The Japan firms behind Mauritius oil-leak ship

Yahoo – AFP, Shingo ITO, August 12, 2020

The MV Wakashio ran aground off Mauritius in July and is leaking fuel into
the island's pristine coral-filled waters

The Japanese firm that operates a ship leaking fuel off the coast of Mauritius has been involved in accidents before, including a 2006 oil spill in the Indian Ocean.

Mitsui OSK Lines operates the MV Wakashio, which ran aground on July 25 just off the coast of Mauritius, carrying 4,000 tonnes of fuel that has been seeping into the pristine coral-filled waters of the island nation.

Both the operator and the vessel's owner Nagashiki Shipping have apologised for the spill, and pledged to help mitigate the damage.

The accident is not the first involving Mitsui OSK Lines. In 2006, the Bright Artemis crude oil tanker operated by the firm suffered damage while attempting to rescue the crew of another ship, according to a company statement from the time. An estimated 4,500 tonnes of crude oil leaked from the ship into the Indian Ocean.

The leak took place far offshore and the spill was left to dilute and vaporise after the firm judged the crude unlikely to reach land.

The company has been involved in other smaller accidents, including in 2013, when a container ship it operated sank in the Indian Ocean.

Mitsui OSK Lines operates the MV Wakashio, which is owned by Nagashiki Shipping

The Tokyo-based company traces its history back to 1878, when trading house Mitsui and Co. began operating a steamboat between Nagasaki and Shanghai.

In 1884, the shipping operation was devolved to a firm named Osaka Shosen Kaisha Lines, or OSK lines, under the umbrella of the Mitsui zaibatsu, or conglomerate.

The firm gradually expanded its routes in the 1930s and began carrying passengers and cargo between Japan and major cities in North and South America, including New York.

It was renamed Mitsui Steamship in 1942 and -- like many other Japanese private shipping lines -- was heavily involved in military transport before and during World War II.

It survived the chaos of the post-war period and was part of Japan's so-called economic miracle, involved in the export of Japanese cars overseas and the import of natural gas to the energy-poor nation.

Following a series of mergers and acquisitions, it was renamed Mitsui OSK Lines in 1999, and now operates 740 vessels around the world, employing more than 1,000 people.

Leaked oil from the MV Wakashio has been seeping into the pristine 

coral-filled waters of Mauritius

The MV Wakashio is owned by Nagashiki Shipping, which is based in western Japan's Okayama.

The company currently owns 11 ships, including container ships, tankers and bulkers like the Wakashio, a so-called cape size bulker built in 2007.

The MV Wakashio had passed its latest annual inspection in March without any problems, according to Japan's ClassNK inspection body.

Nagashiki Shipping began life as a salt ship line in the final years of Japan's Edo period (1603-1868), according to the firm's website.

Originally known as Nagashiki Ship Department, the firm also transported rice to Japan from the Korean peninsula, which was under Tokyo's colonial rule from 1910 to the end of World War II in 1945.

The firm lost all its vessels after the war, but was re-established in 1958 and renamed Nagashiki Shipping.

Stricken ship refloated after Solomons oil spill

Yahoo – AFP, 11 May 2019

The ship was carrying more than 700 tonnes of heavy fuel and leaked a huge
amount of oil into the sea

The ship at the centre of an environmental disaster near World-Heritage listed waters in the Solomon Islands was refloated Saturday after being stranded on a coral reef for more than three months.

The MV Solomon Trader ran aground on February 5 while loading bauxite at Rennell Island, about 240 kilometres (149 miles) south of the capital Honiara.

The 225-metre (740-foot) ship was carrying more than 700 tonnes of heavy fuel and leaked a huge amount of oil into the sea, sparking an international effort to contain the spill.

"They have been trying to refloat the vessel since Thursday but because of low tide they have not been able to, until today", the chairman of the Solomons National Disaster Council, Melchior Mataki, told AFP.

An oil slick more than six kilometres long has spread along the shoreline, destroying the livelihoods of islanders who rely on waters in the ecologically delicate region.

Rennell Island is the largest raised coral atoll in the world and includes a UNESCO World Heritage site which extends kilometres out to sea.

Authorities have said the site was not affected by the spill, although Mataki said a detailed environmental assessment will be undertaken now that the vessel is out of the way.

"There is a preliminary report but the full report will be made known once assessments and investigation findings are compiled properly", he said, adding the government would likely seek compensation for environmental damage.

The Australian government had sent salvage experts to assist the response and vowed to help the Solomons make sure those responsible for the spill are held to account.

