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Britain Says Drone Circles Vessel in Gulf of Oman

admin — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 18:10:05 +0000

Britain’s maritime agency said a drone circled a ship in the Gulf of Oman on Friday, three days after an Iranian-made drone attacked a tanker in the region.

The Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), which is part of the Royal Navy, said the incident took place about 50 miles southwest of Muscat. The vessel and crew were reported to be safe. It did not specify what kind of vessel was involved.

The U.S. Central Command said on Wednesday that an Iranian-made drone had attacked the tanker Pacific Zircon on Tuesday.

An Israeli official said Iran was responsible for the strike, while Iran’s Nournews, which is affiliated to Tehran’s security organization, blamed Israel and said the “Hebrew-Arab axis” aimed to create a “charged atmosphere” ahead the soccer World Cup that starts in Qatar on Sunday.

Pacific Zircon sustained minor damage with no injuries or spillage of the gas oil cargo, its operator, Israeli-controlled Eastern Pacific Shipping, said on Wednesday.

Attacks on tankers in Gulf waters in recent years have come at times of heightened regional tensions.

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‘Carbon Free’ Platfom Supply Vessel Firm Launched in Norway

admin — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 08:56:59 +0000

Norway-based company Amon Maritime has launched Amon Offshore – a new company focused on the offshore oil and gas market – with plans to operate carbon-free platform supply vessels.

The ship has already received approval in principle from DNV and preliminary flag approval from the Norwegian Maritime Authority, Amon Maritime said.

Amon Offshore has been created to build, own and operate a fleet of ammonia-powered supply ships for the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

“The ships have been developed to meet oil companies’ current and future offshore logistics needs, setting a new standard for North Sea PSVs – while drastically reducing emissions,” the company said.

“This is the next generation. We are combining new technologies with future requirements, enabling capabilities only available for newbuildings. Our vessels will be carbon free, future-proof, and holistically designed for ammonia fuel from the ground up”, says André Risholm, Founder & CEO of Amon Maritime.

Ammonia fuel will be made available with a floating bunkering terminal at the selected supply base from affiliated company Azane Fuel Solutions – with fuel provided by project partner Yara Clean Ammonia.

The vessels will be managed by Amon Maritime’s new in-house ship management setup in Norway – Ula Ship Management.

The company is a joint venture with Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, the third largest ship manager in the world.

According to Amon Maritime, the Norwegian Government has stated in the Hurdal Platform that all PSVs on the Norwegian Continental Shelf shall release zero emissions by 2030.

Amon says that this requires around 80 newbuilds or significantly modified/rebuilt to be delivered between 2025-2030 “and will be a massive boost for innovation and value creation in the maritime industry.”

The company says that the Amon PSV has been developed for full compliance with 2030 requirements, “offering carbon free operations with best-in-class energy efficiency.”

“Amon Offshore is working closely with clients to obtain charter contracts, enabling the first ships to be delivered in 2025,” the company said.

Kongsberg Maritime will design and deliver key technologies to the project.

“These vessels will represent the next generation platform supply vessel (PSV) and Amon Maritime will set a new standard in the logistics in the segment with these new-buildings. We are proud of working with them to lead the green shift in shipping, designing what we believe will be a game changer for the market”, says Jørn Heltne, Vice President for Ship Design sales in Kongsberg Maritime.

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Innovative Fishing Vessel Launched in Turkey

admin — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 15:43:24 +0000

Turkey’s Cemre Shipyard held a launch ceremony for the newbuild trawler Selvåg Senior being constructed for Norwegian owner Sørheim Holding.

Developed in partnership with Skipsteknisk and Selvåg AS, the 79.5-meter-long Selvåg Senior purse seiner trawler will be the third in the world to use liquefied natural gas (LNG) fuel, after the Cemre-built Libas and Sunny Lady.

Thanks to the LNG fuel system, the new trawler will adapt to the new “environmentally friendly” vessel flow by reducing carbon emissions being in accordance with IMO Tier III. Liquefied natural gas keeps a temperature of about -140°C to -160°C and must be heated to gas form to function as fuel. A cold recovery system will use the surplus energy from heating the gas to maintaining the refrigerated seawater (RSW) in the cargo tanks.

In line with the green flow, the surplus heat from the exhaust will be recycled and converted to produce clean electricity. The new Selvåg Senior is the first newly built fishing vessel in the world to adopt this technology.

