the open ocean. It’s risky business, with high operating costs. Expensive infrastructure is vulnerable to intense storms.

To be successful, offshore farms will need to grow high-priced fish such as bluefin tuna. And they will need to operate at industrial scale, like SalMar’s massive “Ocean Farm” in Norway, which has capacity for 1.5 million fish.

While open-ocean mariculture may be technically feasible, its economic viability is questionable. Pilot projects in Norway, China and the U.S. are not yet commercially successful. And though there is strong global demand for salmon, other species like grouper have small niche markets. They are likely to remain specialized high-end products because of steep production costs.

Freshwater alternatives

Human population is growing fastest in Africa, and incomes are rising most rapidly in Asia. Most additional future demand for fish will come from low- and middle-income consumers in these regions. Farming tilapia and catfish is already becoming more popular in Egypt and both West and East Africa.

[Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world. Sign up today.]

Meanwhile, total seafood consumption in high-income countries has plateaued since 2000. But even in these countries, demand for farmed freshwater fish is growing because it’s an affordable source of protein. In the U.S., tilapia, pangasius (freshwater catfish) and channel catfish are the fourth-, sixth- and eighth-most-consumed seafood items.

Offshore mariculture might one day produce luxury fish that generate profits for a few large investors. But we believe freshwater aquaculture will continue to feed far more people and benefit many more farmers and small businesses.

Investments in selective breeding, disease control and farm management through public-private partnerships can create a more sustainable aquaculture industry, reducing the amount of land, freshwater and feed used to grow fish while increasing productivity. For more inclusive and sustainable development, we believe governments and funders should prioritize raising fish on land.

Ben Belton, Associate Professor of International Development, Michigan State University; Dave Little, Professor of Aquatic Resources Development, University of Stirling, and Wenbo Zhang, Lecturer in Fisheries and Life Science, Shanghai Ocean University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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WFO responds to emergency in harbour town of Palma

Operating from the port town of Pemba in Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique, the WFP (United Nations World Food Programme) says it is working around the clock to assist people in need following the latest outbreak of violence in Palma town.

The brutal attacks by Jihadist insurgents have left thousands of people fleeing their homes in Palma and in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.

In response, WFP has ramped up assistance and aims to reach up to 50,000 people affected by the attacks.

The humanitarian crisis in Cabo Delgado Province, highlighted now by the attack on Palma, is the result of more than 300 armed attacks since the first attacks October 2017.

The violence has resulted in widespread displacement, loss of lives and casualties, massive destruction of infrastructure and disruption of humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable people in central and northern districts of Cabo Delgado.

The food security situation in Cabo Delgado is highly fragile, mostly attributed to the escalation of violence and insecurity that deprives households of access to productive assets and livelihood activities, and results in crop abandonment during harvest.

According to the WFP, more than 900,000 people in the provinces of Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Nampula are now facing crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity. High levels of hunger are driven by insecurity and compounded by climatic shocks, which have disrupted agriculture and livelihoods.

With limited supplies reaching markets, the cost of food and household items has skyrocketed. Cabo Delgado has the second highest rate of chronic malnutrition in Mozambique (53% compared to the national average of 43%) and any shock could rapidly deteriorate the nutritional situation. Without urgent and sustained assistance, already desperate communities will be pushed further into crisis.

The ongoing attacks have displaced 680 thousand people as of March 2021, including internally displaced persons (IDPs) seeking refuge in Nampula and Niassa provinces.

WFP fears the situation may be worse in inaccessible areas, such as the harbour town of Mocimboa da Praia (MdP), Macomia, Muidumbe and Quissanga where more than 35,000 people may be trapped due to the areas being unsafe and with limited law enforcement.

The COVID-19 pandemic has added an additional layer of complexity in all humanitarian operations in Cabo Delgado, including critical food security interventions.

Due to the recent attack in the town of Palma, it is estimated that an additional 20,000 people have been displaced.

WFP Operations involving Palma

WFP is providing emergency food assistance including High Energy Biscuits and Immediate Response Rations (IRR) consisting of rice, pulses, vegetable oil, canned foods such as sardines and beans, biscuits and water for people being evacuated both by air and sea as well as for those fleeing on foot.

