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ZIM is leaving Transpacific Stabilization Agreement

As per the last revision of Transpacific Stabilization Agreement (TSA), Israeli ocean carrier will withdraw it on December, 31. ZIM is going to be the 5th carrier that is quitting TSA, after  China Shipping, Hanjin, Kline and NYK. TSA is an agreement between major container carriers moving through the Far East and the USA. TSA and ZIM officials were not available for the comments on above. At present, the following carriers are still listed as members: CMA CGM, OOCL, Maersk, MSC, Hapag-Lloyd, Evergreen, COSCO, APL, Hyundai Merchant Marine and Yang Ming. According to the recent reports, these companies are loading in total more than 91,000 TEUs per week from Asia to the US east coast which makes it the majority on the transpacific route.

A great project for Scottish port expansion was approved by local authorities. It will cost 350 million British pounds and will allow the world's largest vessels handling for many industries. Also, the construction contract has already been signed with Dragados UK, one of the preferred bidders.

The project was under planning and consulting for six years and here is what it's supposed to contain: 1.4 km quay with a water depth up to 10.5 meters and 125 square meters of lay-down area. It will create more than 7000 jobs and improve Scottish infrastructure in wide range of industries.

It's scheduled to be completed by summer 2020.

Greek shipowner New Shipping Ltd has signed a Letter of Intent to construct two 320,000 dwt tankers.

The company will pay USD 70 million for each of the two very large crude carriers (VLCC).

In addition to these two ships, New Shipping Ltd has options to order two more VLCCs, all of which would be built by China’s Jinhai Heavy Industry.

The 48,256 mt vessels are expected to be ready by 2019, according to VesselsValue.

New Shipping Ltd currently operates nine VLCCs, four Suezmaxes and six Aframaxes, plus bulk carriers.

The USA and Canada are phasing out the use of heavy fuel oil

US, Canada have started the process of reducing usage of heavy fuel oil (HFO) from the vessels operating in Arctic waters to save the region from the dirtiest marine fuel. HFO creates threats from spills and black carbon emissions hence its already banned in Antarctica and Svalbard (Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean). Currently 44% of vessels working in Arctic are using this HFO. During the next meeting of International Maritime Organization in July 2017, the US and Canada will be offering a plan of taking the heavy fuel oil out of the shipping industry.