Tuesday, April 23, 2024

ABB Validates New Propulsion Concept in Study with Ritz-Carlton Yacht

ABB dynafin propulsion — ABB's Dynafin uses an electric motor with individually controlled vertical blades on a rotating wheel to generate propulsive force (ABB)

ABB is making strong progress on its new propulsion concept called Dynafin which the company believes will increase a ship’s efficiency and contribute to the efforts to reduce emissions. During the recent Seatrade Global Cruise conference, ABB along with The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection reported the results of a new collaboration studying the result if Dynafin was employed for the propulsion of Ritz Carlton’s under-construction yachts.

Inspired by the dynamic motions of a whale’s tail, Dynafin would replace the traditional shaft and propeller with an electric-powered wheel with a series of blades to create the propulsive force. Tuomo Salmi, Global Commercial Manager at ABB for compact Azipod units and Dynafin, explains the engineers sought to imitate the whale’s tale which scientists have long known as a highly efficient form of propulsion.

Dynafin features a main electric motor that powers a large wheel moving at a moderate 30-80 rotations per minute. Vertical blades, each controlled by an individual motor and control system, extend from the wheel. The combined motion of the wheel and blades generates propulsion and steering forces simultaneously, enabling increases in operational efficiency and precision for ships.

ABB's Tuomo Silma (right) with Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection's Clatyton van Welter (left) presented the results of the Dynafin study

The collaboration between ABB and Ritz-Carlton further validated the concept that ABB first presented in 2023 after 10 years of study and development work. During the presentation, they reported the Ritz-Carlton study demonstrated a 12 percent reduction in propulsion power for the yacht cruise ship. They also demonstrated improvements in the hydrodynamic performance which resulted in less fuel and emissions.

ABB took a “what if” approach looking to further validate the Dynafin concept with Ilma and reports it demonstrated important benefits including less power, less fuel, reduced weight from the propulsion system, and a requirement for less space. Installing two units on the Ilma would have saved 100 cubic meters of space, explains Salmi which could be used to provide other amenities for the passengers and crew.

Clayton van Welter, Vice President, Marine Operations, and Tobias King, Vice President New Building both with Ritz-Carlton share similar views calling the findings encouraging. They said the results demonstrated the potential to offer meaningful energy savings.

Beyond the fuel and power savings, Ritz-Carlton also highlights the benefits of minimized noise and vibration from Dynafin, which van Welter called “incredibly valuable for a luxury product.” He notes the ABB team ran the tests on the current designs for Ilma and did not optimize the hull design to Dynafin.

“The evidence gained from this analysis continues to point a positive direction for this innovative propulsion system,” says van Welter. He explains that they used the upcoming cruise yacht, Ilma, currently being built at Chantiers de l’Atlantique, as the test hull for the collaboration. Due to enter service in 2024, Ilma is a 46,750 gross ton cruise ship that will measure 790 feet (241 meters) in length and 95.5 feet (29 meters) in width.

As built, Ilma will have two 5.5-MW Azipod propulsion units from ABB. When the units were ordered in 2022, ABB highlighted that they would provide high maneuverability and low vibrations and noise for the ship. They expect the pods to provide the ability to cut fuel consumption by up to 20 percent when compared with a traditional shaftline setup.

Dynafin wheel with a series of blades (ABB)

“Dynafin is past the concept stage,” reports Salmi saying they are making good progress toward the target of having it commercially available for 2026. Among the early applications he sees for Dynafin are designs that face the highest emission regulations.

The current Dynafin designs are for units with 1 to 4 MW per unit with ABB noting that it will be scalable. The solution will also be flexible on speed with the predictions that Dynafin will be able to provide up to 30 knots.

Ritz-Calton said that “the product’s desirability continues to strengthen with this further evidence,” from the collaboration. “The findings are encouraging, and we will continue to monitor the great strides that ABB is making with this product,” concludes van Welter.

