The favourable weather conditions enable those conducting pollution cleaning operations off the coast of France, where the ill-fated Grande America sank a week ago. In the meantime, the Atlantic Maritime Prefecture published an inventory of the ship’s cargo according to which, Grande America was transporting 1.050 tonnes of dangerous goods.
In 2017, a small group of pioneering ports created an inventory ship-generated noise in berth, at anchor and manoeuvring to get in berth or leaving the berth. The project NEPTUNES – Noise Exploration Program To Understand Noise Emitted by Seagoing Ships – aims to mitigate the noise pollution from seagoing vessels.
Euronav has chartered a tanker to bring a 30,000 tonne cargo of low-sulphur fuel oil from northwest Europe to Malta, where its megatanker, Oceania, is located since January 12. The tanker loaded the low-sulphur fuel from Antwerp and is expected to reach Malta on March 20, Then it will probably transfer the fuel onto the ultra large crude carrier via ship-to-ship operation.
Based on drift forecasts, the oil spill from the sunken con/ro Grande America may eventually make it to the shore on France’s Bay of Biscay coastline. What is more, the spill could also reach as near as of La Rochelle on March 18. con/ro Grande America caught fire on March 10. The fire incident resulted to the vessel sinking two days after, on March 12.
A Czech seafarer was awarded $225,000 for blowing the whistle on his employer, a German shipping company, over maintaining false official records to conceal deliberate pollution from its ship ‘Marguerita’. The case was brought in the spotlight in November 2018.
The salvage operation from the grounded bulk carrier ‘Solomon Trader’, which ran aground on 4 February at a Unesco World Heritage site in the Solomon Islands, completed over the weekend, but the oil spill is worse than first thought, its owner King Trader said.
French authorities confirmed to have detected an oil slick at the sinking site of the ro-ro container vessel Grande America, according to the Maritime Prefecture of Atlantic. The slick was detected on March 13, during an overflight by French Navy aircraft.
Korea Protection and Indemnity Club (KP&I) appointed the American salvage company Resolve Marine to oversee the ‘Solomon Trader’ response in the Solomon Islands, in the South Pacific ocean. The Hong Kong-flagged bulk carrier ‘Solomon Trader’ was loading bauxite when it ran aground due to unexpected gale at Kangava Bay.
IMO issued a report to assess current knowledge and data regarding marine coatings as microplastics sources, identifying very little practical research or knowledge on the topic. The IMO review came after a report by IUCN which showed that hull scrapings, marine coatings and anti-fouling systems are potential sources of microplastics in the oceans.
Reports claiming that the crewmembers of the Solomon Trader were absent from the ship during the grounding or intoxicated celebrating Chinese are not true, the owner of the ship notes. The MV Solomon Trader was loading bauxite when due to rough seas, it ran aground at Kangava Bay, Rennell Island, on 4 February. Now, there is a high risk that the rest of HFO on the vessel, which is estimated to be more than 600 tonnes, will be released into the surrounding area.