Some 2,000 of these ration kits are currently being deployed to support displaced people should they arrive in Pemba, Ibo Island and neighbouring districts such as Mueda and Nangade.

The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) managed by the World Food Programme is providing an air bridge to transport critical medical staff, humanitarian workers as close as possible to the operational sites, as well as provide medical evacuation of people in need.

UNHAS is exceptionally supporting the evacuation of civilians, including women and children and those critically injured. Since the onset of the crisis on 24 March, a total of 18 UNHAS rotations were made, evacuating 335 people.

WFP is committed to ensuring emergency assistance reaches those who need it most and plans to continue food assistance in Palma as soon as it is safe for all humanitarian staff and partners to do so: WFP and UNICEF are on stand-by with an extra 2,000 food kits and water, sanitation and hygiene emergency kits to assist affected people in Palma.

WFP is working with partners to deploy humanitarian teams in strategic points to receive people who are fleeing clashes and is contributing to the collective effort of humanitarian organizations and civil society to provide social services to those affected.

Prior to the attacks, WFP and partners had delivered 258 metric tonnes of food and nutrition assistance to meet the needs of nearly 16,000 people for a month in Palma.

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USCG protecting America’s interests at home and abroad

The Legend-class national security cutter USCGC Hamilton (WMSL 753) with the Sentinel-class fast response cutters USCGC Charles Moulthrope (WPC 1141) and USCGC Robert Goldman (WPC 1142) departed Puerto Rico to transit the North Atlantic to Europe on 1 April.

In the words of Captain Timothy Cronin, CO of USCGC Hamilton. “US Coast Guard cutters have a long history of protecting America’s interests at home and abroad. This historic deployment demonstrates how we can strengthen our national security by extending the Coast Guard’s global reach and firming our commitments to Allies and partners in the region.”

Hamilton is escorting the fast response cutters across the Atlantic before conducting a patrol in the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet area of responsibility to maintain maritime security alongside NATO Allies and partners. The Moulthrope and Goldman crews will continue to their new homeport of Manama, Bahrain, with brief stops for logistics and relationship building.

It is reported that planning for the escort and deployment began last year to ensure smooth delivery of the fast response cutters, replacing the Island-class ships currently in operation under the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet command.

Lieutenant Commander Steven Hulse, CO of USCGC Charles Moulthrope commented: “Our primary goal for the fast response cutters is to complete the 9,000-mile voyage to homeport safely and efficiently. In addition, we will capitalise on opportunities to strengthen international partnerships promoting security and prosperity throughout some of the world’s busiest maritime trade routes.”

Commanding Officer of USCGC Robert Goldman, Lieutenant Commander. Samuel Blasé added: “We expect to showcase the capabilities of the fast response cutter, and the US Coast Guard to advance the shared maritime strategy for security with the U.S. Navy and naval partners in the region, while concurrently engaging with them on the more traditional US Coast Guard missions of search and rescue, maritime law enforcement, and illegal fisheries enforcement.”

The US Navy and US Coast Guard operate forward, from the littoral to the open ocean, ensuring stability and open sea lanes across all maritime domains.

US Coast Guard operations in US Sixth Fleet demonstrate commitment, flexibility, and capability to operate and address security concerns throughout Europe and Africa.

In the words of Vice Admiral Steven Poulin, Commander, US Coast Guard Atlantic Area: “The US Coast Guard is a member of the Joint Force, a key and always-ready instrument to further national security objectives globally.

“It has been almost two decades since we sent the Island-class patrol boats to Bahrain. As we seek to modernise our asset support to the US Navy in the Arabian Gulf, this is an excellent opportunity to advance partnerships and learn from our allies in the region.”

Hamilton is the fourth ship in its class. The Legend-class is the largest current cutter class of the US Coast Guard. These vessels support various missions, including environmental protection, search and rescue, fisheries, port security, counter-terrorism, law enforcement, drug interdiction, defence operations, and other military operations.