Video: Italian Coast Guard Monitoring After Vessels Collide off Sicily

Containership collision — EF Olivia suffered a hull breech in the collision and is making its way to Sicily (Guardia Costiera)

The Italian Coast Guard is responding to a collision between two ships off the eastern coast of Sicily. Both vessels suffered some minor damage, including reports that the hull of a Peter Doehle-managed containership was holed. Both ships are being diverted to the Sicilian coast.

Details of the full extent of the collision have not been released in the ongoing incident but the video supplied by Guardia Costiera did not appear to show harsh weather conditions or heavy seas.

The Italian National Operations Center received the report of the collision this morning, April 22, approximately 14 miles from Capo Passero on the southeastern tip of Sicily south of the ports of Syracuse and Catania. AIS signs now show the vessels progressing northward displaying messages of “restricted maneuverability.”

The Peter Doehle-managed containership EF Olivia (42,200 dwt) was inbound today for the Italian port of Augusta, on the eastern coast of Sicily. The vessel, which was built in 2006 and is currently registered in Portugal, is 722 feet (220 meters) in length with a capacity of 3,100 TEU. The vessel suffered a hull breach midships at or below the waterline.

The other vessel is a Turkish-owed general cargo ship the Hayriye Ana. The 8,300 dwt vessel is registered in Liberia and was on a voyage from Istanbul, where she departed on April 19, to A Coruna, Spain where she was due on April 29. The vessel was built in 2009 and according to databases has been cited for several deficiencies on recent inspections. In November 2023, the Chinese authorities listed a dozen deficiencies including issues with the vessel’s VDR, an issue also cited by Greek inspectors in January 2024.

Guardia Costiera reports a helicopter and airplane were immediately sent to the area when they received the reports. A vessel was also dispatched. They are continuing to monitor the vessel’s progress and reported so far, no pollution has been reported.

China Cracks Down on Corruption in the Belt and Road Program

The Port City Colombo megaproject, a multibillion-dollar land reclamation and construction initiative in Sri Lanka (BRI/PRC)

[By Devendra Kumar]

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is increasingly taking a stand against corruption in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Bribing foreign officials in securing projects has always been an unspoken BRI mechanism, but what’s become intolerable to the party is growing embezzlement of Chinese funds by Chinese officials.

It’s an extension of a domestic campaign to catch official self-enrichment that began more than a decade ago. Still, holding down that side of corruption in the BRI is helpful in promoting the idea that the international infrastructure initiative is transparent and efficient.

A review of Chinese documents reveals that the change began around 2021. Notably, officials of the party’s anticorruption agency, the Central Commission for Discipline and Inspection (CCDI), have been posted abroad with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to monitor officials.

China projects the BRI as a global public good. However, it also facilitates China’s economic influence through economic integration and resource extraction. And by creating dependence on China abroad, it lifts the country’s geopolitical influence.

China floated the idea of a ‘clean’ BRI in the first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2017. Since then, it has stepped up the narrative of its anticorruption measures being a fight against global corruption. That narrative downplays corrupt practices by Chinese companies in BRI projects.

Official discourse has framed corruption in the BRI as a human problem that’s pervasive in all societies, thereby presenting Chinese concerns about corruption as reflecting the efficiency of the Chinese political system. Officials also present anticorruption concerns in terms of guarding against possible wrongdoing amid massive investments, rather than pointing to existing corrupt practices.

However, it isn’t corruption in itself that has prompted Chinese authorities to step up monitoring and investigations.

China has criminal law provisions for prosecuting officials for bribing foreign officials. However, there’s a qualification to those provisions: only cases involving ‘improper commercial benefit’ can be tried, and that’s difficult to define in legal cases. As a result, despite numerous allegations and reports of bribes by Chinese companies to foreign officials, only a few such cases have been prosecuted. In 2023, a local court in Guangzhou sentenced two former officials of the state-owned China Railway Tunnel Group Co Ltd for bribing Singaporean officials and embezzling.

