Energy Atemis

 The tanker Enerby Artemis sailed this evening (July 6) after delivering refined petroleum products to Imperial Oil. The Isle of Man registered ship brought the cargo from New York and sailed in ballast for Corpus Christi. This represents a change in pattern from the usual petroleum imports for Imperial, which have been coming either from their own Canadian refineries in Sarnia and Nanticoke, ON or from Antwerp, Belgium.

 

The ship was delivered in January 2022 by K Shipbuilding (the former STX Offshore + Shipbuilding, after re-organization from banktuptcy) from their Jinhae, South Korea shipyard. A 29,597 gt, 49,812 dwt ship it is quite clearly scrubber equipped. The large structure in the funnel area could serve no other purpose than to house the exhaust cleaning apparatus.

Whether the changing source pattern of petroleum has anything to do with recent federal carbon tax on fuel in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick is a matter for the wizards in the oil trading business. 

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New Rules

 On June 23 it was announced that Canada will be clamping down on cruise ship waste disposal practices. There will be an outright ban on discharging sewage and grey water within 3 nautical miles of the coast and tightened regs in dumping between 3 and 12 nautical miles. Fines of up to $250,000 can be levied for violations in the three mile zone.

Major concerns were raised on the west coast with the large number of ships off British Columbia going to and coming from Alaska, but the rules will apply to this coast too. Regrettably it is not clear how this will effect a large part of the St.Lawrence River that is much more than six miles wide, and almost the entire Gulf of St.Lawrence.

Part of the problem with enforcement is that Canada's "border" is not 200 miles out to sea, despite the well known 200 mile limit. Ancient 3 mile and 12 mile limit sovereignty laws still govern much of the world's waters.  The seas (and sea bottom) within 12 miles of shore is considered to be national territory (it used to be 3 miles.) Even though countries exercise economic and scientific controls out to 200 miles, they cannot prevent passage of ships in the zone as they can within the 12 mile limit. A lot of what happens at sea is governed by international agreement and the 200 mile zone was agreed upon by most nations, but is not agreed by all and is difficult to police for a country the size of Canada.

Not surprisingly environmentalists want stricter laws for Canada, (there are stricter regs in the Arctic for example) but it seems unlikely that anything can be done about the 200 mile zone without decades of negotiation and international treaties.

As for Halifax, every cruise ship is met by the handsome pair of tug Dominion Rumbler and the Honey Barge. Further  explanation of the purpose of the tank barge seems unecessary (and impossible to write about without tasteless puns and double entrendres.)

Dominion Diving operates the pair from their base in Dartmouth Cove. The tug is one of a pair built by Damen in the Netherlands and imported to Canada in 2020. Dominion Rumbler and Dominion Enforcer are 600 bhp, twin screw vessels. The barge is a former navy lighter / water tanker of the YC class.

Other refuse and recyclables are also removed by dry cargo barge for disposal ashore. By law, international garbage from ships and aircraft is incinerated.

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Seeing Double

 It is not uncommon to see sister ships in the harbour, but the arrival on July 5 of GPO Grace was a rare opportunity to see two of the largest heavy load ships at the same time.

 This is the second visit of the GPO Grace. It was also here May 13-29 carrying components for offshore wind turbines. As it arrived this time it passed sister ship GPO Sapphire which has been alongside at the IEL dock since June 15.

Both ships are now waiting for the return of the offshore installation ship Orion from the Vineyard Wind site off the Massachusetts coast. It will use its 5,000 tonne capacity crane and other equipment to transfer the turbine components then return to the project site for placement and assembly.

GPO Grace was built in 2017 and is rated at 49,991 gt, 63,581 dwt. GPO Sapphire has the same tonnages but was built in 2019. Both ships, and two more identical sisters, GPO Amethyst  and GPO Emerald were built by CSBC Corp, Kaohsiung, Taiwan in 2018 and 2021 respectively.

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Cat in the News

 Bay Ferries Ltd (BFL) resumed its Yarmouth / Bar Harbor service July 1 using "The Cat" high speed catamaran. The 3.5 hour daily service will run until October 9. Media reports indicate that in 2022 it made 113 trips with 12 cancelled due to weather. It carried 36,151 passengers using 14,972 vehicles. (There was no service in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID.)

