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TODAY’S BULLETIN OF MARITIME NEWS

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Week commencing 5 December 2022.  Click on headline to go direct to story : use the BACK key to return 

FIRST VIEW:   Richards Bay Coal Terminal

• Container Terminals, not privatisation – its collaboration, says Transnet
• WHARF TALK: Modern cable laying vessel ILE DE BREHAT
• Tin-Can Island Container Terminal workers assured their jobs are safe under MSC
• Xeneta Freight Rates Update: Week 49
• U.S donates coastal patrol craft to Mozambique authorities
• Port of Durban lagging behind in a post-pandemic world
• WHARF TALK: Handymax bulk carrier WELLPARK
• EU’s emission trading system (ETS) now includes maritime transport
• Container xChange forecasts container rate war in 2023
• Wilhelmshaven becomes Germany’s first LNG terminal
• Wilhelmshaven wird Deutschlands erster LNG-Terminal
• South Africa’s National shipping Line – feasible or stupid?
• WHARF TALK: Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ SEVEN SEAS VOYAGER
• IN CONVERSATION: Why Britain should immediately withdraw from Mauritius’ Chagos Islands
• Gas: The Ideal Resource Namibia and South Africa can offer Germans for Security
• Gas: Der ideale Rohstoff Namibia und Südafrika bieten den Deutschen Sicherheit
• TRADE NEWS: Castor Marine offers Starlink to boost Internet for its maritime, offshore and superyacht clients
• Sexual Violence in Maritime Industry: Calls for Accountability
• WHARF TALK: visiting French Navy ships NIVOSE & LE MALIN
• Transnet eases the way for doing business with emerging manganese miners
• Products tanker pirated twice in Gulf of Guinea: Italian Navy assists
• Harvesting rainwater: Graduate saves fresh water in Malaysia
• Exxaro faces a R11 billion cost in lost opportunities due to TFR’s inability to increase coal exports
• WHARF TALK: former Leopard Star, now ELANDRA STAR
• Angolan Navy takes delivery of first of three Ocean Eagle patrol boats
• African Development Bank commits US$301 million to overhaul Uganda’s metre-gauge railway
• Transnet Freight Rail happy with ban on scrap metal
• Freak wave causes fatality, others injured on Viking Polaris cruise ship

• EARLIER NEWS CAN BE FOUND HERE AT NEWS CATEGORIES…….

The week’s mastheads:  Port of Cape Town 

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FIRST VIEW:  Richards Bay Coal Terminal

The Richards Bay Coal Terminal, one of the world’s biggest coal terminals, continues to face challenges arising from the on-off deliveries of coal by rail.  Operated by Transnet Freight Rail, the state-owned rail operator is beset with problems, not all of its own making let it be said, but debilitating challenges none the less.

These challenges are a lack of sufficient serviceable locomotives, the cancelled order for the infamous 1065 locomotives from four manufacturers being one contributor, while other challenges include economic sabotage to the actual railway as well as its supporting features – the copper and other cabling necessary for the safe operation of each train.

How South Africa deals with these challenges will set the way ahead for the country’s economic recovery – or continued failure.

      This picture is by TNPA

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Container Terminals, not privatisation – its collaboration, says Transnet

By Terry Hutson

As the year 2022 winds down, and 2023 beckons, one of the more significant and far-reaching developments concerning the South African ports, was the decision by Transnet to call for private sector involvement in running various terminals.

But, there’s a rider. Private sector involvement at the Durban Container Terminal Pier 2 and also at the Eastern Cape port of Ngqura, will be a private sector partnership and not a concessioning, Transnet has emphasised.

What the difference is between the two methods remains unexplained at this stage, but ten potential port operators have been short-listed for the Durban terminal and another four at Ngqura.

“Transnet is looking for competent terminal operators to collaborate in the operations and management of the terminal,” said Ayanda Shezi, spokesperson for Transnet in a written response to our query.

She said ten respondents have been short-listed and invited to proceed to the RFP (request for proposal) process, a precursor to appointing one of them to ‘collaborate’ with Transnet in running the two terminals.

Shezi provided some indication of what this collaboration meant in an earlier statement dealing with the Ngqura port, when she said the short-listed respondents would operate both container terminals for a period of 25 years, after which the terminals would revert back to Transnet Port Terminals (TPT).

Enlarging on this she added that the preferred bidder would be expected to bring additional transshipment volumes to the Ngqura port for East and West African traffic and to improve terminal performance.

To anyone else that sounds like a concessioning but under a different name.

In September one of the trade unions involved with Transnet, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) raised objections to Transnet’s overall restructuring and wrote to President Cyril Ramaphosa and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan to object to Transnet’s plans, saying the public-private partnership could result in job losses.

Since then however the unions have been surprisingly quiet. In past years, when there was any suggestion of an outside port operator having an interest in one of the Transnet operated port terminals, it led to a swift negative response from labour.

Back in 2001/2 plans to bring in private terminal operators to replace Transnet Port Terminals, whose purpose until then had been to prepare the respective terminals for concessioning, were effectively closed down by strong labour pressure and TPT was instead subsequently instructed by government to restructure and remain as the state-owned division of Transnet managing and operating up to 16 port terminals.

This decision turned TPT into one of the larger port terminal operators in Africa and ambitious suggestions were made that the port operator might even expand into the continent.

The opinion of most port users however, has been that not bringing in outside help at least for the container terminals has been a mistake.

Over the ensuing years the container terminals have operated under a cloud of criticism and negativity with brief periods of acceptable productivity.

The Durban Container Terminal, Pier 2, which is now being prepared for private sector involvement, is usually at the forefront of that criticism, other than those brief patches in between when things went well. The combined annual DCT terminal volumes has remained static for some years at around 2.5 million TEUs (twenty-foot container equivalents) and it is a moot point whether some traffic has been lost elsewhere.

While strong criticism can be levelled at DCT over the time it takes to complete cargo working at the berth, with resultant ‘congestion’ involving ships forced to queue outside, or worse, to cut and run to another port, container congestion has extended beyond the actual terminal and into the adjacent roads and depots. Although efforts have been taken of establishing truck staging parks outside the port, in an effort to de-congest the roads, those surrounding the southern aspects of the port remain frequently blocked with trucks either trying to get to the container terminal, or to adjacent terminal depots outside.

Many roads in the vicinity of the port have become illegal parking zones, to the detriment of property owners and other motorists, with no obvious solution in sight.

Collaboration

So what exactly does collaborating in private sector partnerships mean? Our enquiries to Transnet remained unanswered on this point and the difference, if any, between concessioning and collaborating remains unclear.

Taking the same enquiry to several of the larger port users failed to provide an answer although it is clear that some at least see it as a form of concessioning. Enquiries to TPT for an explanation went unanswered.

Looking back to August, Transnet’s Ayanda Shezi said in a statement that the intention is to create a 25-year special purpose vehicle between TPT and the winning bidder, and therefore no disposal of sale of the assets would be required. After 25 years the terminals would revert fully to TPT.

No matter what it is being called, ten companies have been short-listed, from which one will emerge as the terminal operator taking an influential part in the running of the Durban Container terminal on Pier 2, while another takes over at the Ngqura Container Terminal. An interesting year lies ahead.

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WHARF TALK: Modern cable laying vessel ILE DE BREHAT

Pictures by ‘Dockrat’
Story by Jay Gates

The arrival on South African shores of a new submarine communications cable is always an exciting event, as it always heralds a technical upgrade to the desired connectivity that all South Africans desire, for both business, and personal, requirements, especially if that requirement is from overseas. New cables also open up connectivity to those African nations that, as with a lot of the continent, have been left behind in the ever improving information technology age.

From a maritime observer perspective, the arrival of a submarine cable, as interesting a news item as it is, is not why excitement builds. The submarine cable is here because a specialist Cable Ship has brought it here, and that is where the excitement stems from.

Cape Town is lucky that it has a Cable Ship permanently based in the V&A Basin, namely ‘Leon Thevenin’, covered in the 10th June 2021 edition of Africa Ports & Ships. Whilst she does conduct some cable laying activities, her main mission is in order to intervene in submarine cable breaks, anywhere around sub-Saharan Africa, and not as a specialist cable laying vessel.

On 4th November, at 07h00 in the morning, the cable laying vessel ILE DE BREHAT (IMO 9247053) arrived off Cape Town, from Walvis Bay in Namibia, and immediately entered Cape Town harbour, proceeding directly to the Eastern Mole in the Duncan Dock.

The arrival of ‘Ile be Brehat’ was to load specialised equipment and stores, plus to take on bunkers, in advance of undertaking a very important mission. Her mission involves the landing of a new submarine communications cable, in three separate locations around the coast of South Africa. The newly laid cable is known as the ‘2Africa’ cable.

The ‘2Africa’ cable, once completed, will be the longest submarine communications cable in the world, with a length of 24,330 nautical miles. It will link 33 countries, with 46 separate landings, and connect 3 billion people. It will have 16 fibre-optic pairs, and offer data at 180 terabits per second. South Africa will have three of these landings, one in Duynefontein in the Western Cape, one in Summerstrand in the Eastern Cape, and one at Mtunzini in KwaZulu-Natal.

One of the investing backers of the cable is none other than META, better known until recently as Facebook. The other funding partners are China Mobile International, Djibouti Telecom, MTN Global, Orange, Saudi Telecom, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone and WIOCC.

The 2Africa cable will circumnavigate the continent of Africa, the first one to do so, and will have a major spur, known as Pearls, linking India, Pakistan, and seven Persian Gulf states back to the ‘2 Africa’ cable. It was planned in 2020, with a completion set for 2023, and it becoming fully operational in 2024.

The first landing of the cable in Africa took place in April this year, when ‘Ile de Brehat’ brought it ashore at Lomé in Togo. The end point for the cable is Marseilles in France, and her sistership ‘Ile de Sein’ landed that end of the ‘2Africa’ cable only three weeks ago, on 6th November, linking Marseilles with Barcelona, in Spain.

Built in 2002 by Hyundai Mipo Dockyard at Ulsan in South Korea, ‘Ile de Brehat’ is 140 metres in length and has a deadweight of 9,820 tons. She is a diesel electric vessel, and is powered by four MaK 9M32 9 cylinder 4 stroke main engines producing 5,793 bhp (4,320 kW) each, which provide power to two 4,000 kW motors, driving two fixed pitch propellers for a service speed of 15.4 knots.

Her auxiliary equipment includes an additional MaK 8M20 generator providing 1,360 kW. For added manoeuvrability she has a bow azimuth thruster providing 1,500 kW, two Lips transverse bow thrusters providing 1,500 kW each, and two Lips transverse stern thrusters providing 1,500 kW. Together, this gives ‘Ile de Brehat’ a dynamic positioning classification of DP2, with all propulsion controlled through an Alstom DP system.

She has accommodation for up to 70 persons, and for cable laying operations she has two 1,500 m3 cable tanks, each capable of holding 2,500 tons of cable. In extreme circumstances her cable tanks are each capable of storing 3,500 tons of cable. This is backed up with a further two spare 150 m3 cable tanks, capable of holding a further 250 tons of submarine cable. As part of her cable laying work, ‘Ile de Brehat’ has a bollard pull of 100 tons.

She operates a seabed plough, which is capable of trenching down to a depth of 3 metres, in order to bury the cable, and protect it from damage. She deploys the plough utilising an A-Frame over her stern. Cables are also deployed over the stern, via sheaves, and this design clearly sets her apart from the ‘Leon Thevenin’, and the venerable ‘Cable Restorer’, that utilise bow sheaves for their overside cable work.

Owned by Alcatel Submarine Network (ASN) SASU, of Suresnes in France, ‘Ile de Brehat’ is operated by ASN Marine, also of Suresnes, and she is managed by Louis Dreyfus Armateurs SAS, also of Suresnes. She is one of three sisterships, and the second one this year to call in at Cape Town for stores and bunkers, whilst engaged on cable laying duties.