A few trials indicate that the CCDI’s efforts to tame corruption in BRI projects are aimed at those who embezzle Chinese money and resources, rather than those who bribe foreign officials.

China launched an anticorruption drive to hunt down bribe-taking officials at home in 2013. Xi Jinping’s call for a ‘clean’ BRI in 2017 was an extension of that: a response to corruption cases involving domestic officials and SOEs with links to BRI projects.

Chinese government officials often acknowledge that the large sums of money spent on BRI projects naturally breed corruption. Several officials from companies and financial institutions engaged in BRI projects have been investigated, and the number of those investigations has dramatically increased since 2021.

Compared with earlier years of Xi Jinping’s rule, the number of corruption cases involving officials from SOEs and financial institutions has risen sharply. For example, the CCDI started investigating nearly 300 officials from such institutions in the 18?months after the 20th CCP National Party Congress in 2022, compared with around 400 during the first five years of the anticorruption campaign.

Several of those officials are senior executives of SOEs and financial institutions that have also invested in BRI projects. However, due to a lack of transparency in anticorruption trials, assessing corruption’s true extent and nature in the BRI is challenging. The high number of investigations of officials from SOEs operating domestically, which also have large stakes in the BRI, is an indication that policymakers are worried.

For example, in the past two years, the CCDI has investigated around two dozen senior officials of the Export and Import Bank of China and the China Development Bank, which are among the top lenders for BRI projects. Similarly, several officials from the COSCO group and its associated companies have been investigated since 2014. COSCO is the largest state-owned conglomerate involved in shipping and logistics.

In the past few years, China has signed a series of extradition treaties with BRI countries, to help investigate and bring corrupt Chinese officials to book. The CCDI has placed its officers within companies in BRI projects and organized regular joint inspections of projects with local authorities. The agency has been running corporate compliance courses for enterprises in the BRI since 2018 and introductory courses on the anticorruption system for officials from BRI countries.

The negligible number of people in BRI projects who have been tried for bribing foreign officials indicates that Chinese authorities are more worried about Chinese resources and money being embezzled rather than corruption generally. The anticorruption effort in the BRI is really just a case of taking the domestic campaign abroad.

Devendra Kumar is an associate fellow at the Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi–NCR. The views expressed are his own.

This article appears courtesy of The Strategist and may be found in its original form here.

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

Two Sanctioned Russian Ships Leave Bosporus and Take the Long Way Home

The sanctioned tanker Yaz turned back at the Bosporus in February and took the long way back to Russia - all the way to St. Petersburg (Pole Star)

For reasons unclear, two of Russia's sanctioned military supply ships have had to make a heroic journey around Europe after their latest run to the naval base at Tartus, Syria.

The freighter Sparta IV has traveled back and forth between Russia and Tartus for years, moving equipment and stores for the Russian military. Tartus is an important base, providing the Russian Navy with a year-round, sanctions-free haven in the Mediterranean. It is one of the Russian military's few overseas installations, and one of the motivating factors behind Moscow's support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Sparta's normal service route from Russia to Tartus runs from Novorossiysk through the Bosporus and the Aegean, and the vessel has been spotted and photographed on this liner service countless times since the beginning of the Syrian civil war. Turkey has long allowed it to pass, despite American sanctions targeting Sparta and similar Russian military logistics vessels.

That arrangement may have changed. On February 26, Sparta was returning from a normal run to Tartus and entered the Sea of Marmara. However, instead of entering the Bosporus, the ship turned around and headed back for the Mediterranean. She kept going, out the Strait of Gibraltar and all the way around Europe to the Russian Baltic territory of Kaliningrad.

The Ukrainian activist group Crimean Wind noticed that Sparta was not the only Russian vessel that turned away from the Bosporus. Two days later, the Russian bulkers Zafar and Grumant - allegedly laden with stolen Ukrainian grain - made an about-face at the northern end of the waterway.

