Naval-aerial war games

Russia has launched the “active phase” of naval-aerial war games in the Northeast Atlantic in the biggest display of its military power since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Eleven warships drawn from Russia’s Northern and Black Sea Fleets and backed up by dozens of aircraft began joint exercises in the Bay of Biscay off the west coast of France and the northern coast of Spain. This is the biggest exercise of its kind in the area since Soviet times. It is also for the first time that the Russian Navy has deployed a large presence outside of Russia’s immediate coastal regions since the end of the Cold War. The two-month tour of duty in the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic is part of an effort to resume permanent presence in different areas of the world ocean, Russia’s Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said. Last year Russia resumed regular global patrolling by its long-range nuclear bombers.

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SPC Norway Launches New Website

Shortsea Promotion Centre Norway (SPC Norway) announces the launch of their new website.

The new site provides users with a comprehensive overview of short sea shipping together with other services. This includes easy access to newsletters, calendar with upcoming short sea events and search engines, for example web-based port-to-port liner services. Mr. Thomas Saxegaard, Managing Director of SPC Norway, commented, ‘The website also includes a new action that aims to identify and hopefully remove bottlenecks in European short sea shipping and transport logistics. This newly created initiative, known as ‘progress’, welcomes contributions from all parties involved in door-to-door short sea shipping.’ Visitors to the new website will find the new look to be more users friendly and full of helpful information about short sea shipping. The site will be helpful for transport users and organizations seeking information about this modern and environmentally friendly mode of transport. Short sea shipping has a very positive business image. The site does a good job at describing the many advantages and features available to transport users that consider using short sea shipping.

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Maersk Line introduces a new BAF formula

Maersk Line introduced a new formula for the floating BAF (Bunker Adjustment Factor).

With the new formula, Maersk aims to provide a simple, fair, and transparent BAF for their customers. In addition, to sharing and recovering the extraordinary costs provided by the increasing bunker prices. Bunker prices have tripled within the last three years and bunker costs now constitute nearly half of the total vessel costs, up from 20 percent ten years ago. ‘Today, we only recover approximately 55 percent of the bunker expenses via BAF surcharges. This poses a significant exposure to Maersk Line, and traditionally we have tried to recover this via rate increases,’ says Vincent Clerc, Vice President for Pacific Services. ‘With Maersk Line’s BAF formula we will create more transparency, and the customers will experience a simple and fair way of applying BAF. The BAF formula has been built on principles that are common in other transportation industries like airlines and parcel services. In these industries, prices and rates reflect fluctuations in fuel prices, and customers accept this as part of doing business in an industry, which is very reliant on fuel.

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