Russia News

Demystifying Cyber Security

Recent cyber attacks to the US Government, the IMO, Maersk, amongst others has caused the world to pay attention to criminal cyber activities by foreign states, terrorists, and criminals. The cyber attack against CMA CGM shut down services for close on two weeks. Two days later, on October 30th the IMO was held hostage by a cyber attack. These attacks follow attacks earlier this year against MSC and COSCO.As of January 1, 2021 all vessels that have a safety management system must address cyber security in order to maintain ISM certification.

BIMCO: Tanker Market Hangover Continues

Tanker shipping was in many ways the odd one out of the shipping sectors in 2020; at the start of the pandemic, the market was strong, only to finish off the year in the doldrums, while the other sectors stayed profitable. Even a demand boost in December only managed to lift earnings slightly, raising the question, what will it take for tankers to return to profitability?In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic being declared, tanker shipping appeared immune, but it too has suffered from lockdowns and travel restrictions.

New LNG Carrier Delivered to Sovcomflot

Russian shipping company PAO Sovcomflot (SCF Group) on Friday took delivery of SCF Timmerman, a new 174,000-cubic-meter-capacity liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier. The ship embarked on its maiden commercial voyage the same day, and is operated under a long-term time charter agreement with Shell, which will provide SCF with an additional $165 million of contract backlog.The ship is named after Frans Timmerman, a 17th-century Dutch merchant who served as a shipbuilding mentor to the Russian emperor Peter the Great and played an important role in creating the Russian seaborne fleet.

US Axes Environmental Reviews of LNG Marine Transport

The U.S. Department of Energy on Thursday issued a rule to exclude environmental reviews for marine transport of liquefied natural gas (LNG), as the Trump administration unleashes last minute rules supporting the fossil fuel industry.The rule, which the Energy Department issued in a pre-publication notice in the Federal Register, frees LNG transport license applications from including environmental reviews that have been required under a bedrock environmental law, the National…

China Says Coal Imports Failed Environment Standards

Some coal imported into China had failed to meet environmental standards, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Wednesday in response to reports of dozens of shipments of Australian coal stalled in Chinese ports."In recent years Chinese customs have conducted risk monitoring assessments on the safety and quality of imported coal, and we found that many coal imports have failed to meet environmental standards," foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said when asked about the Australian…

Russia to Build $2.2B Metal Plant to Feed Shipbuilding

Russia plans to build a metals plant in the Far East at an estimated cost of $2.2 billion and supply steel sheet to the Zvezda shipbuilding yard as part of a push to develop the Arctic, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin said.The head of the oil producer said during a televised meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that the planned facility on Sukhodol Bay would produce 1.5 million tonnes of steel sheet and steel pipe products per year.The Zvezda shipbuilding yard is set to play a prominent role in Russia's push to make the Northern Sea Route an important Arctic transit corridor for oil…

Global Crude Market Finds Support From China Demand

China, the global oil market's lifeline this year, has stepped up purchases from exporters like Russia, the United States and Angola in recent weeks, while buyers elsewhere pare orders as coronavirus infections surge and fresh lockdowns are put in place.China, the world's largest importer of crude, is the only major buyer expected to see increased oil demand this year as the pandemic destroyed consumption globally.With China's imports expected to reach 12 million barrels per day (bpd) next year…

Phantom Buyers in Russia, Advice from Iran Help Venezuela Skirt Sanctions

On Aug. 21, a tanker called the Otoman docked at the Jose oil terminal on Venezuela’s coast in the Caribbean to load 1.82 million barrels of heavy crude, according to the state oil company’s internal documents.Yet no tanker with that name is registered in major global shipping databases.Muddying the situation further, the unique identifier for the Otoman listed in the documents - a number used by the International Maritime Organization to identify ships - was assigned to another tanker called the Rubyni, according to the databases.The Rubyni was broken up two years ago, they record.

