It’s Good News Monday!
This Monday, we talk about:
World’s largest crane ship sets another record
NY wants clean power for 1.5 million homes
Robert Allan over 90 years in business
Shipping’s switch to cleaner fuel
Shell helps farmers in the Philippines
Image Credit: The Maritime Executive, Heerema
Sleipnir, the world’s largest crane ship, set another record, the largest single-lift jacket removal. It lifted and removed an 8,100 ton jacket in the Norwegian North Sea. She offloaded the jacket to a decommissioning site in Norway, with the work being completed ahead of schedule.
According to gCaptain, “The job also set another record: during this project, skirt piles with diameters of nine feet and 80mm wall thickness were cut subsea, the largest ever severed in this way.” Sleipnir has a 240,000 square foot deck with two 10,000 ton cranes. It has set records before for services like placing a 15,000 ton topsides module on the Leviathan platform.
Check out the video below to see the crane in action!
Image Credit: gCaptain
Andrew Cuomo, New York Governor, is looking for 4,000 megawatts of clean energy for New York homes. Plans are for offshore wind to provide 2,500 megawatts with 1,500 from clean land sources. This should be enough to power 1.5 million homes in the New York area. Additionally, $400 million is planned to upgrade ports in the area to support offshore wind power efforts.
“New York is pushing to get 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind power by 2035 and eliminate greenhouse gases from its grid by 2040.” It will rely heavily on offshore wind power to do that.
Image Credit: The Maritime Executive
Robert Allan was advertising as an independent consultant in 1929. Since that time, 3 generations of family have grown the company for 90 years. The last 12 years with employee ownership and management have continued to grow the company to a global force in ship design. “Although best known for the extensive work done in the world of high-performance tugboats, the company continues to be actively involved in many diverse design projects, including research vessels, fireboats, barges, crew boats, wind farm vessels and shallow-draft push boats and barges.”
With a company of about 90 people, they are based in Canada but have employees in 30 countries speaking more than 21 languages. They are a highly diverse and skilled team that works well together. Even with the recent COVID-19 outbreak, the team hasn’t missed a deadline working from home offices.
After 90 years as a private company, they are looking forward to hitting 100.
Image Credit: gCaptain
Seven months ago, the United Nations’ shipping agency implemented new rules to reduce emissions. Technical issues and a potential rise in fuel prices did not happen, with the transition going smoothly. International Maritime Organization (IMO) rules implemented a fuel Sulphur cap of 0.5% compared to the old limit of 3.5%. It was previously expected that damage to engines might occur from very low Sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO), but it has been easier to resolve than anticipated.
The transition was partially made less costly by the lower demand for fuel during the pandemic, with technical issues with the new fuel also being less serious. A jump to gasoil was expected, but more people switched to the VLSFO fuel instead.
Image Credit: Shell
Since the start of the pandemic, farmers like Rachel Bogsit have found it difficult to get their food in the hands of the people who need it. Difficulties in transport to market and finding customers once there are now concerns on top of weather and pests. People were limited to leave their homes and had no one to sell to. Vegetables were not being sold, being given away, and even being left to rot.
“The Pilipinas Shell Foundation (PSFI), the social investment arm of Shell companies in the Philippines, had been working on a programme to teach farmers new methods of farming.” The foundation purchased food at market prices from 3,000 farmers. They helped transport the food to cities and with the help of organizations like World Vision and Frontline Feeders, get it to frontline workers. So far, more than 500,000 meals have been provided. The first delivery was completed in two weeks from the start of the start of the effort.
Below are some interesting statistics, taken directly from the article by Shell:
"How Shell helped in the Philippines (March–May 2020)
3,831,820 litres of discounted fuel provided to health-care workers and hospitals.
522,957 meals provided to front-line workers.
168 tonnes of food bought from local farmers and fishermen.
19,098 pieces of personal protective equipment donated to health-care workers.
11,750 households near Shell’s operations provided with food packages."
Smile, it’s Good News Monday!
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