The service has been controversial with questions about the cost of government subsidies versus the benefit to the local economy. With the current contract to end in 2025, the Province of Nova Scotia has issued a request for proposals to conduct an economic impact study. 

The ship used for the BFL service is officially called HST-2. Leased from the United States Maritime Commission, it is the former USNS Puerto Rico and Alakai. Built in 2007 by Austal USA in Mobile, AL, it operated a ferry service between the Hawaiian islands of Oahu and Maui. When that service was discontinued in 2010 (another controversy) the ship was auctioned off and purchased the the US Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration (US MarAd). In 2012 they transferred it, and a sister ship to the US Navy for troop and equipment transport. It was renamed USNS Puerto Rico to be operated by the Military Sealift Command (US MSC).

However it was little used and in 2016 US MSC renamed it HST-2 and chartered it to Bay Ferries Ltd. Upon starting the charter however it reverted to Alakai and that is the name painted on the bow.  It remains registered in the United States under the ownership of US MSC. When built it was rated for 866 passengers and 282 sub-compact cars. It can be converted for heavy trucks and other military vehicles.

It is not the first high speed ferry out of Yarmouth to be marketed as "The Cat" - there have been three if my records are correct. 

Re-using the names of previous ships has been a common feature of the ferries operating from Yarmouth. See a following post about the "Bluenose".

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Morning Capo on the loop

The autocarrier Morning Capo returned to Autoport today, July 4, completing two Atlantic "loops" since its last visit April 30.

The ship was built in 2013 by Hyundai Heavy Industry at its Kunsan (also given as Gunsan) shipyard. The mammoth facility, complete with 700m long drydock and a 1,000 tonne crane, was opened in 2009, but closed in 2017 due to depressed demand. When it was re-opened in October last year the company hired 750 workers (to start).

A 59,615 gt, 20,139 dwt ship, it has a capacity of 6,674 cars. The ship is managed by Wilhelmsen, one of the owners of the Eukor brand name, and is operating on the Wallenius Wilhelmsen Oceann transatla ntic service.

Tracing its recent movements I find that the ship was in Zeebrugge May 26-29 then called in Dundalk, MD (June 7-9), Baltimore (June 9-10), Goteborg (June 20-21) and Zeebrugge again June 23-25.

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Fogged in again

 For the second day in a row (although today was an improvement some of the time) thick fog covered much of the harbour activity. Yesterday's (July 2) arrival and departure of the Queen Mary 2 was largely invisible - no doubt disappointing the many fans that usually show up for its visits. (There has been no further information about the medical emergency that caused its unplanned visit to Halifax on June 29, when it was visible - see previous post.)

It is futile to try to demonstrate the thickness of the fog by photos, but I tried, and no amount of digital tweeking helped!

 

One arrival yesterday, and departure today that I also would have liked to photograph was Coastal Shipping Ltd's tanker Kitikmeot W.  It is not unknown in Halifax,  but this particular call was a bit unusual. Coastal Shipping, founded by Mel Woodward, Sr, in Goose Bay, NL has had a long-standing relationship with Imperial Oil and distributes their products into many isolated northern and arctic communities. Their tanker fleet is based in Lewisporte, NL - a port that is accessible year round.

 (file photo 2021-02-12)

On this particular trip the Kitikmeot W. has ventured outside its usual range and on May 24 it was upbound in the St.Lawrence Seaway for Imperial's refinery in Nanticoke, ON. It was downbound again June 3, but quickly discharged in the Montreal area and was reported upbound again June 7 for Sarnia. It then made an unusual call to Green Bay, WI before returning to Sarnia. It made another trip from Sarnia June19 to an unknown destination, returning June 24. It sailed June 25 and made its way to Halifax. On departure this afternoon (July 3) it gave its home port of Lewisporte as destination.

Built by Ikdas in Biga, Turkey in 2010 the 13,097 gt, 19,982 dwt ship was originally named Ikdas-09 and was acquired and renamed by Coastal Shipping Ltd in 2018. 

Another notable departure from Halifax today was by a pair of Royal Canadian Navy vessels, sailing for a four month deployment to NATO. HMCS Shawinigan MM704  and HMCS Summerside MM711 and are headed for the Baltic and Operation Reassurance.