On 12th September, sistership ‘Ile de Sein’ arrived in Cape Town on the completion of laying another transcontinental submarine cable. This was the Equiano cable, which was major funded by Google, and also linked Europe with South Africa. It was a 12 pair fibre-optic, offering data at 144 terabits per second. It had only nine landing points down the west coast of Africa, one of which was at Swakopmund in Namibia, and terminated at Melkbosstrand in the Western Cape.

Interestingly, the Equiano cable landing at Swakopmund made it only the second submarine cable to have a landing in Namibia. The nation was quite late to the communications cable world, with the first cable to land in Namibia, again at Swakopmund, occurring only in 2011. This was the West Africa Cable System (WACS) cable, which also linked South Africa to the United Kingdom, with ten landings at points up the west coast of Africa. The cable was also terminated at South Africa, and it came ashore at Yzerfontein in the Western Cape.

The decision to terminate WACS at Yzerfontein, and not Melkbosstrand which was considered to be the International Submarine Gateway for South Africa, was in order to reduce the risk of an economically catastrophic isolation from the rest of the world, in the event that cable damage occurred due to submarine earthquakes, or by large vessels awaiting a berth at Cape Town, or Saldanha Bay, dragging their anchors over the cable. It was ‘Ile de Brehat’ that brought the WACS cable ashore at Yzerfontein.

This premise was again used for the ‘2Africa’ cable as it was decided to bring it ashore at a third Western Cape landside location, that of Duynefontein. It was for there that ‘Ile de Brehat’ sailed from Cape Town on 5th December, at 20h00 in the evening.

She will then be laying the cable around the outside edge of the Agulhas Bank, in order to avoid the heavy demersal hake fishery that occurs on the seabed of the bank. From there ‘Ile de Brehat’ will remain off the continental shelf, laying the ‘2Africa’ cable in deep water, and will turn inwards towards shore only when in the vicinity of Cape Recife, and Algoa Bay, and the next landing at Pollock Beach at Summerstrand.

For the nomenclature aficionados, ‘Ile de Brehat’ is named after a small island, located just off the northern coast of Brittany in France, located at 48°50’ North 003°01’ West. A popular French holiday destination, it has a permanent population of just over 400 people.

The island of Île de Bréhat has a milder climate than Brittany itself, due to the warming effects of the Gulfstream ocean current that washes its shores, and which allows for the growth of more exotic flowers, and palm trees, that are not to be found on the Brittany mainland, which is just one nautical mile distant away.

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Tin-Can Island Container Terminal workers assured their jobs are safe under MSC

The Tin-Can Island Container Terminal (TICT) has had to move quickly to assure workers at the Lagos terminal that there are no plans to retrench any personnel.

This has became necessary as a result of the acquisition of TICT’s parent company, Bolloré Africa Logistics (BAL) by the giant Swiss/Italian group, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC).

The pending sale of BAL to MSC was first announced in December last year with MSC taking up its option at the end of April this year, followed by the usual regulatory processes.

On Monday this week TICT management held meetings with workers at the Tin-Can terminal to assure them that there were no plans for retrenching any personnel.

TICT managing director, Etienne Rocher said the sale to MSC will not have any adverse effect on jobs and workers of the company.

All obligations arising from existing contracts with the company will continue to be in force, Rocher said, adding that the services of TICT workers remain relevant to the smooth operation of the company after the acquisition.

Mediterranean Shipping Company acquired the entire Bolloré Group’s transport and logistics activities in Africa, operating as Bolloré Africa Logistics. This includes shipping, logistics and terminals operations, as well as terminal operations in India, Haiti and in Timor-Leste.

What hasn’t been revealed is whether Bolloré Africa Logistics will operate as a separate division within MSC proper, or as a part of MSC’s subsidiary terminal operator, Terminal Investment Limited (TiL).

TiL was recently announced as the successful bidder to manage and operate the Walvis Bay New Container Terminal.

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Xeneta Freight Rates Update: Week 49

 

Spot rates out of Far East almost 2000 USD cheaper per FEU than long-term rates in dramatic turnaround

The ocean freight rates landscape in the Far East has been completely redrawn since the start of the year, with spot rates plummeting by an average of 75% across the six major trading lanes. By comparison, long-term rates are proving more resilient, with a fall of ‘just’ 13%.

Role reversal

The latest analysis from Oslo-based Xeneta highlights a market in flux. From historical highs, spot rates have collapsed since early summer. In January this year they were at least 2000 USD per FEU higher than contracted rates on the selected routes.

However, they now languish 1900 USD per FEU below new long-term agreements from the last three months.

“This is a jarring reversal of fortunes, with the traditional spot rate premium being completely overturned on key global corridors,” comments Peter Sand, Chief Analyst, Xeneta.

“As such, shippers with flexible logistics strategies can really benefit from accessing the short-term market at present, while those locking into long-term contracts find themselves paying more…. And in some cases, substantially so.”

Premium pricing

Sand points out that some routes are yet to experience long-term rate declines, pushing the divide between the two rates categories to eye-catching levels.

The Far East to US East Coast leads the way here, with contract rates sitting 11% above start-of-year prices.

“The difference between short- and long-term agreements here is unprecedented,” he explains. “This is currently the largest divide, with long-term rates now USD 5030 per FEU more expensive than spot rates. That’s a 237% premium. If you go back to January, the shoe was on the other foot, with the spot rates sitting USD 4900 per FEU higher.”

Sand notes that the US trades are the only two of the six leading corridors where long-term rates are up since January. Putting this into context, he explains that long-term rates to the US climbed more slowly than other trades, with later tendering processes contributing to the fact that “they only peaked in Q2.”

Double trouble

Xeneta’s data, which is crowdsourced in real-time from major global shippers, shows the biggest change is taking place on the Far East to North Europe trade. Here spot rates have gone from a position of a USD 5640 per FEU premium on 1 January 2022, to currently sitting USD 4460 below long-term rates on 1 December. This translates to an 83% fall, while long-term rates have restricted their decline to 24%.

The trade with the smallest premium for long-term rates is the Far East – Mediterranean, where the average long-term rate is ‘only’ USD 1900 higher than the average spot rate.

Sand concludes: “This is one of only two of the major trades out of the Far East, together with the South American East Coast route, where new long-term rates are less than double the average spot rate in early December.

“This is a stark indication to shippers of exactly where the value lies in the market as we head into the New Year. The short game, it seems, is the one to play right now.”

To learn more, please visit www.xeneta.com

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U.S. donates coastal patrol craft to Mozambique authorities

As part of ongoing security cooperation between the United States and Mozambique, the U.S. Government has provided a 10-metre coastal patrol boat to the Mozambican Navy.

In addition to the boat, Mozambican Navy officials will participate in training offered by the U.S.-based manufacturer, SAFE Boat International.

The high-speed boat is valued at $700,000 and is used for interdictions and maritime boarding operations.

“This vessel will enhance maritime security and enable naval forces to respond to increasingly complex challenges and threats,” said U.S. Ambassador to Mozambique Peter H Vrooman during the handover ceremony in Maputo.

“We provide training and educational opportunities for Mozambican and American soldiers, sailors, and marines who choose to serve their country. Together, we are working toward a stronger, more resilient Mozambique,” he said.

According to the U.S. Embassy, this donation is part of a broader set of security assistance programs designed to enhance the resiliency of the Mozambican Navy in fighting terrorism and transnational organised crime throughout Mozambique.

These programs include International Military Education and Training (IMET), three Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) programs, a Maritime Maintenance and Logistics Advisor program, and equipment donations designed to improve, maintain, and support the Navy in the execution of its defence strategy.

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Port of Durban lagging behind in a post-pandemic world

By Terry Hutson

With the shipping and general maritime sector returning to normal after the worst pandemic in a century, and shipping volumes reaching pre-pandemic heights, the port of Durban remains caught up in managerial, political and labour issues and disputes while productivity, and in particular its container handling ability, lags behind at an all-time low.

The World Bank has already reflected this in very clear terms, when earlier this year it ranked the Durban Container terminal together with the other South African container terminals of Ngqura and Cape Town, as among the worst in the world – Durban ranking 364 out of 370 based on a statistical evaluation, and 363 in the administrative calculation.

This sobering result wasn’t made any better by having the local ports of Cape Town and Ngqura flanking Durban in these results.

The devastating report shocked even those critics who already knew the port container terminals were underperforming?

The Bank’s Container Port Performance Index is based on total port hours per ship call, “defined as the elapsed time between when a ship reaches a port to its departure from the berth having completed its cargo exchange.”

Simple enough even for the casual observer using AIS data to examine the time ships spend at a port. Or to count them from the hills above Umhlanga. The bank methodology includes additional data such as five distinct ship size groups within ten different call size ranges – sufficient for the bank’s data to be generally accepted.

Since the report was published, little has improved to any marked degree, according to port users. Container ships arriving off the port remain outside days or weeks at a time and even when they finally enter the port, it can be another five or more days before cargo working is completed.

Compare this with ports in northern Europe, where container ships arrive, work their cargo and sail within 24-36 hours in most cases. Even less in some instances.

Transnet cries unfair and says this is because when vessels arrive locally, it is almost never for a full load or a full discharge. “It often involves moving some containers or cargo out of the way to choose the correct ones or swapping hatches in a stop-and-go fashion until loading or discharging is complete,” Transnet said in response to our query.

“This type of operation impacts productivity. It is unlike major European or Asian ports where all cargo aboard the vessel is loaded or discharged.”

Which is not necessarily the case as many of the Asian or European ports are also intermediate calls and not final destinations for the vessel, whereas for ships on the SA-Europe trades, Durban is a terminus port where remaining cargo can be expected to be taken off and new cargo loaded for the return journey.

There are no ports in either Asian or European routes that require a ship to remain five days on her berth.

Port users in Durban say a lack of cargo-moving equipment contributes heavily towards slow cargo working. Available straddle carriers remain in short supply, they say, and this is despite a recent delivery of additional straddles from the manufacturer in China.

This is put down to poor maintenance leading to many of the mobile container handling machines being at the workshops.

Durban has a current fleet of 111 of these straddle carriers – a number thought sufficient to handle container moves efficiently. Only about 80 were available and in service on the day this was researched.

Maintenance is inadequate, says MSC, the port’s biggest user of container berths. “After two years there is still only one 8-hour shift,” says Captain Salvatore Sarno, chairman of MSC in South Africa. “There ought to be three 8-hours shifts maintaining the key equipment and keeping things moving.”

He said it was after the big storm of October 2017 that things began to deteriorate. Until then there were few delays and productivity levels were acceptable at around 20 or 22 container moves an hour, even reaching 24.

“After the storm that damaged so much in the port, the number of available straddle carriers went down to around 60 and productivity dropped to between 10 and 14 moves an hour.”

After protests from the shipping lines that reached cabinet level, Transnet placed orders for additional straddle carriers. A total of 33 have since been delivered during 2020 and 2021, leading to a small improvement of between 16 and 17 moves an hour at present, still well below the number needed to lift Durban in the World Bank ranking.

The recent strike hasn’t helped matters either but Capt. Sarno says it is not a question of the work force by itself, the problem lies with a lack a of equipment and with management.

“Motivation is lacking,” he says, “this has deteriorated in the past 3-5 years. In the past 3 years some of the best management were given packages. Why is that?” he asks.

For its part, Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) blames the changes in global shipping which has introduced larger ships. “This has created peaks in the terminal yard which has impacted efficiencies,” it says, adding that back-of-port initiatives are a direct response to keeping the terminal fluid.

But larger ships are not something recently introduced. Container ships have been progressively increasing in size and capacity since the late 1990s and medium/large ships of between 8,000 and 12,000 TEU capacity have called at Durban for the past ten or more years.

Because the port of Durban has not prepared adequately for these larger ships, with deeper and longer berths, they have been forced to call with less than full loads. Nevertheless, the average loads on container ships have increased somewhat, resulting in significantly less ship calls.

According to TPT there would be no observable difference in container volumes year on year were it not for the impact of the recent strike action affecting port operations.

