Poland to send abandoned Russian tanker for demolition

Energy News Beat

Poland has ordered the removal of a Russian product tanker which has been stranded in the Port of Gdynia for over seven years.

The 1987-built, 23,000 dwt Khatanga was detained in October 2017 after failing a port state inspection, with its owners, Murmansk Shipping Company, promising repairs that were never carried out. The Russian shipowner then went bankrupt in 2020, while the ship’s condition has deteriorated a great deal, and has broken from its moorings on more than one occasion. 

Arkadiusz Marchewka, Poland’s state secretary for infrastructure, posted on social media: “We are removing Russian scrap from our port.”

The Polish port is expected to sell the vessel for scrap with proceeds from the sale covering unpaid dockage fees.

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ADES seals second jackup deal in Nigeria

Energy News Beat

Saudi oil and gas driller ADES has won its second contract for one of its jackup rigs offshore Nigeria.

The company has fixed the 2013-built Admarine 501 to Nkuku Ikon Petroleum Development following the deal with Brittania-U for its Admarine 504 unit last month.

The new contract, which includes a firm scope to drill two wells plus an option for two additional wells, marks the final redeployment of ADES’ suspended rigs in Saudi Arabia.

The campaign is set to start in the second quarter of 2025 and last for 180 days if all options are exercised.

Just like the first contract in Nigeria, operations of the rig will be jointly handled by ADES and in-country partner Valiant Offshore Contractors under a charter structure where ADES will provide the rig along with its senior crew and management systems to Valiant against a charter fee.

The value of the new charter is estimated at $12m.

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Finland’s Hacklin buys into fellow shortsea operator Nordic Chartering

Energy News Beat

Finnish logistics player Hacklin Group has strengthened its business with the acquisition of a considerable stake in compatriot shortsea operator Nordic Chartering.

The move of Hacklin joining as the shareholder for an undisclosed sum will build a strong foundation for future vessel investments, the companies said in a release, adding that they will continue working under their own brands.

Family-owned Hacklin was established in Port of Pori in 1908. Since then, the group companies in Helsinki, Hamina, Kotka, Hong Kong and Shanghai have specialised in project cargo, freight forwarding, and warehousing services in Finland as well as logistics solutions in bulk handling.

Privately owned Nordic Chartering has, since its establishment in 2003, operated with its own tonnage and chartered ice-classed multipurpose vessels between the Baltic Sea and Western Europe. Since 2004, the company has been offering regular timber from the Baltic Sea to Ireland and Spain. Nordic currently shows three ships on its website, of which shipping databases list the 2009-built 3,700 dwt general cargo vessel Nordic Erika (pictured) as owned.

Hacklin also has a history of shipowning. The company’s latest shipping operation was a container feeder service between Finland and Hamburg operated by Hacklin Seatrans between 1986 and 2018.

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Melina Travlos re-elected as president of Union of Greek Shipowners

Energy News Beat

EuropeOperations

Melina Travlos has been re-elected for a second term as president of the Union of Greek Shipowners (UGS).

The head of Neptune Group of companies, which includes carrier owner and operator Neptune Lines as well as a dry bulk outfit, Neptune Dry Management, will lead the nation’s shipowner association for another three years.

Travlos became the first woman to spearhead UGS after 106 years when she was elected in 2022.

Michael Chandris and Andonis Lemos were re-elected vice presidents.

Earlier in December, Gaby Bornheim was re-elected president of the German Shipowners’ Association (VDR). The managing director of Peter Döhle Schiffahrts also became the first woman at the helm of VDR in 2021. She will hold this office until 2027.

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Navigare Capital signs for containership newbuilds

Energy News Beat

ContainersEurope

Denmark’s Navigare Capital Partners has moved to add more containerships to its portfolio through a deal for up to six newbuildings in China.

The Copenhagen-based alternative investment fund manager has signed up for four firm 4,300 teu vessels at Taizhou Sanfu Shipbuilding with options for two more, according to Clarksons.

No price has been revealed for the vessels estimated for delivery between 2027 and 2028.

Navigare was established in 2017 by Maersk chairman Robert Maersk Uggla and four well-known shipping executives.

The company currently has three funds under management with operating assets in addition to containers, including bulkers, tankers, gas carriers and offshore wind support vessels.

Its most recent involvement in boxship newbuildings included a series of six 2,700 teu feeder vessels (pictured) delivered between 2023 and 2024 through a partnership with Schoeller Holdings.

