Saudi Arabia warned the UN Security Council on Wednesday of an ‘oil spot’ about 50km west of the FSO Safer, the decrepit tanker at risk of a catastrophic oil spill off Yemen’s Red Sea port of Ras Isa.

‘It may be beneficial if the maritime industry puts more effort into reporting and finding the root causes, not only behind cyber and software incidents involving newer technologies, but also older precursor devices,’ says Frank Gonynor

The contracts, although with relatively small values, are the first in several months as coronavirus outbreak-related economic and operational issues continue to hit shipyards. The group has also reiterated that both projects are on progressive payment terms amid financial concerns in the industry

DP World and Israeli group DoverTower want to explore the idea of developing Israeli ports and free zones. There is also a shared ambition to consider creating a shipping route between the Red Sea port of Eilat and DP World’s flagship port hub of Jebel Ali

Tomini Shipping says that the strike did not go ahead as they have reconfirmed to the crew that they would sign them off in South Korea after the dry docking in China is finished. It said the company had not been able to facilitate crew changeovers as no foreign crew sign-off was allowed in China

Travel bans and social distancing measures have constrained shipyard operations but appear not to have held back Mitsubishi from delivering its scrubber retrofit order book

The decision by Saudi Arabia adds to the number of jurisdictions that have prohibited use of the open-loop exhaust gas cleaning system, which account for more than 70% of all scrubbers globally. The country’s port authority has said it will prohibit the discharge of wash water until an environmental standard is issued

Temasek’s decision not to proceed with a partial offer for Keppel Corp signals that it is not going all out to ‘bail out’ businesses, at least not in the shipyard sub-sector  

The company warned that if shareholders did not vote for the transaction to go ahead, strenuous efforts to recapitalise and strengthen its balance sheet will be negated and the critical need to address liquidity requirements will fail