Proctor in Admiralty

The CIA does or doesn't confirm or deny or both or neither...

The Central Intelligence Agency recently declassified records concerning Project Azorian also known as Project Jennifer.  For those who never heard of Project Azorian (including myself), it was a secret operation in 1973-74 to raise a sunken Soviet submarine from the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

In March 1968, a Soviet Golf-II submarine, the K-129, carrying three nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, sailed from the naval base at Petropavlovsk to take up a patrol position northeast of Hawaii.  The submarine along with the missiles sank in 16,000 feet deep water and all hands were lost. The sunken vessel was located by the US Navy using an underwater sonar system.

The CIA began to develop a plan to recover the submarine in 1969 and a special-purpose vessel, the Hughes Glomar Explorer was built at the Sun Shipyard in Chester, Pennsylvania beginning in 1971.  After a series of events, including cost overruns, union strikes and political delays tied to the growing détente between the US and the Soviet Union, the recovery work by the vessel commenced on July 4, 1974. Amazingly, arrangements were made with the reclusive Howard Hughes to use a bogus deep seabed mining venture as a cover story thus attaching his name to the vessel.

A portion of the vessel was recovered and brought the remains of the submarine to Hawaii for analysis.  There are varying accounts as to how much of the vessel was recovered and whether the US recovered any of the missiles, which they were most interested in. Many sources report that an accident of some kind, possibly a stress fracture of the lifting claw, caused more than half of the submarine's hull to break off and fall back to the sea floor, never to be recovered. According to many accounts, two nuclear-tipped torpedoes and the remains of six (or eight) Soviet sailors were recovered. Some report that as many as 70 bodies were recovered, and some believe that the entire submarine, complete with ICBMs, was recovered successfully. The CIA returned the bodies of K-129's sailors to the sea, with full Soviet Military honors, and videotaped the ceremony. This video was made public after it was presented by CIA director Robert Gates to Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1992.

The story was first broken in 1975 by New York Times journalist Seymour Hersh, and soon thereafter, there were numerous newspaper accounts linking the Glomar Explorer with a secret US government operation.

My favorite part of this story is tied to legal wrangling.  A Los Angeles Times journalist named Harriet Ann Phillippi, filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the CIA for records that might exist that would reveal contact by the CIA with members of the media to persuade them to drop stories concerning the vessel.  The CIA’s response was to refuse to neither confirm nor deny the existence of any responsive records.  This is the first known instance of the US Government using a “can neither confirm nor deny” response to a FOIA request and these types of responses are now commonly known as “Glomar Responses” or “Glomarization”.

Another Day, Another International Price Fixing Conspiracy!

The US Department of Justice announced that Parker ITR, an Italian subsidiary of U.S.-based Parker Hannifin agreed to plead guilty and to pay a $2.29 million criminal fine for participating in a conspiracy to rig bids, fix prices and allocate market shares of marine hose sold in the United States and elsewhere. According to the Justice Department's press release:

Under the terms of the plea agreement, which is subject to court approval, Parker ITR has agreed to pay a criminal fine and to cooperate fully in the Department’s ongoing antitrust investigation. Parker ITR is the fourth company to be charged in the investigation. To date, nine individuals have been convicted for their involvement in the marine hose conspiracy.

Marine hose is a flexible rubber hose used to transfer oil between tankers and storage facilities. The victims of this conspiracy included companies involved in the off-shore extraction and/or transportation of petroleum products, as well as the U.S. Department of Defense. During the conspiracy, the cartel affected prices for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of marine hose and related products sold worldwide.

This guilty plea follows several others by other participants in the conspiracy.  Previously, Dunlop Oil & Marine Ltd. paid a fine of $4.5 million and Manuli Rubber Industries, Trelleborg and Bridgestone have been caught up in the matter as well.

I first heard about the marine hose price fixing scandal in 2007 from a friend at a tanker carrier who was looking into a suit against one or more of the perpetrators.  While It is a truly interesting case and has embroiled several well known companies, it is hardly the stuff of the evening news or even the cable news channels. That got me thinking about the most notorious price fixing conspiracies (it didn't hurt that I just saw The Informant!) and I found this humorous look by mental_floss at some high profile price fixing conspiracies. The sheer chutzpah of these companies and individuals astounds me.

Pirates change tactics . . .