The Hong Kong-registered ship was chartered by Indonesian-based Bintan Mining and was loaded with almost 11,000 tonnes of bauxite at the time of the incident.

Dutch dredging firms win new Suez Canal mega contract

DutchNews.nl, Monday 20 October 2014

(NOS/EPA)

Dutch dredging companies Boskalis and Van Oord have acquired a hotly contested contract to build a second Suez canal in Egypt. The contract is worth around $1.5bn, the Financieele Dagblad reported at the weekend.

‘It’s one of the biggest dredging jobs of the decade’, the paper quotes Boskalis ceo Peter Berdowski as saying.

The contract was signed at the weekend by the Egyptian prime-minister and the head of the  Suez Canal Authorities (SCA). Boskalis and Van Oord have formed a consortium with Belgian company Jan de Nul and NMDC from Abu Dhabi.

Congestion

The plan to build a second Suez Canal parallel to the existing canal was announced by president Al-Sisi in August. It is meant to put an end to the one way traffic in some parts of the canal and avoid congestion on one of the most important shipping routes in the world.

The project will also bring employment to the area, revive the economy and give a boost to national pride, the FD writes.

The canal generates some $5bn in toll revenue a year which makes it the Egypt’s biggest earner. A parallel shipping lane will almost double the number of ships that pass through the canal and take it from 49 to 97 ships a day. The Egyptian government expects toll revenue to rise to over $13bn annually.

Challenge

The consortium is going to have to remove 180 million cubic meters of sand in order to dig the 24 meter deep, 50km long canal. Time is short: the consortium only has ten months to finish the job and dredging boats from all over the world are converging on Egypt. ‘It’s going to be an enormous challenge,’ Berdowski is quoted as saying.

The Dutch consortium pipped the China Harbor Engineering & Construction (Chec) to the post, ‘probably because we were the only ones who could come up with the material in such a short amount of time,’ Berdowski told the FD.

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Greenpeace sends new protest ship as first Russian Arctic oil arrives

Channel NewsAsia – AFP, 28 Apr 2014

Greenpeace on Monday sent a protest ship to meet a Russian tanker carrying the first oil drilled offshore in the environmentally fragile Arctic.

The Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior. (AFP/Romeo Gacad)

THE HAGUE: Greenpeace on Monday sent a protest ship to meet a Russian tanker carrying the first oil drilled offshore in the environmentally fragile Arctic.

The ship, Rainbow Warrior, is captained by Peter Willcox, who was among campaigners detained by Russian authorities last year after staging a high-profile protest against Arctic drilling.

The vessel set sail from Rotterdam on Monday afternoon, Greenpeace said, and will seek to escort to harbour the Russian tanker Mikhail Ulyanov, which is delivering oil purchased by French energy giant Total.

The oil was drilled at the Prirazlomnaya platform, an offshore rig owned by Russian energy giant Gazprom and the site of Greenpeace's protest last September.

The protest, which saw two campaigners attempt to scale the rig, prompted Russian authorities to seize Greenpeace's Dutch-flagged Arctic Sunrise boat and detain the 30 activists and journalists on board.

Greenpeace argues that the Gazprom rig is an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen that risks ruining the pristine Arctic ecology of the southern Barents Sea where the deposit is located.

The activists had faced lengthy prison terms before Moscow announced amnesties.

"We want to escort the ship into the harbour," at Rotterdam, Greenpeace activist Patric Salize told AFP by telephone from aboard the ship.

He declined to say what kind of protest action the group might have planned.

There are 23 people on board the vessel, which may meet the Russian tanker on Tuesday night, another campaigner Willem Wiskerke told AFP, also from aboard the Rainbow Warrior.

"We do not disclose in advance what we are going to do, but I can assure you we will send a clear message to the world that this oil is very dangerous," Wiskerke said.

Greenpeace has accused France's Total of hypocrisy for buying the Arctic oil, after its CEO Christophe de Margerie said in 2012 that his company would not drill in the fragile region.

A Total spokesman in Paris confirmed the controversial purchase but insisted the company would not itself be drilling in the Arctic.

"The environmental risks are too high," the spokesman said, asking not to be named.

Greenpeace oil campaigner Ben Ayliffe accused Total of "real hypocrisy".

"Its CEO has already pledged not to drill in the icy waters of the far north, and yet he is apparently happy to buy the stuff if Gazprom takes on the risk," Ayliffe said in a statement.

"Mr De Margerie cannot have his cake and eat it."

Greenpeace is suing Russia before the European Court of Human Rights for what it says was the illegal detention of its activists as it breached the right to freedom of expression.

Russian authorities are still holding the Arctic Sunrise icebreaker.