A 1 MWh battery pack will be installed, replacing a diesel-powered auxiliary engine and helping to flatten the load on the main engine during the voyage and also being a power source at the port.

The vessel’s electric platform is based on a “DC grid” solution that provides full flexibility in utilizing the main engine throughout its Rpm range. It can be described as automatic and more efficient handling of the vessel’s alternating operating pattern and will also have major impacts on the optimization of the propeller.

In total, all measures will account for an overall reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of as much as 42% compared to whether the new Selvåg Senior would be built with conventional technology, according to the builder.

The vessel will be equipped for pelagic trawling and purse seining with pumping both over the side and the aft. All winches and fish pumps will be electrically driven and return effects will go to the battery bank.

Both the shipping company and the designer have been involved in cooperation with the Norwegian research institute SINTEF to achieve the best possible circulation and cooling of the cargo tanks. Following this, the vessel’s 12 tanks have a total volume of 2.500 m³ are designed accordingly.

The vessel to be built in accordance with the DNV GL class will carry the Norwegian flag.

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A New Approach to Maritime Safety is Needed

admin — Mon, 23 May 2022 09:14:18 +0000

For years, the shipping industry has focused on regulations and procedures to improve safety. Yet shipping is still at risk of major accidents. The whole industry needs to change its focus. Ticking boxes never made anyone safer. Also, assessing culture using valid and reliable survey instruments can help to improve safety.

It has been well documented that most maritime accidents (~80%) are caused by human error. Still, most of the focus on learning is rooted in technical causes and adding procedures and checklists.

Despite this bias, many accident investigation reports pinpoint that the leadership or safety culture was the root cause of more recent accidents such as the Bulk Jupiter, El Faro, Helge Ingstad and Costa Concordia, as well as older accidents such as the Exxon Valdez, Bow Mariner, Herald of Free Enterprise and Amoco Cadiz.

Industry blind spot

The critical failures leading to the accident were in most cases known before the accident took place. This demonstrates that failures which are not handled properly may develop into critical situations and accidents. This is a blind spot because the biased focus on technicalities and “impeccable” safety inspections makes people reluctant to be open about their failures, concerns and mistakes.

We at SAYFR think shipping companies, and the whole industry, needs to change its focus. Thousands of auditors and inspectors across the world are engaged by classification societies, flag and port state authorities, vetting and insurance companies and HSEQ departments. They verify that ships do the right thing and comply with technical and procedural requirements. However, ticking boxes never made anyone safer.

Cover-up culture

Also, and worryingly, there is a cover-up culture causing errors and unsafe practices. There are now so many procedures and checklists that, in some cases, it is impossible to comply with all of them. The fear of failure is driving accident statistics, and surveys reveal that 45% of seafarers admit that they regularly do not comply with procedures.

I firmly believe that human factors are key to prevent threats and failures from escalating. Yet improving safety or performance is about improving not only individuals but also the collaboration between sea and shore staff, between officers and crew and between different nationalities and cultures on board ships.

Huge potential to reduce accidents

Although this is recognized, it is not always addressed, so I believe a new approach is necessary to improve collaboration and reduce risks. Indeed, collaboration is strongly correlated with the risk of accidents and business interruption. Our experience of working on multiple projects over the years shows that it is possible to reduce the risk of major accidents by up to 75%.

However, there is no quick fix to improve collaboration and implement behavioral changes through, for example, training courses. Changing the culture is key and that process takes time. To help operators improve their approach to safety, proven methodologies must be used.

Safety leadership behaviors

Put simply, it involves observing and identifying working methods on board and then working with all the officers and crew in teams and as individuals to deliver the eight-point safety leadership behaviors, namely:

Giving feedback
Speaking up
Building trust
Creating openness
Showing care
Facilitate learning
Promoting teamwork
Managing dilemmas

Experience shows that the focus on the eight behaviors work because they address the blind spot. By encouraging the participants to openly share errors, failures and concerns, they are able to break the chain of events that can lead up to a major accident. Also, this approach helps to move beyond the culture of punishment to the positive safety-enhancing culture where crew members help each other.