 

Edited by Paul Ridgway
London

 

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WHARF TALK: Yenisei River calls at Cape Town – first Suez diversion to enter SA port?

LNG vessels are not regular callers in South African ports as the nation does not possess any significant LNG Import and Storage Terminals with Regasification facilities. So it is always an unusual sight to see a large LNG tanker enter any South African port, and to do so is always due to some intervening situation that has changed the vessels original itinerary or routing.

The only big change to the major sea routes in recent days has been the blockage of the Suez Canal by the Ever Given, which occurred on 23 March and remained blocked until 29 March.

Over the Easter weekend, on 4 April at 17h00 the LNG tanker YENISEI RIVER (IMO 9629586) entered Cape Town harbour and berthed at the Eastern Mole. According to her AIS record, she appeared to have been on a voyage, originally, from Zhoushan in China to Sabine Pass, located on the Louisiana/Texas border in the USA.

Her route took her via Singapore, and then Suez. On March 15th Yenisei River departed Zhoushan, where there is a large LNG Import Terminal, and passed through Singapore on 21 March en route to Sabine Pass, which has three large LNG Export Terminals.

A voyage from China to the Gulf of Mexico, via Suez, would be a sensible route and the two previous voyages of the vessel had her routing via the Suez Canal from European LNG Export Terminals to China. It was after departure from Singapore that her route changed from Singapore-Suez to Singapore-Cape Town and which tied up with the blockage of the Suez Canal.

Is it possible that Yenisei River is the first arrival at a South African port for a vessel diverted by her owners, or charterers, away from the Suez Canal as a result of the Ever Given incident, and instructed to complete her voyage to the USA via the Cape Sea Route instead?

At 288 metres in length, Yenisei River was built in 2013 by Hyundai Heavy Industries of Ulsan in South Korea. With a deadweight of 84,565 tons, she is capable of carrying 154,880 m3 of liquefied natural gas, and is both owned and managed by Dynagas Limited of Athens.

Dynagas are specialists at the carriage of LNG cargoes with a fleet comprising entirely of LNG Tankers, some of which have the highest 1A ice classification and were designed and built with icebreaking capability to service the Russian Yamal LNG project, whose cargoes are exported via the Arctic port of Sabetta and are all shipped via the Northern Sea Route.

The actual Yenisei River is the largest of the Russian rivers that flows directly into the Arctic Ocean.

An update to the Yenisei River report of above. She sailed from Cape Town this morning 5 April at 09h00, after a short stop at the bunker berth of 15 hours. Her new destination is now given as Sabine Pass, as originally stated when she started her voyage, which again strongly indicates she was a diversion from Suez.

Incidentally, another of her Dynagas company LNG Tanker fleet mates CLEAN ENERGY (IMO 9323687), has also just departed the Cape Town OPL rendezvous point, without calling into Cape Town, and is also heading northwards but no destination given as yet. She sailed from Dabhol in India on 20 March, which is an LNG Import Terminal, so again this is possibly another (third LNG Tanker?) candidate for a Suez diversion around the Cape.

A second LNG tanker is believed to have taken stores only off Cape Town port limits earlier in the week, but she stayed seven miles offshore and never called in.

Story by Jay Gates
Pictures by ‘Dockrat’

Added 5 April 2021

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REFLECTIONS: Bulkers in our ports

A certain Monday afternoon in March this year witnessed three bulk carrier ship movements at the port of Durban in fairly quick succession, giving evidence to the different varieties of this type of vessel, a type sometimes regarded as mundane and without too much interest.

We can easily become blasé and dismissive in this way about certain types of vessels, a view that often changes when as a type they become scarce or even disappear completely. Dry bulk carriers however will remain in service for many years to come, for as long as there remains a global trade requiring commodities to be shipped in bulk form from one end of the world to another.

On the particular afternoon in the latter half of March the three ship movements involved two departures and one arrival, in quick order.

