Russia News

Dream Cruises Welcomes Third Ship

Dream Cruises, a luxury cruise line owned by Genting and based in China welcome “Explorer Dream” in Shanghai as the third ship in its Dream Cruises fleet.Dream Cruises held the christening ceremony for the former SuperStar Virgo at Shanghai Wusongkou International Cruise Terminal. Chinese designer Grace Chen served as the godmother and presented a fashion show with 18 models showcasing her 'Voyage' collection, walking a runway on the Palace Pool Deck."Formerly the “SuperStar Virgo” of sister brand Star Cruises…

Liebherr Turnover Tops $11 Billion

The Liebherr Group notched up a company record turnover of $11.8 million in 2018, representing an increase of $828 million, or 7.5 %, compared with the previous year.Despite a slight decline in overall economic growth, revenues from construction machinery and mining equipment rose by 10.8 % to $7,761 million, with especially strong contributions from the Earthmoving, Mobile Cranes and Mining divisions. In the other product areas, which include Maritime Cranes, Aerospace and Transportation Systems…

St. Petersburg Terminal Adds Kalmar Fleet

Kalmar, part of Cargotec, is to supply a total of 16 terminal tractors to long-standing customer Container Terminal Saint-Petersburg CJSC (CTSP, part of UCL Holding).According to a press release, the order was booked in Cargotec's 2019 Q1 order intake, with delivery of the machines to take place during Q3 of 2019. Located in the Big port of St. Petersburg, Russia, CTSP specialises in handling all types of containerised cargo at its modern facilities, which include an automated control system that enables high-speed container handling on ship…

Russia: New Port of Sabetta LNG Terminal

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an allocation of budget funds in 2021-2022 for the construction of the Utrenny liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the Russian port of Sabetta on the Northern Sea route, the Kremlin said on its website.The budget money will also be used to reconstruct a navigable channel in the Gulf of Ob in the Kara Sea.The Utrennee gas field is developed by Russian gas giant Novatek and serves as a resource base for the Arctic LNG-2 project. (Reuters, Reporting by Andrey Kuzmin Writing by Polina Nikolskaya Editing by Andrey Kuzmin and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

PDVSA Oil Port Paralyzed by Another Blackout

Venezuela's main oil export port of Jose and the country's four crude upgraders have been unable to resume operations following a massive power blackout on Monday, according to industry workers and a union leader close to the facilities.The most recent oil shipment for export, on the carrier Dragon chartered by Russia's Rosneft, left Jose, which is owned by state-run PDVSA, on March 24, according to Refinitiv Eikon vessel-tracking data and PDVSA's trade documents."There is no electricity…

New COSCO Service Between UK, Europe, Russia

Chinese state-owned shipping and logistics services supplier company COSCO Shipping Lines announced a new COSCO feeder service from St Petersburg, Russia will begin calling at DP World Southampton."COSCO is to introduce a new weekly call at DP World Southampton, as part of a rotation including St Petersburg, Russia; Kotka, Finland; Southampton, UK; and Rotterdam, Netherlands," said a press release.The news comes after COSCO confirmed in February that DP World Southampton will be a permanent call on its feeder service.

Fire Breaks out on USCG's Polar Star

It seems the U.S. cannot do enough to fast-track the construction of its new icebreaking fleet, as the USCG announce last night that the 150-member crew of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star fought a fire at approximately 9 p.m. PST Feb. 10 that broke out in the ship's incinerator room about 650 miles north of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica.After initial response efforts using four fire extinguishers failed, fire crews spent almost two hours extinguishing the fire. Fire damage was contained inside the incinerator housing…

Brent Hits 2019 High on U.S.-China trade Hopes

U.S. crude stocks rise to 454.5 mln barrels as crude exports from U.S. hit record 3.6 mln bpd.Oil prices rose on Friday, supported by OPEC's ongoing supply cuts and hopes that Washington and Beijing may soon end their trade dispute.International Brent crude futures hit a new 2019 high of $67.60 a barrel, up 53 cents from Thursday's close.Further gains were tempered by U.S. crude oil production hitting a record 12 million barrels per day (bpd) and a surge in exports from the country.By 1125 GMT, U.S.

