The Finnish Transport Agency’s new icebreaker, and the world’s first LNG-powered example, the Polaris (above), entered service on 1st November in the Baltic Sea. The ship was delivered in September by Finnish shipyard Arctech Helsinki to Arctia Ltd., a Finnish company specialising in marine icebreaking, offshore, and oil recovery. The 110m long, 17 knot and 9,333gt Polaris is the first icebreaker ever built that is capable of running on both liquefied natural gas (LNG) and ultra-low-sulphur diesel, making it the most environmentally friendly diesel-electric icebreaker anywhere in the world. With a total output of about 22 MW, it is also Finland’s most powerful icebreaker to date.

Hyundai Heavy Industries reported $1.2bn in shipbuilding orders for the first nine months of 2016, a 75% plunge compared with the same period of 2015 according to an interim report released on 19th October. The troubled South Korean shipbuilder also recorded no new contracts for commercial vessels in September, following a score of zero in August. Offshore and engineering orders fell by 82% year on year in the period to $187 million, reflecting the drop-off in orders that has hit all South Korean builders in the sector since the price of oil fell in 2014. The total orders announced in August had been $497 million, indicating that some of the orders may have since been cancelled or suffered an impairment on their value.

Lürssen Maritime Beteiligungen’s acquisition of Blohm+Voss shipyard in Hamburg was approved by the German Fair Trade Commission at the end of October. Following the official approval by the commission, Lürssen can now combine six shipyards with around 2,800 employees in Northern Germany. Founded in 1875, Lürssen’s primary activity is the design and manufacturing of yachts over 60 meters in length and naval and coastguard ships.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) is planning to stop taking new orders for large passenger ships and downsizing its shipbuilding operations due to a slump in orders. The plans by Japan’s fourth-largest shipbuilder come as new shipbuilding orders declined 80% in 2016. MHI suffered a 103.9 billion yen ($1.01 billion) loss on its cruise ship construction operations in the year ended March, 2016 having delayed the delivery of the AIDAprima by more than a year, with the AIDAperla still under construction. The plan is to reduce risks in shipbuilding operations by focussing on building smaller ships, which have simpler specifications.

The MCA detained three more ships at UK ports during September after failing Port State Control (PSC) inspection. Apart from the three newly detained ships, four ships remained under detention from previous months, namely the Malaviya Twenty, Sea Trident, Southern Star and Cien Porciento. The ships detained in September were the 10,519gt/1997 built Crown Opal (detained at Portsmouth 24th September for one day), 88,930gt/2004 built Partagas (detained at Port Talbot) and the 38,938gt/2005 built Paquis (detained at Immingham on 27th September for 2 days).

NYK Line has launched Magellan Straits Express, a new monthly South America rollon/ roll-off (RoRo) service from Florida’s Port Everglades. The new service was scheduled to start on 7th November using the 59,694gt/2012 built Rigel Leader bound for Port of Santos, Brazil. The service will also include port calls in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico.

The Panama Canal is apparently struggling to boost container ship transits as a result of container lines being able to send larger ships through the new lock system. Less than a third of the 12 daily transit slots for container vessels are being taken up and some days only see two or three vessel transits, four at best. There are now 13 weekly liner services through the waterway compared to 16 beforehand. The Panama Canal Authority said more than 165 New Panamax vessels have transitted the new locks and it has received more than 156 reservations for future sailings. Nine New Panamax services currently transit the waterway with an average vessel size of 8,600 TEUs. A new service between the Far East and the US East Coast deploying ships with an average size of 8,500 TEUs was expected to launch in November. The canal authority has also invited proposals from four shortlisted port operators to build and operate a container terminal near Corozal, at the Pacific entrance to the new waterway.

Meanwhile the Panama Canal Authority and UK ports operator Peel Ports, the owner of the Port of Liverpool, entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on 24th October, ahead of the formal opening of the Liverpool2 container terminal in early November. The formal agreement creates a strategic alliance aimed at facilitating international trade and generating new business by promoting trade routes between Liverpool and the west coast of South America via the Panama Canal.

Rickmers-Linie’s 23,119gt/2002 built Rickmers Tokyo was announced as the record holder for the largest single shipment of transformers from the port of Rijeka, Croatia on 26th October. The vessel shipped a total of 15 transformers weighing between 56 and 142 tonnes in mid-September, representing the largest number ever loaded in a single call in Rijeka. The ship is one of nine identical sister vessels of the Superflex Heavy MPC Class employed in Rickmers-Linie’s Round-The-World Pearl String service. These 30,000dwt multipurpose heavy lift vessels come with adjustable ‘tween decks and a crane capacity of up to 640 tonnes.

Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. (Boskalis) has been awarded a contract by DONG Energy Wind Power A/S for the transport and installation of the foundations for a part of the Hornsea Offshore Wind Farm Project One. The entire wind farm will generate a total capacity of 1,200 MW and is located approximately 120km off the Yorkshire coast. The transport and installation of the foundations will be executed by Boskalis’ new offshore transport and installation crane vessel for which an existing F-class heavy transport vessel is currently being converted. The vessel will be equipped with a 3,000-ton mast crane, dynamic positioning (DP2) and additional accommodation for up to 150.

STX France, which is 66.64% owned by South Korea’s now bankrupt STX Offshore & Shipbuilding, may see the French government step int o take a majority shareholding. This development is contrary to other reports stating that a South Korean bankruptcy court planned to sell STX O&S and STX France as a package. Any sale of STX France will require approval from the French government which owns a 33.34% stake already. The Saint-Nazaire facility employs around 2,600 workers and is largely reliant on French technology. Four parties have entered non-binding bids in the shipyard, namely DCNS Group of France, Fincantieri SpA, Damen Shipyards and an unnamed but non-Korean bidder.