Category: Shipping

Russian shipping containers pile up in Rotterdam

In normal times, the port of Rotterdam is like a machine: hundreds of ships come and go every day, and tens of thousands of boxes are loaded and unloaded from these ships to keep Europe's economy running. At the moment, however, many containers are blocking the processes because of the sanctions against Russia. The crates, which are usually 20 or 40 feet long and destined for the sanctioned country, all have to be carefully checked to ensure that their onward transport does not violate the sanctions in any way, says Allard Castelein, Managing Director of the Port of Rotterdam. Several authorities are monitoring...

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Mines in the Black Sea: Russia accuses Ukraine

Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of releasing Soviet-era YaM and YarM mines floating in the northern Black Sea, three of which have been discovered and neutralised so far. According to Russian claims, there are hundreds of mines near its coast. Some of them are floating in the open waters of the Black Sea and are a danger to commercial shipping. This comes a day after Kiev claimed that Moscow was responsible. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that Russia was laying sea mines in the Black Sea as "uncontrolled drifting ammunition" and making them "a de facto weapon for...

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Russian tankers in the dark - threat of circumvention of sanctions

Russian tankers transporting oil and chemicals are increasingly hiding their positions. Shipping experts warn that this could indicate attempts to circumvent the sanctions triggered by the invasion of Ukraine. In the last week of March, there were at least 33 cases of so-called "dark activity", where the AIS systems were switched off. This is more than double the weekly average of 14 last year. The incidents mainly occurred in or around Russia's exclusive economic zone. Under international maritime law, merchant ships must have their automatic identification system (AIS) switched on at sea. The deactivation or manipulation of the ship identification system...

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Another Ever ship aground

The container ship Ever Forward of the Evergreen shipping company left Baltimore on Sunday, 13 March. En route to Norfolk, Virginia, it ran aground in the Chesapeake Bay. The Ever Forward was built in 2020 and is 334 metres long and 48 metres wide. The ship is not obstructing shipping traffic. The first two attempts to tow the ship free failed. Despite the deployment of a total of seven tugs, it was not possible to refloat the 11,850-TEU container ship giant. Once again, the ship did not move and remained aground in the Chesapeake Bay. A third attempt was made on Sunday, 3 April...

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