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Fifteen ships were queuing at the Richards Bay Coal Terminal in South Africa Wednesday, down slightly from 17 two weeks earlier, according to cFlow, S&P Global Platts trade flow software. The reduction of the queue is understood to be caused by an easing of supply tightness which had been in place for the last few months, although sources said the current situation was not having much direct impact on prices. “Nothing seems seriously delayed” a sell side source said. Stocks at the terminal were heard to be around 4 million-4.3 million mt, having been below the 4 million mt level for most of May.

American talk show host and actress Oprah Winfrey will serve as godmother of Holland America Line’s newest vessel Nieuw Statendam, which is currently under construction at Fincantieri’s Marghera shipyard in Italy. Nieuw Statendam, which will sail her maiden cruise in December 2018, will be officially named during a private christening ceremony in 2019. The date will be revealed soon. Winfrey, who has been working with the cruise line as part of the O, The Oprah Magazine since 2017, will also board Nieuw Statendam for a ‘Girls’ Getaway cruise in January 2019. She will be joined by the magazine’s editor Gayle King and other members of the editorial staff. “We are so excited to have Oprah set sail with us again for the ‘Girls’ Getaway’ cruise in partnership with O, The Oprah Magazine, and we’re deeply honoured that Oprah will serve as godmother of Nieuw Statendam,” said Orlando Ashford, president of Holland America Line.

Kalmar, part of Cargotec, has been contracted by Noatum Ports to perform specialised repair work on a ship-to-shore crane located at its container terminal in Valencia, Spain. The order was booked in Cargotec’s 2018 first quarter order intake and the work, which is scheduled to last 24 weeks, will be completed early in the third quarter of 2018. Noatum Container Terminal Valencia (Noatum CT Valencia) is the Iberian Peninsula’s main gateway for container transportation and the natural port of the Spanish capital, Madrid. Served by all major global container-shipping lines, the terminal’s location close to the Suez-Gibraltar axis connects it with the main interoceanic routes. Noatum CT Valencia is part of the Noatum Group, one of Spain’s leading maritime terminal operators.

Stena Line has confirmed that its three E-Flexers ordered at AVIC Weihai will be introduced on the Irish Sea. The first ship in the series will be introduced between Holyhead and Dublin in early 2020, ahead of the introduction of Irish Ferries’ new 5,610-lanemetre ro-pax.

Bunkering company Iraqia Shipping Services and Oil Trading (AISSOT) says over a 500 bunkering operations have taken place at Iraqi ports since it started up operations last September. Demand for bunkering services is primarily from tankers, the company said. "Customers prefer to take bunkers after crude oil loadings to avoid diversion to other ports for bunkers thereby saving huge costs and time," the company said in a statement. The company added that it plans to commence berth supplies at Um Qasr Port to cater for box ships and bulkers. AISSOT is joint-owned by state firm Iraqi Oil Tanker Company and the Arab Maritime Petroleum Transport Company. https://shipandbunker.com/news/world/114608-aissot-in-iraq-bunkering-established-for-tankers

New pre-arrival clearance protocols and reduced terminal handling charges for containers in transit, mean that Jordan’s deep-water Aqaba Container Terminal (ACT), located on the Red Sea, is now a realistic alternative maritime gateway for Iraq-bound cargo, APM Terminals said in its press release. Containers imported into Iraq will no longer have to be trans-loaded onto new trucks as they cross the Jordanian/Iraqi border. “The Aqaba Container Terminal has been working hard over the years to develop a competitive gateway to Iraq," says ACT Managing Director Steven Yoogalingam. “This will enhance the already strong Iraqi port system and gives the business communities of both countries a fantastic transportation system to better support economic development in the region." Ideally located, the ACT is 550km - or 36 hours by road - from the Iraqi border town of Traibil and 48 hours from Baghdad. This development comes as the volume of Iraqi imports experience rapid growth - 86% last year alone.

On June 7, 2018, for the third time since the inauguration of the Expanded Canal, the Panama Canal set a new monthly tonnage record of 38.1 million tons (PC/UMS) after facilitating the transit of 1,231 vessels in May 2018. The previous record was established in January 2017, when 1,260 vessels transited 36.1 million tons (PC/UMS) through the waterway, just a month after setting the record with 35.4 million tons (PC/UMS) transited by 1,166 vessels in December 2016. The container ship segment contributed the highest tonnage (36%), breaking its segment record with 13.8 million tons (PC/UMS) transited by 229 vessels.

A pair of crane operators at the Port of Long Beach on the U.S. West Coast have set a new productivity record for moving the most cargo using a single crane during one eight-hour shift. The record was set on May 15 when two crane operators working the containership Gudrun Maersk at Total Terminals International’s Pier T terminal moved a total of 564 containers using a single crane over just an eight-hour period. This represents an average of 70 container moves per hour, which is nearly triple the West Coast average of 25 container moves per hour. The new record breaks the previous American record of 534 container moves set in 2014, also at the Port of Long Beach.

MSC Cruises has ordered a fifth Meraviglia-class cruise ship, cut the steel for its fourth Meraviglia-class ship, laid the keel for MSC Grandiosa and floated out MSC Bellissima – all in one ceremony at the STX France shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, France. Held on 14 June, the jam-packed ceremony saw MSC Cruises and STX France sign a contract for the €900 million (US$1.06bn) newbuild, which will be the first in the Meraviglia class to have dual-fuel engines powered by LNG. The 6,335-guest vessel will also have an advanced wastewater purification system to ensure she complies with the world’s strictest environmental regulations when she debuts in 2023. The newbuild is the 13th vessel to be ordered as part of MSC Cruises’ 10-year investment plan.