Culture assessments key to improving safety

In order to understand how the organization culture influences safety, there is a need to use methodologies specialized for this purpose. One thing that many people are ignorant of is that a key professional competence of organizational psychology is advanced mathematics and data analysis. The evaluation of organizational culture relies on interviews, observations and questionnaires applying psychometric instruments that are tailor-made to ensure valid and reliable results. The professionals drive the process while the data provides the results. As a consequence, the more and better the data on these topics, the more valid, reliable and to-the-point are the results.

However not all the instruments used in the industry are valid and reliable. In a recent review of safety culture maturity instruments, only 3 of 43 instruments were valid. Indeed, there is not one single test alone that can demonstrate the validity of a survey instrument. Therefore, SAYFR has developed tailor-made psychometric instruments to assess these topics and has a database of responses from about 300 000 seafarers.

When it comes to the qualitative and quantitative tests that can be made to verify validity, the basic one is content validity. This dictates how well a safety instrument addresses a safety issue. It specifies that the survey instrument adequately covers the topic being studied as well as having sound scientific grounds and references.

This is important because so many historical examples show risks that were identified well ahead of time but were not addressed. These include the Deepwater Horizon blowout, which claimed 11 lives and caused huge environmental damage, rig personnel had knowingly by-passed safety barriers. In this case, failures were identified but the root cause of the problem – i.e. human neglect, whether cultural or circumstantial – was not factored in.

Reliability of survey instruments through data

Reliability of the survey instrument is also key and that is ensured statistically by use of data. Factor-analysis is a statistical method used to describe variability among correlated items in terms of a potentially lower number of unobserved variables, called factors. For our instrument, the eight factors are equal to the eight SAYFR leadership behaviours (8SLBs) mentioned above.

Moreover, predictive validity is the instrument’s ability to predict something in the future such as an event, or correlations with instrument measurements made by other instruments. If an organization scores low in terms of the 8SLBs, it is a good indicator of future problems. This has been shown on a number of occasions when departments, units or suborganizations have received low 8SLB scores only to have accidents occur in the intervening time, before action was taken.

Predictive validity can also be applied to solutions. When action was taken based upon a low 8SLBs score, a shipping company experienced a 60% reduction in the frequency of serious accidents, to a level which was maintained five years subsequent to the investigation.
Concurrent validity and construct validity are also important elements. Concurrent validity measures the correlation between two independent measurements performed at the same time. An increase in the ability to manage failures, for example, will necessarily correlate with the number of incidents that occur.

Construct validity is when a theoretical model of cause and effect – for example, do the improvements prescribed following appraisal of the 8SLBs – accurately replicate the real-world scenarios they are intended to represent? Construct validity is the ultimate validity measurement, and necessarily incorporates all other validity factors.

Reduction in the frequency of serious accidents

Also, it’s not only the psychometric instruments that rely on data. The use of digitalization, the internet of things (IoT), sensor data, machine learning, and big data has picked up in recent years. The idea is that those with the most data can create the best analytics and forecasts. With the use of more quality data, risk assessments and worst-case scenario simulations provide reliable predictions and identify effective interventions to prevent accidents.

In short, what we at SAYFR see is that the best shipowners and operators have a proactive organizational culture that goes beyond ticking the ‘compliance boxes’ and instead applies a collaborative, trusting approach from top to bottom in the company’s organization. This also includes assessing culture using valid and reliable survey instruments. This is what really helps to improve safety.

Source: www.maritimeprofessional.com

Author: Dr. Torkel Soma, Chief Scientific Officer, SAYFR

Image: www.pixibay.com

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ISS Issues RFP to Construct North America’s First Zero-emissions Towboats

admin — Mon, 23 May 2022 08:38:13 +0000

Houston-based Industrial Service Solutions (ISS) announced Thursday it is seeking bids from U.S. shipyards to build up to four hulls for what will become North America’s first fully-electric towboats.

The zero-emissions vessels, which will be constructed for New York-based Zeeboat and available for charter from 2025, will run entirely on battery power, without the use of diesel engines—a first for towboats in North America. Vancouver, B.C.-based Shift Clean Energy will deliver the battery energy storage systems.

ISS, which was selected in 2021 to provide general contract, project management and vessel support services for the manufacture and delivery of the first-of-their-kind vessels, said its request for proposal (RFP) will be open form May 15 through June 30, 2022 and is for construction of the first hull, with options for up to three additional hulls.