TPT says more straddle carriers are planned in the next two years, and claims a rigorous maintenance programme is in place. DCT 2 terminal has a total of 16 ship-to-shore cranes at its disposal, with two on long-term maintenance. Another four have been budgeted for in the 2025/26 financial year.

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WHARF TALK: Handymax bulk carrier WELLPARK

 

 

Pictures by ‘Dockrat’
Story by Jay Gates

In a lateral speaking sort of way, it is like that old chestnut about London buses. You wait ages for one, and then two turn up together. Recently I reported on the appearance of a vessel from a company long thought extinct, Blue Star Line. The vessel in question, MSC Desirée, as reported in Africa Ports & Ships on 21st November, sadly was not displaying the magnificent house colours of Blue Star Line on her funnel, and her charter agreement had her operating in the house colours of the chartering party.

Then, not two weeks later, along comes another vessel with a funnel, and a name, that evoked memories of another great British shipping company. It was representative of a company that most knowledgeable folk would also have thought had gone into shipping oblivion, around the time that most British companies were disappearing from the global maritime scene. Could it all be as it seemed, and were those funnel colours telling the truth about the owners?

On 4th December, at 09h00 in the morning, the Handymax bulk carrier WELLPARK (IMO 9668556) arrived off Cape Town, at the end of a voyage from Tocopilla in Chile, and entered Cape Town harbour, proceeding into the Duncan Dock and going alongside C berth at the FPT to begin her partial discharge of a cargo of fertiliser.

Built in 2014 by Oshima Shipbuilding as Saikai in Japan, ‘Wellpark’ is 180 metres in length and has a deadweight of 37,429 tons. She is powered by a single Kawasaki MAN-B&W 5S50ME-C8.2 5 cylinder 2 stroke main engine producing 7,682 bhp (5,650 kW), driving a fixed pitch propeller for a service speed of 14 knots.

Her auxiliary machinery includes three generators, and an emergency generator, providing a total of 2,161 kW, and she has an Alfa Laval Qingdao oil fired boiler. She has five holds, served by four 30 ton cranes, and she has a cargo carrying capacity of 46,834 m3.

She is nominally owned by the Mountpark Shipping Company, of London, and she is operated by the Denholm group, of Glasgow. Her management falls under the Anglo-Eastern Shipmanagement Company, of Hong Kong, in which the Denholm Group has a substantial shareholding.

Her ownership, her funnel colours, and her name, proudly show that she really is a part of the fleet of the great Scottish Shipping Company J&J Denholm, of Glasgow, who are the holding company for the Denholm Group. They are still a family owned company, with the fifth generation of the Denholm family leading the company.

After a hiatus of many years away from shipowning, the company returned to the fold in 2016, which is when they purchased the first of their three bulk carriers, with ‘Wellpark’ joining the fleet in 2019. The funnel is unmistakeable, overall red, with a black top, and the Denholm House flag on the funnel, better known to those who remember as ‘The Diamond D’.

The company itself, J&J Denholm Limited, was founded by James and John Denholm in 1866, and by the beginning of the 1980s, Denholm were responsible for the management of 1% of world’s fleet, by deadweight tonnage. Their fleet encompassed every type of vessel, from general cargo ships, reefers, container vessels, bulk carriers, ore carriers and tankers.

The name of ‘Wellpark’ is also a traditional name within the Denholm fleet. The current ‘Wellpark’ is the ninth to have borne the name, with the first being carried back in 1889. She is named after a public park in Greenock, in Scotland, overlooking the River Clyde, and which was established in 1851 as a gift to the people of Greenock by a local, landed, family.

The previous ‘Wellpark’, the eighth to bear the name, was a company cadet training ship, and carried no less than 24 cadets. She achieved fame on 1st October 1978, when traversing the South China Sea, in position 10°21’ North 111°12’ East, some 120 nautical miles from the nearest land, she came across a grossly overloaded boat carrying what in those days were known as ‘Vietnamese Boat People’, who were escaping the Communist regime that had taken over the country in 1975.

In a feat of great seamanship, and upholding the law of the sea that you rescue all in need of help, Captain Hector Connell of ‘Wellpark’ ordered the rescue of all those on the stricken vessel, which was in imminent danger of sinking. A total of 346 people, including 156 children, were rescued at night from a boat just 18 metres in length. The reason there were so many people aboard such a small boat was that there were originally three boats that left together, but two of them sank, due to their being unseaworthy, and all ended up on the one boat.

Sadly, as happened in those days, and still occurs today with other ‘boat people’, the survivors reported being passed by many other vessels who refused to stop and effect a rescue. The ‘Wellpark’ took all the survivors to Kaohsiung in Taiwan, and in an act of great humanity, every one of the survivors was offered sanctuary in the United Kingdom. Captain Connell was awarded the honour of the OBE medal, by Queen Elizabeth II, for his act of great compassion, and for doing ‘the right thing’, by upholding the traditions of the sea. He truly was a great man.

Back to the current ‘Wellpark’, and a subject that rankles in a very major way. She is registered in London, and thus her ensign, flown at her stern, should be the famous ‘Red Ensign’, or the ‘Red Duster’, as it is better known. Under no circumstances do you fly the Union Flag, or Union Jack, on a British Merchant vessel. It is only ships of His Majesty’s Royal Navy who are entitled to fly the Union Flag. This goes back to the reign of King Charles I, and every sailor, or British sailor, worth his salt, knows this to be the case. It should never happen!

It was back in the 17th Century that King Charles I ordered the flying of the Union Flag to be restricted to His Majesty’s ships “upon pain of our high displeasure”. This was due to many merchant vessels making unauthorised use of the flag, mainly to avoid paying harbour dues, by passing themselves off as Royal Naval vessels when entering port.

The management of ‘Wellpark’ falls under the Anglo-Eastern Shipmanagement Company of Hong Kong, and thus they will be responsible for crewing the vessel. Since 1995, British law changed for the worse, as a result of British shipowners pressing the Government of the day to change the law, and allow them to employ the cheapest crew labour that they could find for British flagged vessels.

The British Merchant Shipping (Officer Nationality) Regulations 1995 do not permit foreign nationals (other than Commonwealth citizens, EEA nationals or a national of a State other than an EEA State, which is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) to serve
as Master of a strategic ship. This is defined as a UK ship of 500 gross tonnage, or more, which is a cruise ship, a product tanker or a Ro-Ro ship. There are no other nationality restrictions applying to the manning of any other UK registered ships. However, all officers must hold a valid Certificate of Competency or Certificate of Equivalent Competency.

As such, it is almost certain that ‘Wellpark’ is manned by non-British nationals, but very likely Commonwealth citizens, from countries such as India, who will be completely unaware of the protocols of flying the Union Flag. So, the crew, or at least the Captain and the Senior Navigating Officers are clueless in this regard. It is unforgiveable, but it gets worse!

Everybody knows that if you fly your ensign ‘upside down’, it means that you are in distress. Most people are not aware that the Union Flag is not uniform in construction, and that there is a right way of flying the flag, i.e. there is a defined ‘hoist’, and a ‘fly’, when raising the Union Flag. Sadly, to add to the rankles of already flying the incorrect flag on their vessel, the clowns on ‘Wellpark’ are also flying the Union Flag ‘upside down’. I despair! Rant over.

The port of Tocopilla, in Chile, which is where ‘Wellpark’ loaded her cargo is a small port, with just a single ‘half’ berth in an open roadstead. Thankfully there are no tides in this exposed port, and the berth has a large bulk autoloader, located at 22°05’ South 070°12’ West. It is the closest port to the Salt Flats of the Atacama Desert, which is where the Potassium Nitrate natural fertiliser is extracted.

She clearly only had a small parcel of fertiliser for discharge at Cape Town, as just over 24 hours later, at 13h00 on 5th December, ‘Wellpark’ sailed from Cape Town, bound for Durban to continue with her discharge. Durban will have the honour of once more welcoming back a vessel from Denholm, a company that were regular callers at the port in days gone by.

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EU’s emission trading system (ETS) now includes maritime transport

 

The European Union has agreed to include maritime transport in its emission trading scheme (ETS).

This is the first time maritime transport has been added to the legislation.

In future – as from 2024 when the agreement comes into force – ship operators will have to pay for the carbon emissions that they have responsibility for, i.e. their ships.

From 2024 ship operators will have to cover 40% of their vessel emissions, rising to 70% the following year and 100% by 2026.

The chief negotiator for this at the European Parliament, Peter Liese, said the legislation will lead to savings of 120 million tonnes of carbon emissions – double the amount of the much-publicised EU ban on the sale of polluting motor vehicles.

It is claimed that globally the maritime sector’s carbon footprint amounted to over 144 tons of CO2 in 2019 which is estimated as being 3% of total greenhouse emissions. source: Carbon Herald

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Container xChange forecasts container rate war in 2023

The year 2022 was all about tight capacity and exceptionally high container rates, reports Container xChange, the online container logistics platform in its most recent column. Towards the latter half of the year, the prices started to plummet and will continue to crash as we transition into the new year, the market forecaster said.

According to Container xChange, there is significant market volatility that continues to disrupt the container shipping industry. With a significant oversupply of containers and a further influx of more TEUs in 2023, shipping lines will continue to reduce vessel capacity and suspend services by considerable blank sailings. In a recent advisory, Maersk indicates that it will continue to ‘make capacity adjustments on services from Asia to North America, Europe and the Mediterranean to better align with demand fluctuations.’

“We observe a similar trend echoing in the industry,” says Container xChange.

All-out price war

“In 2023, there is a high possibility of an all-out price war,” commented Christian Roeloffs, Co-founder and CEO of the online platform for container logistics.

“It doesn’t seem that the capacity restrictions that we have seen in the past two years are due to return, so we’ll just have ample capacity both on the vessel as well as on the container side. With the competitive dynamics in the container shipping and liner industry, I don’t expect especially the big players to hold back, and we do expect prices to come down to almost variable costs. We also foresee market consolidation.”

He said this is starting with initially carriers defaulting and reducing their fleet. Recently, there was news about China United Lines, an emerging carrier on transpacific and Asia-Europe services, being at risk of defaulting on a charterparty involving more than 10 containerships.

“Into the year 2023, freight forwarders will be able to go window shopping quite a lot, and there’s going to be a lot of room for negotiation, especially in the early parts of the year. Contract rates will follow suit as spot rates fall significantly.” Roeloffs added.

“We will continue to see efforts towards diversification of supply chain sourcing and manufacturing out of China. This is a long-term view, and it will need vision and strategy from companies looking for a more resilient supply chain. We will witness increased container volumes intra-Asia and more countries will emerge as potential alternatives like Vietnam, India and more.

“In such an environment where there will be tighter margins for freight forwarders and traders, the cost is going to be everything. Leaders will look for ways to efficiency and business sustenance. Technology offers a great opportunity for leaders to minimise risk with data visibility and transparency while also maintaining a healthy partner portfolio that helps greatly in testing times.”

Tight grip on costs

Dr. Johannes Schlingmeier, co-founder of Container xChange said a tight grip on costs becomes paramount for freight forwarders into the year 2023.

“While on one hand there will be a great deal of negotiation with shipping lines, on the other hand, operational cost optimisation will be crucial for the forwarders. There will be careful monitoring into the demurrage and detention charges for instance, insurance charges, claims etc. As capacity on the ocean side becomes more abundant, there is a valid business case for using SOCs which not just offer flexibility but greater control to the forwarders.” he said.

“To think of the situation from a more macro-lens, it seems that what we experienced in the past three years is a natural reaction of market forces of demand and supply resulting from the disruptions like covid-19 and subsequent lockdowns, the war in Ukraine by Russia, geopolitical risks and many more.

Container prices skyrocketed soon after the pandemic hit because there were not enough containers to fulfil the rising demand and that’s when retailers and importers started to stock much more in advance to avoid the historic port congestions. The pre-peak season in 2022 saw record container throughput in import-heavy ports. Now that the stocks have been filled, the demand is plummeting. Inflation and the energy crisis are leading up to cautious spending which will have its own impact on the container industry.