The project to deepen the shipping channel leading to the South Carolina’s Port of Charleston to 52 feet will receive $49 million in federal funding next year. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) announced the $49 million for the Charleston Harbor Deepening Project will be included in its Fiscal Year 2018 Work Plan. Together with financial support from the State of South Carolina, the funding will help ensure the help the project stay on track for completion by early 2021. Construction to deepen the Charleston Harbor Entrance Channel began in February following the awarding of the first two dredging contracts, totaling $260 million, by USACE.

A contract has been signed between Quark Expeditions and Brodosplit for a new polar expedition ship specifically built for the high latitudes of the Arctic and Antarctica. The 128-metre long ship will be built to Polar Class 6 standards and will accommodate 200 passengers in 103 cabins when delivered in the third quarter of 2020.

Commodity trading company Trafigura has has started a new bunkering venture in the Americas. As widely reported by various media outlets last month, Trafigura Group Pte Ltd recently acquired the majority of Pampa Energia SA’sdownstream assets. The deal will see some 250 of Pampa's retail service stations rebranded over the coming months. But the deal has also seen physical bunkering operations at Bahia Blanca, Argentina switch to Trafigura, Ship & Bunker has learned. It is understood that there is only one physical supplier in the port using a single barge to deliver notably low sulfur RMG380 as part of its offering. https://shipandbunker.com/news/am/824793-new-bunkering-operation-for-trafigura-in-the-americas

The expansion of the Polnocne Quay is one of the largest projects carried out by the Port of Gdansk Authority. The PGA has just announced a call for tenders in order to find a contractor for the investment, the company said in its press release. This is not the first step of the Gdansk port aimed at expanding the quay. The investment is ready for implementation: project documentation is complete, including the construction design prepared as part of the project co-financed from the TEN-T programme and valid building permit. Now, it is time to find a contractor to turn the designs and documentation into reality. "The expanded Polnocne Quay will be used primarily for Ro-Ro transshipments. We are witnessing rapid growth in this area, particularly in the transshipments of commercial vehicles. Compared to 2016, the year 2017 ended with a result better by 400%. Our task is to adjust the infrastructure to the needs and development of the market," says Lukasz Greinke, President of the PGA.

Only a small percentage of Hamburg’s container traffic is transported to and from the hinterland via the network of inland waterways, something the German port wants to change.

Irish Continental Group (ICG) is now set to debut Irish Ferries’ new €150 million (US$184 million) cruise ferry W.B. Yeats in September 2018, rather than July 2018, following delays at Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft (FSG) in Germany. FSG began construction with a steel-cutting ceremony in April 2017, laid the keel in September 2017 and then floated the 1,855-passenger ferry out of her building dock on 19 January 2018, the same day as her christening ceremony . Originally, W. B. Yeats was set to join the fleet in July, but there has been a delay in the delivery of the interior components for the public areas and in the electrical system installation in the hull and deckhouse. To speed up the process, FSG has made additional funds available to pay the second-level suppliers of the interior components directly.

MSC Cruises and STX yard had a triple celebration on 14th June, while Pierfrancesco Vago, Executive chairman of MSC Cruises, announced a further cruise ship order.... http://cruisedeck.de/dreifach-feier-fuer-msc-cruises-bei-stx-in-st-nazaire/

RIYADH/DUBAI, June 14 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates announced a five-point aid plan for Yemen’s Hodeidah port and surrounding areas on Wednesday, after a Saudi-led alliance of Arab states launched an attack on Yemen’s Houthi-held main port city. As part of the plan, the two coalition states aim to establish a shipping lane to Hodeidah from the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, and Jizan, a city in southern Saudi Arabia, officials told a news conference in Riyadh. They will also distribute food, provide medical supplies, equipment and staff to hospitals, sustain electrical stations and provide economic support, they said. “We have several ships stationed, and we have storage capacity very close to Hodeidah fully stocked up,” Reem al-Hashimy, the UAE minister of state for international cooperation, told Reuters in Riyadh.

The delivery of Irish Ferries’ new EUR 144 million ro-pax W.B. YEATS from German shipbuilder Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft (FSG) has been further delayed until September at the earliest, affecting the summer holiday plans of thousands of Irish travellers.

Philippines-based International Container Terminal Services Inc (ICTSI) is keeping up with market developments and has taken delivery of three new cranes at Manila International Container Terminal (MICT) to enable its flagship terminal to handle the world’s largest container ships and be on par with other major ports. ICTSI said in a press release it took delivery of a pair of neo-panamax quay cranes and a post-panamax quay crane from Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry. The delivery of the cranes brings the Philippines’ largest port handling equipment to MICT, and the neo-panamax crane will enable the terminal to handle up to 14,000 teu ultra large container ships (ULCS), putting the terminal on equal footing with major ports in developed markets, it said.

Oceanwide Expeditions' new polar cruise ship Hondius has been launched at Brodosplit shipyard in Croatia. Hondius is the first-registered Polar Class 6 vessel in the world. The Polar Class 6 vessel will offer deluxe accommodation for 176 passengers sailing both the Arctic and the Antarctic. She will be equipped with two main engines for a total of 4,200 kW, generating a speed of 15 knots. The propulsion system consists of two medium speed main engines and one adjustable pitch propeller. The flexible power management system (in combination with a shaft generator instead of a diesel-driven generator) is designed to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/polar-explorer-hondius-launched#gs.FFxv2XU