According to Clarksons, 18 boxships totalling 0.2m teu have been ordered in the year to date.

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Louis Dreyfus Armateurs JV secures French wind farm CTV deal

Energy News Beat

Louis Dreyfus Armateurs (LDA) and its joint venture partner, Tidal Transit, have been selected by wind turbine maker Siemens Gamesa to provide a crew transfer vessel for the Eoliennes en mer des îles d’Yeu et de Noirmoutier (EMYN) offshore wind farm in France.

Under the contract, the JV company LD Tide will operate a 24-passenger CTV from mid-2025.

The deal marks the second award to LD Tide by Siemens Gamesa, with the first CTV Acti’vent, operating at the Fécamp offshore wind farm since October 2023.

The new vessel is one of two CTVs ordered by LD Tide at Singapore shipbuilder Strategic Marine to cover the growing demand of the rapidly evolving French offshore wind sector.

The CTV will be manned by a French crew and will be operated under the French flag, LDA said.

The EMYN offshore wind farm will have a total installed capacity of 488 MW, generating 1,900 GWh per year, equivalent to the electricity consumption of 800,000 people. The project is owned by Ocean Winds, Sumitomo Corporation, Banque des Territoires and Vendée Energie.

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Boa orders semisub heavy lift barge at Dalian

Energy News Beat

Norway’s Boa has signed a contract with Dalian Shipbuilding Offshore Co, for the construction of up to two semi-submersible heavy lift barges.

The in-house-designed Boabarge 39, first introduced in November 2023, is targeted for delivery in the third quarter of 2026, and the company has secured an optional slot for an additional newbuild.

The 166-m-long vessel is engineered to support a wide range of operations across multiple industries, including load-out and float-off operations, heavy-load transportation, drydocking, salvage operations, and decommissioning projects.

“This milestone marks a significant step forward in Boa’s commitment to expanding our fleet to meet future market requirements,” the company said without disclosing the value of the order.

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Swiss Voters Reject Emission Curbs Over Economic Concerns

Energy News Beat

Swiss voters rejected a set of rigid emission limits in a plebiscite, dismissing a call for more climate protection over fears that it would stymie the economy.

The so-called Environmental Responsibility Initiative, launched by the youth wing of Switzerland’s Green Party, was supported by just 30% of the electorate, according to government data on Sunday.

Swiss Vote Against Strict Climate Measures

Source: Swiss government

Note: Proposal rejected in all 26 cantons

The plan demanded, among other things, that greenhouse gases emitted through consumption be reduced to 10% of their 2018 levels within the next 10 years. The Young Greens argued that such steps are necessary to keep what the Swiss consume within the boundaries of what the planet can supply.

Polls ahead of the vote had suggested such an outcome as a majority of the population deemed the economic costs of the measure too great. According to a pollster, citizens worried about jobs and a loss of prosperity, and feared a competitive disadvantage for Swiss companies. The country already has a plan to be climate neutral by 2050.

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Musk mocks pro-Western ‘independent’ media for losing US funding

Energy News Beat

Numerous publications will struggle to stay afloat after Donald Trump suspended most foreign aid

Musk mocks pro-Western ‘independent’ media for losing US fundingMusk mocks pro-Western ‘independent’ media for losing US funding

Elon Musk has derided pro-Western Russian and Ukrainian media outlets over their degree of perceived “independence,” as the publications now find themselves under severe financial strain following US President Donald Trump’s clampdown on the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Shortly after his inauguration, Trump suspended most of US foreign aid pending a three-month review, which primarily affected USAID, Washington’s agency for funding political projects abroad. Trump has called for the agency to be shut down altogether, citing rampant corruption and overall inefficiency.

On Sunday, Elon Musk, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and also a fierce critic of USAID, mocked a Washington Post article entitled “Independent media in Russia, Ukraine lose their funding with USAID freeze.”

“‘Independent media’ lmao,” he wrote on X, employing the acronym meaning “laughing my a** off.”

The WaPo report highlighted the dire financial situation many pro-Western media in Ukraine and Russia found themselves in following Trump’s return to the White House. The article noted that the lack of funds affected Ukraine’s small regional outlets and investigative websites.

Detector Media, a Ukrainian journalism watchdog, warned last week that “We risk losing the achievements of three decades of work and increasing threats to Ukraine’s statehood, democratic values, and pro-Western orientation.”

Natalya Ligachova, head of Detector Media, estimated that “more than 50%” of media outlets are dependent on American assistance, at least to some extent.

