SSG No 10 - Shipgaz

NEWS REVIEW
EXPEDITION BACK IN COPENHAGEN
The expedition Galathea 3 has now
reached its last call, when the expedition
ship Vædderen – with the “artist name”
Galathea 3 – arrived at Langelinie in
Copenhagen. The ship left Copenhagen
on August 11, 2006, and has since sailed
99,000 kilometres around the world collecting
material for scientific research
from the sea. Throughout the expedition,
school pupils have been a part of
the team onboard and they have been
online, available for questions from other
pupils in Denmark. The largest number
of questions to the pupils onboard
during a single day is 250.
MERGED FERRY OPERATORS Stavangerske
and Tide Sjø will merge and
the operation will become part of the
Tide Group. The new company will be
the second largest ferry and fast ferry
operation in Norway after Fjord 1.
Stavangerske is a subsidiary of Det
Stavangerske Dampskibsselskap (DSD)
and it operates 18 ferries and fast ferries
in all. Tide Sjø is owned by Tide AS
and has 28 ferries and fast ferries.
WESTERN SHIPYARD DOUBLES PROFIT
Last year, Western Shipyard in Klaipeda
posted sales of LTL 210.1 million (EUR
60.85 million), up 1.7 per cent compared
with 2005. Its profit of LTL 11.9
million (EUR 3.45 million) was twice
as large as in 2005.
The Western Shipyard group consists
of 22 companies with 1,400 employees.
BLRT Grupp owns 92.84 per cent of
the shares in Western Shipyards.
ÖSTERSTRÖMS BUYS LATVIAN AGENT
The Swedish shipowner and logistics
company Österströms continues its
expansion in the Baltic states. On May
1, the company became the sole owner
of its agent in Latvia, Daugava Shipping
Services. The company will continue
its operations in Latvian ports as
before.
COCAINE SEIZED ON BANANA SHIP
SeaNews.ru reports that the Russian
customs has seized 13 kilos of cocaine
on the reefer Arctic Night in the port
of St Petersburg. The Arctic Night
(built in 1973) is registered on the Cayman
Islands and had arrived with a cargo
of bananas from Ecuador.
The conversion of the Africa Mercy took eight years.
The Africa Mercy
finally at sea
ssg-ringkøbing. The Africa Mercy, the
former Danish train ferry Dronning Ingrid,
managed to leave UK waters on time. The
ferry arrived in Rotterdam on May 5 en
route for Monrovia in West Africa. After a
24-hours stopover, the floating hospital
continued its voyage to Africa with a crew
of 400.
The conversion of the Africa Mercy took
ssg-tallinn. The municipality of St
Petersburg has given the container terminal
Moby Dick notice to terminate its lease on
5.5 hectares of land next to the container
terminal in Kronstadt. According to
SeaNews.ru and the business daily Vedomosti,
Moby Dick is the first foreign
investor to be forced to hand over land in
the St Petersburg region.
The area in question is used as storage
area in conjunction with the ongoing construction
of a dam. Moby Dick wants to
eight years on the River Tyne. Helsingør
Værft built the ferry in 1980 as the last ferry
to leave the shipyard, which closed
down in 1984. The ferry traded on the
Great Belt link until the opening of the
fixed link in July, 1998. Afterwards the ferry
was laid up until it was sold to Mercy
Ships thanks to a donation of DKK 45 million.
MIKOLAJ KOPERNIK TO TRANSPORT RAILWAY WAGGONS AGAIN Euroafrica Shipping
Lines Ltd, Szczecin and PKP Cargo have signed an agreement according to which the ferry
Mikolaj Kopernik will again transport railway waggons between Swinoujscie and Ystad.
The growing traffic, which also applies to railway waggons, means that the 33-year old ferry
is still needed.
Moby Dick and St Petersburg in land dispute
use the area to expand the terminal and St
Petersburg’s governor, Valentina Matvienko,
had earlier given guarantees that
the area would be returned to Moby Dick
when the dam project was completed.
Now, however, Mrs Matvienko is threatening
to take Moby Dick to court if the company
does not hand over the land. The area
is about a tenth of the size of the container
terminal, 50 hectares.
Moby Dick is a subsidiary of Finnish
Containerships.
88 SCANDINAVIAN SHIPPING GAZETTE • MAY 21, 2007
PIET SINKE