Departing was OBS VENUS (IMO 9226750), a standard 190-metre x 32m, 51,535-dwt supramax* vessel built in 2002 and sailing under the flag of Panama. What the photographer found highly interesting was the above deck cargo, standing out like Lego bricks! They turned out to be a mass of coloured trucks, destined for Abidjan in the Ivory Coast. The pleasure boat racing to get out of the photograph was not there to assist with the departure, as the Port helicopter was on hand.

OBS Venus is owned and managed by a Taiwanese company, Franbo Courage SA, and during March the ship has operated in East, South and West African waters. For the previous 18 months she had sailed in Asian and South East Asian waters, having last called in West Africa and the Mediterranean in September 2019.

Prior to November 2020 the bulker was named V Arctic Tern and before June 2014 she was the Chryssa K.

 

The second bulker departing the port that afternoon was the handysize ALONI (IMO 9403255), quite a stately looking ship of 33,399-dwt and built in 2010. Aloni is owned by Greek interests and managed by Dalex Shipping Co SA of Piraeus in Greece. The ship is flagged in Panama.

Before April 2015 the bulk carrier was named Atlantic Pearl. She is a frequent visitor to East and South Africa as well as in West African waters. Following her departure from Durban on 22 March Aloni headed for Mackay in Queensland, Australia where she is expected on 12 April.

The third bulker of that afternoon was LACTA (IMO 9502362) sitting quite low in the water as she arrived in port with a heavy cargo on board. Built in 2010 the 58,713-dwt supramax ship is flagged in the Marshall Islands and is owned by Greek interests and managed by Diligent Holdings SA of Athens, a shipping company that both owns and manages its own fleet of bulk carriers.

A statement available on the internet says that Diligent Holdings, which owns and operates about 15 dry bulk carriers, prefers Japanese-built second-hand bulk carriers. Diligent entered the supramax market in 2017 and now owns four ships of this size, each of which was built at Tsuneishi Heavy Industries in Cebu, a Japanese-controlled yard in the Philippines. The remainder of the fleet are either handysize or handymax dry bulk vessels. – trh

*Supramax class bulkers range from 50,000 to 60,000 dwt. Handysize vessels generally range between 10,000 and 35,000 dwt, and Handymax vessels between 35,000 and 50,000 dwt. These are not definitive descriptions and there is much leeway is use, but they are terms useful in defining the size of ships and their ability to access various size ports, canals and waterways.

All above pictures are by Keith Betts

Below is a Youtube Video with an interesting scene showing one of the Diligent Holdings’ bulkers as referred to above, the VIENNA (IMO 9403205) [4:37]

Added 5 April 2021

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Tanzania Ports Authority Director-General suspended over corruption charge

The Director-General of Tanzania Ports Authority, Deusdedit Kakoko, has been suspended over charges of corruption involving the disappearance of 3.6 billion shillings ($1.56 million).

The order for Kakoko’s suspension came from Tanzania’s newly appointed president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, acting on the recommendations of a report by the country’s auditor general, detailing the disappearance of the money.

“I would like to assure you that I will be very firm in the collection and expenditure of public funds. I will also stand firm against all corrupt practices,” said President Hassan when making the announcement.

Her move is seen as a continuation of the late President John Magufuli’s drive against corruption in Tanzania.

President Hassan was sworn into office on 19 March. She was vice-president prior to Magufuli’s sudden death from a mystery illness.

She said she was ordering the suspension of Deusdedit Kakoko to enable a full investigation of the matter, adding that she wanted the auditor general and the state anti-corruption agency to also investigate money dispersed to development projects.

This is not the first time that senior officials of the TPA have come under scrutiny over misplaced funds. In December 2020 several top managers in the TPA’s finance department were suspended pending an investigation into suspected fraud involving government revenues lost by way of tax exemptions worth $860,000.

Added 5 April 2021

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PORT IS WHAT WE DO: Hamburg’s Marker Men are back on the Water

Another Port of Hamburg’s Port is What We Do series – enjoy!

Added 5 April 2021

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Narcotics keep coming as CMF makes 5 seizures in 1 week

The smuggling of illicit drugs into Africa or neighbouring Yemen continues apace with Combined Maritime Forces’ CTF 150 seizing five drug hauls in one week.