Meanwhile, The Moscow Times, an Amsterdam-based English- and Russian-language newspaper, reported, citing sources, that up to 90 Russian organizations operating outside of the country – many of which have been accused of spreading falsehoods about Russia – have lost US funding. Many of them may be forced to cease operations altogether, the report said.
The Moscow Times itself has been designated “undesirable” by the Russian government for “discrediting” Russia’s foreign and domestic policies.

Prior to the USAID clampdown, Russian officials repeatedly accused the US of waging an information war, including by using numerous foreign-funded liberal outlets against the country to justify the West’s “hybrid aggression.” Following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Moscow took tough measures to curb the spread of falsehoods about the Russian military, imposing a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison for violations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last September that despite the conflict in Ukraine, the media are still free to express their opinions, as stipulated by the Constitution. He stressed, however, that both domestic and foreign media are obliged to obey the country’s laws.

 

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LNG Supply Growth Lagging Behind Shipping Expansion

Energy News Beat

  • The LNG shipping industry has built excessive capacity in anticipation of increased LNG exports, resulting in a current oversupply of ships and plummeting charter rates.
  • Political factors, such as the U.S. pause on new LNG export licenses and shifting trade dynamics, have contributed to slower than expected growth in LNG supply in 2024.
  • Despite current losses and market imbalances, the LNG shipping sector anticipates a future upturn driven by increasing demand from various regions and evolving global trade patterns.

Outlooks for liquefied natural gas markets have been extremely bullish in recent months thanks to the one-two punch of Europe’s open-arms embrace of any form of fuel that can’t be traced back to the Kremlin and the United States’ new petro-philic administration change. But while projections for the back half of 2025 are looking good for the LNG sector, increases in the market have not materialized.

In fact, in 2024, the global supply of liquefied natural gas grew just 2.5 percent, a surprisingly humble trend compared to previous years. This is in part because of an LNG export pause enacted by the Biden administration. On January 26th of last year, then-President Biden announced that the U.S. would pause approvals of new licenses to export LNG to give the Department of Energy the opportunity to review and assess whether LNG exports are “undermining domestic energy security, raising consumer costs and damaging the environment.”

But the shipping industry has wasted no time building new vessels to transport all of the LNG that they anticipate will flow around the western world in the coming months. Trump has been loud and clear about his intentions to not only overturn the Biden-era LNG pause, but to reinstate a drill-baby-drill approach to U.S. energy policy. However, it would appear that the shipping sector has gotten way ahead of itself, adding too much capacity to its seafaring LNG fleet too soon and thereby leaving a glut of LNG shifts to “drift in a sea of red ink” according to recent reporting from the Financial Times.

“Spot charter rates in the Atlantic have plummeted more than 90 per cent since November to $4,000 a day, causing them to spring a leak,” the Financial Times wrote this week. Weak growth in the LNG sector over the course of 2024 coupled with a speculation-fueled shipbuilding frenzy has led to a massive glut in shipping capacities, with additional seaborne capacity outpacing actual LNG production growth by more than two-thirds.

A complex combination of political and economic factors have led to lots of stalled LNG projects in recent months, and the United States has been ramping up LNG shipments to Europe rather than shipping LNG all the way to Asia. So far this has mostly been due to price differentials, but could soon be greatly exacerbated by a trade war between the United States and China. While strengthening LNG trade in the West makes good economic sense for both the U.S. and its European allies, it’s taking a bite out of more costly, and therefore more lucrative, trans-Pacific shipping operations.

Building new ships takes a lot longer than producing LNG, meaning that occasional losses of this sort are an inevitability. The shipping sector has no choice but to build according to far-out projections that may or may not materialize. So while the bottom line for this quarter has been devastating for many companies, it’s not without precedent or contingency.

“The resulting losses are painful for ship operators, but not permanent,” reports FT. “For plenty of ship owners, this is water off a duck’s back: charter rates are set in advance and only a minority are struck at the spot rate. Besides, they know it is a question of when, not if, the cycle turns.”

While the United States and Europe are major players in global LNG markets, there are plenty of other actors who will soon require increasing shipping services for their own LNG trade. The small but oil- and gas-rich South American countries of Guyana and Suriname are poised for a coming export boom, and their locations and policy approaches incentivize export to Asian buyers. Mexico and Canada, too, have recently expanded their own LNG sectors, with Mexico potentially on track to surpass Canadian exports in the years to come.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

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