South Korea’s Coast Guard is reporting the rescue of 11 sailors from a small cargo ship that was caught in a strong storm south of the Korean peninsular. According to the report, the crew was safely aboard a Coast Guard rescue vessel less than two hours after the distress call was received.

The vessel, the 3,500-dwt Keum Yang 6 departed Gwangyang, South Korea with a cargo of steel plate bound for Zhoushan, China. The vessel was built in 2017 and is owned by a South Korean shipping company, Keum Yang Shipping which has a fleet of small cargo ships operating in the region.

The ship reportedly encountered a strong storm with 16-foot seas. Winds were reported at 35 to 40 mph. The cargo ship, which was 262 feet (80 meters) in length began taking on water and issued a distress call while approximately 40 miles southwest of Jeju Island at around 22:00 local time on February 15.

 

Coast Guard said the evacuation was completed in less than two hours after the distress call was received (Korea Coast Guard)

 

The Coast Guard dispatched a helicopter and rescue ship and reported by the time it reached the cargo ship it had a 25-degree list to port with water washing over the deck. There was a total of 11 crewmembers aboard, consisting of two Koreans, six from Myanmar, and three from Indonesia.

Despite the adverse weather conditions, the Coast Guard reported that all the crewmembers were rescued by shortly before midnight local time.

An investigation is underway into the cause of the incident.

The air cargo industry needs to step up its drive to digitisation to make significant progress, according to industry sage and former head of Emirates SkyCargo, Ram Menen.

He said the industry had been talking about this for years, and there had been some progress, but relatively little in the way of fundamental change, he added.

“There has been an evolution of terminologies like ‘last mile’ or ‘middle mile’, but the process is still the same as before. The industry has not achieved the level of changes that it could.”

Other industries have made more headway, he noted, such as postal and e-commerce networks, in terms of visibility and traceability of shipments, but this had been due to more advances in technology.

“We’ve been behind the curve in technology adoption,” he said and stressed that digitisation would be key to move the air cargo sector forward.

“The only way forward is digitisation. Take the human being out of the equation as much as possible and let the machines do the communication; that will create better efficiencies,” he said.

The industry is impeded by supply chains being highly fragmented. In the absence of communication along a supply chain, that would enable the development of collective efficiency, the individual parts attempt to create efficiencies for themselves, but some of these efforts may actually produce inefficiencies for the following part, and result in overall inefficiency, explained Mr Menen.

This made it critical to develop a better understanding of the interface points, and what can go wrong there, he added, and pointed to security and customs clearance as key bottlenecks in the process.

“We have made some progress there, but not enough,” he said.

A fundamental problem lies in different readings of regulations that govern the processes. They are open to interpretation, which results in different applications of rules in different locations. This creates uncertainty, confusion and an uneven playing field, as implementation of rules is more or less stringent from one location to another.

“All regulations are written down and manualised. When somebody is implementing, they go back to the text. That’s where different readings occur and you end up with different versions,” he said.

“People interpret texts differently, partly to make money. Computers don’t do that,” he continued. “If you have two machines talking to each other, you get a common thread, which means rules will be implemented consistently.”

Digitising the clearance process, which is repetitive, would allow it to be automated, leaving human intervention for situations where the computer detects an anomaly outside its scope, he said.

Artificial intelligence is all about data, so everything hinges on correct data input, and “the onus is on you to provide the right data”, added Mr Menen.

He acknowledged that there was a lot of scepticism about artificial intelligence, and about sharing data, but argued that concerns about information getting into the hands of the wrong people could be addressed. Companies use authorisation of access internally, so they can do the same externally, he said, adding that manipulation of data along the way could be prevented using blockchain technology.

He is looking to the up-and-coming people in the industry to drive adoption, noting that the younger generation has fewer worries about technology than current industry leaders.

And one further obstacle remains to be removed from the scene to enable smooth flow of data, he concluded.

“You’ve got to get rid of legacy systems,” warned Mr Menen. “You can’t build a modern platform on a legacy system.”

A meeting this morning between DP World Australia, the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and Australian transport minister Tony Burke has proved unsuccessful, and the port strikes will go on to the end of the month.  

Dock workers throughout Australia have been striking since October in a pay dispute against port operator DP World. DP world estimated this has cost the economy A$1.34bn. 

The meeting took place this morning and resulted in Mr Burke refusing to intervene, despite being requested to do so by DP World and multiple stakeholders in Australian shipping. This led the MUA again extending strike action to 30 January. 

Maersk warned customers today that port operations at Sydney, Melbourne, Freemantle and Brisbane will see bouts of two-hour work stoppages every day from 22 January. 

According to Sky news Australia, Mr Burke said: ““I’ve made clear to both groups today that I have no intention of intervening. I’ve made clear that I have an expectation that they will reach agreement.” 

However, he indicated that he sympathised with the union.  

“I think Australians are sick to death of having highly profitable companies say everything is the fault of them having to pay their workforce the same as their competitors.” 

The director of Australian freight forwarder Neolink, Sean Crook, told The Loadstar: “This is a situation that the government cannot avoid and have to get involved at some point. 

“At the moment, you have a stalemate between an overseas-controlled entity not budging, the union wanting significant pay increases and a government refusing to play mediator – all the while Australian consumers and businesses have to deal with inefficient supply chains and increased costs, which ultimately will not allow us to compete on the global stage.” 