The Russian military product tanker Yaz also appears to have stalled at the southern entrance of the Bosporus at about the same time. Like Sparta IV, Yaz is sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury; like Sparta, it also took the long way around Europe to get back to Russia, transiting all the way to the Baltic to call at St. Petersburg (top).

Turkey has closed the Bosporus to warships, but has not previously blocked nominally civilian vessels like Sparta IV, even if potentially carrying arms. Whether the turnarounds represented a change in policy is not known, but Turkish bankers and companies have reduced their trade ties with Russia since the start of the year over fears of heightened sanctions enforcement, according to Moscow Times.

Mercy Ships Plans to Build Hospital Ship with Kickstart Donation from MSC

Healthcare NGO Mercy Ships launched an ambitious project to build the group’s second all-new dedicated hospital ship just three years after it took delivery on the Global Mercy, which at 36,600 gross tons is the world's largest civilian-owned hospital ship. The group highlights that the need to accelerate access to surgical care and surgical education in sub-Saharan Africa remains very apparent and they will expand their current operations with a new hospital ship.

The project was kickstarted with a generous anchor donation from MSC Group through its philanthropic entity MSC Foundation. Captain Gianluigi Aponte, Founder of MSC Group, and his son Diego Aponte, MSC Group President, represented the company and finalized an agreement with the charity. The anchor donation is providing the foundation and Mercy Ships is launching a fundraising program for the new ship.

MSC reports it is an active supporter of the health care organization reflecting the family’s commitment to supporting access to critical healthcare. They noted their personal experience in Africa and the critical work of Mercy Ships. MSC and Mercy Ships have been partners since 2011, with the MSC Group ensuring logistical support and container delivery of supplies to support Mercy Ships’ operations.

The charity was started in 1978 with a vision of using hospital ships to save, train, and transform lives. They note to date the charity has impacted more than 2.8 million lives. It has provided more than 117,000 specialized surgical procedures alone. In addition to direct medical care, through its volunteers, Mercy Ships also is committed to boosting the capacities of local healthcare systems. They design and conduct surgical education, training, and advocacy programs.

Expanding its fleet with a new purpose-built hospital ship, designed to similar specifications as the Global Mercy with a focus on designated training spaces, Mercy Ships’ Founder Don Stephens explains will allow Mercy Ships to increase its capacity to collaborate with host nations in training and advocacy efforts.

Rendering of the planned third hospital ship (Mercy Ships)

The new ship will feature living spaces to accommodate approximately 600 crew members and guests on board. Its hospital will span two decks and 7,000 square meters, featuring six operating rooms, a fully equipped laboratory, and state-of-the-art training spaces such as a simulation lab. Mercy Ships says this will make it possible for it to strengthen local surgical systems during its time in port, typically a 10-month field service.

The company working with Stena RoRo took delivery of the Global Mercy in 2021 after six years of construction at the Tianjin Xingang shipyard of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC). The first steel for the hospital ship was cut in 2015 and assembly began in 2017. Global Mercy was floated for the first time in February 2018.

Registered in Malta, the Global Mercy is 570 feet long and includes six specially designed operating rooms, 200 beds, a laboratory, and general outpatient clinics. In addition, it was outfitted to provide eye and dental care, women’s health services, and education on agriculture and nutrition. The group’s older ship, the Africa Mercy is a converted ferry that has been fulfilling the charity’s mission since 2007.

New York Approves New Port Commission to Fight Organized Crime

Red Hook New York piers — Red Hook piers which will be under the jurisdiction of the new commission while New Jersey will oversee its side of the port separately (file photo)

The newly passed New York State budget authorizes and funds a new Waterfront Commission to regulate and oversee the containerized cargo operations in the Port of New York. It will take up from the now disbanded joint effort between New York and New Jersey and be a page out of the famous 1950s movie “On the Waterfront” which focused on corruption and employment in the port.

The state’s $237 billion budget deal reached last week and sent to Governor Kathy Hochul for adoption includes a $5 million appropriation to create and fund the New York Waterfront Commission. The commission will be headed by an appointee of the governor and have a staff of 32 people, the majority of which will operate in a law enforcement capacity.

