Malaysia-based offshore marine group Nam Cheong has secured multi-year offshore support vessel charter contracts from leading regional oil majors worth up to RM317.1m ($72m).

The agreements cover seven anchor handling tug supply (AHTS) vessels, which will be deployed in Malaysian and Thai waters in 2025 for up to two years with options to extend.

The group now has 21 vessels under long-term charter, representing about 56.8% of its total fleet.

The Singapore-listed company said this is in line with its target to increase the proportion of vessels under long-term contracts to 70%.

UAE-based Adnoc Drilling has been awarded a $1.63bn contract from state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).

The five-year deal will see the largest national drilling company in the Middle East by rig fleet size provide integrated drilling services for ADNOC Offshore.

“This five-year award is a strong reflection of ADNOC Drilling’s long-term contracting model, which provides revenue visibility and stability over the contract period,” said Abdulrahman Abdulla Al Seiari, ADNOC Drilling CEO.

The contract covers directional drilling, drilling fluids, cementing, wireline logging and tubular running services.

The company said the latest award bolsters its position within Adnoc Group and as the region’s leading provider of advanced, integrated energy services.

The secretary of the US Department of the Interior and chairman of the National Energy Dominance Council, Doug Burgum, has stopped all construction of Equinor’s Empire Wind 1 project off the coast of New York.

Burgum said in a social media post that his department, in consultation with the US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to “immediately halt all construction activities on the Empire Wind Project.”

The stoppage will last until a review of information “that suggests the Biden administration rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis”.

In a follow-up post, Burgum stated that US president Donald Trump called for comprehensive reviews of federal wind projects and wind leasing on day one and that the Department of Interior was doing its part “to make sure these instructions are followed”.

This comes soon after the Norwegian developer began construction of Empire Wind to very little fanfare. No ceremony was held or even press releases sent out to announce the milestone.

One of the rare information available regarding the operations was a mariner update in which Equinor revealed that Van Oord would be conducting subsea rock installation within the Empire Wind 1 lease area for the 54 planned wind turbines and one substation from April to July 2025.

If both project phases are completed, it will have nearly 150 turbines spanning across 320 sq km of the Atlantic Ocean.

New York governor Kathy Hochul, a strong supporter of the project, said that the fully-permitted project “has already put shovels in the ground before the president’s executive orders [were signed.”

“As Governor, I will not allow this federal overreach to stand. I will fight this every step of the way to protect union jobs, affordable energy and New York’s economic future,” she added.

An all-Indian crew of the St. Kitts & Nevis-flagged offshore support vessel Star Apollo has not been paid their salaries since the start of their contracts, and the crew’s health is also becoming an issue, according to a leading seafarer trade union.

The inspectorate coordinator of the International Transport Workers Federation, Steve Trowsdale, said in a social media post that the 2012-built vessel is currently docked at Batamec Shipyard in Indonesia.

He added that the 15-strong crew has not been paid since the start of the contracts, lasting between four and eight months. In total, the crewmen are owed almost $80,000.

“The crew are extremely frustrated, and the stress of not being paid is taking a toll on their health,” Trowsdale stated.

ITF Inspector Mohammad Gulam Ansari, based in India, who is supporting the crew, said: “This is an Indian shipowner exploiting Indian seafarers, treating them like slaves. It’s yet another example of an owner refusing to take responsibility.”

A video and image of the crew shows them holding signs, or rather, cries for help. Some of them include “when we ask for [our] salary, the company is threatening to block our COC (certificate of competency) and INDoS numbers”, “we don’t have proper food on board”, and calls to the ITF and the flag-state to resolve the situation.

According to Equasis, the owner of the vessel is Vindhyawashini Offshore. The crew also used a sign to name not just the owner of the vessel but also the RPSL agent Avvic Ocean and the sourcing agent Great India Shipmanagement.

Many of shipping’s go-to bodies for trade forecasts are now slashing economic predictions for the year ahead in the wake of Donald Trump’s tariff war. 

Creating significant alarm, the World Trade Organization has warned global merchandise trade for 2025 could drop by as much as -1.5%, potentially becoming only the sixth time in the past 60 years where a decline in world merchandise trade has been registered joining famous economic shocks in modern history such as covid and the global financial crisis.

The volume of world merchandise trade is expected to decline by 0.2% in 2025 under current conditions, nearly three percentage points lower than what would have been expected under a low tariff baseline scenario, according to the WTO secretariat’s latest Global Trade Outlook and Statistics report released yesterday.  This is premised on the tariff situation as of April 14. Trade could shrink even further, to -1.5% in 2025, if the situation deteriorates come July 9 when Trump could slap more tariffs around the world.

WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said: “I am deeply concerned by the uncertainty surrounding trade policy, including the US-China stand-off.”

She said the enduring uncertainty threatens to act as a “brake” on global growth.

Also voicing tariff concerns yesterday, the UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) warned the world economy is on a recessionary trajectory.

Global growth is projected to slow to 2.3% in 2025, according to a new report from UNCTAD which cites trade policy shocks, financial volatility and a surge in uncertainty.