The fully-electric vessel is based on The Shearer Group, Inc.’s (TSGI). proven 95- by 34-foot towboat hull design, which is said to increase water flow to the propeller and improve overall efficiency of the barge/towboat combination by more than 10% compared to traditional towboat designs. When coupled with an azimuth thruster pod drive system, the hull design will improve overall efficiency by more than 30% when compared to conventional towboats, the Houston-based naval architecture and marine engineering firm said.

The project partners said their first goal is to enable greener transit with zero-emissions towboats, but they will later work toward a joint development of electrification technologies to further reduce the carbon footprint of ports and harbors.

“Moving carbon-intensive processes, like shipping and port management, to electric power sources is a critical step to meeting net-zero emissions targets,” said Wade Stockstill, ISS CEO. “Our electrification technologies and track record dovetail neatly with innovations from partners like Shift Clean Energy, enabling ISS to deliver turnkey solutions to some of today’s biggest green energy challenges.”

ISS said interested shipbuilders should contact its director of business development, Jessica Lewis, at Jessica.Lewis@iss-na.com for RFP submission information and detailed project specifications.

Source: www.marinelink.com

Image: www.pexels.com

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Shipping Lines Skip a Beat

admin — Fri, 06 May 2022 15:54:33 +0000

Global ports lost more than one-third of their expected capacity to ship containers in 2021, causing economic trouble for some smaller developing nations, among others, finds research commissioned by the Global Shippers Forum (GSF).

The study, which was conducted by MDS Transmodal, identifies the extent of capacity restriction in 2021 that resulted from scheduled port calls being skipped by shipping lines. It measured the number of container ship slots that were expected to be available at the port but never materialized because the lines skipped the port—often because vessels were already fully occupied by containers collected at ports called at earlier on the service.

Among the hardest-hit were the ports of Colombo (Sri Lanka) and Piraeus (Greece), where about 40% of expected container capacity never arrived during the last quarter of 2021—a sharp increase from the 15-20% that the ports saw before the pandemic. In Asia Pacific, Port Klang in Malaysia also saw a 40% shortfall, while Melbourne (Australia) and Tauranga (New Zealand) were down by around one-third of the expected container capacity during the second half of 2021. In 2019, average no-shows at those ports amounted to between 10 and 15% of expected capacity.

Skipped ports have become part of how shipping lines are managing their heavily utilized fleets.

“Skipped port calls have multiple effects on shippers,” says James Hookham, director of the GSF. “They create local upward pressure on shipping rates, as shipping line agents ‘auction off’ available slots on the vessels that do call. Shippers also face unexpected surcharges for the handling and storage of delayed containers.

“More pernicious is the wider effect on national economies, especially those of developing nations that lose opportunity to deliver their exports, and hinder the recovery of their economy from the effects of lockdowns and COVID restrictions,” Hookham adds.

Source: www.inboundlogistics.com

Image: www.pexel.com

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Baltic Dry Index Drops to 3-week Low, Ends Quarter Higher

admin — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 10:39:57 +0000

The Baltic Exchange’s dry bulk sea freight index fell to its lowest level in over three weeks on Thursday, dragged by sliding panamax and supramax vessel rates, although the main index posted monthly and quarterly gains.

The overall index, which factors in rates for capesize, panamax and supramax shipping vessels, dipped 11 points, or about 0.5%, to 2,358 points, its lowest since March 8.

The main index has gained about 6.4% this quarter and 15.6% in March, its second monthly gain this year.

The panamax index dipped 95 points, or 2.9%, to 3,141 points. The index added about 22.1% this quarter, after posting declines in the last two. For the month, it was up more than 20%.

Average daily earnings for panamaxes, which usually carry coal or grain cargoes of about 60,000 to 70,000 tonnes, fell by $850 to $28,273.

Dalian iron ore rose boosting a quarterly gain that was the biggest since end-2020, while the Singapore benchmark hovered around the $160 mark, as traders anticipated additional policy support to shore up China’s economy.

The capesize index gained 114 points, or 6.9%, to 1,760, but posted its second straight quarterly decline at 23.9% and an 8.8% monthly decline.

Average daily earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 150,000-tonne cargoes such as iron ore and coal, increased $938 at $14,593.

The supramax index dropped 67 points to 2,808 points and increased about 22.6% for the first quarter of the year.