The U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, Combined Maritime Forces, issued a Special Maritime Advisory  June 9, 2009 warning shipowners and operators about changes in the tactics of Somalia based pirates. According to a press release detailing the Advisory:

Merchants are urged to use the weather to their advantage, planning new routing off the east coast of Somalia due to the start of the southwest monsoon season. The message further details the pirates’ extended range of operations off the Eastern Somali coast, stretching all the way to and beyond The Seychelles, with the use of “mother ships.” These larger vessels allow them to operate further out from shore, providing an afloat staging platform for their attacks. Another new tactic highlighted in the advisory is the potential move into the southern Red Sea. Finally, pirates have also recently increased their number of attacks during the hours of darkness, highlighting the need for heightened vigilance of merchant mariners during both day and night time transits through the high risk areas.

The Fifth Fleet of the United States Navy is responsible for naval forces in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Arabian Sea and coast off East Africa as far south as Kenya. The Combined Maritime Forces ("CMF") are comprised of approximately 36 ships from Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Pakistan, Canada, Denmark, the U.S. and U.K., as well as other naval forces and personnel from several other nations. The CMF patrols more than 2.5 million square miles of international waters to conduct both integrated and coordinated operations to defeat terrorism, prevent piracy, reduce illegal trafficking of people and drugs, and promote the maritime environment as a safe place for mariners with legitimate business.

400 Years of transportation on the Hudson River

400 years ago Henry Hudson, a Dutch explorer engaged by the Dutch East India Company to find an alternate way to the Orient sailed up the tidal river that now bears his name and found . . . Albany.  This week New York marks the 400th anniversary of that historic voyage with a flotilla of historic, reproduction and modern day vessels sailing the 140 miles from the mouth of the river to Albany.  There are numerous articles and accounts on line including this editorial from the New York TImes discussing the environmental reclamation of the river and this article from the Smithsonian Magazine online describing the construction of a reproduction of the ONRUST, the first covered deck vessel built in New York which played an important role in exploration of the mid Atlantic region during the early 17th century.

For more insight into Henry Hudson and his famous voyage along with the celebration underway, check out both Henry Hudson 400 and Hudson 400 plus NY400 and ExploreNY400.  I am sensing a theme!

2261 square feet of living space?

I came across an interesting post  by blogger Melissa Hincha-Ownby about the growing use of old shipping containers, also known as boxes (on the East Coast) and cans (West Coast) for constructing office space.  The author references the popularity of containers as a basis for home construction by citing the existance of a section of Bob Vila's website devoted to the trend.

The article mentions a new 12 container office building under construction in Providence, Rhode Island and also cites Shipping Container Architecture, a website devoted to webpage devoted to listing as many examples of the use of shipping containers as architectual elements as the author, Zack Smith can find.

My curiosty peaked, I found numerous other website and blog postings devoted to the subject of recycling shipping containers as housing, office space and hotel rooms.  Fast Company blogger Michael Cannell had a particularly interesting post with numerous comments discussing the design of architect Adam Kalkin. Kalin has designed the Quik House - a prefabricated kit house from recycled shipping containers. It has three bedrooms and two and one-half baths in its 2,000 square foot plan.

  

Given the number of vessels laid up around the world, the number of idle containers must be staggering.

Shipping Podcasts from Coracle

Just learned about a site promoting podcasts about the shipping industry.  I picked up on shippingpodcasts.com, a Coracle website from a tweet promoting a podcast from Maritime Executive Magazine about armed guards on US Flagged vessels, following up on my post from yesterday.

Coracle, a UK based company offers online courses concerning the shipping and commoditiy industries.  The course offerings include introdcution to shipping, specific courses in port agency, legal principles of shipping and dry bulk and tanker chartering among others.  If anyone has taken one of the Coracle courses, please let me know if you found it useful.  

Tweeting Transportation and Logistics

Earlier this week I promised a post on Twitter in the Transportation and Logistics industry.  What follows is a list (in no particular order) of who I am following on Twitter that post regualrly on transportation matters.  Please let me know who else you are following and follow me on Twitter @marcmarling.

@freightforum

@tradewindsnews

@lloydslist

@jtweed

@shipbroking

@clar_key

@csaynor

@eyefortransport

@orwellais

@logisticsnews

@ajot

@primaryfreight

@tweetgistics

@transportcargo

@jonesact

@joc_updates

@cruiselaw

@maritalk

Environmental Shipping for Earth Day

According to a press release in the Journal of Commerce, Japanese container carrier, NYK Line has released an initial design for its NYK Super Eco Ship 2030, an energy-efficient ship expected to emit far fewer CO2 emissions than current vessel design.

The design was created by Monohakobi Technology Institute Co., Ltd. (MTI), a wholly owned NYK subsidiary focused on technological advances in shipping and logistics, together with Garroni Progetti s.r.l, an Italian designer of ships, and Elomatic Marine, a Finnish marine-technology consultant. The Japanese word "Monohakobi" means the carriage of goods.