Calling for the legislation, the sponsors hearkened back to the 1950s and before when they said the port lacked systematic hiring methods and employment was corrupt and discriminatory. They also cited the long heritage of criminal practices and coercion of employees and employers by organized crime.

The authorizing language for the commission says its goal is “to prevent such conditions and to prevent circumstances that result in waterfront laborers suffering from the irregularity of employment, fear, and insecurity, inadequate earnings, an unduly high accident rate, subjection to borrowing at usurious rates of interest, exploitation, and extortion as the price of securing employment.”

Among the roles that have been outlined for the new commission is to regulate the occupations of longshore workers, stevedores, pier superintendents, hiring agents, and security officers. The goal is to ensure fair employment practices. The commission will license both companies and individuals to work on the piers located in New York State and it will maintain registers of eligible applicants and information for their hiring.

The commission will also collaborate with local and federal law enforcement agencies to conduct investigations into organized crime. Law enforcement personnel, attorneys, and intelligence analysts will perform comprehensive background checks of individuals and companies to ensure they meet the applicable standards and qualifications to work and operate in the port.

The formation of the new commission is New York’s answer to the multi-year effort by New Jersey which ultimately won approval from the U.S. Supreme Court to withdraw from the 70-year-old joint effort. New Jersey transferred the responsibilities for oversight of port operations to its State Police after arguing that the old commission was too bureaucratic and did not reflect the current operations of the port. New Jersey asserted that cargo volume over the years had shifted from the New York side of the port to its jurisdiction and that it needed a more efficient means of regulating port activity.

To get the New York legislation passed the governor and its supporters agreed with the International Longshoremen's Association to consult with employers and the unions on new regulations. The first task of the new commission will be to undertake a review and propose revisions to the existing regulations.

Denmark Launches Largest Wind Tender Expecting to Become Green Exporter

Denmark offshore wind power — Denmark commissioned the world's first offshore wind farm 33 years ago (file photo)

After a year of preparation, Denmark today officially opened its largest ever offshore wind tender which when completed would ensure Denmark achieves its green goals and sets up the country to become an exporter of green power. With a minimum call for 6 GW, the tender would treble Denmark’s power generation from offshore wind and provide developers the option of further optimizing the sites to possibly realize 10 GW or more.

“Denmark is one large step closer to becoming Europe’s green powerhouse,” said Minister for Climate, Energy, and Utilities, Lars Aagaard. “When the wind turbines are operating, we can cover all of Denmark’s power consumption with green electricity – and we can produce hydrogen and green fuels for ships and planes…Now it is up to the market to take part in Denmark’s next big wind adventure.”

The Danish Energy Agency published the tender frameworks following the political agreement on the tender framework from the spring of 2023. They are designating six locations (North Sea I, Kattegat, Kriegers Flak II, and Hesselø) and took the unusual step of saying developers can optimize their projects within each lease. They are calling for a minimum of 6 GW but noted that by providing the opportunity to expand development on five of the sites, the total could reach 10 GW or more.

The minister notes that with tenders of this magnitude, Denmark enters a completely new chapter. Denmark commissioned the world’s first offshore wind farm 33 years ago and today has a current capacity of 2.7 GW, with an additional GW expected by 2027.

“The green power produced will be used not only for Danish consumption,” said Aagaard, “but also for export to our neighboring countries and green hydrogen production.”

The framework for the tender does not provide state subsidies and instead requires a yearly concession payment. The leases are for 30 years and the Danish state will be co-owners of 20 percent of the offshore wind farms. They estimate that the cost of building each GW of capacity will be around $2.3 billion.

The tender calls for the commissioning of the new wind farms by 2030, which aligns with Denmark’s ambitious goal of cutting emissions by 70 percent from 1990 levels by the end of the decade.