“Trade policy uncertainty is at a historical high,” the report noted, “and this is already translating into delayed investment decisions and reduced hiring.”

For tanker owners, both the International Energy Agency and OPEC have revised down their global oil demand growth projections for 2025 and 2026, citing headwinds from ongoing trade tensions—most notably the protectionist measures introduced by Trump.   

OPEC’s updated forecast now anticipates an increase of 1.3m barrels per day for both years, representing roughly 1% annual growth. The IEA revised its global oil demand forecast 300,000 barrels per day downwards to 730,000 barrels per day in 2025 and to 690,000 barrels per day in 2026. 

The US Energy Information Administration recently slashed its 2025 growth forecast by 30%, down to 900,000 barrels per day, while Goldman Sachs projects an even more conservative rise of 300,000 barrels per day between the end of last year and the end of 2025.   

For the container trades, a recent report from Linerlytica noted: “The US-China standoff continues to keep container market sentiment poor with US tariff concessions far from sufficient to restore Transpacific volumes with cargo bookings in the next 3 weeks reported to be down by 30-60% in China and by 10-20% in the rest of Asia.” 

In related news, California on Wednesday filed a lawsuit seeking to block Trump’s sweeping tariffs on foreign trading partners, accusing him of abusing his powers and inflicting financial harm on the state and nation.

The latest American sanctions aimed at Iran’s oil industry make specific warnings to shipping about the use of substandard shipping.

The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) yesterday designated a China-based independent teapot refinery Shandong Shengxing Chemical for its role in purchasing more than a billion dollars’ worth of Iranian crude oil, as well as imposing additional sanctions on several companies and vessels responsible for facilitating Iranian oil shipments to China as part of Iran’s shadow fleet.  

“Any refinery, company, or broker that chooses to purchase Iranian oil or facilitate Iran’s oil trade places itself at serious risk,” said secretary of the treasury Scott Bessent.  “The United States is committed to disrupting all actors providing support to Iran’s oil supply chain, which the regime uses to support its terrorist proxies and partners.”

This also marks the sixth round of sanctions targeting Iranian oil sales since president Donald Trump issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 2 (NSPM-2), instituting a campaign of maximum economic pressure on Iran.

Newly sanctioned vessels include the Nyantara, Reston, Bestla, Egret and Rani.

OFAC also issued an updated sanctions advisory to assist the global shipping and maritime industry in identifying sanctions evasion practices related to the shipment of Iranian-origin fuel products while targeting known Asian insurers of shadow fleet vessels. 

Shadow fleet tankers rely on flag registries with lower operating and due diligence standards, OFAC warned yesterday, in advise that covered the rise of false flagged ships and fraudulent registries. 

“When vessels are registered by jurisdictions known to service shadow fleet vessels or have flown multiple flags in an uncommonly short period of time (e.g., three flag registration changes within a year’s time), maritime stakeholders, including charterers, shipbrokers, insurers and port agents and operators, should request additional documentation on the vessel’s ownership, voyage history, and flag history,” OFAC advised. This may include utilising publicly available resources, such as the IMO’s Global Integrated Shipping Information (GISIS) database, to determine if a vessel is flying a false or unknown flag.

In his first term, Trump withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal and reimposed a full embargo on Iran’s crude oil exports in 2019. As a result, Iran’s crude oil shipments collapsed from 2.5m barrels per day in the first half of 2018 to 250,000 barrels per day. During the Biden administration, sanctions were not as strictly enforced, and Iranian exports gradually recovered. In the opening months of Trump’s return to power, there have been many new sanctions packages aimed at Iran’s shadow fleet as well as Iran’s ties to the Houthis in Yemen.

Antonis Malaxianakis, founder and CEO of HarborLab, a port cost management platform, is willing to do what few others in maritime tech dare – going public on return on investment (ROI) numbers, something he’ll also happily share with delegates attending Geneva Dry, due to open on April 28.

HarborLab is an AI-powered port cost management software solution providing disbursement account (DA) analysis across every port call, something that will likely come up for discussion during Geneva Dry’s Digital Efficiency Drivers At Port session due to kick Day Two off at the show on April 29. 

“Owners demand and deserve a clear ROI. And that’s exactly where HarborLab stands out. We’re not just tech for tech’s sake. We’re a platform that delivers tangible, measurable value, and we’ve proven it,” says Malaxianakis, who founded HarborLab five years ago.

An an example, he cites a dry bulk operator with a fleet of 20 vessels who saved $792,000 via HarborLab in two years – something that works out at $1,533 saving per port call. 

“That’s the kind of return owners understand and appreciate,” Malaxianakis says.

ROI isn’t just about savings, he says, maintaining it’s also about scalability and efficiency. Thanks HarborLab’s AI-powered automations and insights, one person is now able to manage 40 vessels and communication among all stakeholders is enhanced. 

“That’s not replacing humans—it’s empowering them to focus on high-impact decisions while the system handles the heavy lifting,” Malaxianakis explains.

