Banned by Canada, Russian Ship Seeks to Transload Cargo

PUBLISHED MAR 14, 2022 2:06 AM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

Canada has banned Russian ships from its ports, but there may be a workaround for shipments still in progress.At least one vessel is expected to transfer the cargo to a ship of a different flag in order to complete the delivery.

Canada's government announced a full prohibition on Russian shipping on March 1, citing the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The Russian-flagged bulker Fesco Uliss was among the first vessels affected. She departed Riga, Latvia with a load of carbon pitch on February 15, before the invasion began. She was due to deliver the cargo to an aluminum smelter at the Canadian port of Trois-Rivières on March 6, but she did not make it that far.

On the day the Canadian government announced its ban on Russian vessels, AIS tracking shows that Fesco Uliss slowed to a drift in the mid-Atlantic. After a day, she picked up pace again and made for the Gulf of St. Lawrence, her original destination. On March 5, she aborted the attempt and headed southwards.

According to the Journal de Montreal, her new destination is the port of Freeport. The revised plan is to transload her cargo onto a non-Russian vessel, which will then deliver it back to Trois-Rivières after a delay of about one and a half months.

This plan may have changed again. On Sunday, Fesco Uliss altered course away from the Bahamas, according to AIS data provided by Pole Star. As of Sunday night she was transiting southwest through the Mona Passage, headed away from Freeport and towards Panama (above).

https://maritime-executive.com/article/banned-by-canada-russian-ship-seeks-to-transload-cargo

Opinion: Russia's Arctic Gas is Funding the War in Ukraine

PUBLISHED MAR 13, 2022 11:25 PM BY MIA BENNETT

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the seven other member states of the Arctic Council have hit a “pause” button on cooperation. Gas from the Russian Arctic, however, is continuing to flow into Europe uninterrupted. The political theater of halting Arctic Council diplomacy will have little effect on Russia. Yet it will negatively impact circumpolar efforts on environmental, Indigenous, scientific, health, and all manner of “soft” issues. In fact, work in these areas may now be harmed twice over.

Post-invasion, Russia is raking in more money from gas exports than before

Two days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany froze high-profile pipeline project Nord Stream-2 (whose tangled connections to the Arctic I’ve explored about before). Yet existing gas flows have continued largely unabated from Russian pipelines to Europe, including via the Yamal-Europe pipeline, which runs through Belarus, Poland, and Germany. In the winter months leading up to the invasion, Gazprom may have been manipulating flows into Europe by withholding gas despite having a record year of both production and profits. Now, post-invasion, fighting is threatening some pipelines and causing explosions, but gas seems to be flowing relatively normally, and neither Russia nor the EU have sought to turn off the taps.

Meanwhile, the price of natural gas imports in Europe continues to rise, sending more money into Russian coffers. European think tank Bruegel estimates that Russia, the world’s largest natural gas exporter, is now raking in 500 million euros each day compared to 200 million a day in February. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki cautioned, “We are buying, as [the] European Union, lots of Russian gas, lots of Russian oil. And President Putin is taking the money from us, from the Europeans. And he is turning this into aggression, invasion.”

Russia’s friends in Asia: China and Mongolia

Europe may be able to significantly lessen its dependence on Russian imports, estimates the think tank, Bruegel. Weighing that eventuality, Russia is looking to export of the commodity sucked out of the tundra eastward. In early February, Vladimir Putin, while meeting with Xi Jinping in China on the eve of the Olympics, announced that their two countries had inked a 30-year deal involving the annual export of 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year from eastern Siberia. This agreement builds on the 30-year gas deal signed between the two countries in 2014.

Then, four days after the invasion of Ukraine began—which China allegedly requested to be delayed until the Olympics had concluded—Gazprom’s chairman, Alexey Miller, and the Deputy Prime Minister of Mongolia signed a deal regarding the construction of the Soyuz/Vostok gas pipeline, which will run from Russia through the former Soviet satellite to China. This pipeline will be able to deliver 50 billion bcm annually. For comparison, Nord Stream 2 was planned to carry 110 billion bcm, or a little over twice as much.

Ukrainian companies, too, have their hands dirty in Arctic gas

In the middle of the pipelines stitched into Europe’s veins lies the theater of war: Ukraine. One of the main conduits transporting gas from Arctic fields to Europe is the West Siberian Pipeline

For nearly four decades now, the West Siberian Pipeline has transported gas from Urengoy, the world’s second largest natural gas field, to Uzhgorod in western Ukraine. The pipeline is partly owned and operated by Ukrainian company Ukrtransgaz. Until recently, it allegedly oversaw 50 percent of all transit of Russian gas to Europe. Ukrtransgaz is owned by Ukrainian state-owned company Naftogaz, which a French managing director at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development called “one of the darkest corners of the country’s web of corrupt interest.” In other words, certainUkrainian companies and officials are profiting immensely from the same resources that are funding the destruction of their own country.

https://maritime-executive.com/editorials/russia-s-arctic-gas-is-funding-the-war-in-ukraine

Iran Plans First Domestically-built Dual-Fuel LNG Aframax Tanker

PUBLISHED MAR 15, 2022 7:41 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

Iran’s national oil company and shipyard company are reporting that they plan to build the country’s first dual-fuel LNG Aframax tanker as part of a domestic effort to repair and expand the country’s aging fleet of crude oil tankers. News of the agreement for the tanker fleet comes as Iran’s political leadership is pushing for a lifting of western sanctions against the oil industry while also boasting that sanctions imposed by the United States have not impeded their operations.