- AFP/ec

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Bitterness over Exxon Valdez lingers, 25 years on

Google – AFP, Gregor Waschinski (AFP), 22 March 2014

Oil spill cleanup workers board a small boat off Naked Island on Prince

Williams Sound on April 2, 1989 (AFP/File, Chris Wilkins)

Washington — On a cold March night 25 years ago, the supertanker Exxon Valdez struck a reef off the coast of Alaska, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil into the sea.

Images of oil-soaked birds and fouled beaches horrified the United States, leading to tighter regulation and greater environmental consciousness.

The Exxon Valdez grounding on March 24, 1989, has since been replaced by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico as the worst oil spill in US history.

Yet local communities in the formerly pristine Prince William Sound are suffering.

John Thomas, Betty Bang and Fred Weltz

(L-R) bag up dead oil-soaked sea otters to

be shipped via helicopter on April 3, 1989

from Green Island in Prince Williams

Sound to Valdez for autopsy (AFP/File,

Chris Wilkins)

"There is a lot of bitterness still to this day," Steve Rothchild from the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council told AFP.

The council was created after the spill to oversee oil transportation and provide a voice for the communities that were struggling after the collapse of the fishing industry.

Rothchild complains that Exxon did not fulfill its promise to "make the people whole."

"When the court case was finally adjudicated, the people got pennies on the dollar they really deserved," he said, using an expression meaning they were short-changed.

Dwindling salmon population

The oil giant, which changed its name to ExxonMobil after a merger in 1999, was originally ordered to pay $5 billion to more than 32,000 Alaska Natives, landowners and commercial fishermen.

After a lengthy legal battle, the Supreme Court limited the punitive damages in June 2008 to about $500 million.

Exxon also spent more than $2 billion on the cleanup effort and reached a settlement with the US government that included $900 million in payments, a $25 million criminal fine and $100 million in restitution.

Angela Day's husband was a fisherman in the small port town of Cordova before the dwindling salmon and herring populations forced him out of business.

The oil tanker Exxon Baton Rouge (L)

continues to offload crude oil from the

crippled tanker Exxon Valdez (R) in

Prince William Sound on March 28,

1989 (AFP/File, Chris Wilkins)

"He's been fishing there for about 30 years, he grew up in the fishing industry and had two vessels at the time of the oil spill," Day said.

"It was really hard on the community," she recalled, adding that the disruption of the local economy led to "more drinking, some suicides, more divorces."

Exxon hired some fishermen to help the cleanup effort but many lost their livelihoods as the value of their boats and fishing permits plummeted.

"My husband did not even get back a quarter of what his two fishing vessels were worth at the time," said Day, author of the recently published account "Red Light to Starboard: Recalling the Exxon Valdez Disaster."

'Got people thinking'

During that fateful March night in 1989, the captain Joseph Hazelwood diverted the Exxon Valdez from the normal course to avoid icebergs before he left the bridge.

With an unlicensed and possibly overworked third mate in charge, the 986-foot (300-meter) tanker failed to return to the shipping lanes and ran aground.

Witnesses saw Hazelwood drinking vodka in a local bar before the departure and a blood test showed alcohol several hours after the accident, but a jury found him not guilty on the charge of operating a vessel while under the influence of alcohol.

The toxic crude polluted 1,300 miles (2,000 kilometers) of shoreline and took the lives of an estimated 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals and as many as 22 killer whales. The cleanup efforts went on for four summers.

"There was a sea change in environmental consciousness," Day said.

"The disaster got people thinking about how we are getting our energy."

New legislation required that all tankers transporting oil through Prince William Sound must have double hulls and be escorted by two tugboats. Contingency planning was ramped up.

But even a quarter century later, remnants of the spill linger on the shores of southern Alaska.

A smaller vessel pulls a containment boom, lower left, as the tanker Exxon

 baton Rouge continues to offload crude oil from the crippled oil tanker Exxon 

Valdez, background, on March 29, 1989 (AFP/File, Chris Wilkins)

A recent study found hidden pockets of oil on remote rocky beaches.

"We have learned that certain kinds of beaches with boulder are hard to clean up," said lead researcher Gail Irvine from the US Geological Survey, stressing that the mousse-like oil can "persist for decades" once it is in sheltered positions.

'Cleanup artist'

A report by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council identified in 2010 approximately 50 beach segments with lingering oil, representing a total shoreline length of about 1.5 miles.

"You can dig a hole a foot down and find liquid oil," Jeep Rice, a retired longtime researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), told AFP.

"The oil that's below the surface declines very slowly. It's probably gonna be there for another 50 years."

