A Round Up of Logistics Industry News in This Bank Holiday Week

SINGAPORE – GHANA – With all the modern propulsion systems being developed for maritime use water jet technology seems almost old hat. However waterjets give superior manoeuvrability compared with conventional propellers that are typically installed on workboats similar to one that just completed her sea trials.

The 12 metre workboat, built by Singapore-based Strategic Marine (S) Pte Ltd, is destined for Tullow Ghana Limited and will be deployed to offshore deep water projects in the Gulf of Guinea. The remote location of the offshore oil fields, reliability demands and challenging sea conditions in the region have all influenced the design and build of the workboat.

The workboat is designed to be launched and retrieved from a larger mothership with a single point lifting hook and will primarily perform line handling and crew transfer duties. She features a 2 tonne capstan, 5 tonne tow hook and an open transom. She can achieve a top speed of 25 knots fully loaded, useful considering the hijacking record in the Gulf, and carries up to ten passengers in comfort for offshore crew transfers.

ARABIAN GULF – This week saw the first ever visit of a Multi-Carrying Vessel (MCV) to the region as the Topaz MoskvaM, owned by P&O Maritime Logistics, arrived in Saudi Arabia. The ship arrived in the country following a journey from Italy and also visited Dubai on its tour of the Middle East.

With P&O Maritime Logistics being headquartered in the UAE, the visit was seen as a homecoming celebration for the Topaz Moskva and CEO Martin Helweg commented that the trip helped demonstrate the type’s capabilities in a wide variety of maritime conditions, and beyond the expectations of many.

WORLDWIDE – The recent webinar held by UK maker of recyclable packaging Schoeller Allibert was host to some high profile speakers with the session arriving at five key conclusions on the subject of warehouse automation. The points which arose were: Automation is becoming simpler to integrate; Legacy retail models are gone; Robotic integration can bring rapid return; Fulfilment speed matters and Rapid deployment is king.

Obviously those shorthand references need a detailed explanation and interested parties can get just that on the download available HERE.

GERMANY – WORLDWIDE – the Board of Airline Representatives in Germany (BARIG) is specifically expanding its cross-industry network of business partners. The services of Mazars, an expert with extensive industry know-how, is now available to the more than 100 national and international BARIG airlines flying to Germany.

Mazars is a leading international company specialising in audit, accountancy, advisory, tax and legal services operating in over 90 countries and territories around the world. With an annual turnover of around €182 million, Mazars is currently number nine on the list of the leading audit and advisory firms.

EUROPE – Provider of fuel and service cards UTA, an Edenred company, has partnered with UK headquartered The ai Corporation (ai), an expert for fraud prevention and payment solutions. This new partnership is founded on developing additional protection for UTA customers from the evolving global threat of fuel card fraud backing up the work of UTA’s own internal fraud detection team.

The aiFraud Managed Service which is powered by ai’s new automated machine learning, combines the latest advanced technology solutions, along with best-in-class fraud analytics expertise, aimed at preventing the latest global fraud trends. Currently this service provides direct support to over 200,000 fuel retail sites across Europe, North America, East Asia, South Africa and manages in excess of 500 million fuel card transactions a year.

US – In celebration of National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, EPA’s SmartWay Team and the American Trucking Associations (ATA), a SmartWay Affiliate, are sponsoring a webinar for professional truck drivers who represent their industry daily on the nation’s highways. You can register HERE for this Truck Driver Appreciation Week discussion which is on Tuesday, September 14th at 7:00 pm EST.

A Captain from ATA’s America’s Road Team will speak candidly about the trucking industry’s critical role in the delivery of essential goods and the safety-first mentality held by all professional truck drivers. SmartWay will offer insights, tips and strategies shown to lower costs, while also shrinking your emissions footprint.

BELGIUM – AirBridgeCargo Airlines (ABC) has awarded a 10-year cargo handling contract to Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) in Liege, further extending the all-cargo airline’s global strategic partnership with WFS, the world’s largest air cargo handler.

Under the terms of the new contract, as well as handling import and export cargo on AirBridgeCargo’s 15 Boeing 747 freighter flights a week, connecting Liege with prime markets in North America and Asia Pacific, WFS has subleased half of ABC’s new cargo terminal at the Belgian airport to support its other handling clients.

The 12,500 square metre ‘Building 24’ cargo terminal in Liege has the capacity to handle some 150,000 tonnes of airfreight a year. WFS will also provide handling for other Volga-Dnepr Group airlines when required to do so.

CAMEROON – Maersk Supply Service (MSS) has been awarded a contract by the ExxonMobil owned Cameroon Oil Transportation Company (COTCO), for Phase 2 of a mooring system maintenance project on the Kome-Kribi 1 Floating Storage & Offloading unit (Kome-Kribi 1 Marine Terminal), off the country’s coast. The project involves replacing two link arms on a yoke mooring system and follows Phase 1, during which MSS carried out the design, engineering, procurement and installation of a temporary redundancy system.

The contract comprises the full project management and engineering and the two-month offshore operations, which are scheduled to commence in Q4 2022. The offshore operations will require an I-class Subsea Support Vessel (SSV) from the MSS fleet as well as two Anchor Handling Tug Supply (AHTS) vessels which will also be employed for station keeping of the FSO.

Photo: The 12 metre workboat, built by Singapore-based Strategic Marine (S) Pte Ltd.