Source: www.marinelink.com

Image: www.pixibay.com

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Greenpeace Protests Against Ships Carrying Russian Fossil Fuels

admin — Sat, 26 Mar 2022 13:18:11 +0000

Greenpeace activists have taken to the sea to protest against tankers carrying Russian fossil fuels to Europe.

Traveling in rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIB), kayaks and as swimmers, protesters from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Netherlands and Germany on Sunday went in front of supertankers Waikiki and SFC Baltica in the Baltic Sea, displaying banners with “Oil Fuels War” as Greenpeace calls on Europe to reject and ban Russian fossil fuel imports to weaken the attack on Ukraine.

Mads Flarup Christensen, executive director of Greenpeace Nordic, said, “While people suffer in Ukraine and people in Russia take to the streets pleading for peace, Putin’s oil and gas is still arriving at European ports, contributing to his war chest. Supertankers crossing our seas with Russian oil and gas are still delivering fossils to Europe. If we want to stand for peace, we must stop this and urgently get off oil and gas.”

Waikiki, owned by Greek shipping company Cardiff Marine, is reportedly carrying 100,000 tonnes of crude oil from Russia to Rotterdam, and SFC Baltica, owned by Russia’s Sovcomflot, is transporting 85,000 tonnes of fuel oil from Russia to Antwerp.

A new tracking service launched by Greenpeace UK has identified at least 189 supertankers carrying oil and gas from Russia since the start of its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, with 88 of them headed to Europe. Despite some countries declaring a ban on the arrival of Russian vessels, Russian cargo is still arriving via ships registered to other countries.

Russia is the largest source of the European Union’s fossil fuel imports. Europe spends up to $285 million per day on Russian oil, which funds Putin’s war effort, according to the Transport & Environment (T&E) thinktank.

Last week in France, Greenpeace activists confronted Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Boris Vilkitsky at sea, and earlier this month 20 activists from Greenpeace Germany painted ‘No Coal’ and ‘No War’ on the side of the bulk carrier Grant T loaded with 100,000 tons of Russian coal as it approached the port of Hamburg.

Dockers in France, the U.K. and the Netherlands have already refused to unload fossil tankers coming from Russia. And the Swedish Dockworkers Union decided on Thursday to block ships from Russia.

Source: www.marinelinks.com

Image: www.pexels.com

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Security risks and rising costs: the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war on freight transport

Rolands Petersons — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 12:18:01 +0000

The war in Ukraine and the harsh sanctions against Russia have affected the market situation in many sectors, including logistics and freight. Since 24 February, when Russian tanks crossed the Ukrainian border, the global supply chain has seen a sharp rise in costs, freight transport has lacked capacity, and the industry as a whole has faced major challenges in addition to existing ones.

Whopping fuel prices

The war has affected the logistics and freight industry both directly and indirectly. One of them is the rise in fuel prices, which has been felt by every driver in recent weeks. Fuel prices have now reached unprecedented heights. In America, for example, this increase was last seen more than a decade ago. This inevitably affects the costs for carriers, which in turn raises the price of the service. For example, according to Freightos, global air freight rates from Asia and Europe have risen by about 80% since the end of February, reaching $ 11.86 per kilogram. Higher shipping costs are likely to affect not only carriers but also consumers. Market comparisons are already showing significant price increases for commodities such as aluminium, wheat and exotic fruits.

Longer routes

More than 2,500 flights from the United States used Russian airspace in January, according to aviation data company Cirium. However, at present, due to security, sanctions and political stance, many carriers no longer deliver goods to Russia and avoid including its territory in their route plans. Due to military threats, Ukraine and Moldova have also become countries with a curve in both land and air transport. This means that companies in the sector need to think about alternatives to travel around certain countries, thus extending flight times and inevitably increasing fuel consumption. Due to the difficulties caused, several airlines have cancelled flights to some Asian countries. Such a step has been taken, for example, by an industry giant such as Finnair, which has decided to cancel passenger and cargo flights to Seoul, Shanghai and Guangzhou, as well as Hong Kong indefinitely.