The seizures were undertaken by the French Marine Nationale ships whilst participating in a counter-narcotics focused operation under the command of Combined Maritime Forces’ (CMF) Canadian-led Combined Task Force (CTF) 150.

The noteworthy successful run began on 19 March when the French frigate FS Nivôse intercepted a high-value shipment of 367 kg of methamphetamine and 311 kg of heroin. This was swiftly followed by two concurrent counter-narcotics operations on 22 March by FS Tonnerre and FS Surcouf, which resulted in interdictions of over 3,000 kg and 600 kg of hashish respectively.

Barely 48 hours later, helicopter carrier Tonnerre was back at it with a flourish, seizing a massive 3,200kg of hashish. A concurrent counter-narcotic success at sea by FS Nivôse followed quickly behind, with the crew interdicting a further 1,100kg of the drug.

All three ships were operating in the Arabian Sea in direct support of CTF-150 at the time of the seizures, totaling 8,578 kg, which have a combined estimated wholesale value of more than US$16.66 million.

“The involvement of the Marine Nationale at the forefront of the counter-narcotics operations in the Arabian Sea directly undermines those same terrorist organisations that threaten our interests, and our citizens, in both the Middle East and Africa,” said Captain Frédéric Barbe, commanding officer of the Reunion-based Nivôse.

“The most recent French accomplishments are nothing but the result of an intense teamwork from the direct coordination within the Task Group ‘Jeanne d’Arc’ to the paramount involvement of both Canadian-led Combined Task Force 150, and Combined Maritime Forces, as a whole. We act as a powerful coalition that, working behind the scenes, enables us to achieve success at sea, providing us with its unrivalled knowledge of the area.”

These latest seizures increase the tally of successful counter-narcotics operations for CTF-150 to 10 since assuming command in late January 2021. CTF-150, one of three CMF task forces, has an ongoing mission to disrupt criminal and terrorist organisations, including by clamping-down on the illegal trade of drugs and weapons.

“The French Navy continues to provide outstanding support to Combined Maritime Forces, and more specifically, Combined Task Force 150,” said Commodore Dan Charlebois, commander of CTF-150 said.

“The French arrived in the area of operations, in all respects, ready to contribute to regional maritime security, as evidenced by their seizures, almost immediately after arriving on station. The skill and professionalism demonstrated by their crews are in keeping with their predecessor, Jean Bart, which is a great sign for CTF-150!”

There is little doubt that focused maritime security operations like these between the Marine Nationale, the Royal Canadian Navy, and CMF, are an effective way to deprive criminal and terrorist groups of a vital revenue stream.

Some of the illicit drugs crossing the Arabia Sea is used to finance terrorist activities in Africa and in Yemen. Other consignments are taken down the African East Coast as far as Mozambique where some may help finance the insurgency taking place in the province of Cabo Delgado, while other parcels end up being smuggled from Mozambique into South and southern Africa.

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Multiple cruise ship anchor failures:
UK MAIB Safety Bulletin 1/2021

The Covid-19 enforced operational pause saw many cruise vessels anchored off the UK’s south coast.

During this period there were several anchor losses associated with the inclement weather over the autumn and winter and the use of the anchoring equipment beyond its intended design parameters.

In the UK the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) have identified a trend in the nature of anchoring equipment failures and have released a safety bulletin to the cruise industry to mitigate against further losses both in the short term and when the vessels return to normal operations.

Safety issues

* Ship’s masters should be proactive in heading to sea and not wait for the anchor to drag in strong winds before acting.

* Choice of anchor and amount of cable chosen should be varied to avoid single point loading.

* Ship’s masters should ensure they and their crew are aware of the reporting procedures to the coastal state in the event of losing an anchor.

* Anchoring equipment should be assessed before returning back into normal service due to the greater use of the anchors during this extraordinary period.

The four-page MAIB document may be downloaded HERE

 

Edited by Paul Ridgway
London

 

Added 5 April 2021

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Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment: What’s in a name?