“The shipping industry will survive this, and we will again start to see normal activity levels in the future, though not immediate future. The good part is that the worst is behind us.”

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Wilhelmshaven becomes Germany’s first LNG terminal

 

 

Equipped with ShibataFenderTeam Fender Systems

Wilhelmshaven, a deep-water site on the North Sea coast, is about to become Germany’s first LNG Terminal for the import of liquefied natural gas.

This comes at a time of crisis across Europe with the onset of winter and reduced or even non LNG supplies from Russia.

Seen in the context with the latest German energy policy, this construction at Wilhelmshaven will be a milestone in the efforts to diversify the national energy sector, with at least four more projects in the pipeline.

Construction works started in early May 2022 and with its completion, LNG vessels of all sizes will be able to moor at the chartered FSRU (Floating Storage and Regasification Unit) in Wilhelmshaven, regardless of tides and in line with highest safety standards.

Three sets of Shibata fender systems were designed in partnership with the contractor Depenbrock GmbH & Co and delivered to Niedersachsen Ports, Germany’s largest port operator for the new LNG terminal.

The customized fender systems each consist of 4 SPC Cone Fender Systems (SPC1150, G1.7) and 2 5000x3000mm steel panels with UHMW-PE low friction pads. Each fender system is installed at one mooring dolphin, providing a permanent berthing for the chartered FSRU.

ShibataFenderTeam (SFT) described the design focus for their in-house engineering team was on the permanent mooring situation and on safety.

“They paid special attention to the steel panels – designed to offer low hull pressure (<150 kN/m2) – and to the UHMW-PE pads (25mm thicker than average); these customized details allow to overcome that the fender system is exposed to changing tidal ranges and in constant contact with the FSRU, a very challenging but common situation for a permanent mooring,” SFT said.

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Wilhelmshaven wird Deutschlands erster LNG-Terminal

Ausgestattet mit ShibataFenderTeam Fendersystemen

Wilhelmshaven, ein Tiefseestandort an der Nordseeküste, wird Deutschlands erstes LNG-Terminal für den Import von verflüssigtem Erdgas.

Dies geschieht zu einer Zeit der Krise in ganz Europa mit dem Einbruch des Winters und reduzierten oder sogar fehlenden LNG-Lieferungen aus Russland.

Im Kontext der aktuellen deutschen Energiepolitik wird dieser Bau in Wilhelmshaven ein Meilenstein in den Bemühungen zur Diversifizierung des nationalen Energiesektors sein, mit mindestens vier weiteren Projekten in der Pipeline.

Die Bauarbeiten haben Anfang Mai 2022 begonnen und mit ihrer Fertigstellung können LNG-Schiffe aller Größen tideunabhängig und unter Einhaltung höchster Sicherheitsstandards an der gecharterten FSRU (Floating Storage and Regasification Unit) in Wilhelmshaven festmachen.

Drei Sätze Shibata-Fendersysteme wurden in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Bauunternehmen Depenbrock GmbH & Co entworfen und für das neue LNG-Terminal an Deutschlands größten Hafenbetreiber Niedersachsen Ports geliefert.

Die kundenspezifischen Fendersysteme bestehen jeweils aus 4 SPC Cone Fender-Systemen (SPC1150, G1.7) und 2 5000 x 3000 mm Stahlplatten mit reibungsarmen UHMW-PE-Pads. Jedes Fendersystem ist an einem Dalben installiert und bietet einen dauerhaften Liegeplatz für das gecharterte FSRU.

ShibataFenderTeam (SFT) beschrieb, dass der Designfokus für ihr internes Ingenieurteam auf der dauerhaften Verankerungssituation und der Sicherheit lag.

„Sie haben besonderes Augenmerk auf die Stahlbleche gelegt – die so ausgelegt sind, dass sie einen geringen Rumpfdruck bieten (<150 kN/m2) – und auf die UHMW-PE-Pads (25 mm dicker als der Durchschnitt); diese kundenspezifischen Details ermöglichen es, zu überwinden, dass das Fendersystem freigelegt ist sich ändernden Tidenhubs und in ständigem Kontakt mit der FSRU, eine sehr herausfordernde, aber häufige Situation für einen dauerhaften Liegeplatz”, sagte SFT.

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South Africa’s National shipping Line – feasible or stupid?

By Terry Hutson

Government recently tabled a bill to establish a state-owned national shipping line, the SA Shipping Company or SASCO.

Reaction from the wider maritime industry has been mixed, with support in some quarters and criticism down to the level of sarcasm in others.

In doing so South Africa has joined the small number of countries with similar aspirations of owning their own national shipping line.

This is based on somewhat irrational ideas of economic security, with the Department of Transport, which has tabled the bill, saying that it has conducted research that identifies South Africa as the only country not to have its own ships in the economic group known as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa).

“That’s not so,” says Captain Salvatore Sarno at MSC, the world’s biggest container line and the most frequent user of SA ports. “India does not have its own national shipping line, Brazil doesn’t, and in Russia the oligarchs run the shipping lines, not the state. It’s only China among the BRICS countries that has its own national shipping company.”

Funding

The idea here is that the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) will fund the venture with money also being appropriated by parliament.

According to the DoT the new shipping company will operate with a fleet of vessels consisting of a tanker, a bunkering vessel, a container ship, a bulk cargo vessel, a general cargo ship and a vessel for coastal services.

These will have preferential access to South Africa’s ports and will, according to the DoT, shield South Africa from supply chain disruption.

“The shipping of our essential imports and exports is mostly reliant on foreign governments and companies and this might not be able to shield South Africa from supply chain disruption, especially during times of natural disaster or international conflict,” the DoT said in a statement.

Critics point out that supply chain disruptions are the result of the inability of ports to maintain a steady movement of ships and cargo, and never because of a shortage of ships that have been diverted elsewhere.

If there is cargo for South Africa, they say, there will always be ships available to carry those goods, either to of from South Africa. In any case, having a single ship of each type is hardly going to matter if there was a problem. It’s a matter of scale to operate a shipping line successfully, they point out.

Capt. Sarno went so far as to call it stupid to suggest the supply chain can be interrupted in this way. “The bill is naive and childish,” he said.

Employment – one of the few advantages

One of the few advantages to having a national shipping line is the creation of employment opportunities for local seafarers, although it must be pointed out that a large number of South African seafarers are working on foreign-owned ships, as well as those on the few locally registered vessels of the South African Register.

There are also hundreds, perhaps thousands of South Africans employed internationally on cruise ships, in various occupations other than that of traditional seafaring.

The nearest South Africa came to a national line was with Safmarine, which the present government agreed to it being sold in 1999 to a Danish owner, Maersk.

The proposed shipping company will fall under the authority of a minister chosen by the president, who would, in turn, appoint a board that then designates a CEO. Now that, given the recent history of SOEs, is the scary part!

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What an idiotic idea from these idiots who run this country. They cannot run Eskom, Railways, SA Airways what makes them think they can run a shipping line. In Durban they cannot even run a sewerage pipeline.
Just to correct your article South Africa did have a national shipping line with the SAR ships from 1919 to about the 1980’s some time.  South African Railways and Harbour Administration took over ownership of three war prize ships, namely Apolda, Huntress and Seattle in August 1919, and they were known as SAR ships. They were employed to bring jarrah timber from Western Australia for sleepers  for the expanding railways in South Africa at that time. Also the carriage of coal to Far East was developed as well as all other types of cargo. Many more ships followed the original three over the years and SAR ships carried on trading well into the 1980’s.
– Graham Lawrence

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WHARF TALK: Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ SEVEN SEAS VOYAGER

Pictures by ‘Dockrat’
Story by Jay Gates

The procession of passenger ships into South African ports continues to increase as the season progresses, and what is telling for the South African tourist industry is that the majority of the callers, thus far, have been from the high end of the cruise industry, with the passengers being considered as being of the type that enjoy luxury. Southern Africa attracts a better class of international cruise buff, or so it would seem.

On 5th December, as advertised at 13h00 in the afternoon, the cruise ship SEVEN SEAS VOYAGER (IMO 9247144) arrived off Cape Town, inbound from Walvis Bay in Namibia, and entered Cape Town harbour, proceeding directly to the Cruise Terminal at E Berth. She berthed safely, without any tug assistance, at the end of a 24 day voyage that had started as far away as Lisbon, in Portugal.

Her voyage south began on 12th November, with her cruise itinerary mixing a good deal of visits to West African cities, with an equal measure of quality time spent at sea, with the following route; Lisbon- Portimao (Portugal)- La Palma (Canaries)- Tenerife (Canaries)- Mindelo (Cape Verde)- Dakar (Senegal)- Banjul (Gambia)- Abidjan (Ivory Coast)- Takoradi (Ghana)- Lomé (Togo)- São Tomé (São Tomé and Princípe)- Walvis Bay- Cape Town.

Launched in 2001, with her hull built at the shipyard of Vesentini Cantieri Navale Srl at Porto Viro in Italy, and commissioned in 2003 with her completion and outfitting taking place at the shipyard of T. Mariotti SpA at Genoa in Italy, ‘Seven Seas Voyager’ is 207 metres in length and has a deadweight of 5,400 tons.

She is a diesel electric vessel, and is powered by four Wärtsilä 6R38 6 cylinder 4 stroke main engines, producing 7,724 bhp (5,760 kW) each. These engines provide power to drive two Rolls-Royce Dolphin DPP395 Azimuth Thrusters (Azipods), producing 8,500 kW each for a service speed of 20 knots.

Her auxiliary machinery includes four Wärtsilä 9L38A generators providing 8,871 bhp (6,525 kW) each for domestic power requirements. She has no less than four Alfa Laval Aalborg Unex G-191 exhaust gas boilers, and two Alfa Laval Aalborg SG600/8/N oil fired boilers. For added manoeuvrability she has two transverse bow thrusters providing 1,200 kW each.

She is capable of carrying 706 passengers, with a crew to look after them numbering 447. She has twelve decks, of which nine are set aside for passenger use only. As an upmarket, luxury, cruise liner, all cabins on ‘Seven Seas Voyager’ are balcony suites. The largest suites are an enormous 130 m2 (1,403 ft2) in size, and the smallest are 33 m2 (356 ft2) in size. All of the largest suites come equipped with a marble bath, and some include a balcony Jacuzzi.

She provides a great deal of passenger amenities onboard, which includes seven restaurants, three cafés, a business centre, three bars, three lounges, a library, a card room, a casino, a theatre, a spa, a gymnasium, a boutique, and a swimming pool. Some of her open deck space is given over to traditional deck games, including a shuffleboard area, a tennis court, a gold driving range, a putting green, and a jogging track that circumnavigates the uppermost deck.

She is nominally owned by Voyager Vessel Company LLC, of Miami in the USA, who are a subsidiary of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd., of Hamilton in Bermuda. She is operated by Regent Seven Seas Cruises Ltd., of Miami in the USA, and she is managed by NCL Bahamas Ltd., also of Miami in the USA.

It appears to have been an operational decision, by many of the owners of visiting cruise ships in this 2022-2023 cruising season, that they have decided to run a series of back to back cruises, that keep their vessels in Southern African waters. It is no different with ‘Seven Seas Voyager’ and, as such, the casual observer can expect to see her calling into most of the South African ports between now and early January, as a further three cruises are scheduled to begin in Cape Town in this timeframe.

Her next cruise saw ‘Seven Seas Voyager’ departing from Cape Town on 6th December, with the following cruise itinerary; Cape Town- Walvis Bay (8th/9th)- Port Elizabeth (12th)- Richards Bay (14th/15th)- Maputo (16th)- Durban (18th)- Mossel Bay (20th)- Cape Town (21st).

This will be followed by a cruise following a similar port rotation, with her departing, once more, from Cape Town (21st)- Walvis Bay (23rd/24th)- Christmas At Sea- Port Elizabeth (27th)- Durban (28th/29th)- Maputo (31st)- Richards Bay (1st/2nd January 2023)- Mossel Bay (4th)- Cape Town (5th).

