Trends – Page 3 – Professional Mariner

Pilot LNG, Seapath form LNG terminal joint venture

Houston, Tx.-headquartered energy company Pilot LNG and Seapath, a maritime subsidiary of the Libra Group, have formed a joint venture partnership to develop, construct, and operate the first dedicated liquefied natural gas bunkering facility (LNG) on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Slated for construction in the Galveston Bay area, the $150 million facility will provide fuel for LNG-powered vessels and is…

SEACOR realigns its maritime operations portfolio

SEACOR Holdings Inc. has sold its inland towing and barge division to Nashville-based Ingram in an attempt to realign its portfolio. The sale includes the transfer to Ingram of eight towboats, 1,000 dry cargo hopper barges, and a network of terminal and fleeting infrastructure along the Mississippi River. The deal will boost Ingram’s fleet to 150 towboats and 4,000 barges…

New Texas LNG terminal planned

A proposed liquefied natural gas export facility is moving forward at the Port of Brownsville, Tx. Driving the project is Houston headquartered NextDecade Corporation, which announced in July that it had made a final investment decision to construct the first three of five liquefaction trains at the company’s Rio Grande LNG terminal. According to NextDecade, the $18.4 billion project financing…

Maritime Institute inks Port of Everett training facility deal

The San Diego, Ca.-based Maritime Institute has signed a 10-year lease to locate its newest mariner training facility at the Port of Everett’s Waterfront Place. The new satellite at the Port of Everett will be the company’s first in Washington state. It currently hosts main campuses in Norfolk, Va. and San Diego, Ca., plus satellite facilities in Alameda, Ca.…

Maritime Partners enters the Jones Act market

Maritime Partners enters the Jones Act market Louisiana-based Maritime Partners LLC, the largest lessor of U.S. inland waterways towboats, has inked an agreement to acquire American Tanker Holding Company (ATHC), a subsidiary of Oslo, Norway-headquartered AMSC for a reported enterprise value of $747 million. ATHC, formerly known as American Shipping Co., owns nine handysize products tankers and one smaller handysize…

New Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Seaway economic impact study

The 2023 study Economic Impacts of Maritime Shipping in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Region provides the navigation community, transportation planners, government policy makers, and the general public with a realistic assessment of the contributions made by the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence region to the state, provincial, regional, and national economies. Compiled by industry analyst Martin Associates of Lancaster, Pa., the study took eight…

Remedies being sought to prevent containers overboard

From 2008 to 2022, shipping containers went overboard and were lost at sea because of heavy weather, severe rolling, improper stowage, inadequate weighing, shipwreck, or other mishaps at an average rate of 1,566 per year. Once in the water, they represent not just a massive annual loss of high-value property, but often pose a hazard to navigation for seaborne traffic…

Capitol Hill moves to veto Chinese-made container cranes

A new bill has been put forward in the U.S. House of Representatives that seeks to bar the use of Chinese-manufactured cranes in U.S. ports. If signed into law, the legislation – the Port Crane Security & Inspection Act of 2023 (H.R. 6487) – would also mandate that ports would have to immediately take offline any cranes currently in use…

Crowley tankers to participate in MarAd security program

The Maritime Administration (MarAd) has selected three Crowley-managed tankers to participate in its Tanker Security Program. The three medium-range (MR) tankers – Stena Immaculate, Stena Imperative and Stena Impeccable – will sail as part of a joint venture between Crowley and Stena Bulk USA. The trio are Stena IMOIIMAX vessels; two were built in 2017 and the other in 2016. IMOIIMAX vessels…

Major shipping carriers unite to launch cargo safety initiative

Several of the world’s largest maritime cargo carriers are joining forces with a non-profit technology accelerator to launch a new innovation initiative to reduce cargo loss at sea. The program will address the growing scale and breadth of challenges operators face as technology evolves and the size and complexity of modern containerships increase. Safetytech Accelerator is a London-headquartered non-profit established…