Americas News

Local sources report that there has been a fuel spill this week in the Rodman Harbour, at the Pacific end of the Panama Canal.

The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has added the captains of five Iranian flagged tankers that delivered gasoline to Venezuela to its Specially Designated National and Blocked Persons List.

Limetree Bay Ventures will soon start processing crude at the former Hovensa refinery on St. Croix, according to Reuters.

SEACOR subsidiary SCF Marine has announced that its ‘container on barge service’ is taking part in a 12-month accredited US-based carbon offset programme – and it is also looking at the feasibility of using dual-fuel LNG towboats.

New Orleans-based Quality Liquefied Natural Gas Transport (Q-LNG) is reportedly set to take delivery of the Q-LNG 4000 – billed as ‘America’s first offshore Liquefied Natural Gas Articulated Tug and Barge (LNG ATB) unit' – within a few weeks.

The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has designated further individuals and foreign entities – and identified two vessels as blocked property – for their activities in, or links to, networks attempting to evade US sanctions on Venezuela’ oil sector.

BC Ferries’ newest vessel, the hybrid-electric Island Aurora, officially came into service on Thursday (18 June) on the Vancouver Island-Cormorant Island-Malcolm Island route.

Oil exploration, development and technology group TomCo Energy and Valkor have formed a joint venture, Greenfield, which will look at the development of an oil sands plant at Asphalt Ridge in Utah; Valkor has also granted Greenfield a licence to Quadrise MSAR emulsion fuel technology for the processing of heavy sweet crude into IMO 2020-compliant heavy fuel oil.

Robert ‘Bob’ L. Merchent has been appointed as the new President and CEO of the Pascagoula-based shipbuilder VT Halter Marine.

New Panama Maritime Authority statistics show that May bunker volumes totalled 393,316 metric tonnes, and the month was notable for a surge in low sulphur marine gasoil sales, which almost touched the combined total for the first four months of the year.