Surveillance & Maritime News for February 2023

Global freight forwarding is a $300B industry that facilitates the movement of cargo from one place to another through a series manual process. Solving the complex challenges facing freight forwarders and helping them to do more business faster, freight rate management platform Freightify is announcing a $12M Series A funding round to save 70% of the time spent on manual tasks while halving the operational costs to do business for them. The round was led by Sequoia Capital India & Sequoia C...

Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Co., Ltd., a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Group company based in Yokohama, Japan, has recently completed a conceptual study for an ammonia bunkering vessel capable of supplying ammonia fuel to ships. This study involved joint investigations with INPEX CORPORATION, which boasts abundant achievements and experience in the energy supply chain, in order to respond to increasing demands for ammonia-fuelled ships. Ammonia – future use as a stable source of clean en...

ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Ltd. announced that its ZXB service will undergo a significant restructuring, with a new and improved rotation. Starting in late February, the ZXB weekly rotation will be: Jakarta – Laem Chabang– Cai Mep – Haiphong – Yantian – Kaohsiung – Panama Canal – Kingston – Baltimore – Norfolk – New York – Boston – Suez Canal – Jakarta Upgraded ZXB service The upgraded ZXB, ...

Ports of Stockholm are one of the world’s largest passenger ports and one of Sweden’s largest freight ports. Despite a declining economy, goods volumes have remained high and the number of passengers increased significantly compared to the previous year. This shows Ports of Stockholm to be a central node for sustainable goods and passenger transport and that Stockholm remains a very attractive destination. The important transport of goods via Ports of Stockholm’s ports has wor...

MPC Container Ships ASA (‘MPCC’ or the ‘Company’) will participate in Capital Link’s Corporate Presentations webinar series on January 31, 2023, at 17:00 CET / 11:00 AM ET. MPC Container Ships ASA’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) - Constantin Baack and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) - Moritz Fuhrmann will go through a brief a presentation on the Company and the current container shipping market, followed by a Q & A (Questions & Answers) session. Presen...

The Liverpool City Region’s maritime industry played host to a senior member of the ministerial team in the Department for Transport, Baroness Vere, during a visit to the area on Friday, 27 January 2023. Mersey Maritime welcomed the Minister to their Maritime Knowledge Hub in Birkenhead where she was briefed on their leading role in the rollout of a national initiative, the Regional Cluster Development Programme, which is focused on growing the industry around the coastal communities of t...

Planning of the Blue Water 50th jubilee involved many tasks, one of them being to decide the right gifts for the 2,000 employees of great diversity. At the celebration, all employees received a customised Grünbag Carry Computerbag along with other goodies. Blue Water is implementing several solutions to reduce its CO2 footprint. The fully recycled bags from Grünbag, made from surplus material from tarpaulin production, matched our wish to give a sustainable bag to our employees....

In June 2021, Blue Water transported a hydraulic hammer weighing 653 tonnes and measuring more than 22 metres in height on behalf of BWS' good client MENCK GmbH. In cooperation with the Dutch shipowner Amasus Shipping, the hammer was shipped on board their coaster MV “Arctic Rock” from Hamburg to Rotterdam to be used for the HKZ (Hollandse Kust Zuid) Wind Farm project in the North Sea. Transport of hammer Recently, BWS was entrusted with the return transport of the hammer from Rot...

Kurt Skov has for almost 50 years been the dominant frontline person of the transport and logistics group Blue Water Shipping founded by himself in Esbjerg in 1972 with a small office and three employees. The company has a staff of 2000 distributed at close to 70 offices in 30 countries. The founder leaves the role of the frontline person to his daughter Anne Skov who will become chairman of the Blue Water Foundation owning 75% of the shares in Blue Water. Blue Water Foundation The Foundation...

Energy & Project activities continue to grow for Blue Water, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Recently, the company signed a contract with BW Offshore (BWO) for the supply of logistics and freight forwarding services, including break-bulk and heavy lift transportation. “Entering this agreement is a testament to our customer-focused mindset, in-house competencies, and know-how as well as execution expertise, enabling us to consistently provide quality, reliability, and value-addi...