Her final departure from South African waters takes her across the South Atlantic Ocean to South America, with her final itinerary from Africa being Cape Town (5th January 2023)- Lüderitz (7th)- Walvis Bay (8th/9th)- Saint Helena (12th), and thence she crosses the South Atlantic Ocean for Rio de Janeiro, where she will visit a total of seven Brazilian ports, followed by Punta del Este, in Uruguay, and the cruise terminating in Buenos Aires, in Argentina, on 28th January.

In March 2010, whilst departing from Hong Kong harbour, ‘Seven Seas Voyager’ collided with one of the famous, and iconic, Star Ferry passenger boats, that regularly make the crossing from the Ocean Terminal on the Kowloon side of the harbour, to Victoria on Hong Kong Island. The collision resulted in damage to the ferry but, thankfully, no injuries to any of the ferry passengers.

In May 2017 ‘Seven Seas Voyager’ was involved in a medical emergency whilst on passage up the Red Sea, and en route to the port of Safaga, in Egypt. A German passenger aboard took ill, and required a medevac from the vessel. A helicopter was despatched by the General Security Aviation Command, of Saudi Arabia, and the patient was airlifted off ‘Seven Seas Voyager’, when south of Jeddah, off Al Shoaiba Beach, and flown to the King Abdullah Air Base, where he was transferred to hospital in Jeddah.

In 2020, ‘Seven Seas Voyager’, like passenger ships all around the world, did not escape the effects of the worldwide lockdown created by the Covid-19 pandemic. With a reduced skeleton crew of 108, kept aboard to keep the vessel in a state of readiness, and all under strict medical supervision, she was laid up in the port of Livorno, located on the Tuscany Coast of Northwest Italy.

Livorno was known to early seafarers by another name, which was Leghorn, and which today is the port city for the Italian renaissance cities of Florence, Pisa and Siena, hence why Livorno is a popular call for cruise liners in the Mediterranean.

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IN CONVERSATION: Why Britain should immediately withdraw from Mauritius’ Chagos Islands

Peter Harris, Colorado State University

Britain is on the cusp of decolonising Mauritius – again. The first attempt at decolonisation took place in 1968 but went unfulfilled when London kept hold of an island group that had long been regarded as Mauritian territory: the Chagos Archipelago.

In recent years, the international community has handed down a clear and consistent view that Britain’s occupation of the Chagos Islands is illegal. Now, London and Port Louis are engaged in talks over the future of the islands – the final act, perhaps, in the decolonisation of Mauritius.

Britain’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has suggested that an agreement on the status of the Chagos Archipelago will come “by early next year”.

But what might a settlement look like?

The answer depends almost entirely on what can be agreed about the future of Diego Garcia, the largest island of the Chagos group. It’s the site of a critical US military base that Britain has dutifully hosted for the past 50 years.

The American elephant

It is hard to overstate the legal and political pressure that Britain faces to withdraw from the Chagos Islands. No fewer than 116 national governments, the UN General Assembly, the African Union and the International Court of Justice have called upon Britain to cease its occupation of the islands. The settled opinion of the international community is that Diego Garcia and the rest of the Chagos Archipelago belong to Mauritius, not the United Kingdom. This is not much of a grey area.

But complying with international law is a voluntary act.

For a long time, Britain’s policy was that the Chagos Islands would be returned to Mauritius when they were no longer needed “for defence purposes”. In his written statement to announce talks with Port Louis, Cleverly appeared to reaffirm this commitment by insisting that “any agreement between our two countries will ensure the continued effective operation” of the base on Diego Garcia.

The elephant in the room is that Britain does not now need – and, in fact, has never truly depended upon – the Chagos Archipelago for military purposes. Only a handful of British military personnel cycle through Diego Garcia. What, then, is London waiting for?

In reality, it is US forces that use the island of Diego Garcia as a logistics hub and staging post for military actions across the Indo-Pacific. As they negotiate with Mauritius, British leaders are therefore mostly interested in securing guarantees that America’s military interests will not be harmed by a transfer of authority to Port Louis.

This is what will shape negotiations over the territory’s future.

Difficult talks ahead

Four scenarios stand out as realistic.

First, Britain could relinquish its claim to the Chagos Archipelago without delay, and with few or no strings attached. This would be the “cleanest” way to uphold London’s obligations to Mauritius under international law. It would then be up to Port Louis and Washington to decide upon the future of the base on Diego Garcia.

Second, London could suggest a staged approach to decolonisation. The opening phase would see Britain return the so-called “Outer” Chagos Islands to Mauritius – that is, the 57 islands of the archipelago that have never been used for military purposes, which are scattered around 100 miles north and west of Diego Garcia. But in exchange, Port Louis would grant London temporary sovereignty over Diego Garcia (a rump British Indian Ocean Territory) so that the base there could continue its operations uninterrupted for a specified amount of time.

Another variant of this option would be for Britain to acknowledge Mauritian sovereignty over the entire Chagos Archipelago – including Diego Garcia – but negotiate to access rights for itself and the United States.

Finally, talks could break down altogether. This is a real possibility. Decision-makers in London are unlikely to agree to anything that Washington cannot support.

The case for full decolonisation

Strictly bilateral talks might not be the best way to resolve the Chagos dispute. The United States must be engaged in the process, too.

Indeed, finding a long-term agreement between Washington and Port Louis is complicated by Britain’s persistent attempts to serve as an intermediary. Colonialism and illegality are hard to accommodate in diplomatic accords, after all.

Britain ought to announce the full and unconditional decolonisation of the territory as a backdrop to Mauritius and the United States discussing the issues that concern the two of them: basing rights, a status of forces agreement, and support for a resettled Chagossian community, to name three.

America’s military is hosted by a diverse cast of national governments on every continent. Dealing with Mauritius should be no more difficult than negotiating with Australia, Poland, Saudi Arabia, or South Korea.

Either way, London has no constructive role to play in these discussions, which concern the territory’s future rather than its past.

Peter Harris, Associate Professor of Political Science, Colorado State University

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

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Gas: The Ideal Resource Namibia and South Africa can offer Germans for Security

With German Economy Minister Robert Habeck seeking Namibia and South Africa to help Germany ensure energy security, the African Energy Chamber believes natural gas is the ideal resource that will also drive socioeconomic development and enable green hydrogen market expansion in Africa

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has embarked on a five-day tour to Namibia and South Africa in search of hydrogen to ensure energy security in Europe’s largest economy, as the European country seeks to replace Russian gas with alternative energy resources.

The trip to Namibia and South Africa follows H.E Habeck’s recent visit to Qatar where the Minister signed a 15-year liquefied natural gas (LNG) purchase and supply contract with Qatar Energy.

The African Energy Chamber (AEC), speaking as the voice of the African energy sector, says it supports Habeck and Germany’s move to embark in green hydrogen partnerships with Namibia and South Africa but believes the vast natural gas resources which remain untapped across the southern African region present massive energy security and economic growth opportunities, and win-win scenarios for Germany and the southern African countries involved.

The AEC believes that the two countries’ rapidly expanding gas industry – on the back of recent giant discoveries including TotalEnergies’ Luiperd and Brulpadda discoveries in South Africa and Namibia’s Venus and Graff discoveries, as well as the tremendous hydrocarbon potential in the Namib basin – presents a quick and sustainable solution to address Germany’s current energy crisis.

Eni’s Coral Sul Floating LNG project in Mozambique – which made its first LNG shipment to Europe in mid-November – is the perfect example of the potential of leveraging Africa’s offshore gas to ensure energy reliability in Europe. The AEC says it strongly urges Germany to maximise investments in Namibia and South Africa’s LNG production and export potential to address its looming gas shortages.

With Namibia and South Africa prioritising gas exploitation and reserve expansion to meet electrification targets – and Germany increasing coal dependence to meet demand – Germany’s investments in gas exploration in the high-prospects deep water and ultra-deep water basins of southern Africa could play a crucial role in driving a just energy transition in Europe and Africa.

“Germany is seeking energy security and wants to decarbonise while South Africa and Namibia want to industrialise. The trillions of natural gas reserves both on- and offshore across southern Africa will be crucial in driving long-term socioeconomic developments for the three parties.

“As the Chamber, we are confident gas presents the best energy resource Germans can seek from Africa to address their energy woes without further delays,” says NJ Ayuk, the Executive Chairman of the AEC.

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Gas: Der ideale Rohstoff Namibia und Südafrika bieten den Deutschen Sicherheit

Da der deutsche Wirtschaftsminister Robert Habeck Namibia und Südafrika sucht, um Deutschland bei der Gewährleistung der Energiesicherheit zu helfen, ist die African Energy Chamber der Ansicht, dass Erdgas die ideale Ressource ist, die auch die sozioökonomische Entwicklung vorantreiben und die Expansion des Marktes für grünen Wasserstoff in Afrika ermöglichen wird

Bundeswirtschaftsminister Robert Habeck hat sich auf eine fünftägige Reise nach Namibia und Südafrika auf die Suche nach Wasserstoff begeben, um die Energiesicherheit in Europas größter Volkswirtschaft zu gewährleisten, da das europäische Land versucht, russisches Gas durch alternative Energieressourcen zu ersetzen.

Die Reise nach Namibia und Südafrika folgt auf den jüngsten Besuch S. E. Habecks in Katar, wo der Minister einen 15-jährigen Kauf- und Liefervertrag für verflüssigtes Erdgas (LNG) mit Qatar Energy unterzeichnete.

Die African Energy Chamber (AEC), die als Stimme des afrikanischen Energiesektors spricht, sagt, dass sie den Schritt von Habeck und Deutschland unterstützt, Partnerschaften für grünen Wasserstoff mit Namibia und Südafrika einzugehen, glaubt jedoch an die riesigen Erdgasressourcen, die im südlichen Afrika noch unerschlossen sind Region bieten enorme Möglichkeiten für Energiesicherheit und wirtschaftliches Wachstum sowie Win-Win-Szenarien für Deutschland und die beteiligten Länder des südlichen Afrikas.

Die AEC glaubt, dass die schnell expandierende Gasindustrie der beiden Länder – auf der Grundlage der jüngsten gigantischen Entdeckungen, einschließlich der Entdeckungen Luiperd und Brulpadda von TotalEnergies in Südafrika und der Entdeckungen Venus und Graff in Namibia, sowie des enormen Kohlenwasserstoffpotenzials im Namib-Becken – präsentiert wird eine schnelle und nachhaltige Lösung zur Bewältigung der aktuellen Energiekrise in Deutschland.

Das schwimmende LNG-Projekt Coral Sul von Eni in Mosambik – das Mitte November seine erste LNG-Lieferung nach Europa durchführte – ist das perfekte Beispiel für das Potenzial, Afrikas Offshore-Gas zu nutzen, um die Energiezuverlässigkeit in Europa zu gewährleisten. Die AEC fordert Deutschland nachdrücklich auf, die Investitionen in die LNG-Produktion und das Exportpotenzial Namibias und Südafrikas zu maximieren, um die drohende Gasknappheit anzugehen.

Da Namibia und Südafrika der Gasförderung und dem Ausbau der Reserven Vorrang einräumen, um die Elektrifizierungsziele zu erreichen – und Deutschland die Abhängigkeit von Kohle erhöht, um die Nachfrage zu decken – könnten Deutschlands Investitionen in die Gasexploration in den vielversprechenden Tiefwasser- und Ultratiefwasserbecken des südlichen Afrikas eine entscheidende Rolle spielen Rolle bei der Förderung einer gerechten Energiewende in Europa und Afrika.

“Deutschland strebt nach Energiesicherheit und will die Dekarbonisierung, während Südafrika und Namibia industrialisieren wollen. Die Billionen von Erdgasreserven sowohl on- als auch offshore im südlichen Afrika werden entscheidend sein, um die langfristigen sozioökonomischen Entwicklungen für die drei Parteien voranzutreiben.