Mr Crook warned that carriers were increasing freight rates, not only because of Red Sea issues on the Europe to Australia tradelane, but also due to the incredibly slow vessel turnarounds at ports. He said: “As inflation eases, I am concerned that an increase in costs, lower productivity and efficiency will ultimately flow through to Australian consumers at a period where the cost of living here is on the rise.” 

Mr Burke did recommend that the Fair Work Commission could aid a resolution. He said: “It is in the interests of everybody, that they negotiate and they use the Fair Work Commission to help them with that conciliation.” 

However, Mr Crook warned that even if a resolution was reached, it might not last. 

He said: “There is a real chance that, even if a deal gets done, we could see collective bargaining agreements expire in 2025, which would create massive concerns.”  

Australia’s federal government rejected plans for the country’s first wind port saying that it would have “unacceptable impacts” on the environment and wildlife and in the process has also created a major challenge to the first planned offshore wind farms. The federal government reached its decision in mid-December and it became public today, January 8, with both the Port of Hasting Corporation which was to host the staging and assembly area, and the government for Victoria saying they would explore their alternatives.

Australia has only recently joined the global efforts to develop renewable energy from offshore wind farms. The country went through a lengthy process of setting the regulatory framework before selecting the coast off Victoria to host the country’s first projects. The area was selected in 2022 focuses on a stretch of the coast covering a little more than 12 miles in the Gippsland region near the town of Golden Beach.

Victoria has a goal of developing 2 GW from offshore wind by 2032 and 9 GW by 2040. However, one of the many challenges was a review that found none of the ports in the region were suited to supporting the development of large offshore wind farms.

Plans were developed at the state-owned Port of Hastings which called for dredging approximately 227 acres including a wetlands area. They planned to reclaim approximately 70 acres to create a large-scale staging and assembly point for the country’s first two offshore wind farms.

 

Rendering of the proposed wind port assembly and staging area (Port of Hastings Corporation)

 

The corporation that operates the port highlights the Port of Hastings was selected as the most suitable area because it has a large area of available land close to deep water channels. It also has channel capacity and is close to existing port facilities. The wind port was tied to the first two projects off Gippsland and Portland.

“The proposed action is likely to cause irreversible damage to the habitat of waterbirds and migratory birds and marine invertebrates and fish,” concluded Tanya Plibersek, Minister for the Environment and Water, in her statement of reason for the decision. She specifically cites the impacts of destroying or substantially modifying the wetlands. She also cites that the dredging would disrupt tidal flow in the area.

Under Australian law, the decision is a final ruling without a means for appeal. The state government or the port operator however could elect to take the federal government to court, but that would create a lengthy delay.

In their application for the project, they wrote, “If port facilities are not available to support the offshore wind industry in time for the development of the first offshore wind farm, growth in Victoria’s offshore wind sector will be curtailed due to a lack of suitable port infrastructure. Further, delays in port upgrades will lead to constraints for offshore wind developers, ultimately reducing the volume of renewable energy generated through offshore wind compromising Victoria’s clean energy milestones.”

The Port of Hastings Corporation acknowledged today, that it has received the decision. It reports that it is currently considering options. Similarly, the Victoria government said it would study the options. Speaking to the local media, government officials said they would not be deterred from moving forward with the plans for offshore wind energy.
Among the options they can explore are revising the proposal to address the concerns and resubmitting it. They could also look to relocate the operation to a new location but that would also require submitting a new proposal for review. Media reports are that the Star of the South wind farm, likely to be Australia’s first, was also assessing Geelong or Bell Bay in Tasmania as secondary sites for construction and staging of materials.

Ocean Network Express’s (ONE) hapless containership ONE Orpheus (104,525 dwt) was forced to suspend its operations after the incident in the Suez Canal at the beginning of the month. The ship arrived in Turkey yesterday, December 25 after unloading its containers.

The company had first reported that there were delays in completing the repairs to the 1,102-foot (336-meter) containership due to weather issues in Egypt. Built in 2008 and operated by NYK for ONE. The ship lost navigation control and grounded in the Suez Canal after hitting a floating bridge on December 6. Claims consultant WK Webster in its casualty report said there were indications “that the vessel sustained a significant breach to the starboard hull above the waterline as a result of the collision.”

The repairs were reportedly completed and the ship departed from Egypt on December 17. ONE was advising customers that she was expected to reach Rotterdam on December 26, but then without further explanation, the voyage was canceled. Two days after departing from Egypt, ONE informed customers that “she will require additional urgent repair” meaning the vessel would not be able to continue her voyage as planned.

The trip was terminated in Piraeus mid-week last week. She arrived on December 20 and stayed till December 23 with all the laden containers being offloaded at the Greek terminal. ONE was planning to make arrangements for further transshipment of the containers from Greece to their destinations.

The vessel was moved first south of the Dardanelles and then made the transit into the Sea of Marmara north of Canakkale, Turkey. She anchored there yesterday, December 25. The reports are that the vessel will need to go into dry dock to complete the repairs from her incident in the Suez Canal.

Webster is telling clients that based on the decision to remove the ship from service for repairs shippers may see General Average invoked. They are warning that shippers might be required to post security before they can receive their containers.

There have been no additional reports so far on what caused the vessel to ground during the transit. The Suez Canal Authority blamed problems with the vessel’s rudder which led to the steering failure.