“We stand out because HarborLab doesn’t just streamline—it redefines how DAs are managed. We’re creating a future where disruption means empowerment, where our customers take back transparency and control over their port call expenses,” insists Malaxianakis. 

On Geneva Dry, the Greek tech CEO says: “It’s a chance to connect with like-minded visionaries and challenge the industry status quo.”

As well as familiar sessions such as iron ore, coal, agri-commodities, minor bulks and dry decarbonisation, Geneva Dry 2025 features some new panels including a 50-minute special of forward freight agreements, a chartering spotlight, while digital efficiency drivers at port and then at sea will form the first two sessions on Day Two. Another highlight based on how much discussion there was on the topic at this year’s event will be a high-level discussion on electric vehicles and how they are supercharging dry bulk.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has concluded the latest round of minimum wage negotiations for able seafarers at a meeting of the Subcommittee on Wages of Seafarers of the Joint Maritime Commission (JMC), held in Geneva on this week.

The terms of the wage agreement see seafarers get a 6.2% increase in the monthly minimum wage between January 1, 2026, and January 1, 2028, an increase from $673 a month as of January 1, 2025, to $715 per month as of January 1, 2028. Seafarers will receive a 2.5% increase in the first year followed by 2% and 1.6% in the following years.

Frank Hagemann, director of the ILO sectoral policies department, commented: “The outcome of this wholly unique global collective bargaining forum represents more than just a technical adjustment to the minimum wage. It reflects a shared responsibility and commitment to uphold decent work at sea.”

Suba Sivandran, director of strategy, M&A and advanced services at Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore, gives readers an idea of the savings that are possible by installing wind tech on ships trading in Europe. 

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has finalised new measures that should provide a framework to decarbonise shipping. This is a pivotal moment as the sector needs to transition from fossil fuels to cleaner alternative fuels and innovative technologies, such as wind propulsion systems (WPS). Against this backdrop, recent regional regulations – like the EU’s Emission Trading System (ETS) and FuelEU Maritime (FEUM) – have already started to influence the investment and operational strategies of shipowners and operators. These regulations are encouraging owners and operators to adapt their operations to enhance efficiency whilst engaging with developing clean technologies, paving the way for a more sustainable future in maritime transport.

With the development of alternative fuels in its nascent stages, wind propulsion has emerged as a competitive long-term solution for reducing the operating costs of vessels, particularly for those trading within the EU. As part of the newly introduced FuelEU Maritime regulation, vessels using wind propulsion technologies benefit from the framework’s wind rewards factor (WRF), a mechanism designed to incentivize the adoption of wind propulsion technologies. WRF offers up to a 5% reduction on the GHG calculation of energy used onboard for those vessels where wind propulsion accounts for 15% or more of the propulsive power used onboard.

Furthermore, WPS also contributes to improving a ship’s Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI), Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index (EEXI), and Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) ratings. This aligns perfectly with the industry’s imperative to decarbonize.

The adoption of WPS technology is clearly developing at pace. As of February 2025, more than 125 of these systems have been installed on over 57 ships, in addition to 17 already prepared for potential installation. In fact, a recent study suggested that over 1,600 ships will be ordered by 2030, and by 2050, it is estimated that 30% of the entire global fleet will have engaged with wind propulsion technology. Many of these will be classed by Bureau Veritas.

As an accredited verifier of alternative fuels as well as pooling compliance under FEUM, Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore (BV) has recently developed a suite of tools to model the impact of EU and IMO regulations on shipping. This modelling demonstrates that vessels trading at least partially in the EU can achieve substantial savings by engaging with WPS technology. For example, an ultramax vessel trading internationally with the EU could see nearly a 20% reduction in operating costs from 2025-2040 if it uses wind assistance, compared to a reference vessel running on Very Low Sulphur Fuel Oil (VLSFOe). The operating cost benefits remain evident even when accounting for the initial CAPEX implications of installing WPS technology. Wind-assisted vessels, combined with a small biofuel mix, could see further reductions in operational costs in the period from 2035-2040.

Wind assistance proves to be equally or even more competitive in the long term compared to biofuels. BV’s analysis indicates that by 2030, the operating costs for an ultramax vessel using 3% biofuel and one utilising wind assistance would be nearly identical, even after factoring in the additional capex of wind assistance (amortised over 15 years). Both strategies could reduce operating costs by approximately 12% compared to a reference vessel running on VLSFOe. 

Looking toward 2040, a vessel using 10% biofuel would cut its operating costs by 54%. Conversely, a vessel with wind assistance and 3% biofuel to comply with FEUM regulations could reduce its operating costs by over 60%. These figures illustrate wind propulsion as a key component in the future of sustainable maritime transport.

By engaging with WPS technologies, vessels can effectively reduce their fuel consumption and emissions, assisting them in meeting stricter emission standards while contributing to the EU’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. BV’s recent modelling study underscores the critical role of WPS technology in navigating the evolving regulatory landscape. Wind propulsion represents a competitive long-term solution for minimising vessel operating costs whilst supporting regulatory compliance.