EnBW Buys One-of-a-Kind Hydraulic Suspension CTV for Offshore Wind Farms

German boatbuilder Wallaby Boats has delivered a radically-different kind of crew transfer vessel for the utility EnBW. CTVs are small compared to their big offshore brethren, the OSV-sized service operation vessels (SOVs), and have a narrower weather window. Wallaby's 18-meter CTV aims to expand serviceability in rough weather by putting the main deck on a suspension system, above two independent catamaran hulls.

"The ship Impulse is a pioneering piece of German engineering. It is our goal to have offshore wind farms with a total output of 30 GW producing electricity in Germany by 2030. For this we will need even more ships like this," said German economy minister Robert Habeck at a christening ceremony.

EnBW hopes that the newly-named Impulse will make maintenance cheaper and help reduce the cost of offshore wind at the Baltic 2 wind farm. The suspension system - designed by Nauti-Craft Pty - lets the twin hulls move independently to compensate for wave action. Simulations show that the boat should be able to safely transfer technicians to wind towers in wave heights of up to about seven feet (sea state 4 to low-5).

Courtesy Wallaby Boats

The hydraulic suspension should also reduce ship motion experienced by the boat's crew, reducing fatigue and risk of seasickness. The system also generates heat energy, which can be used for deck deicing or cabin heating.

Wallaby is the first boatbuilder to incorporate the Nauti-Craft suspension system. While it is building in Europe to start, it is open to inquiries about creating a Jones Act-compliant version of its unique CTV for the American market.

1,000-Tonne Claw Arrives to Clear Baltimore Ship Channel

Efforts to clear the wreckage of the Key Bridge out of Baltimore's ship channel took a big step forward Monday with the arrival of a 1,000-tonne hydraulic grab. The massive claw will be used to extract the tangled mess of debris that lies embedded in the mud on the channel bottom, restoring the waterway to its normal navigable depth.

So far, the salvage crews have been working to cut and lift larger pieces of the bridge structure that remain above the surface, while pulling up smaller debris with a midsize grab. About 1,300 tonnes of steel have been removed so far, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. The newly-arrived grab could accelerate the effort by taking full advantage of the lifting capacity of the largest crane on the East Coast, the Chesapeake 1,000.

Courtesy USACE

Time is of the essence for local businesses. Global shipping quickly adapted to the shutdown, and the near-closure of Port of Baltimore has had little measurable impact on the broader national economy, according to the Federal Reserve. But for Baltimore-area companies that depend on the operation of the port, every day that goes by without a shipping channel is a day of lost revenue and lost wages. Certain Midwestern equipment manufacturers that use Baltimore for ro/ro shipping have also been affected. The state of Maryland has enacted grant and wage-supplement programs to help local businesses stay open, but the support cannot fully offset the impact for all companies.

“Businesses we talked to said they can manage a short-term disruption but if the effort to reopen the channel takes longer, they then expressed greater concerns about lead times and increased costs,” the Richmond branch of the Federal Reserve said last week in a regular report.

The Army Corps of Engineers, its Navy partners and private contractors are working at maximum safe speed to reopen the channel. In a statement, the Corps of Engineers said that it is moving ahead with "steady, precise action," minimizing the potential for errors and avoiding "unrealistic benchmarks."

The first step is to open a narrow, limited access channel of 35 feet in depth by the end of the month, followed by the full 50-foot-deep channel by the end of May. The limited channel will be big enough for ro/ros to resume service to Baltimore, which is the biggest ro/ro port in the country.

Insurers will also be happy to see access restored, since every day of shutdown is another day of business interruption claims. The bridge strike is on track to become the costliest maritime insurance loss in history, with claims potentially exceeding $2 billlion. When coupled with other mega-losses like the Ever Given, the Tianjin blast and the Costa Concordia, the Dali is prompting some in insurance to rethink their planning for low-probability, high-cost events.

“What’s really important is that these kinds of ‘black swan events’, as we like to think of them, are not actually as rare as the industry would like,” Nick Evans of insurtech firm Insurwave told Insurance Insider.