The press release, well timed for Earth Day, advises that:

NYK Super Eco Ship 2030 will make use of progressive technologies that have the potential of being realized by 2030. The power needed to propel the ship can be lessened by decreasing the weight of the hull and reducing water friction. Propulsion power can be increased through use of LNG-based fuel cells, solar cells, and wind power, all of which will lead to a reduction of CO2 by 69 percent per container carried.

 Comparison of NYK Super Eco-ship 2030 with a conventional 8,000 TEU container vessel is provided below.

|-----------------+----------------------------+----------------------------|

| | Conventional Vessel | NYK Super Eco-ship 2030 |

|-----------------+----------------------------+----------------------------|

| Length Overall | 338 meters | 353 meters |

|-----------------+----------------------------+----------------------------|

| Breadth | 45.8 meters | 54.6 meters |

|-----------------+----------------------------+----------------------------|

| Draft | 13.0 meters | 11.5 meters |

|-----------------+----------------------------+----------------------------|

| Main power|Diesel Engine (C heavy oil) | Battery (LNG) |

| (Fuel) | 64 megawatts | 40 megawatts |

|-----------------+----------------------------+----------------------------|

| Natural power | None | Solar: 1–2 megawatts |

| | | Wind: 1–3 megawatts |

|-----------------+----------------------------+----------------------------|

| CO2 emissions* | 195 g/TEU-miles | 62 g/TEU-miles |

|-----------------+----------------------------+----------------------------|

*TEU-mile: Unit for the carriage of one TEU a distance of one mile

MTI is working on many other significant projects including R&D projects for new lashing and twist-lock systems and development of a ballast water treatment system.

NYK’s design is the latest in a move by shipping companies to promote their commitment to environmental protection.  Other examples include the E/S Orcelle and CMA CGM’s Eco Containers.

The E/S Orcelle is auto carrier Wallenius Wilhelmsen’s visionary concept car carrier with a "zero emissions" capability which carries no ballast water on board.   The E/S Orcelle, unveiled in 2005 was promoted as viable by 2025 and uses only renewable energy sources, including the sun, wind and waves as well as fuel cell technology, to meet all its propulsion and onboard power requirements. 

French container carrier CMA CGM, has developed a fleet of environmentally sensitive shipping containers dubbed Eco-Containers which include bamboo flooring, reducing the use of rare tropical wood species, while improving technical performance.  CMA CGM has also deployed low energy reefer container (specialized containers for perishable goods, requiring energy and refrigerant gases), to reduce fuel consumption and Light Steel containers, manufactured from an extremely strong high tensile steel which reduces the weight of these containers by 1200 pounds and thus consumes less fuel, further reducing emissions.

These are all very worthwhile projects and hopefully we will see more development coming from some of the other shipping lines around the world.

Technology solutions to reducing emissions from vessels

Emissions of Carbon dioxide and other pollutants from vessels has gained increased attention in both the US and around the world over the past few years.  In January, 21 countries agreed to promote reduction in such emissions as a means to control global warming as part of the successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. In March, the US and Canada made a joint request to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to require vessels to use low-sulfur fuel or technology to reduce emissions within 200 nautical miles of the US and Canadian coastline. Of course, back in October, the IMO unanimously adopted amendments to MARPOL Annex VI which mandated a progressive reduction in sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxide emissions from ships initially from the current level of 4.5% to 3.5% and then progressively down to .5% by January 2020.

Now, technology may play in important role in reducing these pollutants.  According to an article today in Hellenic Shipping News:

Just a few kilometres from one of the busiest ports in the world, a Singapore firm says it has the answer that can help the shipping industry clean up its act. Ecospec says it has invented and tested a patented method that removes planet-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen oxides; sulphur dioxide, which causes acid rain; and soot from ship exhausts.

The process, which uses very alkaline sea water sprayed into the exhaust funnel to scrub out the gases and soot, has already been tested on a tanker and earned the backing of the American Bureau of Shipping.

The company claims to have received 60 inquiries from shipping companies since announcing the development of this product.  We will continue to follow the development and implementation of this technology on-board ships.

Slow the boat down!

The Wall Street Journal has a great article today detailing some of the cost saving measures being employed by AP Moeller-Maersk AS, parent of Maersk Line. Some of these measures include slowing vessels down to half speed (saving up to $5000 per hour in bunker costs) and replacing paper napkins on board with rolls of paper towels (savings of $70,000 per year).  The article also cites decisions by the company to avoid paying Suez Canal tolls and instead go around the Cape of Good Hope, saving $600,000 per vessel.