If anyone can follow this latest bit of South African ‘name changing’, please explain it to us.

According to the department, the formation of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment is complete now that all the relevant officials have been transferred to the newly amalgamated department.

This, it says, follows the announcement of the sixth administration in 2019, where the forestry and fisheries functions were amalgamated into the Department of Environmental Affairs, which became known as the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries.

This is where it gets ‘technical’.

In the statement issued on Wednesday, 31 March 2021 the department said that the name of the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (DEFF) will change on 1 April 2021, i.e. the very next day.

“The DEFF will in future be known as the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE),” it said.

The substitution and designation of names for National Department and Office of the Premiers and heads thereof was published in Government Gazette 44229 (Notice No. 172) in terms of the Public Service Act on 5 March 2021, the statement read.

This item of presumably important information is reported here because it involves the [department] of fisheries, otherwise we’d keep well out of it for not grasping the difference between the former and new names other than ranking.

Does this now mean the personnel in the fisheries section, by moving up the pecking order are now higher up the corporate ladder, while those in Environment have slipped a step down the order? We trust not…. those Environmental guys can rely on massive ‘Greenie’ support, far greater than even the significantly influential Chatsworth fishers community (of Transnet fame).

Added 5 April 2021

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USCGC Walnut:  At homeport Pensacola, Florida

On 31 March the crew of US Coast Guard Cutter Walnut arrived at the cutter’s new homeport in Pensacola, Florida, after an extensive dry-dock period.

The Walnut crew performed a major maintenance availability project to enable the 225-foot (68.5m) cutter to reach the end of its 30-year planned life service.

Lieutenant Commander Christopher Bonner, CO of Walnut commented: “The Walnut crew has been looking forward to our arrival in Pensacola, Florida, and values our role in supporting Coast Guard District Eight’s continued efforts to maintain a safe and effective maritime transportation system.

“As evidenced by the historic hurricane season of 2020, the Coast Guard and its buoy tender fleet played and will continue to play a critical role in responding to devastating natural disasters and reconstituting waterways in and around this nation’s most critical maritime ports.”

The dockside period included loading and recording by inventory thousands of pounds of critical shipboard materials and equipment, conducting mission critical training to prepare for possible shipboard casualties while underway, conducting extensive maintenance and repair on most of the shipboard machinery, electronics, auxiliary systems.

Built in 1998 the cutter Walnut is a 225-foot Seagoing Buoy Tender, which was previously homeported in Honolulu and will now be homeported in Pensacola, Florida. The cutter’s primary missions are aids to navigation, search and rescue, maritime law enforcement, maritime environmental protection and national defence missions.

Our series of US Coast Guard courtesy photographs (USCG ©) show the cutter at various stages of its planned life extension programme.

 

Edited by Paul Ridgway
London

 

Added 5 April 2021

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GENERAL NEWS REPORTS – UPDATED THROUGH THE DAY

in partnership with – APO

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More Earlier News at https://africaports.co.za/category/News/

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EXPECTED SHIP ARRIVALS and SHIPS IN PORT

Port Louis – Indian Ocean gateway port

Ports & Ships publishes regularly updated SHIP MOVEMENT reports including ETAs for ports extending from West Africa to South Africa to East Africa and including Port Louis in Mauritius.

In the case of South Africa’s container ports of Durban, Ngqura, Ports Elizabeth and Cape Town links to container Stack Dates are also available.

You can access this information, including the list of ports covered, by  CLICKING HERE remember to use your BACKSPACE to return to this page.

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CRUISE NEWS AND NAVAL ACTIVITIES

QM2 in Cape Town. Picture by Ian Shiffman

We publish news about the cruise industry here in the general news section.

Naval News

Similarly you can read our regular Naval News reports and stories here in the general news section.

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THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

 Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me; I want people to know ‘why’ I look this way. I’ve traveled a long way, and some of the roads weren’t paved. 

– Will Rogers

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Don’t forget to send us your news and press releases for inclusion in the News Bulletins. Shipping related pictures submitted by readers are always welcome. Email to info@africaports.co.za

 

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