Group items tagged

The asphalt and bitumen product tanker Ad Matsu was attacked by pirates in South China Sea on 15 nautical miles north off Tanjung Berakit, Indonesia. The vessel was en route from Singapore to Hai Phong, Vietnam, but near the island Pulau Bintan was reached by fast boat from the starboard. Six armed men succeeded to…

Iranian Warships Repel Pirates' Attacks on 2 Oil Tankers in High Seas.

Iranian Warships Repel Pirates' Attacks on 2 Oil Tankers in High Seas.

Turkish tanker M/T Pazar almost sinking, Black Sea.

Russia's new LNG-powered tanker sails across Northern Sea Route.

Pirate Skiffs Surround Crude Oil Tanker in Arabian Sea.

Shipping first as commercial tanker crosses Arctic sea route in winter.

Oil from sunken Iranian tanker spreads over 100 sq km of East China Sea.

East China Sea oil tanker disaster: what it means for the environment.

LNG Tanker Makes First Summer Voyage along Northern Sea Route.

Banned at sea: Venezuela's crude-stained oil tankers.

Many marine megafauna taxa are tied to the sea surface for breathing which makes them vulnerable to vessel collisions. Sea turtles have developed efficient mechanisms to reduce surface time for breathing to a few seconds, but they can extend their surface periods to rest or to rewarm after diving into deep and colder waters. However, knowledge of collision occurrences is limited to data of turtles stranded along the coastline worldwide, whereas events occurring offshore go likely underestimated due to the sinking of carcasses. Here we performed a spatially explicit assessment to identify, for the first time, oceanic areas of higher exposure for sea turtles from maritime traffic in the Tyrrhenian Sea, Western Mediterranean. Satellite-tracking data were used to estimate utilization distributions of loggerhead turtles using Brownian bridge kernel density estimation. Maritime traffic density maps based on Automatic Identification System (AIS) data were extracted from open-access data layers, provided by the European Maritime Safety Agency, summarized, and used for the exposure analysis. Turtle occurrences were also investigated in response to vessel densities and seasonal patterns by fitting a generalized additive model to the data. Our results demonstrated that loggerhead turtles are potentially exposed to maritime traffic across the entire basin, especially in the easternmost part. The exposure varies among spring/summer and autumn/winter months. Highest turtle occurrences were found in regions primarily subjected to cargo, tanker, and passenger transportation. This study represents the first-ever effort to characterize the exposure of oceanic loggerhead turtles to maritime traffic and highlights oceanic areas of higher exposure where research and conservation efforts should be directed to understand the effective impact of this stressor on the species.

As part of the progressive process of extending spatial plans to cover an increasing number of marine areas, with the aim of objectively balancing the interests of various users of the marine area, it has become necessary to establish the value of marine areas as a yardstick or determinant of the user group for which a given marine area is of greater value. This study seeks to fill a research gap by attempting to develop a method to calculate the value of marine areas for the commercial shipping industry. This is done to make it possible in the future to prepare the ground for policy regulating the spatial rent of the sea, whose most important users are shipowners and their ships. We use the homogeneous basin of the Polish Marine Areas (PMA) in the Baltic Sea. Based on a literature review, we conclude that such a method does not exist, posing a significant challenge in the process of marine/maritime spatial planning (MSP) and maritime policy formulation. Conducting an in-depth analysis of 2020 data on ship traffic in the basin noted above, combined with a financial analysis of shipowners' operating costs and profitability indicators, we can determine the value of marine areas both in aggregate for all shipping in the studied basin and for each of the five segments of shipping - the bulk cargo, ro-ro cargo, container, tanker, and passenger segments. In addition, through a dynamic analysis of ship traffic, it is possible to determine the value of sea area in Polish seawaters per unit of area (1 km²) at the average level and for the five specified market segments. The obtained values show that the total profits of shipowners in the Polish Marine Areas, which are at the level of more than EUR 103 million per year, and the average value of profits per 1 km² of marine area used by a ship provide future decision-makers with an objective point of reference to shape future policies for the fiscalization of public space, including the sea.

Iran oil tanker breaks down in Red Sea off Saudi coast.

While pirate attacks on the world's seas have fallen for the third consecutive year, small tanker hijacks by armed gangs are escalating in Southeast Asia, reveals the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) International Maritime Bureau (IMB) in its latest piracy report.

French-owned tanker seized off Ivory Coast freed.

A single oil spill can release 30,000 tonnes of oil into the ocean if two vessels collide. In grounding the high weight can lead to oil disaster, in the Baltic Sea up to 120 000 tonnes. This estimate does not include the new giant tankers.

A single oil spill can release 30,000 tonnes of oil into the ocean if two vessels collide. In grounding the high weight can lead to oil disaster, in the Baltic Sea up to 120 000 tonnes. This estimate does not include the new giant tankers.

Houthi militias attack oil tanker in Red Sea: Saudi coalition.

Ship strikes are a widespread conservation issue for many cetacean species globally. Population level impacts depend on the occurrence and severity of collisions, which may lead to life altering injuries or fatalities. Such impacts are a major concern for large, long-lived, and reproductively slow species like the fin whale. Since 2014, a seasonal feeding aggregation of fin whales has been monitored from February to June off the Catalan coast (Spain), in the northwest Mediterranean Sea. Oceanographical factors influence the occurrence and high density of krill within submarine canyons along the continental shelf, resulting in high whale abundance within a small spatial area. The study area extends 37 km offshore across a 1,944 km2 marine strip situated between the towns of Torredembarra and Castelldefels. This fin whale feeding ground is exposed to high density marine vessel traffic, given its location between the northern Mediterranean shipping lane, which links Barcelona and Tarragona Ports to the Atlantic Ocean and wider Mediterranean Basin. Ship strikes represent the greatest conservation threat for fin whales in the Mediterranean Sea. At least four fin whales have been found dead in Barcelona Port since 1986 due to ship strikes and seven live whales have been documented with injuries in the study area since 2018. Fin whale distribution was mapped with known high-risk marine vessels' (cargo, tanker and passenger vessels) shipping lanes. Vessel density and shipping lanes characterised by speed were considered. Collision risk was estimated monthly based on the predicted fin whale occurrence and traffic density. Several shipping lanes crossed the fin whale feeding habitat every month with an average speed of 15 kn. Cargo vessels displayed the highest ship-strike risk during April, overlapping with the peak of fin whale sightings in the critical feeding area. Slower vessel speeds (8 kn) in waters <200 m depth or along the continental shelf should be implemented al

Chaos at sea: Pirates are said to have hijacked the tanker "Aegean II" in the Gulf of Aden, the shipping service "G-Captain" reported at the end of August. Two days later it was reported that men in police uniforms had boarded the "Aegean II". They took the weapons from the private security forces on board the ship and demanded money from the 20-member ship crew. As a Spanish military ship approached, they disappeared as quickly as they had come. It is still unclear whether the perpetrators were pirates - or even Somali policemen...