The British Royal Navy flagship HMS Albion is in Helsinki this week in its role as the command vessel for the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) in the Baltic Sea. The British are for the first time leading the joint international exercise Baltic Protector, which also includes the navys of Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Norway.

Wärtsilä press release tells that the technology group Wärtsilä has been contracted by Sovcomflot, Russia’s largest shipping company, to roll out a Wärtsilä Fleet Operations solution for Sovcomflot’s fleet of Arctic shuttle tankers. The aim is to promote sustainable development, and to increase the safety and efficiency of operations in the sensitive Arctic waters. Wärtsilä will also provide a core solution for the company’s fleet operation centre. The order was booked in March 2019.

Santiago Gardia-Milà, President of IAPH International Port Association, knows the often difficult patterns of co-operation between freight and cruise ships from his hometown, Barcelona. In his view, however, both fit into the same port.

Maersk Supply Service has been awarded a contract with Chevron Australia which will see two of its newbuild anchor handling tug supply vessels support the Chevron-operated Gorgon Stage Two drilling programme.

PAO Sovcomflot (SCF Group)’s large-capacity  LNG-fueled Aframax tanker Lomonosov Prospect has successfully completed its first commercial voyage along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) delivering a cargo of petroleum products from South of Korea to Northern Europe.

Iona, the first of two 184,700 gross ton LNG powered cruise ships that P&O Cruises in the UK has on order at the Meyer shipyard in Germany, will cruise to Norway throughout the summer of 2020.

Maersk Line will this week launch the first container ship on an Arctic route over the top of Russia as the world’s biggest carrier of seaborne freight experiments with an alternative to the Suez Canal. The Venta Maersk, a 3,600 container new ice-class ship belonging to the Danish group, will leave Vladivostok in the next few days bound for St Petersburg, which it will reach by the end of September.