Blue Water’s scope of the project includes chartering of the bulk vessels from Canada to Greenland as well as coordination of various shipments of material from Canada and Europe to Greenland to be used for the construction of the new airport. Pennecon Heavy Civil Pennecon Heavy Civil is the Canadian company awarded the contract for the airport construction in Qaqortoq. For the past few years, Blue Water has been in dialogue with the company regarding a solution where we assist Pennecon...

United European Car Carriers (UECC) is the provider of sustainable short sea solutions in Europe, and the carrier has through a long time offered a North Sea service route connecting the ports of Zeebrugge, Gothenburg and Drammen on a weekly basis. Now, Esbjerg has been added to the service. Zeebrugge is the hub of UECC, and from here cargo can be shipped with other regular UECC services to additional network. Regular UECC services In April this year, UECC called at Esbjerg Port carrying prim...

Blue Water Shipping is happy to announce that a new General Manager Sea & Air, Norway has been hired to their office in Oslo, Norway. Morten Würgler has more than 20 years of broad international business and logistics experience within air freight, sea freight, perishables and customer service. Morten Würgler has great international know-how from Denmark, Houston, Texas and Norway under titles of Sales Executive and Senior Director in similar corporations to mention a few. Extens...

At Blue Water, they have been preparing for the transition from Aalborg to Aarhus for a long time. With their own terminals of more than 40,000 sq metres in Port of Aarhus, they are ready to continue the high-quality packing and handling of cargo to and from Greenland. In this way, the change will not affect the level of service for their customers. Receiving and handling cargo Blue Water is upgrading 6,000 sq metres terminal in Aarhus, making the facilities more efficient for receiving and h...

Blue Water Shipping announced that they are expanding their operations in Malaysia. The company has been represented in Malaysia since 2009, and now the business is growing further. It has always been in the Blue Water DNA to be locally present on a global scale. With more than 60 offices worldwide, it is now time to further upgrade the setup in the Asia Pacific region. Delivering high quality logistics solutions Delivering logistics solutions of high quality is supported by having connection...

The Seafarers’ Charity’s Chief Executive Officer, Catherine Spencer will step down on 6 July 2022 to take on a new role outside of the maritime sector. Catherine has led the Charity since July 2019. She has worked with the Senior Leadership Team and General Council to re-energise an effective and efficient organisation, working across the maritime sector to ensure seafarers and their families have access to a wide range of quality support. New strategic plan “Catherine has b...

The day after the war broke out in Ukraine, Blue Water was contacted by a client who needed their assistance unloading four aircraft over the weekend. The aircraft would land at the Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport (RZE) in Poland about one and a half hour drive from the Ukrainian border. Safe cargo delivery  Blue Water's scope was to get the cargo safely to the border of Ukraine including the handling, counting, and reloading of the cargo and to make sure the delivery was complete. The next ste...

The Seafarers’ Charity’s UK Maritime Anchor Fund supports working-age UK merchant seafarers. The Fund is open for applications for those impacted by the P&O Ferries redundancies. The Fund will support seafarers through financial help, advice, relationship counselling, and mental health and well-being support and counselling. UK Maritime Anchor Fund The UK Maritime Anchor Fund was created in 2020 with key delivery partner charities to provide an end-to-end package...

Recently, Blue Water was entrusted with transporting two moulds for turbine blades from Aalborg, Denmark to Le Havre, France for one of the pioneers in Wind Energy: Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE). In addition to the sea transport, the job included transfer of the cargo from SGRE’s warehouse in Aalborg to the loading quay, loading on board the vessels in Aalborg and discharging in Le Havre. Transporting two moulds The transport of the two blade moulds for Siemens Gamesa B75 &...

During the spring of 2020, Blue Water and SpaceInvader entered a climate partnership, and the journey towards more sustainable road transport began. If possible, the aim was also to contribute to minimising the effect of other challenges such as shortage of capacity and drivers, as well as high freight rates. The two partners have now signed a three-year cooperative agreement. According to the two players, future solutions must be developed in solid climate partnerships where innovation and cou...