U.S. Navy Aegis Technician Convicted of Attempted Espionage

Consoles in the Combat Information Center aboard the Aegis destroyer USS Higgins, Pedicini's last post (USN file image)

A senior enlisted Navy servicemember has been convicted of attempted espionage for delivering classified information to a foreign government, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service said Friday.

In January, Chief Fire Controlman (Aegis) Bryce Steven Pedicini was charged with multiple counts of attempted espionage for mishandling or disclosing classified information.

Pedicini was a former destroyer crewmember who worked on the Aegis system, the Navy's integrated radar and weapons control platform. The most capable Aegis variants can target ballistic missiles in mid-flight. In his LinkedIn biography, Pedicini described himself as a ballistic missile computer technician.

In 2022, while assigned to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center (MARMAC) in Norfolk, Pedicini allegedly passed classified documents to an "employee and national of a foreign government" seven times. The contents could "be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of a foreign nation," prosecutors said.

In 2023, while stationed in Yokosuka, Pedicini allegedly entered a secure information room aboard a Navy barge with a personal electronic device. He then allegedly tried to transfer photographs of a high-security computer screen to a foreign government employee. He was arrested shortly after and court-martialed in January.

On Friday, after a seven-day trial, Pedicini was found guilty of attempted espionage, failure to obey a lawful order and attempted violation of a lawful general order. Sentencing is scheduled for early next month.

“This guilty verdict holds Mr. Pedicini to account for his betrayal of his country and fellow service members,” said NCIS Director Omar Lopez. “Adversaries of the United States are unrelenting in their attempts to degrade our military superiority."

Singapore Keeps Top "Maritime City" Status, and UAE Moves Up the Ranks

Port of Singapore — iStock / Primeimages

The latest edition of the DNV Leading Maritime Cities report is out, and it has some surprises - and some consistency.

The ranking rates maritime cities on five elements: shipping centers, finance and law, technology, ports and logistics, and attractiveness and competitiveness. The categories are evaluated through 45 different indicators (and for the first time this year, this list includes factors related to the green transition). 190 experts contributed to the evaluation, evenly distributed among shipping's primary geographic areas.

Singapore took top ranking in three categories - attractiveness, ports and shipping centers - and scored in the top five for technology and finance. In measures of "green" technology, it also ranked first. Taken together, these factors were enough to put it over the top for pole position. Experts chalk up Singapore's success to carefully-considered government policies to support and grow the maritime sector, as well as consistent efforts by Singaporean businesses to develop capacity and continuously modernize. The shifting geography of shipping activity has also helped.

“The center of international trade is gradually moving towards the East or Asia, with more shipowners emerging from this region. This shift could elevate Asian maritime cities like Shanghai and Singapore," said one study participant from Shanghai.

All four top rankings remained the same as the last report, with Rotterdam, London and Shanghai taking runner-up after Singapore. The rest of the top ten showed more movement. Oslo, New York, Hamburg and Copenhagen improved their positions, and Busan moved into 10th place for the first time. Hong Kong's ranking declined markedly, from fourth in 2019 to sixth in 2022 to twelfth this year.

The Middle East's big hubs are on the move upwards. Abu Dhabi showed remarkable improvement, jumping from 32nd place to 22nd. "This is a result of strategic public policies and consistent investment, making the city a magnet for talent and companies," DNV said. Neighboring Dubai is on track to move into the top-five within a few years' time, study participants predicted.

Athens retains 2nd place on the list of major shipping centers, reflecting its high concentration of shipowners and operators, and ranked 35th overall. It has by far the largest and most valuable fleet of ships of any maritime city, and that fleet is still growing. "However, there remains a perception that Athens primarily serves local Greek shipping companies rather than international shipping entities," DNV found. "Consequently, experts have shifted their confidence toward other prominent shipping centers, notably Singapore and Dubai. These cities have emerged as preferred choices for global shipping activities."

Athens remains the most prominent shipowning city (DNV)

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