Black Sea Container Exports on the Rise

Ukraine-based Informall Business Group in its latest Black Sea Container Market review reports a rise of 8.70% in loaded containers handling in the Black Sea container ports of Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia and Georgia in 2018 as compared to 2017.Black Sea container terminals of the five countries handled 2927016 TEU in 2018, including empty containers, excluding transshipment. This review observes only full containers of the region – 2188153 TEU.In 2018, there was a laden container turnover increase in all countries of the Black Sea region.

Belfast Harbour Hits Record Cargo in 2018

The major maritime hub in Northern Ireland Belfast Harbour handled a record 24.6 million tonnes of cargo in 2018, up 3.8% on the previous year thanks to a major increase in the number of freight vehicles passing through the port, which rose to a high of 532,000, latest figures show."Growth was led by a strong increase in freight vehicle carryings on Stena Line’s services to Great Britain, rising by 3% to a record 532,000 freight vehicles and for the second consecutive year more than 1.5m passengers passed through the Port…

Russia Plans New Grain Terminal in Crimea

Russia plans to build a grain terminal in Crimea at a cost of more than 1.7 billion roubles ($25.4 million), the RIA news agency quoted the head of the region as saying on Thursday.Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, drawing sanctions from the West that created legal risks for the region's grain exports.

St Petersburg Port Cargo Handling Up by 12%

Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg (CTSP), a company of UCL Port, stevedoring division of the international transportation group UCL Holding, handled 7.7 million tonnes of cargo showing a 12-pct increase versus the result of 2017.The increase of cargo traffic is attributed the development of yards dedicated for transshipment of cast iron, metal scrap, ore, mineral fertilizers and containers, said a release from the operator providing dry cargo transshipment in Saint-Petersburg port…

Milaha Launches BSX

Middle East's maritime and logistics company Milaha (Qatar Navigation) will start a direct container shipping service connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean in its first foray into Europe.According to a press release from the Qatar-based maritime transport and logistics conglomerate the new feeder service marks Milaha’s first European service linking the Mediterranean and Black Sea. The BSX demonstrates Milaha’s commitment to deliver reliable and agile services to its customers and partners globally.The BSX rotation is Piraeus (Greece)…

Huge Increase in Arctic shipping

Data from Russia’s ports and Northern Sea Route show that the volume of goods being shipped out into the Arctic waterway are up by 25 percent 2018.According to information from the Russian Transport Ministry, a total of 92.7 million tons was handled by regional seaports, of which almost 70 percent was oil products and liquified natural gas.The biggest increases came in Sabetta, which sits on the icy Yamal Peninsula in the Kara Sea, according to Bellona. With Novatek’s $27 billion Yamal LNG project now in commercial production…

Svitzer Appoints Jeeninga, McKeating as Cluster Managers

Svitzer, aprovider of harbor and terminal towage to the global shipping industry, has recently appointed Fred Jeeninga as Cluster Managing Director, Continental Europe (Netherlands, Belgium, Georgia) and Maurice McKeating as Cluster Managing Director, UK South.Fred Jeeninga holds nearly 20 years of experience from the marine service industry. His work has taken him to Russia, Germany, Denmark, Brazil, and the Caribbean. He has been with Svitzer since 2009, most recently as Operations…

Offshore Terminal Plan Slowed by U.S. Shutdown

The U.S. government shutdown has delayed Enterprise Products Partners LP's plan to build a major U.S. crude export terminal off Houston, blocking the pipeline operator from filing paperwork with U.S. regulators, an executive said on Wednesday.Enterprise plans to file a 10,000-page permit application with the U.S. Maritime Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard as soon as the U.S. government reopens. It takes about a year for regulators to process an application for a deep-water terminal."Tell me when the government opens and I'll tell you when it happens…

Eurosib's First Transit Container Train Crossed Grodekovo

CJSC Eurosib SPb - Transport Systems  tgether with the Zhengzhou International Hub company (ZIH) started the first transit container train through border crossing of Grodekovo (Far East railway, RZD). The Container train follows the route Hamburg (Germany) - Zhengzhou (China).The first train with 43 forty-foot containers was dispatched on 28 December. On January 12, the train reached the border crossing Grodekovo  (Russia) - Suifenhe (China).Normally, within couple of days, it will arrive at final destination. At the same time, Eurosib is preparing the opposite direction train.

