Asphalt Venture: headed for Haradheere

Asphalt Venture, en route to Durban when radar observation showed her turn suddenly and set a course for Haradheere. There have been no reports of any contact with the vessel Sep. 29.

8875798 ASPHALT VENTURE 3EOU9 Asphalt Tanker 3884 1991 Panama managed by Mumbai-based Omci Ship Management Pvt



[2001]OMI’s vessels are technically managed (excluding insurance provided for vessels, which is managed directly by OMI) by a wholly owned subsidiary, OMI Marine Services LLC (“OMS”), located at offices in Stamford, Connecticut and Houston, Texas. OMS subcontracts several of the day-to-day operations to OMI Crewing Services Ltd. (“OMCI”), located in Mumbai, India (not a related party to OMI or any of its subsidiaries). OMCI is primarily responsible for the crewing, general maintenance and repairs, and the stocking of supplies on vessels.

Under the direction of OMS, OMCI purchases stores and spares for all vessels that they manage (OMCI manages all of OMI’s owned vessels with the exception of the two handysize crude oil tankers). OMS is also responsible for the drydocking of the vessels, including scheduling the drydocks and obtaining bids. OMI is kept apprised of all drydocking schedules and approves all related costs. OMI advances funds to OMCI for expenditures including crew wages, benefits, training, crew travel and airfare, salary, office and other expense of the technical staff of OMCI, allotments, union payments, and other expenditures covered under the process of Advances to Masters (which includes cash reserve on board, cash for bonded stores and provisions purchases and other items).

[2007]Danish shipping company A/S Dampskibsselskabet TORM (D/S TORM) (NASDAQ: TRMD) and Canada's Teekay Corporation (NYSE: TK) have finalised their plan for how to divide the assets of the jointly acquired US shipping company OMI Corporation (NYSE: OMI), D/S TORM said on Friday (3 August 2007).

Under the agreement D/S TORM will take over 24 product tankers from OMI, as well as OMI's technical operations in India and a part of its organisation in the US.

[2010]TORM A/S (TORM), formerly Aktieselskabet Dampskibsselskabet Torm, is a Danish shipping company engaged primarily in the ownership and operation of product tankers and dry bulk carriers. TORM consists of two business segments: the Tanker Division and the Bulk Division. The Company’s product tankers primarily carry refined products, such as naphtha, gasoline, gas oil, jet fuel and diesel oil. Its dry bulk vessels carry commodities, such as coal, iron ore and grain. As of December 31, 2009, the Company’s fleet of owned vessels consisted of 64 product tankers and four dry bulk carriers. The total tonnage of those vessels is approximately 4,146,031 deadweight tons (dwt). In addition, it chartered in 27 product tankers and nine dry bulk carriers, and commercially managed approximately 38 vessels for third-party owners and charterers. TORM’s vessels trade worldwide.

1. OMCI Shipmanagement
OMCI is a ship management brand that currently manages about 36 ships and is also engaged in new building supervision. It is a part of the W-O Shipping Group which spans 5 countries in 3 continents OMCI, the shipmanagement arm of the W-O group.
OMCI Shipmanagement Pvt Ltd, hereafter referred to as OMSL, is a private company that was incorporated in Mumbai, India

Lugela: pirates abandon, crew retakes ship

Crew of a Greek ship which was hijacked deep in the Indian Ocean on Saturday are once again in control of the vessel.

The circumstances of the retaking of the 4,281-dwt Lugela (built 1984)remain a mystery, however, but engine failure is said to have played a part.The ship's all-Ukrainian crew are safe.
The Greek operator received a call from the master of the Panama-flagged ship Sep. 26 to say that the crew was back in control of the vessel.

Lugela IMO: 8410380 (Ex: Thor Sofia) 4,145 DWT, Multi-Purpose, Built 1984
Owners/Managers are TDM Carriers, Panama Flagged.

Arctic Sea: sale of S-300 to Iran banned by Russia

The Kremlin has formally banned the sale of S-300 air defence missile systems to Iran three months after new UN sanctions.

A decree was issued by President Dmitry Medvedev prohibiting the sale, which had been in the pipeline for years.

