Jim Wilson

Imagine it is in the evening, and you are peacefully sailing your tanker, which is carrying a cargo of naptha – a burnable, liquid hydrocarbon mix. Suddenly, there’s an enormous bang to starboard,  and a shock wave of force shudders throughout your vessel. Your ship has been hit by an anti-ship missile. The sirens blare...

Swire Group has donated A$25.9 million to support cervical cancer screening and treatment for over 130,000 women in seven pacific countries. In what has been described as the “largest single philanthropic donation in its history,” UNSW Sydney has received the funds that will enable its Kirby Institute to work with partners in Fiji, Kiribati, the...

New restrictions on a variety of ship-sourced airborne pollutants have been mandated by the International Maritime Organization. Entering into force on 01 March 2025, new emission control areas  for nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx), and particulate matter (PM), will be established in Canadian Arctic Waters and the Norwegian Sea. The Norwegian Sea is approximately...

Ballast water management systems generally perform well, a major international study has found, with kill rates in the order of 93% to 95%. While 11% of systems may fail at installation, the sources of failures can be corrected, the study found, as the failures were largely due to contamination from uncleaned tanks or non-treated ballast...

Electrification: it is (or was) an unlikely contender to help the shipping industry decarbonize but it seems to be developing as a viable solution for niche areas. Wilhelmsen Ships Services and Yinson GreenTech, the green tech subsidiary of Malaysian energy company Yinson, have agreed to build charging infrastructure for the “Hydromover”, which is Singapore’s first...

Tokyo Stock Exchange -listed shipping major NYK Line (JPX TYO: NYK) has announced several green shipping initiatives. New fuel test engine NYK has started operations on a test engine facility in Chiba Prefecture (to the east of Tokyo) to evaluate the safety of new marine fuels. The facility will help test and analyse new marine...

Major towage provider, Engage Marine, has announced that has continued its partnerships with the Karratha and Carnarvon Clontarf Academies, part of the Clontarf Foundation, a nationwide initiative that supports young Indigenous men through education, sport, and employment opportunities. Engage Marine regularly hosts groups of Clontarf boys and young men at its Dampier operations and on...

Chinese shipping major Orient Overseas Container Lines has done a deal with Seaspan to charter six new containership, each with a capacity of 13,000 TEU. With a price tag of 11.2 billion Chinese Renminbi (USD$1.57 billion; AUD$2.39 billion), delivery of the vessels is due from the fourth quarter of 2026 to the first quarter of...

Global shipping’s fight against invasive species transported in ballast water took another step forward recently. The International Maritime Organization approved 2024 guidance on ballast water record-keeping and reporting  (BWM.2/Circ.80/Rev.1) at Marine Environment Protection Committee No. 82. The purpose of Guidance is to help ship crews, and in some cases officials from port states, to understand...

Tokyo-headquartered and stock exchange listed shipping major “K” Line (JPX TYO: 9107) has announced that it is trialling “NexusWave,” an advanced communications system operated by comms company Inmarsat Maritime. “K” Line and Inmarsat describe the system as “seamlessly integrated multiple high-speed networks,” that “enable high-speed, always-on ship-to-shore communications”. The system is said to offer unlimited...