“Als Kammer sind wir zuversichtlich, dass Gas die beste Energiequelle darstellt, die die Deutschen in Afrika suchen können, um ihre Energieprobleme ohne weitere Verzögerungen anzugehen”, sagt NJ Ayuk, der geschäftsführende Vorsitzende der AEC.

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TRADE NEWS: Castor Marine offers Starlink to boost Internet for its maritime, offshore and superyacht clients

Castor Marine and Castor Networks to serve maritime, yachting and enterprise customers with an improved low-latency, high-bandwidth broadband experience from Starlink

Since Starlink announced its connectivity services for the maritime industry, customers have shown big interest in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications at sea, because of the system’s ability to provide high-speed Internet at very low latency. Recognising this, Netherlands based connectivity provider Castor Marine has taken the step to add Starlink to their portfolio completing its VSAT and network capabilities, by becoming an Authorised Starlink Reseller.

New level of connectivity at sea

Adding Starlink’s high-speed, low-latency broadband Internet solution to its portfolio means that Castor now can offer SD-WAN automatic and dynamic switching service between Starlink, VSAT, Iridium, Fleetbroadband and 4G/5G LTE services to create a seamless user experience that was impossible a few months ago – it’s quite unique.

Read the rest of this report in the TRADE NEWS section available by CLICKING HERE

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Sexual Violence in Maritime Industry: Calls for Accountability

South Africa’s Department of Social Development has called for accountability on the many cases of sexual violence and harassment that go unreported at sea in the maritime industry.

The Department made the call recently during the inaugural Seminar on Gender-Based Violence led by the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA).

According to research by Professor Momoko Kitada of the World Marine University (WMU), the male-dominated sector is rife with aggravating factors pointing to sexual harassment that happens onboard different ships, with the enforcement of laws and policies weakened by different geographical jurisdictions.

The department said the research showed while there was a ratio of 1.28% females at sea, 60% of these women had reported encountering gender-based discrimination onboard.

Violence experienced at sea include discrimination, harassment, bullying, intimidation, fixed mindset derived from toxic masculinity and body-shaming.

The research report concluded that legislation must be complemented by frameworks and platforms to promote gender equality.

Speaking at the seminar, the department’s Chief Director: Victim Empowerment, Social Crime and Substance Abuse, Siza Magangoe, said it was fitting for the session to be held when the country was observing 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children and on the heels of the second Presidential Summit on GBVF.

The department leads Pillar 4 of the NSP which focuses on the provision and strengthening of an integrated community and institutional response, care, support and healing to GBVF survivors and their families.

The department said the seminar revealed harrowing tales of abuse that were often perpetrated by well-respected senior managers.

“Speakers not only shared their views about the challenges they faced in various work environments because of their gender – as the maritime sphere was traditionally, and still is, a male-dominated industry – but also how they excelled in their respective careers despite the many hindrances obstructing their growth,” said the department.

“Biases towards women in the maritime industry are still a major barrier for gender equality in shipping and ports.”

Transport Deputy Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga said the country was still haunted by the death of a cadet, Akhona Geveza, whose lifeless body was found off the coast of Croatia on 24 June 2010, after having reported a case of sexual harassment.

Akhona Geveza, a Transnet cadet, was serving on board the SAFMARINE KARIBA. According to reports at that time, she had told her friend, Nokulunga Cele, that the ship’s chief officer had raped her. She reported the matter also to the ship’s captain who arranged a meeting with her and the chief officer for the next morning.

She failed to attend that meeting and her body was later discovered in the sea. A newspaper reported her parents as saying they believe she was thrown overboard from the ship.

That newspaper account may be SEEN HERE

“It is a case that devastated not only the family but the maritime industry in its entirety and had many young women questioning if this was a career for them,” Deputy Minister Chikunga said.

“In the minds of many South African seafarers the case remains unsolved as her death was declared a suicide. This is not meant to open old wounds to the family,” said the Deputy Minister.

The case prompted other cadets, male and female, to relay similar experiences.

“This incident and the other related cases of sexual harassment that were reported at the time threatened the country’s ambitions of being a key player in the maritime industry and promotion of the maritime industry including gender parity. Mechanisms for crime prevention and reporting ought to be strengthened for this sector,” Chikunga said.

Magangoe conveyed similar sentiments, saying that in the same manner that HIV/AIDS was destigmatised, society needed to raise the profile of GBV, talk about it and remove the shame associated with reporting cases of violation.

“We must make those who violate feel uncomfortable. The victim must be at the centre of justice and should be able to access state support with ease.”

She said various access points and services were available to victims, adding that government was working on collecting victim support data to create a national picture and information sharing among its entities for better and effective service delivery.

She called for accountability for the many cases that are reported and remain unresolved.

SAMSA should be guided to institute a subcommittee that will hold everyone in the Maritime sector accountable and form part of existing sectoral approach and collaboration in the fight against GBVF.

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WHARF TALK: visiting French Navy ships NIVOSE & LE MALIN

Pictures by ‘Dockrat’ (where indicated)
Story by Jay Gates

This is a story of a vessel that is considered fairly unique, in that the vessel in question covers the literal expression of ‘When the Poacher becomes the Gamekeeper’, or ‘When the Hunted becomes the Hunter’. Both apply in equal measure.

French naval vessels are no strangers to South African shores, and the annual visit of the Jeanne d’Arc squadron on their world cruise is a regular feature in the Cape Town naval social scene. This call goes with periodic visits from the French naval vessels that are based at the French Overseas Department of Reunion Island, and whose purpose is to patrol, protect, and secure the integrity, and the sovereignty, of French possessions in the Indian Ocean and Antarctica.

One of the lesser known aspects of why the Reunion based French naval vessels call at Cape Town, is not just on a ‘show the flag’ cruise, but to undertake mutually beneficial training with the South African Navy in areas that is of common interest to both nations. Such an undertaking takes place under the auspices of ‘Operation Oxide’, which takes place biennially, i.e. every two years, and whose training is focused on an area of the South Indian Ocean that is of mutual concern to both South Africa and France.

On 17th November, two Reunion based vessels of the Marine Nationale, better known as the French Navy, arrived off the Western Cape. The lead vessel of the squadron was the frigate ‘FNS Nivose F732’, which was last here in April, when she escorted the Jeanne d’Arc squadron into Cape Town, as reported in the 4th May 2022 edition of Africa Ports & Ships

She turned up off Cape Town harbour, and as before, entered the Duncan Dock, but went alongside the Passenger terminal at E berth, so at least the local public had a change to get a close look at ‘FNS Nivose’, unlike back in April when they were sent to the far end of the Duncan Dock, and where nobody would have any opportunity of walking past and admiring them as they could in previous visits when it was to the V&A that they berthed.

The second vessel of the squadron was ‘FNS Le Malin P701’, and she, instead, proceeding directly to Simonstown Naval Base, where she also arrived on 17th November. She then took part as the French Navy element of ‘Operation Oxide’, with the new inshore patrol vessel ‘SAS King Sekhukhune 1 P1571’ being provided by the South African Navy, and the fisheries patrol vessel ‘Lilian Ngoyi’ playing the part of the target vessel of both the warships.

The last Operation Oxide could not take place in 2020 due to the effects of the global Covid-19 pandemic. In this exercise the focus would be on every element of Search and Rescue, including hostage recovery. The purpose of ‘Operation Oxide’ is the enhance the co-operation and interoperability between the two navies, in respect of the two nations sharing adjoining Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) in the South Indian Ocean.

Not many people give any thought to the fact South Africa’s only overseas possession, the Prince Edward Islands, located at 46°52’ South 037°45’ East, have an internationally recognised 200 mile EEZ, that adjoins the EEZ of the French owned Crozet Islands EEZ, whose closest point is located at 46°06’ South 50°13’ East. As such, both nations share common objectives and responsibilities in the South Indian Ocean to police the waters, and protect them from Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing activities by pirate, malevolent, actors.

It is well known that the French authorities take a very strong approach to these policing and fisheries patrol missions, and deploy Patrol Vessels into the southern oceans all year round. The French have their Antarctic Territory, known as Adélie Land, and their South Indian Ocean islands of the Crozet, Kerguelen, St. Paul, Amsterdam, and Ésparses Islands, which are collectively known as the Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises (TAAF), or the French Southern and Antarctic Lands. The TAAF territories are governed by a Prefect in Reunion.

The French, until August 2015, deployed the patrol vessel ‘FNS Albatros P681’ into the waters of the TAAF EEZs, and she was very successful in apprehending IUU fishing vessels, all trying to catch Patagonian Toothfish, without permits, and without permission from the French authorities. The French government also have a reciprocal arrangement with the Australian government to patrol the Australian Antarctic Territory EEZ waters of the Heard and McDonald Islands.

The ‘Albatros’ was a regular visitor to South Africa, with her last visit being in June 2015, just two months before she was decommissioned after 32 years of service to the Marine Nationale. She started life in 1967 as a French owned stern trawler, and was purchased by the Marine Nationale in 1983. She was stripped of all fishing gear, and refitted with surveillance equipment, armaments, and accommodation, to allow her to serve as a bespoke fisheries patrol vessel for the TAAF regions.

The patrol agreement allows joint Australian and French patrols, to enforce each other’s fishing laws in their respective EEZs, with both nations providing their own Fisheries Inspectors, placed upon the patrol vessels of each nation, so that searches can take place in any waters across the South Indian Ocean, at any time, by vessels of either nation.

This approach has removed almost completely the IUU vessels from both French and Australian sub-Antarctic waters. Sadly, such a similar arrangement has dragged on for many years between South Africa and France, with a slow pace of implementation since 2016. This has left the Prince Edward Islands completely open, and vulnerable, to any IUU rogue vessels that choose to enter the EEZ and fish illegally.

South Africa decided to do something about having the ability to patrol their own EEZ down at Marion and Prince Edward Island. In 2005, the South African government commissioned the Damen 8313 Class Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) ‘Sarah Baartman’, with an express view that she would be used to patrol the EEZ of the Prince Edward Islands. Sadly, like most things this has not occurred. The two questions to ask are, how often has ‘Sarah Baartman’ actually visited the Prince Edward Islands since 2005 and, in fact, when was the last time she visited the Prince Edward Islands. The answer to both questions will be very disappointing to most.

The lack of policing in the Prince Edward Islands EEZ is made worse when one considers that the islands themselves were pronounced as being Marine Protected Areas (MPA) in 2013, with the whole of the waters, out to 12 nautical miles from each island, being off limits to all, and any, fishing activities. All well and good, except that there is nobody checking it is being respected, or able to do something about it if it wasn’t.

It brings into question the whole point of ‘Operation Oxide’. It is clear that the South African Navy, other than with an urgent medevac requirement from Marion Island, is in no position to send a vessel that is capable of conducting fisheries patrols in those waters, and the ‘Sarah Baartman’ is not likely to spend much time down there either. As such, testing the interoperability of two navies, one of which is never going to be operating in these waters to test the exercise outcomes, is mere window dressing

As for the operational French and Australian agreement, an example of this arrangement took place in June 2004 when ‘FNS Albatros’ was patrolling the EEZ of the Australian EEZ of Heard Island (FAO Subarea 58.5.2) when she came across the IUU longliner ‘Apache’. She shadowed the vessel into FAO Subarea 58.5.1, which is the French Kerguelen Island EEZ and, five days later, promptly arrested her for illegal fishing, and sent her back to Reunion to face the courts.

The courts showed no leniency and the catch was confiscated, the Captain and Owners were fined, and ‘Apache’ itself was seized and forfeited The Marine Nationale decided that they could use her, and duly purchased her in April 2006 for US$2.4 million (ZAR41.65 million), for initial use as an Auxiliary Support Vessel, based in Toulon in France. In January 2012 she was reclassified as a Patrol Vessel, and refitted for ocean fishery patrols, with the new pennant number of P701. In October 2012 she arrived at Reunion, where she has been based ever since.