At least most species have recovered from the environmental disaster.

"Prince William Sound is a functioning ecosystem. The water is clean," Rothchild said.

"Nature is a wonderful thing, nature is its own cleanup artist."

Samsung Launches World’s Largest Vessel

Jakarta Globe – AFP, December 5, 2013

This Samsung Heavy Industries handout picture taken on Nov. 30, 2013 and released
 on Dec. 5, 2013, shows a South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries’
tanker-shaped vessel tagged as the world’s largest ‘floating facility’, with a length
greater than the height of  the Empire State Building in New York, at a southern
shipyard in Geoje. (AFP Photo/Samsung Heavy Industries)

Seoul. South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries has floated a tanker-shaped vessel tagged as the world’s largest “floating facility” with a length greater than the height of the Empire State Building.

A Samsung spokeswoman said on Thursday that the floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) platform – named “Prelude” – was set in the water at its southern shipyard in Geoje on Nov. 30.

The 488-meter-long vessel cannot be described as a “ship” as it is unable to move under its own steam and must be towed.

But its specifications are impressive, outstripping the 443-meter-tall Empire State Building in New York.

Once complete, the facility will weigh more than 600,000 tons fully loaded, displacing the same amount of water as six of the world’s largest aircraft carriers.

Seventy-four meters wide and 110 meters high, it is expected to produce 3.6 million tons of LNG a year and its storage tanks have a capacity equivalent to approximately 175 Olympic swimming pools.

Commissioned by the Dutch energy giant Shell, the facility is due to be delivered by September 2016.

In a press release on its website, Shell said Prelude would operate in a remote basin around 475 kilometers northeast of Broome, a town in Western Australia, for around 25 years.

It is an all-weather facility designed to withstand the most powerful category-five cyclone.

Agence France-Presse

France upholds Total verdict over Erika oil spill

BBC News, 25 September 2012

Related Stories 

• Total guilty of French oil spill
• French struggle to contain oil spill
• Analysis: Tightening rules on tankers

The 25-year-old Erika broke in two in
violent seas in the Bay of Biscay in
December 1999

France's top court has upheld fines imposed on the French oil giant Total for an oil disaster in 1999.

The tanker Erika sank off the coast of Brittany dumping 30,000 barrels of heavy fuel oil into the Atlantic sea.

Total was convicted of negligence in 2008 for overlooking maintenance problems of the ship it had chartered.

Total had argued that since the ship had gone down in international waters and was flying a Maltese flag, French courts did not have jurisdiction.

Campaign groups said that if Total had been absolved of blame for this disaster, 30 years of environmental protection law would have been undermined.

"This is a decision that will make all oil companies think deeply about the organisation of maritime transport," Jean-Pierre Mignard, a lawyer for several coastal districts affected, was quoted by Agence France Presse as saying.

Huge fines

The Erika sank 75km (45 miles) off the coast of Brittany in December 1999, contaminating 400km of coastline in one of France's worst environmental disasters.

In 2008, Total, the Erika's owner and its manager, were found guilty of negligence, as was Rina, the Italian company that declared the Erika seaworthy.

Total was fined 375,000 euros (£280,000) and ordered to pay nearly 200m euros in damages to the French state and the local fishing industry.

All the convictions were upheld in latest ruling by the Court of Cassation.

Earlier this year, the chief prosecutor encouraged the court to find in Total's favour, says the BBC's Christian Fraser in Paris.

The court ignored him - but this ruling does not conceal the ongoing difficulties in assigning jurisdiction when a ship sinks outside territorial waters, our correspondent says.

Iranian oil tanker anchors off Indonesia in rare move

Reuters, by Francis Kan and Yaw Yan Chong, Singapore, Thu Feb 23, 2012

(Reuters) - An Iranian supertanker loaded with crude has made a rare journey to an anchorage point off the coast of an Indonesian island used for offshore sales and storage of oil.

The Delvar, part of the National Iranian Tanker Co.'s (NITC) fleet, arrived at Karimun Island in the Singapore Strait on Thursday, according to Reuters Freight Fundamentals Database. The vessel remains anchored with its draft indicating an almost full load, the data showed. A super tanker, or Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC), can carry up to two million barrels of oil.

Tehran has been struggling to sell its crude in the face of tightening U.S. sanctions and an EU embargo that kicks in on July 1. Major Asian buyers are planning to cut back imports in order to win a waiver from U.S. sanctions, sapping a key revenue lifeline for Iran.

Karimun is a key offshore storage point near Asia's biggest oil trading hub Singapore and is often used for ship-to-ship transfers (STS), but NITC vessels have not been known to call there.