Iran's oil minister was quoted in the local media as saying that despite the United States’ efforts to stop oil shipments the country has continued to build its oil exports. He also pointed to U.S. efforts to go after both Iranian ships as well as third party tankers contracted to transport oil often through illegal ship-to-ship transfers and nefarious efforts such as repeatedly trading ships and disguising their identities or turning off AIS signals.

Last week, Associated Press reported, “The U.S. has quietly seized the cargo of two tankers suspected of transporting Iranian oilas part of an elaborate sanctions-busting scheme involving forged documents and the repainting of a ship’s deck to cloak illegal shipments.” They said the seizures undertaken by the Biden Administration were revealed in court documents last month.

The National Iranian Oil Tanker Company (NITC), possibly in anticipation that the sanctions might be lifted to relieve pressures after the banning of Russian oil, announced its plans to revitalize its fleet. As part of the country’s efforts to expand its domestic industries, the oil company said it plans to both build and repair its tankers at Iranian shipyards. If the construction proceeds, it would be the first newly built tanker for NITC in more than a decade.

“The order to build an Aframax tanker to the Iranian Shipbuilding and Offshore Industries Complex (IZOICO) in Bandar Abbas is on the agenda and its contract will be signed soon,” the company said in a statement widely reported in the Iranian media. The CEO of the National Iranian Tanker Company was quoted as saying, "This Aframax tanker, which is environmentally friendly and is designed and built according to the latest standards of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), will comply with phase three of the Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI)."

The capacity of the new tanker reportedly would be 113,000 tons. He said propulsion would be LNG-fueled with dual-fuel capabilities to also use low sulfur fuel. It is unclear, however, if Iran currently has the capability to build the engines for the vessel or if it would be dependent on an international partnership. The country’s commercial shipbuilding industry was idled for many years until 2018 when they announced they would restart new ship construction. In December 2020, Iranian news agencies released photos of a reported launch ceremony for what was reported to be the first new tanker built for an international customer..

https://maritime-executive.com/article/iran-plans-first-domestically-built-dual-fuel-lng-aframax-tanker

MARINE CORPS ESTABLISHES 17XX INFORMATION MANEUVER OCCUPATIONAL FIELD

9 MAR 2022 | Maj. Gregory Carroll

ARLINGTON, Va. –

The 17XX Cyberspace Operations occupational field is redesignated as the 17XX Information Maneuver OCCFLD today.

The Deputy Commandant for Information directed the consolidation of Operations in the Information Environment military occupational specialties into one OCCFLD resulting in the redesignation.

Aligned with Talent Management modernization, the 17XX IM OCCFLD formally manages thecareer path of Marines with highly specialized training required for space, electromagnetic spectrum operations, cyber warfare, civil affairs, and psychological operations.

“The Information Maneuver OCCFLD provides Marines the opportunity to continue doing what they are passionate about,” stated Lt. Gen. Matthew Glavy, Deputy Commandant for Information. “When you put people first and provide them the opportunity to pursue a career they are passionate about, they give back tenfold to the team and our mission of gaining advantage in the IE.”

The 17XX IM OCCFLD provides the Marine Corps with a deliberate, professionalized, and sustainable workforce enabling the Marine Corps to integrate information related capabilities, operationalizing information as the Marine Corps seventh warfighting function.

“Prior to the established of the Information Maneuver OCCFLD, Marines gained valuable experience and skills at a Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group or at combatant commands only to go back to their previous MOS causing us to repeat the cycle again, never getting Marines with more than three years of experience across information related billets,” stated Col. Jordan Walzer, Director, Information Maneuver Division, DC I and former CO, II MIG, II MEF. “The professionalization of information related MOSs improves retention and readiness by avoiding Marines with valuable skills forced into deciding either to return to their prior MOS or exit the Marine Corps to continue following their passion.”

DC I developed the plan for 17XX professionalization in close coordination with Total Force Structure Division, Manpower and Reserve Affairs and Training and Education Command to facilitate the implementation of the 17XX Professionalization Plan.

In addition to preexisting primarily MOSs across cyber, civil affairs, and PSYOP OCCFLDs, the newly established IM OCCFLD will transition existing structure of multiple Free Military Occupational Specialties to create four new Primary MOSs.

https://www.marines.mil/News/News-Display/Article/2961417/marine-corps-establishes-17xx-information-maneuver-occupational-field/