Built in 1997 with the hull being built by Stocznia Pólocna shipyard at Gdańsk in Poland, ‘FNS Le Malin’ was then taken to the Ølensvåg Shipyard at Ølensvåg in Norway for outfitting and completion. She is 54 metres in length and has a deadweight of 620 tons. She is powered by a single Caterpillar 3606TA 6 cylinder 4 stroke main engine producing 2,585 bhp (1,928 kW), to drive a fixed pitch propeller for a transit sea speed of 12 knots.

She is classified as Ice Class 1C, which is the lowest category of ice classification, and allows her to operate in first year ice of 0.4 metre thickness. She operates with a crew of 22, and she carries two RHIB for boarding operations. She is lightly armed for fisheries patrols with two fixed 12.7mm Browning M2 machine guns, plus assault rifles and sidearms.

Her part in ‘Operation Oxide’, with interoperability exercises taking place both by day, and by night, started from her arrival on 17th November, and was concluded successfully on 26th November. She then sailed from Simonstown Naval Base, arriving off Cape Town later that day. In an unusual change to Transnet’s normal rules, ‘FNS Le Malin’ entered Cape Town harbour and proceeded into the V&A Basin, where she went alongside the traditional berth on No.2 Jetty, in full view of the visiting locals and tourists alike, just as it always should be.

Until this visit, every visiting warship, and passenger vessel, was forced to have to go into the Duncan Dock, where no public access is allowed. So this turn of events was a very pleasant, and welcome, change from the norm. At 15h00 on 30th November, her visit to the Mother City was over, and she sailed from the V&A, and Cape Town harbour, for her return voyage back to her base at Reunion Island.

She is not the first French warship to be called ‘Le Malin’, as her predecessor was one of the four ‘Le Fantasque’ class of destroyer, entering service in 1936. As World War Two progressed, and Germany invaded, and took over France in 1940, ‘Le Malin’ declared for the Vichy French Navy and served in West Africa. She was damaged and captured in Casablanca in 1942, and handed over to the Free French Navy, where she took part in ‘Operation Dragoon’, the successful Allied invasion of the South of France in 1944.

After the war she was converted into an Aircraft Carrier Escort, and after service in French Indo-China she was placed into reserve in 1952, but was only stricken from the Navy List in 1964. She was finally scrapped in 1977.

For the nomenclature aficionados, ‘Le Malin’ means ‘The Malign One’, which is an appropriate description, not only for a destroyer, but also for a modern Fishery Patrol vessel, whose role is to seek out, arrest and remove, from the face of the Earth, those pirate fishing vessels that undertake IUU operations in the Southern Ocean, destroying the fragile marine ecosystem that exists in this pristine part of our world.

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Transnet eases the way for doing business with emerging manganese miners

Transnet has already announced its intention to open up capacity allocation for ’emerging miners’ via the ports of Port Elizabeth and Saldanha from April 2023, when its current long-term contracts come to an end.

On Monday (5 December) Transnet said new contracting and capacity allocation processes have commenced, with the intent to enable a emerging miner ramp up. Transnet said it hopes to increase the current number of emerging miners that have access to rail and port capacity from four to eleven. This will be achieved by introducing seven new entrants by the beginning of the next financial year.

Currently the emerging miner allocation is 2 million tons per annum (mtpa). Transnet wants to double this to 4 mtpa by April 2023 and constituting a 25% share of total available capacity.

The key minimum requirements that Transnet has put forward as qualifying criteria for capacity allocation include:

• Valid mining rights
• Current mining activities
• Access to rail loading facility

According to Transnet it has made good strides in driving transformation in the manganese mining sector to a point where new entrants currently account for 12% of overall capacity.

However, Transnet is still experiencing challenges in the coal mining sector where emerging miners only enjoy 5% of available capacity and in the iron ore mining sector which has 0% emerging miners.

Transnet says it will continue to focus efforts on implementing step-changes in support of emerging miner growth by:

• Rebasing the allocation ratio between emerging and major miners
• Easing ways of doing business with Transnet for emerging miners (contracting, credit management, capacity application processes)
• Improving access to infrastructure for emerging miners, such as loading facilities
• Ensuring transparency in its processes.

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Products tanker pirated twice in Gulf of Guinea: Italian Navy assists

Details of a recent pirate attack on a South Korean-registered product tanker in the Gulf of Guinea have emerged.

An Italian Navy patrol ship, the COMMANDANTE BORSINI, went to the assistance of a crippled products tanker, the South Korean B OCEAN (IMO 9377834) which had been boarded by pirates in the Gulf of Guinea.

It appears pirates boarded the tanker on 23 November 2022 and before leaving the vessel the following day, they damaged the tanker’s engine and its communication and navigation systems, leaving the ship to drift some 300 miles off the West African coast.

With communication lost the ship’s South Korean operators issued a request for help in finding the vessel.

The Italian corvette Commandante Borsini, which was on patrol in the area, was requested to go to the assistance of the tanker while
a call went out to other shipping in the area to report any sighting of the missing vessel.

According to the Italian Navy the corvette found the tanker drifting about 300 nautical miles from the coast. Using the corvette’s helicopter, a team was sent on board to confirm the condition of the ship and her crew.

The crew of 19 were reported to be well and unharmed though severely traumatised. Before departing the pirates had robbed them of money and possessions including cellular phones, laptops, and other personal effects of the crew, making any contact with the outside world impossible. In addition the pirates took with them a portion of fuel from the tanker’s cargo.

In January this year the B Ocean was the victim of another attack by pirates in the Gulf of Guinea. On that occasion the pirates stole 977 tons of fuel before they departed the scene.

On this more recent occasion the pirates had caused significant damage to the tanker’s navigation equipment and to the ship’s engine room. An engineering team from the Italian corvette went on board to attempt repairs but at the same time a tug be despatched to tow the crippled tanker to a nearby port.

That port was Abidjan in the Ivory Coast where the tug and tow, escorted by the Italian corvette, safely arrived.

The tanker’s crew consisted of two South Koreans (master and chief engineer) and 17 Indonesians, all of whom were subjected to questioning about their ordeal before any arrangements could be made for their repatriation home.

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Harvesting rainwater: Graduate saves fresh water in Malaysia

UNCTAD port programme

A rainwater harvesting system proposed by Ms Rabiah Nadir is helping Johor Port, Malaysia, save fresh water, minimize chances of flooding and contribute to global goals. It is estimated that the scheme will save up to ten million litres of freshwater each year. This was reported by the UNCTAD media service on 1 December.

UNCTAD’s TrainForTrade programme

The system installed in 2020 was proposed by Rabiah Nadir in a case study she developed under the UNCTAD TrainForTrade port management programme.

A training module on how ports can reduce their environmental footprints led Ms Nadir to focus on water usage in the final study she presented to senior managers to graduate from the programme.

She commented: “I wanted to help the port reduce its consumption of freshwater.” At Johore she is a property manager of the port which operates the world’s largest palm oil terminal.

Malaysia gets abundant rainfall, averaging around 3,000 millimetres annually but freshwater ecosystems in the South-East Asian nation are under threat from rapid urbanization and population growth, as well as pollution and environmental degradation.

Before enrolling in the training programme, Ms Nadir had joined the port’s facility management department, which is responsible for the landscaping, cleaning and beautification work in the port. She noticed the port was using about two million litres of fresh water each year for landscape irrigation and to clean the port’s warehouses, roads and office buildings.

Ms Nadir identified a rainwater harvest system as a sustainable, cost-effective alternative. Her study pinpointed three suitable locations in the port – in terms of safety and security – and estimated the installation costs and expected return on investment.

System brings good return on investment

After Ms Nadir’s presentation, the port installed the rainwater harvesting system between 2019 and 2020. It now provides up to ten million litres of rainwater each year – enough to fill four Olympic-size swimming pools.

Since the system provides more than enough rainwater for irrigation and cleaning activities, the remainder can be used for other work and infrastructure that do not require fresh water, such as plumbing and fire hydrants.

In just two years, the money saved on water has already paid back the $86,000 invested in installing the system, according to port authorities.

The project is also saving fresh water for the local community, which is especially important during the summer, when rainfall is less abundant. And by reducing the amount of rainwater going into the port’s drainage system, it helps lower the risk of flooding during the rainy season.

It is also a concrete example of how ports can contribute to the actions needed to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – in this case the goals to provide clean water and sanitation for all (SDG 6) and to fight climate change and its impacts (SDG 13).

It is conceivable that such a scheme as created in Johor, Malaysia could have an application elsewhere in the tropics, maybe in the ports of east and west Africa.

Over 7,000 port professionals certified

Ms Nadir is one of more than 7,000 port professionals at middle and senior levels from over 140 countries whom UNCTAD’s TrainForTrade Port Management Programme has trained and certified since 1996. Over 30% of them are women.

In the words of Mark Assaf, in charge of UNCTAD’s TrainForTrade programme: “These trained people are making a big difference in the way their ports are run.

“The training programme encourages them to identify and address issues in their port community, and as decision makers, to take steps to increase port efficiency, sustainability and performance.”

Edited by Paul Ridgway
London

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Exxaro faces a R11 billion cost in lost opportunities due to TFR’s inability to increase coal exports

Exxaro Resources says it is being forced, as a result of ongoing constraints on the rail logistics, to sell export coal in the domestic market to exporters that have access to export capacity, as well as trucking and exporting coal through alternative ports.

The constraints referred to are the inability of Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) to achieve targets set by themselves for delivering coal to the port at Richards Bay.

The situation hasn’t become easier following the recent two-week strike and the derailment of a train headed toward the port, which effectively closed both lines and took around a week to clear.

In order to meet these challenges Exxaro is ensuring continued operations by diversifying its export flows by trucking coal to alternative ports.

“We continue evaluating alternative logistical options to evacuate our product, the mining company said.

The inability of the state-owned rail company to meet its own set targets will cost Exxaro an estimated R11 billion in lost orders, at a time when demand in Europe is high amid strong prices.

According to Fin24 columnist Carol Paton, the mining sector has identified R50-billion in lost export opportunities so far this year alone.

Added to that, an editorial in the Daily Maverick reported the forestry sector claiming it could have increased exports by 14% while earning another R3.9 billion in foreign exchange and is instead forced to do an additional 40,000 truck trips a year. One can quote other examples but this report is centred on coal exports.

Exxaro financial director Riaan Koppeschaar said last week that the average export coal price from South Africa was expected to be $271 per tonne this year compared to last year’s $124 per tonne average.

“The heightened European interest in South African thermal coal is expected to remain well into 2023 as Europe continues to find solutions to be independent from Russian-energy sources,” said Koppeschaar.

“South African thermal coal exports into high CV (calorific value) markets, such as South Korea and Japan, present further opportunities.”

If only coal can find its way to the port.

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WHARF TALK: former Leopard Star, now ELANDRA STAR

Pictures by ‘Dockrat’
Story by Jay Gates

There was once a time, not so very long ago, when South African owned, South African manned, ocean going, vessels were regular callers at all major South African ports. Cape Town had regular calls by the SAR&H collier ‘Johann Hugo’, bringing in coal from Maputo, or the ‘S.A. Agulhas’ of the Department of Transport, bringing scientists back from Antarctica, Marion Island and Gough Island. However, it was the many vessels of Safmarine, and Unicorn Lines, that were to be seen year round at every port on the coast, from Walvis Bay in the west, to Richards Bay in the east.

Sadly, the halcyon days of the 1980s evaporated when Safmarine was subsumed into the great Maersk Line, and although the name continued to be used, the white hulled vessels themselves became rarer and rarer callers in what used to be their home ports. The owners of Unicorn Lines decided that they would rather operate from a foreign base, and withdraw from their traditional trades, but they still maintained a fleet of modern product tankers, using the traditional Unicorn names of South African rivers, and South African wildlife.

Folk will remember the last of the Unicorn tanker fleet, with such names as Berg, Breede, Gamtoos, Gouritz, Inyala, Kei, Kowie, Oliphant, Rhino, and Umgeni. Slowly, but surely, the tankers were all sold off, and finally, the last of the famous blue and red hulled vessels, ‘Breede’, disappeared from South African shores in April 2022.