Turkmen Oil Exports via Russia’s Novorossiisk Port to Resume

Exports of Turkmen oil via Russia's Black sea port of Novorossiisk will resume in February, four market sources said.Turkmenistan stopped transit of its oil via Russia in 2016 and has been exporting all its crude via the Azeri Caspian port of Baku.Pumping Turkmen oil through the Makhachkala-Novorossiisk pipeline could add as much as 200,000 tonnes of crude per month into Russia’s Transneft system. Turkmenistan is currently shipping oil via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline…

Russia Launches First-ever Arctic Satellite

The first Russian satellite for weather forecasting and monitoring climate and environment in the Arctic region, Arktika-M, is planned to be sent to near-earth orbit in June 2019.Sputnik quoted Russian space industry source saying: "The launch of the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle from the Baikonur cosmodrome with Fregat booster and the first hydrometeorological satellite Arktika-M is scheduled for June 2019."According to sources, the equipment installed on Arktika-M satellite will…

World Seaborne Coal Trade Rose 3.7% in 2018

World coal seaborne trade grew 3.7 percent last year helped by higher output in India, Indonesia and Russia, Germany's VDKI coal importers lobby said on Friday.Imports and exports rose to 1.202 billion tonnes from 1.159 billion tonnes in 2017, VDKI Managing Director Franz-Josef Wodopia said in an speech made available to Reuters.Of the total, trade in steam coal used in power stations rose by 3.6 percent to 920 million tonnes.Trade in coking coal used for steelmaking rose by 4.4 percent to 281 million tonnes…

CMA CGM Unifies Containerships and MacAndrews Brands

CMA CGM will retain the only Containerships brand for its intra-European operations, giving up MacAndrews, which had already erased OPDR."Containerships: from April 1st, 2019 a single brand resulting from the union of two experts of intra-European transport CMA CGM reinforces its strategy aimed at densifying its regional coverage to the benefit of its clients," said a press release from MacAndrews.According to the French container transportation and shipping company, by joining the forces of two recognized experts of intra-European multimodal transport…

Port of Kiel: Passenger Volume Up, Cargo Down

More than 2.2 million passengers and again over 7 million cargo tons handledKiel continues to pursue its growth course in passenger traffic posting a 4.2 % increase with 2.2 million travelers. At the same time, the port’s cargo sector was unable to match the top results of the reference period (2017: 7.4 million tons, +14.3 %). The handling performance decreased by 3.5 % to 7.15 tons of cargo in 2018. In order to further improve the port’s infrastructure, investment activities have accelerated once again.

For JAXPORT, LNG Spells Success

‘A thousand firsts’ and a constantly growing list of players underscores the rapid development of LNG as a fuel – especially along the East Coast of the United States.Click on the headlines for the phrase “LNG Bunkering” and you immediately learn that it is an industry of a thousand firsts and a constantly growing list of players.“Russia's Novatek ships first LNG cargo to China via Arctic; Yamal LNG ships first LNG cargo to Spain; Qatar ships first LNG to Japan, signs accord; Japan orders its first LNG bunker vessel…

Sovcomflot completes USD 900 mln in Foreign Investment

Russia’s maritime shipping company Sovcomflot has announced that it has entered into a new USD 264 million six-year revolving credit facility with a consortium of five leading international banks.The completion of this credit facility marks the successful finalisation of SCF’s 2018 financing plan, with total new debt capital raised this year amounting to circa USD 900 million, said Nikolay Kolesnikov, Senior Executive Vice-President, Chief Financial Officer of PAO Sovcomflot."The fund allows us to fully address the Group’s mid-term financing requirements…

Lithuania Plans to Buy an FSRU

Lithuania has given the go ahead to state-owned Klaipedos Nafta to purchase a liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage vessel by late 2024, as it shores up energy supplies and reduces its reliance on Russian natural gas.Klaipedos Nafta is currently leasing a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU), called Independence, from Norway's Hoegh LNG.The use of the vessel has allowed Lithuania to import LNG since 2014, breaking the monopoly Russia's Gazprom had on natural gas supply to the country as well as neighboring Latvia and Estonia."This will keep us able…

Russia's First FSRU to Arrive at Kaliningrad to Start Up LNG Imports

Russia's first liquefied natural gas (LNG) floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) is expected to dock at the port of Kaliningrad on Dec. 18, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.The FSRU, called Marshal Vasilevskiy, is being installed at Kaliningrad - a city separated from Russia and bordering with Lithuania and Poland - by Russian energy major Gazprom in a move to bypass pipeline gas deliveries via Lithuania in case there are any disruptions in gas transit.The FSRU will be the first LNG import facility in Russia…