"It's very interesting. I've never seen NITC vessels coming to Karimun," said a Singapore-based shipbroker.

Karimun has been frequently used as a STS location for more than seven years, and some tankers, particularly VLCCs, have anchored there for stints of up to three months.

"If they have sold the oil, it's most likely to a refiner. Traders won't go near Iranian crude. They also could be storing it there," said a Singapore-based crude oil trader.

Western financial sanctions have crimped Iran's purchases of grain, cooking oil and tea. Tehran is turning to barter - offering gold bullion in overseas vaults or tankerloads of oil - as new financial sanctions have hurt its ability to import basic staples for its 74 million people.

Indonesian Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan said there was currently no agreement on barter trade with Iran.

"So far we haven't got any proposal on barter trade from the Iranian government," Wirjawan told Reuters on Thursday.

Separately, Indonesian state oil firm Pertamina said the Iranian tanker was not for them, according to the spokesman.

Refiners in the region who are known to buy Iranian crude include Malaysian state-owned Petronas and Royal Dutch Shell's 500,000 barrels-per-day refinery in Singapore, traders said.

(Additional reporting by Lee Yen Nee, Yayat Supriatna and Reza Thaher; Editing by Sugita Katyal, Manash Goswami)

Fuel tanker in trouble in English Channel

BBC News, 8 October 2010

A fuel tanker is in trouble in the English Channel after colliding with another ship but its crew were all safely evacuated, reports say.

The YM Uranus was carrying a cargo of heavy Pygas, a type of gasoline, when it hit a Panamanian bulk tanker off the Brittany coast overnight.

It was still afloat, but listing badly to port, as of Friday morning.

A French frigate and a tug are close by and engineers are assessing if it can be towed to port without any spillage.

There were no immediate reports of pollution in the Channel.

'No imminent threat'

A French helicopter evacuated the crew of 13 to a military base south of Brest, the ship's Glasgow-based operator said.

Peter Bullard from Falmouth Coastguards in the UK said no pollution had been reported.

"There's certainly no imminent threat," he told BBC Radio Cornwall.

"It'd be foolish of me to say that pollution would never reach us, but there's certainly no imminent threat. And that's not our concern at the moment."

Mr Bullard said the UK Coastguards' role at this stage was chiefly to assist their French colleagues.

"But obviously, the environment is of interest to all of us whether it's the French coast or ours," he added.

Heavy Pygas (pyrolysis gasoline), a product of ethylene manufacturing, contains a large amount of the industrial solvent benzene.

If you have any information to share with the BBC about this incident, please send us your contact details using the postform below.

Send your pictures and videos to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to61124 (UK) or 0044 7725 100 100 (International). If you have a large file you can upload here

Listing heavily: The YM Uranus after the collision with a Panamanian
bulk container off the Brittany coast

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Tanker containing 6,000 tons of solvent collides with cargo ship in English Channel

Indonesia Eyes Gas Promised to Japan

Jakarta Globe, Reva Sasistiya & Bloomberg, May 07, 2010

A tanker being loaded with LNG at Bontang in Kalimantan. Domestic gas shortage may prompt to state to revise deals with Japan. (Bloomberg Photo)

As Indonesia continues to suffer from a shortage of liquefied natural gas, the government said on Friday that an existing contract to supply LNG from Central Kalimantan to Japanese buyers would likely be revised to enable more fuel to be allocated to the domestic market.

Energy Minister Darwin Zahedy Saleh said the government may alter the contract to provide Japanese buyers LNG from the Bontang project in Central Kalimantan.

“We’re able to revise the contract supply since the gas is our resource,” Darwin said. He acknowledged the possibility of penalties from buyers if Indonesia failed to meet its agreement, but he asked for understanding from Japanese companies. “We’re still considering it.”

The LNG contract from Bontang was signed on Feb. 13, 2009 between operators PT Pertamina, Total EP Indonesia and Inpex Corporation and six Japanese buyers: Chubu Electric Power; Kansai Electric Power Co.; Kyushu Electric Power; Nippon Steel; Osaka Gas and Toho Gas.

The agreement covers a 10-year period starting in 2011. For the first five years, three million tons a year would be allocated to the Japanese buyers with two million tons a year allocated for the second five years. Currently, Japanese buyers are taking 12 million tons a year from Bontang.

Raden Priyono, head of upstream oil and gas regulator BPMigas, said as the amount of Bontang gas exported to Japan would be lower next year, there would be excess output of 2.5 million tons.

“The gas will be allocated to the domestic market, but if the infrastructure is not ready, we will have to find another buyer.”