Earlier, Gen Nikolai Makarov, head of Russia's general staff, confirmed that the missiles were "definitely" subject to the sanctions introduced in June. more earlier

Iceberg 1: hijackers threaten crew

By mobile phone a crew member said the pirates are threatening to harm them. The pirates say their ransom is ten million dollars but from our point of view even if we give them 400,000 dollars they will take”. read earlier
199 7429102 ICEBERG I 3EBE2 Ro-Ro 3960 1976 Panama

Deepwater Horizon: 200 lawyers

NEW ORLEANS (CN sep 17, 2010) - More than 200 attorneys filled three courtrooms Thursday for a pretrial conference to chart the course of litigation for hundreds of lawsuits involving the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill. Presiding Judge Carl J. Barbier apologized that the courtroom was not large enough. "Unfortunately, this is the largest we have," he said to the roomful of more than 150 attorneys, packed along walls to the back doors.
The location was changed last minute from Judge Barbier's courtroom to larger courtroom in the Federal Courthouse, and two overspill rooms were opened before the hearing began.
"I'm not sure how many cases we already have," Barbier said, explaining that some cases from other courts have yet to be transferred to the Eastern District of Louisiana.
"Certainly there are currently hundreds and there will be hundreds, if not thousands more, filed," he said. "On top of all that, investigations by the federal government seeking criminal and civil damages are pending."
In August, a federal panel of judges selected New Orleans as the venue for all Deepwater Horizon oil spill-related lawsuits. The panel also appointed Judge Barbier.
FT read more

Magellan Star: in a convoy under USN escort

Magellan Star, container ship en route from Spain to Vietnam, traveled in a convoy of four ships, and they had escort protection by military ships. Therefore, the rescuers got there very quickly. The convoy had spread quite far apart. [Escort include the USN Dubuque and the USN Princeton, as well as Turkish frigate TCG Gokceada ] The problem is that when the military ships are too concentrated around one location. The raid took place about 85 miles southeast of Mukallah, Yemen,
About 20 percent of world trade passes through the Gulf of Aden, a transit point for navigating Egypt’s Suez Canal when sailing between Asia and Europe,

Samho Dream: vessel at large

On September 14 morning, hijacked MV Samho Dream departed from Somalia
with pirates on board ... the tanker was sighted heading east and 80 nautical
miles from Somali coast. On Sep 5, 2010, new demands of the pirates holding the "Samho Dream" were issued, but rejected by the owners. There are two warships keeping a watch close by, staging mock attacks and caused tension on board, which made the pirates to issue a statement that they would blow up the oil-tanker if the harassment would not stop and no ransom would be paid soon. Though negotiations with the owners are ongoing no conclusion has been reached. The vessel was moved from Hobyo, where she was held since her capture until the advancement of Al-Shabaab spearheaded Hizb-ul-Islam groups, to Garacad, but was returned to Hobyo. The 24-member crew with five Koreans and 19 Filipinos is said to be living in sub-human conditions. The abuses are getting worse as the pirates deprive them of sleep and food and threaten to kill them one by one if a ransom is not paid. The captain expressed frustration towards the Samho Shipping Company's silence over the pirates' latest demands. A Samho Shipping official said that the $20 million demanded by the
pirates is too high.

Magellan Star: Marines for hours talked to pirates

Staff Sgt. Thomas Hartick of Oceanside led the initial assault team that boarded the ship, which was adrift about 85 miles southeast of Mukallah, Yemen.

Using a translator, the Marines tried for several hours to persuade the pirates - young men, some shoeless and some wearing sandals, to surrender. After getting the go-ahead from the White House and the Pentagon, the Marines boarded small assault boats, sped to the Magellan Star and climbed aboard. The Marines didn't have to fire any shots, but they did use "flash-bang" grenades as they entered ship compartments in search of all nine pirates.

Magellan Star: MEU needed 3.5 hrs.to reach crew

After disabling the ship, the crew barricaded itself so well below-decks that it took the Marines from the Battalion Landing Team 1/4, 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit [MEU]. about three hours to reach them to let them know the ship had been retaken -- and only then after they were forced to cut their way through some of the ship's bulkheads.

Magellan Star: DS Boxship rescued by U.S. Marines

around 5 a.m. on Thursday, two 12-man Marine teams in inflatable boats motored up to the hijacked ship, a 436-foot-long German-owned cargo vessel called the Magellan Star. A band of Somali pirates had seized the ship and its crew of 11 in the Gulf of Aden, between Yemen and Somalia, on Wednesday morning. It was carrying steel chains.

The marines clambered up portable ladders — much as pirates have been doing — and swiftly took over the ship.

9242572 MAGELLAN STAR V2OE7 Container Ship 7968 2002 Antigua & Barbuda exname 1: GRACECHURCH STAR-07
exname 2: JUDITH BORCHARD-09 735 TEU

The Quadrant Bereederungsges. mbH & Co.KG was founded 1997 in Hamburg. In 2000, the Quadrant Bereederungsges. mbH & Co. KG is part of the DS Shipping GmbH & Co KG.

