Pirates attacked an oil production vessel off Nigeria in the early hours of Thursday and kidnapped nine Nigerian nationals, the ship’s owner BW Offshore said. The Sendje Berge ship was undergoing maintenance when the attack happened, BW Offshore’s Chief Financial Officer Staale Andreassen told Reuters. The Oslo-listed company said none of the people remaining on the vessel were injured. “We are working now with the Nigerian authorities to get those nine people safely back,” Andreassen added. The vessel, a floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) that can produce about ...

There has been a rise in incidents of piracy and armed robbery in the Gulf of Mexico over recent months. Armed criminal groups have been reported to target and rob commercial vessels, oil platforms, and offshore supply vessels in the Bay of Campeche area in the southern Gulf of Mexico. The US Maritime Administration has recently issued an advisory, 2020-008-Southern Gulf of Mexico-Vessel Attacks, detailing such events, and actions to be taken in the event of piracy and armed robbery incidents in the region. The US government is aware of ...

Latent cyber risk. That’s what we in the cyber business call a cyber threat that is undetected, unplanned and unanticipated. These are the cyber risks that lurk in the dark places of your networks and the exposures that you didn’t think about that come out when you least expect. Maritime has a lot of examples of these, such as when companies start connecting systems, devices and networks that were never designed to be connected. As fleets become more automated and digitized, we are connecting all sorts of systems—ones where cyber ...

In our 2019 annual report, Dryad Global posed the question that on the basis of current trends, could it be said that piracy no longer represents the most significant threat to shipping within the Indian Ocean? Since the publication of this report, however, we have observed an interruption in this downward trend of incidents. Six incidents were reported across the whole of 2019, yet by the midway of 2020 there have been eight incidents reported incidents within the Gulf of Aden alone. At Dryad Global risk analysis is the core ...

The U.S. government on Wednesday issued a warning about the threat posed by pirates to boats and oil installations in the southern Gulf of Mexico, in the latest sign of concern about ongoing security challenges facing Mexico. “Armed criminal groups have been known to target and rob commercial vessels, oil platforms, and offshore supply vessels in the Bay of Campeche area in the southern Gulf of Mexico,” the U.S. State Department said in an updated travel advisory. The overall risk level for Mexico remained the same in the bulletin, but ...

IMO is continuing to support work on information sharing to boost maritime security in the Western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. A virtual meeting of the Steering committee* of the revised Code of Conduct concerning the repression of piracy, armed robbery against ships and illicit maritime activity in the western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden Area (also known as the Jeddah Amendment to the Djibouti Code of Conduct 2017) was held (9 June) to discuss ways of continuing to enhance regional maritime security efforts amidst the ...

IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim has welcomed the latest initiatives to address the serious issue of piracy and armed robbery in the Gulf of Guinea, including a joint meeting (28 May) between the government of Nigeria and representatives from organizations representing the oil and shipping industries. In a statement, Secretary-General Lim said he commended the collaborative efforts to address piracy and armed robbery, which “send a strong and valuable message to the international community with respect to the considerable efforts Nigeria is making to curb piracy and armed robbery against ships ...

ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre yesterday released the situation of piracy and armed robbery against ships in Asia for May 2020. The summary is appended. The full May 2020 Report and a Presentation on the Latest Situation are available on the ReCAAP ISC website. Summary § A total of 11 incidents of piracy and armed robbery against ships were reported in Asia in May 2020 § Of the 11 incidents, one was a piracy incident and 10 were incidents of armed robbery against ships § There was no report of abduction ...

During the past few years, there has been a marked decline in piracy and armed robbery incidents off East Africa. This has been achieved through various means including the creation of the Maritime Security Transit Corridor in the Gulf of Aden. However, the threat has not entirely gone away and a recent incident has highlighted the need for continued vigilance when vessels are passing through this region. In mid-May 2020, a chemical tanker sailing through the Gulf of Aden came under fire from two skiffs. The attackers were successfully repulsed ...

The scourge of piracy and maritime kidnap is not a new phenomenon, it is its endurance worldwide that causes the most discouragement. In the last year we’ve seen several high-profile, sobering cases and Greek operators have not been immune. With the continued prevalence of these attacks, it’s critical to have strong communications procedures in place. Incidents involving the Elka Aristotle, Happy Lady, Minerva Virgo and Nave Constellation (to name a few) have brought the issue of kidnapping into sharper focus. Greek seafarers have sadly been victims, as kidnappers continue to ...

Korean Register (KR) has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) to conduct a joint study on “Ship Cyber Security Network Construction and Design Safety Evaluation” at the Marine Engineering Research Center of SHI. Under the MOU, the two organizations have agreed to evaluate the construction and design safety of cyber security networks applicable to new ships. In addition, they will jointly study technologies that can respond to cyber threats faced by ships, by diagnosing ship cyber security vulnerabilities using the cyber security test beds built by ...

ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre on 22 May issued the following Warning: 1. On 22 May, ReCAAP ISC has received information from the Philippine Coast Guard (ReCAAP Focal Point) that a group of approximately five ASG (Abu Sayyaf Group) members armed with assorted firearms is planning to conduct kidnapping activities in undisclosed areas in Sabah, Malaysia. They are targeting wealthy businessmen or crew of fishing boats and other slow moving ships plying within the waters off Sabah, Malaysia. The group came from Sulu and was monitored to have landed at Omapoy ...

Coordinator of Defence Media Operations, Major General John Enenche, yesterday disclosed that the Nigerian Navy intercepted a Chinese vessel, which was attacked by pirates, off the Coast of Cote D’ Ivoire. Enenche, who revealed this in Abuja at a routine update on various operations of the Nigerian Armed Forces, said the pirates seized the vessel and directed it towards Nigerian waters. He said the Navy officers through an opposed boarding of the vessel arrested 10 pirates, rescues 18 crew members comprising Chinese, Ghanaians and Ivorians, adding, “The Nigerian Navy was ...

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, is set to test the new anti-piracy law with the intercepted Chinese fishing vessel Hailufeng 11 where about ten pirates who hijacked the vessel were arrested. The vessel had been licensed to fish in Côte d’Ivoire. Vanguard Maritime Report gathered that the arrested persons are presently in Police custody in Apapa, Lagos. collaboration between the Nigerian Navy and NIMASA resulted in the interception of the vessel. Recall that President, Muhammadu Buhari had, last year, signed the Anti Piracy Bill into law which ...

In early April, eight armed raiders boarded the container ship Fouma as it entered the port of Guayaquil, Ecuador. They fired warning shots toward the ship’s bridge, boarded the ship and opened several shipping containers, removing unknown items before escaping in two speedboats. Nobody was harmed. Ecuador isn’t exactly a hot spot of global piracy, but armed robbers regularly attack ships in and around the port of Guayaquil. It’s the seventh-busiest port in Latin America, handling most of Ecuador’s agricultural and industrial imports and exports. Ships moored along the port’s ...