Currently, it’s estimated Indonesia is suffering from a 2.5 billion standard cubic feet of gas a day deficit.

Meanwhile, Evita Legowo, director general of oil and gas at the Ministry of Energy, said final government approval of the Donggi-Senoro LNG plant may not take place until near the end of the year, meaning the plant would now not be finished until 2014. The facility was originally supposed to be completed this year.

The plant is 51 percent owned by Japan’s Mitsubishi. Pertamina holds 29 percent and PT Medco Energi Internasional owns the rest.

At issue is who will be allowed to purchase the gas. In January 2009, the operating consortium agreed to supply one million tons of LNG annually to Chubu Electric Power and one million tons per year to Kansai Electric over 15 years.

But last July, then-Vice President Jusuf Kalla instructed the energy minister and Pertamina’s president director to allocate the gas to domestic buyers.

The fate of the gas has been unclear since then, with the government and the consortium partners at odds over whether the gas should be sold domestically, where it would bring a lower price, or on the international market.

One Japanese buyer pulled out in August and prospective buyers from Japan and South Korea this week threatened to walk away if the government didn’t decide soon how the gas would be allocated.

The decision will be Vice President Boediono’s. Darwin said he would meet with Boediono to discuss it on Monday.

Evita said the decision could be made before the end of the month.

BPMigas Seeks Cabotage Exemption for Some Foreign-Owned Oil and Gas Ships

Jakarta Globe, Yessar Rossendar, February 07, 2010

Seismic Vessels

Upstream oil and gas regulator BPMigas is seeking to make certain high-tech foreign vessels rented by oil and gas companies exempt from restrictions on domestic shipping set to be implemented next year.

BPMigas deputy chairman Hardiono said on Friday that the regulator had asked the Ministry of Transportation for an exemption because oil and gas companies were concerned that domestic shipping companies would not be able to meet their needs for such high-tech vessels, and that this would curtail investment in the vital sector. The ships in question, rig and seismic vessels, are typically rented from foreign-owned shipping companies for six months or less.

Since 2005, the government has been gradually implementing cabotage, a ban on foreign-owned ships carrying goods between ports in Indonesia, to boost the underdeveloped domestic shipping industry.

The final phase of its implementation will come into force in January next year, requiring oil and gas companies to use only domestically owned ships.

However, Sunaryo, the Transportation Ministry’s director general of sea transportation, said the ministry was unlikely to grant any exemptions to the cabotage rules. He said there was still time for local companies to buy the high-tech vessels or for foreign shipping companies to transfer the vessels to Indonesian owners.

“I encourage the local shipping companies to buy the high-tech vessels,” Sunaryo said.

Hardiono said several oil and gas companies had expressed concern about the potential difficulties of renting high-tech vessels from domestic companies. “Two out of four investors in the Kangean oil and gas block off Madura have pulled back from their plans to invest in the block” because of their concerns, he said.

Because rig and seismic vessels are typically only used for short time periods, and are rented to companies all over the world, it would be inefficient for Indonesian shipping companies to buy them, Hardiono said. However, BPMigas supported the introduction of cabotage rules for other types of ships in the oil and gas industry, he added.

Johnson W Sutjipto the head of the Indonesian National Ship Owners Association said domestic companies did not have enough rig and seismic vessels to service the oil and gas industry.

However, he said they would invest in these vessels because of the huge potential in the oil and gas sector.

“I’m optimistic that the vessels will be available in time, so that it will not slow down investment,” he said.

Floating Gas Terminals a Reality by End of Next Year

Jakarta Globe, Janeman Latul, February 04, 2010

A replica of a Iiquefied natural gas tanker. Three floating LNG terminals are on track to be built in Indonesian waters by the end of 2011. EPA Photo

The government’s plan to build three floating liquefied natural gas terminals is on track to be finished by the end of 2011, said the state-owned companies involved in the plan, as a joint-venture agreement for the first terminal was signed on Thursday.

The LNG terminals are aimed at helping to meet rapidly growing local demand for gas for electricity generation and the fertilizer and manufacturing industries.

However, Indonesia, the world’s third-biggest LNG producer, may still need to start importing to meet demand, with the government confirming on Thursday that Pertamina was in negotiations to start receiving shipments from Qatar.

State oil and gas producer PT Pertamina and state-owned PT Perusahaan Gas Negara signed the agreement to form a joint- venture company, to build the $200 million West Java LNG terminal, which will be able to supply 500 million cubic feet of gas per day to Greater Jakarta.