Arctic Shipping Creates Insurance Headaches as Routes Open

When Captain Will Whatley guides a ship through Arctic waters, he is starkly aware of what can go wrong.Double the manpower is needed to navigate. Lookout shifts are kept to just one hour, so sailors don't lose concentration and miss a mass of floating ice. Big icebergs show up on radar, but smaller, truck-sized "bergy bits"—even more dangerous—can be missed, the captain says.The cold can freeze equipment and the earth's magnetic field disrupts compasses. If anything goes wrong…

China Has Reportedly Banned Australian Coal Imports

Australia is investigating media reports that China has stopped taking its coal shipments, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Tuesday, adding that such import quotas to support China's market were "not uncommon".Trade industry reports late last week suggested that some Chinese ports had been told not to accept Australian thermal and metallurgical coal, and that Australian shipments were being sold along to other markets at the last minute.China's imports of coal had been expected to slow in the second half…

Sovcomflot IPO Expected to Price at Low End of Range

Russian shipping company Sovcomflot is guiding investors to expect its initial public offering (IPO) to price at the low end of the marketing range, two bookrunners organizing the transaction said on Tuesday.The first big stock market float by a Russian company in a couple of years comes as wider investor sentiment towards Moscow has turned negative after the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, protests in Belarus and renewed clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh.Russian assets…

Rolling the Dice in Chaos: The Prospects of Investment in the Gas Industry

As stated in the Declaration of Malabo at the 5th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the GECF Member Countries, in order to sustain the security of demand and supply of natural gas, it is necessary to ensure sufficient investments through the entire gas value chain among all gas market stakeholders [1].Since the start of 2020, every aspect of the global economy, including investment projects in natural gas industry, have been strongly hit by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Germany Offered to Build LNG Terminals to Avert US Pipeline Sanctions

Berlin offered to spend 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) to build two liquid natural gas terminals in a bid to dissuade the United States from imposing sanctions over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, due to bring gas directly from Russia to Germany, Die Zeit reported on Wednesday.The weekly paper said Finance Minister Olaf Scholz made the proposal in an Aug. 7 letter before Washington imposed sanctions on companies involved in building the Baltic Sea pipeline, effectively freezing its…

Second Wave of Floating Storage Triggered by Ailing Oil Market

A stalled global economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic is leading to a fresh build-up of global oil supplies, pushing traders including Trafigura to book tankers to store millions of barrels of crude oil and refined fuels at sea again.The use of so-called floating storage onboard tankers comes as traditional onshore storage remains close to capacity as supplies outpace demand.Trading house Trafigura has chartered at least five of the largest tankers each capable of storing 2 million barrels of oil…

Who Owned the Chemicals that Blew up Beirut? No One Will Say

In the murky story of how a cache of highly explosive ammonium nitrate ended up on the Beirut waterfront, one thing is clear—no one has ever publicly come forward to claim it.There are many unanswered questions surrounding last week's huge, deadly blast in the Lebanese capital, but ownership should be among the easiest to resolve.Clear identification of ownership, especially of a cargo as dangerous as that carried by the Moldovan-flagged Rhosus when it sailed into Beirut seven years ago…

Beirut Blast a Wake-up Call on Dangers of Ammonium Nitrate

The devastating explosion in Beirut should be a wake-up call for countries on the dangers of ammonium nitrate, which caused the blast, experts say.Lebanese authorities said 2,750 tonnes of the industrial chemical had been stored for six years at Beirut port without safety measures. That stockpile exploded on Tuesday, killing more than 150 people, injuring thousands and leaving about a quarter of a million people homeless.Commonly used in fertilizers and as an industrial explosive…

DP World Acquires Majority Stake in UNICO Logistics

Dubai-based DP World said it has agreed to acquire a 60% stake in South Korea's UNICO Logistics Co. Ltd. as the firm continues its expansion across the worldwide end-to-end logistics supply chain. The transaction, subject to regulatory clearances, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2020.Established in 2002 by H.J. Park and headquartered in South Korea, UNICO is one of the largest independent NVOCC (Non-Vessel Operating Common Carrier) in South Korea, with a global footprint of 25 subsidiaries in 20 countries.