Lack of capacity and congestion

The state of war in Ukraine has also affected freight transport capacity, which had already fallen sharply during the pandemic due to growing demand for goods, and is now being further eroded. Why? One of the reasons is the aforementioned sanctions against Russia. As a result, Russian cargo planes have been suspended. One of the most significant losses is the banning of Russia’s largest cargo air operator, the Volga-Dnepr, in the West. The Volga-Dnepr operates a fleet of particularly large cargo ships with ramps that can accommodate unusual types of cargo, such as metro wagons, as well as large general cargo shipments. Its subsidiary AirBridgeCargo has 17 Boeing 747 jumbo jets and 777 other cargo aircraft that have been banned from operating in almost 30 countries since the sanctions were imposed. Such bans have had a significant impact on the capacity of cargo aircraft, which is also contributing to the rise in air freight rates.

Congestion at borders and ports

Sanctions against Russia are also not helping the already growing congestion at the border and in major ports. As a result, all shipments of goods entering and leaving the country are subject to special scrutiny at the border to ensure that all sanctions imposed on the country are complied with. This, in turn, indirectly affects an already disrupted supply chain, creating congestion and making it even slower than before.

The air and land transport sectors are not the only ones indirectly affected by the military conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is also damaging world shipping, which accounts for 80% of world trade. Many Russian ships are currently stranded in the world’s oceans and seas, unable to deliver and receive cargo because they are barred from calling at ports in the Americas, England, Canada and many European countries. In addition, the crew on board has to deal with the reluctance of foreign seafarers to help in the event of a shortage of petrol. In recent weeks, the media has repeatedly published videos showing footage of the Russian ship’s crew crying for help, which has been unsuccessful.

Security risk

The war in Ukraine has also increased the security risks for logistics and freight workers. Although most logistics companies have stopped delivering goods to Russia and Ukraine, including Maersk, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd, some 140 merchant ships from other countries are currently trapped in Ukrainian ports, risking being left without food or drinking water. There have been several reports in the media about the shooting of ships and the death of crew members. For example, on March 3, an Estonian-owned cargo ship with a crew of six, including two representatives of Russia and four representatives of Ukraine, sank off the port of Odessa. Three other merchant ships were sunk in the Black Sea; one of these attacks killed a Bangladeshi crew member. Undoubtedly, the security risk in the shipping industry is now higher than ever, and events are pushing up insurance prices, urging carriers to impose a ‘war risk surcharge’ and puts people in the shipping industry in fear for their lives.

All the above factors lead to the same conclusion: no matter how much we want to send Russian freight and logistics companies to hell because of their political position, we must understand that their absence from the market makes it difficult for the entire industry to function effectively. So let us hope for an early end to the war and a faster recovery of the industry, which will benefit everyone.

Author: Roland Peterson, logistics expert

Image: www.pexels.com

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IMO to Work on Safe Corridor for Ships Stranded by Ukraine Conflict

admin — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 14:19:20 +0000

The UN’s shipping agency will seek to create a safe maritime corridor to enable merchant ships and their crews stuck in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to sail away without the risk of being hit, it said on Friday.

Russia’s military took control of waterways when it invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, in what Moscow calls a “special operation”.

Ukrainian maritime officials have told Reuters fighting has left around 100 foreign-flagged vessels and hundreds of mariners stranded in Ukrainian ports.

Last week a seafarer was killed at the Ukrainian port of Olvia after a missile struck his Bangladesh-flagged cargo ship. Projectiles have hit four other vessels in recent days with one sunk.

The UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) convened a virtual meeting on Thursday and Friday to discuss the escalating situation.

A statement afterwards said the IMO’s Secretary-General Kitack Lim “indicated his commitment to take immediate action to realise the blue safe maritime corridor with the cooperation and collaboration of the relevant parties including littoral states”.

It said a maritime corridor would “allow the safe evacuation of seafarers and ships from the high-risk and affected areas in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to a safe place”.

Ukraine has accused the Russian military of targeting Olvia port facilities in a missile strike, while Russia’s embassy in Dhaka said last week the circumstances of the incident involving the Bangladesh ship were “being established”. Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians.

The IMO meeting was held with its Council, which consists of 40 member countries who are elected for two years. Non-Council member states such as Ukraine were able to make statements.

The IMO statement said separately that the Council “deplored the attacks of the Russian Federation aimed at commercial vessels, their seizures, including search-and-sescue vessels”.

The Council separately demanded that Russia “cease its unlawful activities to ensure the safety and welfare of seafarers and the security of international shipping and the marine environment in all affected areas”.

Russia’s IMO representatives could not be immediately reached for comment on Friday.

Source: www.marinelinks.com

Image: www.pixibay.com

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