“Today [Thursday], we see an agreement between state-owned companies to develop and supply gas as the national demand is increasing rapidly,” said StateEnterprises Minister Mustafa Abubakar. “The fertilizer and electricity sectors are the sectors that need the gas supply the most.”

Pertamina will own 60 percent of the yet-to-be-named venture with PGN holding the rest. Pertamina will select the company’s president director, technical and operation directors, while PGN will choose its financial and administration directors.

PGN president director Hendi Prio Santoso said the agreement showed the commitment the two companies have to help nation cope with quickly growing needs for electricity. The West Java terminal was on track to be completed before the end of 2011, he said.

“We will eventually invest around Rp 800 billion [$85.6 million] in the West Java terminal while Pertamina will invest the rest,” Hendi said.

The other floating LNG terminals will be located near Medan in North Sumatra and East Java. The Medan terminal will be fully financed by PGN while the East Java terminal will be financed by Pertamina. Each terminal will require an investment of $150 to $200 million, Hendi said.

“The North Sumatra LNG terminal is currently at the technical preparation stage and is expected to be operation by 2011 as well,” Hendi said. It would handle around 1.5 to 2 million tons of LNG a year, he said.

The North Sumatra terminal would be 70 percent financed by loans and the rest would come from PGN’s internal cash, he said.

Pertamina is planning to form a joint venture with a shipping company that provides oil and gas services to build the East Java terminal and it will start searching for a partner before the end of February.

Pertamina president director Karen Agustiawan said the terminal should also be completed by the end of 2011. The floating terminals would help Pertamina complete its LNG supply chain, which has been in development for 30 years, she said.

The terminals will be supplied by British energy giant BP, which will supply 1.5 million tons of LNG a year from the Tangguh field in Papua, and PGN, which will provide 1.5 million tons of LNG a year from the Bontang field in East Kalimantan. The three terminals will eventually have a combined storage capacity of 3.5 million to 4 million tons of gas.

However, even after the floating terminals are operational there still won’t be enough gas to meet the rising demand in Indonesia.

“We [Indonesia] may still import two million tons a year from Qatar to meet local demand,” said Michael Baskoro, PGN’s commercial director.

Evita Legowo, director general of oil and gas at the Energy Ministry, confirmed that Pertamina was negotiating with a Qatar company for additional gas supplies.

The 16 Ships Create As Much Pollution As All Cars in The World

Kompas, 22 November 2009

Waiting game: Tankers moored off Devon
 waiting for oil prices to rise even further

KOMPAS.com - Last week it was revealed that 54 oil tankers are anchored off the coast of Britain, refusing to unload their fuel until prices have risen.

But that is not the only scandal in the shipping world. Today award-winning science writer Fred Pearce – environmental consultant to New Scientist and author of Confessions Of An Eco Sinner – reveals that the super-ships that keep the West in everything from Christmas gifts to computers pump out killer chemicals linked to thousands of deaths because of the filthy fuel they use.

We've all noticed it. The filthy black smoke kicked out by funnels on cross-Channel ferries, cruise liners, container ships, oil tankers and even tugboats. It looks foul, and leaves a brown haze across ports and shipping lanes. But what hasn’t been clear until now is that it is also a major killer, probably causing thousands of deaths in Britain alone.

As ships get bigger, the pollution is getting worse. The most staggering statistic of all is that just 16 of the world’s largest ships can produce as much lung-clogging sulphur pollution as all the world’s cars.

Because of their colossal engines, each as heavy as a small ship, these super-vessels use as much fuel as small power stations. But, unlike power stations or cars, they can burn the cheapest, filthiest, high-sulphur fuel: the thick residues left behind in refineries after the lighter liquids have been taken. The stuff nobody on land is allowed to use.

Thanks to decisions taken in London by the body that polices world shipping, this pollution could kill as many as a million more people in the coming decade – even though a simple change in the rules could stop it. There are now an estimated 100,000 ships on the seas, and the fleet is growing fast as goods are ferried in vast quantities from Asian industrial powerhouses to consumers in Europe and North America.

The recession has barely dented the trade. This Christmas, most of our presents will have come by super-ship from the Far East; ships such as the Emma Maersk and her seven sisters Evelyn, Eugen, Estelle, Ebba, Eleonora, Elly and Edith Maersk. Each is a quarter of a mile long and can carry up to 14,000 full-size containers on their regular routes from China to Europe.

Emma – dubbed SS Santa by the media – brought Christmas presents to Europe in October and is now en route from Algeciras in Spain to Yantian in southern China, carrying containers full of our waste paper, plastic and electronics for recycling.

But it burns marine heavy fuel, or ‘bunker fuel’, which leaves behind a trail of potentially lethal chemicals: sulphur and smoke that have been linked to breathing problems, inflammation, cancer and heart disease.