 Both ships were built at Halifax Shipyards as part of the twelve ship Kingston class of coastal defence vessels. Shawinigan was launched (conventioanlly) November 15, 1996 and commissioned January 14, 1997. Summerside was the last ship in the series, and was launched September 25, 1998 and commissioned July 18, 1999.

The ships are propelled by azimuthing stern drives, (in reverse position for the launch in photo above) and are thus highly maneurverable.

Unrelated to fog: As predicted there were some delays due to limited berth space at PSA Halifax south end terminal on the long weekend. There was a steady stream of ships from Friday through to today, with some anchoring to await their berth. 

The Atlantic Hub, southend terminal processed a remarkable ten ships from Friday June 30 to Monday July 3 whereas  Fairview Cove had only four. Some of the ships (3 or 4 by my count) were too large to get to Fairview Cove, but I believe some delays could have been avoided by rationalization. (i.e. by relocating some lines to Fairview Cove permanently).

I hear that some changes are indeed planned this month to balance demand for pier space with the under utilized Fairview Cove terminal. Details to follow.

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Maersk news and double header - in the fog

There were two Maersk container ships in Halifax today, July 1 (Canada's national holiday) but very few people got to see them because of a real old fashioned pea soup fog. With visibility at near zero there were audible fog signals, but the only visual signs for ship watchers were the electronic images on AIS and for other boat and ship operators, the radar blips.

(The fog was so thick than an air show by the RCAF Snowbirds was cancelled, and the evening fireworks were also in question.)

The first arrival was somewhat unusual, in that it was a westbound ship on Maersk / CMA CGM's St-Laurent-1 service. Volga Maersk, sailing from Antwerp June 22, would normally have proceeded directly to Montreal, but put in to Halifax at 0600 at the pilot station and sailed at 1300. It docked at Pier 31, a berth that has no container cranes, so the visit was not to lighten off cargo as far as I could tell (with zero visibility).

Volga Maersk showing off its new white lettering on June 10, eastbound.

 The second arrival (at time ofwriting) is Vistula Maersk on its eastbound St-Laurent-1 voyage from Montreal en route to Bremerhaven. There is nothing unusual about its visit, except that it is due at the pilot station at 1800. APL Sentosa (Columbus Jax) and Vivienne Sheri D (Eimskip) already occupy the berth 41 and 42 at PSA Halifax, so the Maersk ship will hold off until there is room to dock. Both of the other ships are schedueld for 1730 departures.

 

Vistula Maersk in the old black lettering, May 5, 2023.

Maersk, long the world's largest container line, gave up that title to MSC earlier this year as it decided to concentrate on being a logistics provider. Last month MSC also became the first shipping line to exceed 5 million TEU capacity. In the very next short while MSC will also have the largest owned fleet (most lines have many chartered ships). Currently only 66,000 TEU behind Maersk in the "owned" category, that gap will be erased as MSC takes delivery of three new megamax ships.

MSC is still buying older ships (although it is also sending some of its oldies to scrap) and has 122 new ships of 1,556,631 TEU on order or building. Maersk has "only" 28 ships on order for 366,600 TEU. As an aside, MSC also claims to be the world's largest privately owned cruise line in terms of revenue at $22.86 billion from 1.4 million passengers on 21 ships. Carnival Corporation has more than 100 ships however, but less revenue at $12.2 billion from 5.8 million passengers.)

In the container capacity contest MSC now rates at 5,073,462 TEU and Maersk at 4,127,158. Coming up in the outside lane however is CMA CGM, now in third place with 3,497,566 TEU. With 112 ships on order for an added 998,073 TEU CMA CGM is set to overtake Maersk.

The container lines are flush with cash after the boom last year, and so have ordered ships willly nilly. But with rates collapsing to below pre-COVID rates on Pacific routes, the building boom will have to be followed by a major scrapping program in order to maintain the supply / demand balance.

Maersk may be the wise ones, but only time will tell. In the interim there will likely be many changes in the lineups as the shipping lines try to make a profit by rastionalizing services. Mergers and reorganizaitons are not out of the question either.

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