Greek owner Delta Tankers manages to lift ship arrest, in deal highlighting the risks of doing business in Russia.

A new study to assess the benefits, costs and feasibility of implementing an emission control area (ECA) to limit sulphur oxides (SOx) from ships in the Mediterranean Sea will consider, among other things, the potential health benefits for people living around the Mediterranean as well as cost implications for ship owners. IMO says its Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre for the Mediterranean Sea, REMPEC, is coordinating the technical and feasibility study to examine the possibility of designating the Mediterranean Sea, or parts of it, as a SOx-ECA under IMO’s prevention of pollution convention (MARPOL) Annex VI.

The master of a small Russian product tanker was fined $34,200 at a court in Hull, England on Thursday for violations of the International Safety Management (ISM) Code.

Carnival Cruise Line has added another 20 voyages to Cuba from Tampa, Florida, in 2019. The new voyages on board Carnival Paradise are in addition to the 17 recently announced Cuba cruises on board Carnival Sensation departing from Miami in 2019.

Croatian investment corporation Kermas Group intends to buy Arctech Helsinki Shipyard (AHS) in Finland from Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation, USC confirmed to World Maritime News.

Keppel Singmarine Pte Ltd (Keppel Singmarine), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Keppel Offshore & Marine Ltd (Keppel O&M), has delivered a multi-purpose ice-class vessel to New Orient Marine Pte Ltd, a subsidiary of Luxembourg-based Maritime Construction Services SA (Maritime Construction Services). 

Contracts for the seventh and eighth ships for Viking Ocean Cruises at Fincantieri have become effective, and the company exercised the option for a ninth and 10th newbuild.

And so it appears Viking founder and chairman Torstein Hagen will realize his previously stated ambition for a 10-strong ocean fleet.