James Corbett, of the University of Delaware, is an authority on ship emissions. He calculates a worldwide death toll of about 64,000 a year, of which 27,000 are in Europe. Britain is one of the worst-hit countries, with about 2,000 deaths from funnel fumes. Corbett predicts the global figure will rise to 87,000 deaths a year by 2012.

Part of the blame for this international scandal lies close to home. In London, on the south bank of the Thames looking across at the Houses of Parliament, is the International Maritime Organisation, the UN body that polices the world’s shipping.

For decades, the IMO has rebuffed calls to clean up ship pollution. As a result, while it has long since been illegal to belch black, sulphur-laden smoke from power-station chimneys or lorry exhausts, shipping has kept its licence to pollute.

For 31 years, the IMO has operated a policy agreed by the 169 governments that make up the organisation which allows most ships to burn bunker fuel.

Christian Eyde Moller, boss of the DK shipping company in Rotterdam, recently described this as ‘just waste oil, basically what is left over after all the cleaner fuels have been extracted from crude oil. It’s tar, the same as asphalt. It’s the cheapest and dirtiest fuel in the world’.

Bunker fuel is also thick with sulphur. IMO rules allow ships to burn fuel containing up to 4.5 per cent sulphur. That is 4,500 times more than is allowed in car fuel in the European Union. The sulphur comes out of ship funnels as tiny particles, and it is these that get deep into lungs.

Thanks to the IMO’s rules, the largest ships can each emit as much as 5,000 tons of sulphur in a year – the same as 50million typical cars, each emitting an average of 100 grams of sulphur a year.

With an estimated 800million cars driving around the planet, that means 16 super-ships can emit as much sulphur as the world fleet of cars.

A year ago, the IMO belatedly decided to clean up its act. It said shipping fuel should not contain more than 3.5 per cent sulphur by 2012 and eventually must come down to 0.5 per cent. This lower figure could halve the deaths, says Corbett.

It should not be hard to do. There is no reason ship engines cannot run on clean fuel, like cars. But, away from a handful of low-sulphur zones, including the English Channel and North Sea, the IMO gave shipping lines a staggering 12 years to make the switch. And, even then, it will depend on a final ‘feasibility review’ in 2018.

In the meantime, according to Corbett’s figures, nearly one million more people will die.

Smoke and sulphur are not the only threats from ships’ funnels. Every year they are also belching out almost one billion tons of carbon dioxide. Ships are as big a contributor to global warming as aircraft – but have had much less attention from environmentalists.

Both international shipping and aviation are exempt from the Kyoto Protocol rules on cutting carbon emissions. But green pressure is having its effect on airlines. Ahead of next month’s Copenhagen climate talks, airlines have promised to cut emissions by 50 per cent by 2050.

But shipping companies are keeping their heads down. A meeting of the IMO in July threw out proposals from the British Chamber of Shipping, among others, to set up a carbon-trading scheme to encourage emissions reductions.

Amazingly, they pleaded poverty. Two-thirds of the world’s ships are registered in developing countries such as Panama. These are just flags of convenience, to evade tougher rules on safety and pay for sailors.

But at the IMO, governments successfully argued that ships from developing countries should not have to cut carbon emissions. IMO secretary-general Efthimios Mitropoulos insisted: ‘We are heavily and consistently engaged in the fight to protect and preserve our environment.’ Yet without limits, carbon emissions from shipping could triple by 2050.

The failure brought calls for the IMO to be stripped of its powers to control the world’s ships. Colin Whybrow, of Greenwave, a British charity set up to campaign for cleaner shipping, says: ‘The IMO is drinking in the last-chance saloon.’

Burning low-sulphur fuel won’t cut carbon emissions from ships. But there are other ways. More efficient engines could reduce emissions by 30 per cent, according to British marine consultant Robin Meech.

Cutting speed could reduce emissions by as much again. And there are even wackier ways, such as putting up giant kites to harness the wind as in the days of sailing ships. However you look at it, the super-ships are rogues on the high seas, operating under pollution standards long since banished on land; warming the planet and killing its inhabitants. Santa’s sleigh, they are not.

Robert Pedersen, of Maersk, said: ‘The sulphur content varies according to where you get your fuel. Our average sulphur content is, I believe, 2.5 per cent. It’s rather rare you get anything close to 4.5 per cent.’ He added that ‘the sulphur issue is one for the whole industry’ and that there would be a ‘huge cost implication’ to switch to cleaner fuel.

Editor: jimbon

Source : The Daily Mail

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