Kiilto, one of The Nordic countries’ renowned manufacturer of hygiene and cleaning products, pays great attention to limiting CO2 emissions in own production and from transports. With weekly transports from the factory in Assens, Denmark to the warehouse in Oslo, Norway, their solution called for optimisation of truck loads. Each truck was usually loaded with a maximum of 33 pallets, which took up the entire trailer floor. It was not possible to load pallets on top of each other, which le...

Blue Water is pleased to announce the acquisition of Guyana-owned and operated Falcon Logistics Inc. and its proceedings as of February 16, 2022. "The acquisition of Falcon Logistics is a very exciting event in the world of Blue Water. It is yet another substantial commitment in the Caribbean region, and we are pleased to welcome more than 40 new colleagues in Guyana to the Blue Water family," says Thomas Bek, COO, Energy, Port & Projects, Blue Water. Maintaining full compliance In recent...

The Confidential Human Incident Reporting Programme (CHIRP Maritime) has provided an independent and confidential safety reporting system for incidents, accidents, and near misses at sea to seafarers worldwide since 2013. Raising awareness, improving safety Reports are received directly from seafarers and analysis is published on CHIRP's website and in its Maritime FEEDBACK paper publication in the languages most spoken by seafarers (English, Chinese, Filipino, Indonesian, and sever...

The Seafarers’ Charity is funding a new membership organisation to represent, support, and promote women working in the UK fishing industry. UK Women in Fisheries UK Women in Fisheries is a new network for all women who work in the UK’s fishing industry. Women who are vessel owners, fleet managers, fishers, fishmongers, processors, fishing conservationists, charity workers, trainers, or working in other roles in the fishing industry are invited to join and benefit from networking...

Less than 15 percent of TGI's domestic freight uses Australia’s Blue Highway – the 80 or so ports and seaways surrounding the country connecting cities and towns and the world. Sea freight is often overlooked because of misconceptions that road and rail freight is more cost-effective. However, when it comes to transporting oversized and heavy equipment, sea freight has a much lower cost per tonne, especially over longer distances. So, what does the user need to know about domestic s...

As a consequence of increased business volume and in line with the execution of the Group's growth strategy, Blue Water has extended the group's top management, which grows from three to four members. The new member will be Thomas Bek, promoted from Global Director of Energy & Projects to COO for Energy, Ports & Projects Division. Current COO Dan Nissen will be responsible for road, sea & air division, including transport and logistics of industrial goods, consumer goods, food and m...

A winner of the UK Port MiFi Christmas Photo Competition has been announced. Julian Wong, a Port Chaplain at Stella Maris, sent a heart-warming photo of a Filipino seafarer on a video call with his children, while on the deck of the Arklow Archer at Ipswich Port. Julian has won £50 in Amazon vouchers, which he’s generously donating to the Filipino seafarer in his winning image, a £250 donation to his chosen charity Stella Marris and a framed photo. Submit and share imag...

Blue Water’s Energy and Projects Division has experienced positive and sustainable growth in recent years, both in terms of activity level and expansion of locations. To further strengthen its global position, Blue Water is opening two additional offices in the Middle East: Iraq and Saudi Arabia. This is to underline and strengthen the objective of servicing customers across the business with a regional and local presence. “We want to expand our global presence to serve current an...

Malaysia Airlines, the national carrier of Malaysia operated its inaugural flight using sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in partnership with PETRONAS Dagangan Berhad (PDB) and Neste. The flight marks Malaysia Airlines’ commitment to make SAF the cleaner and more viable energy option for regular flights by 2025. Collaborative result The historic flight MH7979 utilising the Airbus 330-200 aircraft departed Amsterdam Airport Schiphol at 12:55 pm local time using a blended mixture of approxim...

Following the launch of Neste MY Renewable Diesel™ on the Belgian market in July 2021, Neste has entered a partnership with Q8 to offer the product on seven Q8 stations during the year. Neste MY Renewable Diesel is a premium diesel made entirely from renewable raw materials. It helps reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by up to 90% when emissions over the fuel's life cycle are compared with fossil diesel. Renewable diesel is a “drop-in” fuel, fully compatible with all d...