The Philadelphia Port welcomed the biggest container ship to ever call at America’s East Coast on Friday morning.

The 1300-foot-long ship CMA CGM Marco Polo is now at the Packer Avene Marine Terminal on the River Delaware.

The ship is humongous, 180 feet taller than the city’s tallest structure, the Comcast Technology Center, and longer than four football fields combined.

The ship has 16,000 containers, mostly filled with fruit and vegetables, such as clementines from Morocco.

According to officials, Marco Polo is part of CMA CGM’s NAMEX service, which is said to have an economic impact of around $81 million annually and offers 600 jobs in Greater Philadelphia.

Per sources, NAMEX would link the Philadephia Port with the markets along the Asia-Med region.

PhilaPort CEO Jeff Theobald said the ship is the result of many years of hard work and preparation for a new class of ships.

South Korea has launched a container ship that will promote autonomous shipping operations. The nation’s Ministry of Ocean and Fisheries described the ship as the first oceangoing vessel for Level Three autonomous shipping.

There are plans to undertake the first demonstration of autonomous shipping with this ship in the latter part of the year.

The country’s Hyundai Mip Dockyard Co. held the vessel’s christening event on Friday. The 1800 TEU vessel was named Pos Singapore. Industry sources say it will be given to Pan Ocean Co. by the end of this month.

The order for this ship was placed in 2022. It is 172 m or 564 ft long and is registered in Liberia. The 22,200 DWT container ship will be handed to its owner and will undergo outfitting and trials for the autonomous system.

The Government of South Korea emphasised that autonomous ships were the main goal in the Advanced Maritime Mobility Development Strategy, which was announced in 2023. The autonomous shipping project was launched in 2020, and the government gave over $120 million for research and development of these technologies.

According to the ministry, the ship is designed to function autonomously without any crew, and its operations would be controlled by a remote control.

From its designing phase, Hyundai Mipo and Pan Ocean completed the preparations for installing the autonomous navigation system, which would now be installed on the ship. The system includes autonomous navigation, communication, security technologies, and advanced digital agency monitoring systems.

South Korea has tested several autonomous systems over the last few years. In 2022, Hyundai undertook the world’s first transoceanic journey of a commercial ship using autonomous navigation. The system was installed on the 97,500 DWT LNG Carrier, covering over 11,000 nautical miles of the Pacific.

The trials for the new version of this technological system began in 2023 onboard the comparatively small 69-ton ship Ocean Nuri. The plan is that Pos Singapore will conduct its first trials on an international shipping route in September 2024.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has issued new sanctions against two companies for operating a tanker shipping over $100 million in Iranian commodities to China.

The companies, Kohana Company Limited and Iridescent Co Ltd, are registered in Hong Kong and the Marshall Islands, respectively. The transactions were conducted on behalf of Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL), which is aiding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and providing weapons, specifically unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), to Iranian-aligned militia groups in the Middle East.

“Iran’s Ministry of Defense is engaged in a series of schemes to fund destabilizing activities that range from supplying militia groups with weapons used to attack U.S. forces to aiding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson. “Treasury will continue to disrupt the illicit revenue-generation efforts that support these destabilizing acts.”

The action taken by OFAC is in line with the counterterrorism authority in Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, as amended. MODAFL was previously designated by OFAC under the EO on March 26, 2019, for its support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), a group that has been providing support to multiple terrorist groups since October 25, 2007.

According to the U.S., entities associated with MODAFL are involved in the production of Iranian weapons systems, including UAVs, which are often transferred to Russia or provided to Iran’s proxy and partner groups to use against U.S., allied, and partner interests throughout the Middle East. To support these efforts, the Iranian government allocates billions of dollars’ worth of commodities to Iranian military entities, including MODAFL.

In late January 2024, MODAFL organized a shipment of Iranian commodities valued at over $100 million to companies in China aboard the Panama-flagged tanker KOHANA. The vessel, currently eon route to China, is owned by Kohana Company Limited and operated by Iridescent Co Ltd.

As a result of their activities, Kohana Company Limited and Iridescent Co Ltd have been designated under E.O. 13224 for their material assistance and provision of financial, material, and technological support to MODAFL. The vessel KOHANA is identified as property in which Kohana Company Limited has an interest.

The three-year deal will look for optimal sites for solar generation and battery energy storage systems, and accelerate their deployment through knowledge sharing on the regulatory landscape and other challenges. The programmed will have an initial focus on Saudia Arabia, Senegal, and Egypt.

DP World has a history in the realm of solar power, from sponsoring solar power technical qualifications for women in Nothern Senegal to installing solar panels on its port gatehouse building at London Gateway and 157,000 panels across rooftops in Jebel Ali Free Zone and Port Rashid.

Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, DP World Chairman and CEO, said: "Our partnership with Masdar represents a significant step forward in our commitment to sustainable operations at our ports and terminals. By exploring renewable energy solutions, we aim to reduce our carbon footprint and drive positive change in the supply chain industry." 

Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, Masdar Chief Executive Officer, added: "Masdar and DP World are leading the way in the decarbonization of the company’s port operations and supply chain, to explore all options to advance the development and deployment of renewable energy power and storage systems in hard-to-abate sectors.” 

Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company has held consultations with carriers regarding the creation of the first barge container convoys sailing towards the Middle Danube and the Upper Danube.

The relevant statement was made by the Ukrainian Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development Ministry on Facebook, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

“Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company PrJSC is preparing to launch barge container convoys sailing towards the Middle Danube and the Upper Danube. The company offers the delivery of containers to the Danube ports of Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, and Romania’s Port of Constanța,” the report states.

The company has already started consultations with carriers regarding the involvement of the required number of containers to create the first convoys.

Currently, Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company has 25 self-propelled vessels (20 in reserve) and more than 200 barges. The ministry believes that the company’s resources and capabilities are enough to intercept the flow of containers by road.

A reminder that, since the Ukrainian Sea Corridor was launched, a total of 18 million tones of cargo has been exported to 32 countries, including 12.7 million tones of agricultural products.

CMA CGM Mermaid, the first of a series of 10 vessels developed by the container line with Chantiers de l'Atlantique and Hyundai Heavy Industries boasts emissions reductions of up to 20%, compared to VLSFO ships, CMA CGM claimed.

The most striking design aspect of the ship is its front superstructure, the first such layout in the CMA CGM fleet. The 204.29 m length and 29.6 m width are optimized for aerodynamic and hydrodynamic performance.

The vessels are destined for routes in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe and will add to CMA CGM’s over 30 vessels running alternative fuels. By 2028, the group said it will have almost 120 ships powered by low-carbon energies thanks to its over $15bn investment in fleet renewal.

“Between April and July, six of the series will join the Intra-Northern-Europe line to serve the Baltic and Scandinavian ports from the hubs of Hamburg and Bremerhaven. Four other ships will join the Intra-Mediterranean line between the end of September and the end of November,” said CMA CGM.

The design was created in close collaboration with Chantiers de l'Atlantique, and advanced from concept to industrial prototype by Danish engineering firm Odense Marine Technique. GTT worked closely on the design and conception of the 1,053 cu m storage tank and gas supply system.

The last vessel in the series is expected to be delivered with a 1 MW hydrogen fuel cell, one of the most powerful fuel cells on board a ship, when it hits the water in 2025.