Bunkering at UAE's Fujairah Plummets in May

Ship fuelling activity in Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, a bunkering and fuel storage hub in the Middle East, fell in May as declining demand was made worse by slowing global trade because of the coronavirus pandemic, four trade sources said.Fujairah's ship refueling, or bunkering, volumes shrank to about 200,000-300,000 tonnes in May, down from average volumes of about 700,000-800,000 tonnes, said the sources with knowledge of the regional trade who declined to be identified."It's all things COVID…

Bahri Puts LNG Tanker Plan on Hold

Saudi Aramco’s shipping division Bahri has put on hold plans to charter up to 12 liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers after Sempra Energy delayed its decision on whether to proceed with an LNG export project in Texas, two sources said.Bahri issued an expression of interest (EOI) last year to charter the vessels from 2025 in Saudi Aramco’s first foray into LNG as part of the state oil giant’s plan to become a major global player in the gas market.In May last year, Aramco signed a 20-year agreement to buy LNG from Sempra Energy’s planned Port Arthur export terminal and also agreed to buy a 25% eq

Rosneft to Build Port for Its Vostok Oil Project

Russian state oil giant Rosneft plans to build a port with maximum annual capacity of 115 million tonnes of oil for its Vostok Oil project in the Russian Arctic, the RIA news agency quoted the company as saying on Tuesday.Rosneft said in a statement previously on Tuesday that the Vostok Oil project could be supplying 25 million tonnes of oil in 2024, 50 million tonnes in 2027 and up to 115 million tonnes in 2030.Vostok Oil unites Rosneft’s projects in northern Russia, including the Lodochnoye…

Record Oil Output Cuts Fail to Make Waves in Coronavirus-hit Market

The minimal impact on oil prices from a global deal for record output cuts showed that oil producers have a mountain to climb if they are to restore market balance as the coronavirus shreds demand and sends stockpiles soaring, industry watchers said.After several days of discussions, oil producing and consuming countries aim to remove nearly 20 million barrels per day (bpd) or 20% of global supply from the market, Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said on Monday.The oil market has barely shrugged, however: Brent crude gained 1.5% on Monday, while U.S.

US Crude Futures Plunge to Lowest on Record

U.S. crude oil futures collapsed below $0 on Monday for the first time in history, amid a coronavirus-induced supply glut, ending the day at a stunning minus $37.63 a barrel as desperate traders paid to get rid of oil.Brent crude, the international benchmark, also slumped, but that contract was nowhere near as weak because more storage is available worldwide.While U.S. oil prices are trading in negative territory for the first time ever, it is unclear whether that will trickle down to consumers…

Rolf Stiefel Joins Bureau Veritas as Regional Chief Executive

Bureau Veritas (BV) appointed Rolf Stiefel as its new Regional Chief Executive based in Hamburg, responsible for Central Europe - Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Russia. He will be based in the BV regional office in Hamburg and his appointment is effective May 1, 2020. He succeeds Dr. Hans Gaetjens who is retiring in July following a two month hand-over period.For the past 17 years Stiefel has been leading engine sales for WinGD’s slow speed diesel and gas engines including developing the market for WinGD’s X-DF gas fueled engine…

Russian Grain Exports to Continue Despite Quota

Russia’s online grain export quota was running out fast on Saturday as big traders rushed to get customs documents for future shipments, analysts said, adding that supplies from the world’s biggest wheat exporter would continue nevertheless.Russia set a quota for grain exports of 7 million tonnes for April through June following the outbreak of the virus. Russia's online calculator showed here that as of Saturday only 873,179 tonnes remained available for export based on the quota.Analysts…

Crude Oil Held in Sea Storage Hits New Record

Traders are storing an estimated record 160 million barrels of oil on ships - double the level from two weeks ago as they seek to tackle a glut of stocks created by a slide in global demand from the coronavirus, shipping sources say.Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other producers including Russia have agreed a record cut in output from May of 9.7 million barrels per day, or almost 10% of global supply, to help support prices and curb oversupply.At…

Oil Traders Chase Storage Space in World Awash with Fuel

Oil traders are struggling to find enough ships, railcars, caverns and pipelines to store fuel as more conventional storage facilities fill up amid abundant supply and plummeting demand due to the coronavirus crisis.Dozens of oil tanker vessels have been booked in recent days to store at least 30 million barrels of jet fuel, gasoline and diesel at sea, acting as floating storage, as on-land tanks are full or already booked, according to traders and shipping data.That adds to about 130 million barrels of crude already in floating storage…