We offer, now shipping as part of the DS GmbH & Co., an extensive range of services. This ranges from the operation and chartering of the technical supervision or controlling to the provision of advice.

Under the highest quality standards is the efficient and skilled management of ships. This ensures a highly qualified team for the shipping of employees.

At present, the Quadrant Bereederungsges. mbH & Co. KG eleven o'clock container ships of sizes 500-1000 TEU in Vollmanagement. The ships are kept in perfect technical condition, to meet all demands of all the charterer. This requires that the ships comply with international requirements and the class as well as national regulations.

All vessels are subject to comprehensive maintenance programs are continuously equipped with the requirements and tested for safety. Naturally the regular scheduled yard times - always carried out in consultation with the charterers in the form established by the classification society, period -. The aim is to ensure reliable ship operations without failure due to technical defects or other defects. Furthermore, recruits DS Shipping GmbH & Co. KG for the Quadrant Bereederungsges. mbH & Co. crews for the ships to specific selection criteria and places high value on good seamanship training.

Olib G: small chemtanker in ballast

The chemtanker OLIB G, Malta-flag, Frio Maritime S.A. Greece, in the East part of the Gulf of Aden reported that a skiff was approaching, 08 Sep USS PRINCETON warship of Task Force 151 launched its helicopter. The helicopter was able to identify two pirates on board.

The MV OLIB G was sailing West in the Internationally Recommended Transit Corridor through the Gulf of Aden with a cargo of ballast. IMO 8026608, Chemical/Oil Tanker deadweight 6,375 tons, bt. 1988, gt. 4060, ex Berna Sultan, 2007 ex Yeliz K, 2006 ex Olib, 2000.

Large companies reason that the chances of attack on any particular ship are relatively low — 0.5 percent in the Gulf of Aden — so they play the odds. Smaller shippers simply cannot afford “hardening” their vessels against attack. Three-man protection details from private companies can cost as much as $21,000 per ship.

So security falls to international task forces, such as the Combined Task Force 151, NATO’s Ocean Shield and the European Union’s Atalanta. But these flotillas cannot provide adequate security over two million square miles of ocean. To augment them would be prohibitively expensive; the budget for Atalanta alone was $450 million in 2009. read

M. star: dent 16 meters below waterline hmm

IRAN'S navy on August 8 took delivery of four new mini submarines of the home-produced Ghadir class, 120 tonnes . Iran has described the Ghadir as stealth submarines, hardly detectable by sonar and aimed at coastal operations in shallow waters, notably in the Gulf.

The vessel is based on North Korean models of the Yono class. The M. Star collision occurred on July 28. more

8th fleet: Iran claims Aden Gulf escort role

Iranian frigate Sabalan (in Persian سبلان), a British-made Vosper Mark V class frigate

Frigates and a logistic vessel from Iran's 8th fleet in the last 18 months ago have escorted 400 trade ships and oil tankers in the Gulf of Aden, claimed Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari in welcoming home Iran's 8th fleet of warships after a two-month mission in the Gulf of Aden. He added that Iran's 9th fleet of warships has already been deployed in the Gulf to defend the country's cargo ships and oil tankers against continued attacks by Somali pirates.

SCF Baltica: Liberian-flag tanker traverses Arctic

As the polar ice increasingly diminishes each summer, has it again been considered a possible commercially viable route for shipping goods from Europe round the northern coast of Russia to China, Japan and Korea.

The Liberian flag SCF Baltica IMO: 9305568, Sovcomflot beneficial owner. Carrying 70,000 tonnes of gas from Murmansk in Russia for Novatek, the country's biggest independent gas producer . destined for Ningbo in China. It traveled only 13,000km rather than the 22,000km it would take to go through the Suez Canal, in just 11 days – half the time it would take to go through the Suez Canal.

Deepwater Horizon: second pipe running

This crisp image taken after the section of tubing called a riser had been lifted to the dock. It's the clearest sign yet to back up the theory that a second drill pipe was also running into the blowout preventer, the huge system of valves and rams that are designed to close in the well in an emergency, and fouled up the works when the well blew.

,Anadarko Petroleum, has a 25 percent stake in the project, and its joint operating agreement with BP gives it a 25 percent share of the liability, a potentially ruinous amount. “The mounting evidence clearly demonstrates that this tragedy was preventable and the direct result of BP’s reckless decisions and actions,”

Mitsui Oil Exploration Company of Japan, which owns the remaining 10 percent of the well, said the company had given up its interest in oil from the well. The company may be hoping that relinquishing its interest will shield it from liability,

Lloyd’s of London may cover BP’s “excess liability” in cleanup and other costs. under its Transocean contract affording protection to pollution “originating above the surface of the land or water.”