What is less known about parent company, Grindrod Shipping, now firmly headquartered in Singapore, was that they also had a joint venture tanker company called Leopard Tankers Pte. Ltd., also of Singapore. The 50/50 partners were Grindrod Shipping Pte. Ltd., and Vitol Shipping Pte., Ltd. The company had four MR class product tankers, named Leopard Moon, Leopard Sun, Leopard Sea and Leopard Star, managed by Unicorn Lines, from their Durban office.

When Grindrod withdrew from the Tanker market, the four tankers were transferred to Vitol, who placed them under their own shipping arm, Mansel Pte., Ltd., of Singapore. Thus was the last link with Unicorn Lines, Durban and South Africa severed. The casual observer was not likely to ever see a Unicorn Lines vessel arrive at a traditional home port.

On 21st November, at 10h00 in the morning, the MR2 tanker ELANDRA STAR (IMO 9635767) arrived off Cape Town, from Sikka in India, and entered Cape Town harbour, proceeding into the Duncan Dock and going alongside one of the berths in the Tanker Basin.

Built in 2013 by SPP Shipbuilding at Tongyoung in South Korea, ‘Elandra Star’ is 183 metres in length and has a deadweight of 49,999 tons. She is powered by a single Doosan MAN-B&W 6S50ME-B9.2 6 cylinder 2 stroke main engine producing 12,114 bhp (8,910 kW), driving a fixed pitch propeller for a service speed of 14.5 knots.

Her auxiliary machinery includes three Yanmar 6EY22ALW generators providing 970 kW each, and a single Cummins emergency generator providing 150 kW. She has a Kangrim PCZZZZP32 exhaust gas boiler, and a Kangrim PB0301AS12 oil fired boiler.

She has 12 cargo tanks, all coated with Phenolic Epoxy, with a cargo carrying capacity of 52,031 m3. She is capable of carrying six grades of product at any one time, and has 12 cargo pumps capable of pumping at 600 m3 per hour.

One of four sisterships, ‘Elandra Star’ is nominally owned by Sea 96 Leasing Co. Ltd., of Hong Kong, is operated by Mansel Pte. Ltd., of Singapore, and is managed by LSC Shipmanagement SIA, of Riga in Latvia. Her nominal owners are a subsidiary company of the financial leasing arm of the China Merchants Bank, of Shenzhen in China.

Her operating company, Mansel, gives you the connection that she is still very much associated with Vitol, and her name is another clue. Elandra Holdings, of Bermuda, are the investment vehicle of the Vitol Group. Until 2019, ‘Elandra Star’ was, in fact, better known as ‘Leopard Star’, managed by Unicorn Lines, of Durban.

Her real owners, Vitol SA, of Geneva in Switzerland, are one of the largest, independent, energy trading companies, with 2021 revenues approaching US$280 billion (ZAR4.8 trillion). They are considered to be the 6th largest company worldwide, but given the secrecy about which Vitol maintains its business activities, and the limited nature of its statutory disclosures under Swiss law, it is generally excluded from almost all world rankings.

Despite not recently seeing her before in South African waters, she has visited other African destinations this year, with port calls to deliver fuel products to Tema, in Ghana, back in May, and last month, she paid a visit to Mombasa, in Kenya, to deliver fuel.

By 28th November, after a full week discharging, which again for a MR2 tanker is woeful, ‘Elandra Star’ was ready to sail at the ‘red eye’ time of 01h00 in the morning. Her AIS destination, strangely, was set for MYMKZ, which is the LOCODE destination for Malacca, in Malaysia. However, there is no commercial oil port at Malacca, so the destination is spurious, and a loading operator error.

That said, just 8 nautical miles north of Malacca, is the port of Sundai Udang (LOCODE MYSUP), located at 02°14’ North 012°07’ East, and which is operated by the Malaysian state owned oil company, Petronas. Sundai Udang is a dedicated oil and storage terminal port, linked to the adjacent Melaka Refinery, also owned by Petronas. This major oil port lies approximately halfway between the two ports of Tanjung Pelepas and Port Klang. It is highly likely that Sundai Udang is the destination set for ‘Elandra Star’.

The Melaka refinery itself was established in 1999, and is capable of refining 170,000 barrels per day. The main products of the refinery are Petroleum, Diesel, Jetfuel, LPG and Sulphur. The refinery is linked directly by pipeline to the oil storage terminal at Sundai Udang port. The port itself has 7 berths, all located on a T-Jetty, which stretches 0.8 nautical miles out to sea, and offers dedicated tanker berthing along a 2,100 metre length.

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Added 5 December 2022

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Angolan Navy takes delivery of first of three Ocean Eagle patrol boats

The first of three Ocean Eagle 43 patrol trimaran boats has been handed over to the Angolan Navy.

The sleek patrol boat, similar to three that were controversially delivered to Mozambique, were built in France by the Construction de Normandie (CMN) shipyard, a part of the UAE-based Privinvest shipbuilding organisation.

The trimaran has a length of 43.6 metres and is 15.2 metres wide.

Designed for surveillance work the vessel was handed over on 16 November 2022. Her duties with the Angolan Navy will probably include patrols against smuggling and people trafficking, and has the speed of over 30 knots in order to counter fast speedboats used by criminal gangs operating offshore.

Range

She has a range of around 3,000 nautical miles at 20 knots and is crewed by seven personnel with accommodation for another eight.

Angola has previously obtained patrol vessels from the French company, these being three HS1 32 patrol craft and two Vigilante 400 patrol vessels, one for short range and one for long-range offshore patrols.

There is no indication of the Ocean Eagle’s armaments but they can usually carry either a 20mm or 30mm cannon placed above the bridge, and a pair of 12.7mm machine guns at the stern.

The vessel has a small helipad aft of the bridge capable of carrying an unmanned small helicopter.

As mentioned, CMN supplied a controversial order of three Ocean Eagle patrol boats to Mozambique together with three HSI 32 patrol boats and 18 fishing trawlers in a deal that led to an extended legal enquiry and court case taking place currently in Maputo, with suggestions of bribery and corruption as part of the deal.

One of the HSI 32 high speed (48 knots) patrol boats was damaged and possibly sunk in the battle for Mocimboa da Praia in 2020.

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Added 5 December 2022

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African Development Bank commits US$301 million to overhaul Uganda’s metre-gauge railway

The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) is providing $301 million to overhaul the Kampala-Malaba metre gauge railway (MGR) in Uganda.

The railway line is part of the East African Community’s Northern Corridor linking the capital, Kampala, to Kenya’s coastal port city of Mombasa.

The East African Community Railway Rehabilitation Support Project will bolster rail services and lower transportation costs in a region well endowed with agricultural land, minerals and petroleum production and manufacturing.

The financing approved Wednesday by the Group’s Board of Directors consists of loans and grants from the AfDB and its concessional lending window, the African Development Fund.

The works entail the immediate rehabilitation of 265 km of MGR tracks between Malaba on the border with Kenya and Mukono, including the line to Uganda’s Jinja Pier and Port Bell on Lake Victoria.

The project incorporates training and skills development for the railway workforce. It also will integrate nature-based solutions, including tree planting, to enhance the climate resilience of the tracks.

Railway lines critical to opening up the heartland of Africa

“Railway lines are critical to opening up the heartland of Africa, where there is immense agricultural and economic potential,” said AfDB Group President Akinwumi Adesina.

He said rail tracks would also be instrumental in linking rural-based Special Agricultural Processing Zones, which the African Development Bank is promoting, to markets and other vital logistics hubs.

“Railway lines should not simply connect ports to mines,” Adesina said. He added that it is heartening to see African governments investing in rail transport. The project was backed by Uganda’s cabinet and parliament.

The Kampala-Malaba MGR is part of the multi-modal Northern Corridor route, which includes road transport from Mombasa in Kenya to landlocked Uganda and neighboring countries, including Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and Eastern DR Congo. The corridor also has maritime links with Lake Victoria’s inland waterways.

Rail is viewed as a safer and more affordable mode of transport than road, but currently, more than 90% of the traffic along the northern corridor is carried by road, with a mere 7% moving by rail because of poor infrastructure. As a result, transport costs along the corridor are comparatively high.

The project is expected to directly benefit nearly 1.2 million people, about 40% of them women.

The project is aligned with Uganda’s Vision 2040 National strategy as well as the East African Community’s Vision 2050, which aims to deepen trade and transform East Africa into a globally competitive upper-middle-income region.

The East African Community Railway Rehabilitation Support Project also advances the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and three of the AfDB’s High 5 operational priorities: Integrate Africa, Industrialise Africa and Improve the Quality of Life for the People of Africa.

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Added 5 December 2022

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Transnet Freight Rail happy with ban on scrap metal

 

The business that has been most affected by the ease with which unscrupulous merchants have been allowed to accept, smelt down and then recycle, often as exports, scrap metals in South Africa, Transnet Freight Rail (TFR), has welcomed the measures taken by government to restrict and regulate trade in scrap metal products to limit damage to infrastructure and the economy.

See that announcement in Africa Ports & Ships by CLICKING HERE

“We are pleased that Government has acted decisively against the scourge of metal theft that doesn’t just plague Transnet, but the country as a whole,” said TFR in a statement on Friday. “For the next 6 months, and as of 2 December, the export of scrap metal will be banned whilst government finalises a more permanent legislative solution.”

TFR has a rail network infrastructure consisting of 30,400 km in track and theft and vandalism of its infrastructure results in delays on the system and raises the possibility of derailments.

Economic sabotage

“TFR has long viewed this as economic sabotage [exactly what AP&S has been calling it for some time]. Since 1 April 2022, there have been more than 377 export coal trains cancelled due to security incidents, which is about an average of 11 trains a week. Whilst this is an improvement compared to the 2021/22financial year, the security solution is not sustainable.”

According to TFR, in the first eight months of the financial year, the rail company lost 742 kms of cable nationally.

Transnet has received assistance from coal customers in funding security on the North corridor from Ermelo to Richards Bay. This allowed the company to deploy additional security task teams and drones.

As a result, there has been a 30 % reduction in security incidents. However, the security incidents have not reduced sufficiently to completely reduce the impact on train cancellations, as evidenced by the recent massive derailment near Ulundi.

TFR says it believes the announcement by government will go a long way to mitigate the security challenges experienced by TFR and industry.

“TFR looks forward to Government’s finalisation of a more permanent legislative solution to curb cable theft.

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Added 5 December 2022

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Freak wave causes fatality, others injured on Viking Polaris cruise ship

A passenger died and four others were injured after a freak or rogue wave struck the cruise ship VIKING POLARIS as the vessel was returning towards Ushuaia last week.

The injured received treatment by the on-board medical staff but unfortunately one passenger, a U.S. citizen, died.

The wave struck the ship at 20h40 local time on Tuesday as the ship was returning to Usuaia after a cruise south toward Antarctica.

Several windows were broken on the port side of the ship, passengers reported. They described the feeling of a collision when the wave struck the vessel as though they had struck an iceberg.

Viking Polaris was able to continue her return journey without further incidence. Viking said the ship sustained ‘limited damage’ and had returned safely to port on Wednesday afternoon.

The planned following cruise was cancelled for repairs to be completed.

Viking Polaris is a new ship having entered service earlier this year. The 30,500-gt vessel can carry up to 378 passengers and has a crew of up to 318.

World Explorer

According to an unconfirmed report a second ship, the Quark Expeditions cruise ship WORLD EXPLORER also experienced what is assumed to be the same wave but suffered no injuries to passengers or crew.

This is the second serious accident to a cruise ship passenger in recent weeks. Two passengers off the same World Explorer died when a breaking wave struck their Zodiac boat as they journeyed from the ship towards an onshore expedition.

“A Zodiac boat carrying six passengers and two expedition staff overturned near shore, tragically resulting in two fatalities,” said a Quark Expeditions statement.

The sea conditions then were described as smooth with light winds.

See Africa Ports & Ships report of that incident HERE

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Added 5 December 2022

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