Tuesday, December 09, 2025
Media Kit
Keel authentication

Austal USA Holds Keel-Laying for its First Offshore Patrol Cutter

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HMS Lancaster

To Offset Declining Frigate Force, UK Debuts Unmanned Strategy for GIUK Gap

Published Dec 8, 2025 5:56 PM by The Maritime Executive

  To offset increasing Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic, the Royal Navy is rolling out a new plan for high-tech monitoring in the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) Gap, the line of control that separates Russia's Northern Fleet from the open ocean. The service is putting new emphasis on unmanned technology for this task, reflecting the age and uncertain future of its conventional frigate fleet. In a display day for media last week, British Secretary of State for Defense John Healey...

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tanker with suction sails

EPS Tanker Studied to Determine Results of Wind-Assisted Propulsion

Published Dec 8, 2025 5:02 PM by The Maritime Executive

A new study seeks to quantify the beneficial impact of adding wind-assisted propulsion to vessels while also establishing a framework for assessing the technology’s benefits in reducing fuel consumption and emissions. The study, which took place on the Eastern Pacific Shipping product tanker Pacific Sentinel (50,322 dwt), was conducted in association with the Global Center for Maritime Decarbonisation in Singapore.   The authors of the study highlight that one of the key barriers to the adoption of wind-assisted...

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container offloading to chaise

Retailers Expect Declining Import Cargo Volume to Continue in 2026

Published Dec 8, 2025 4:07 PM by The Maritime Executive

The National Retail Federation issued its forecast for imports through the first quarter of 2026, saying that it expects volumes will continue the year-over-year declines seen in five of the past 11 months. The retail trade association, while expecting record sales during the holiday season, projects that import volumes will continue the overall declines well into 2026 due to uncertainty over tariffs and trade policies. “Stores are stocked up and ready for a record holiday season, but there...

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LST-100

U.S. Navy Picks Damen's LST-100 Design for Marine Corps' Landing Ships

Published Dec 8, 2025 4:04 PM by The Maritime Executive

  The U.S. Navy has picked Damen's LST-100 design as its final selection for the Landing Ship Medium (LSM) program, emphasizing produceability and affordability rather than exquisite capability for the high-end fight.  According to Navy Secretary John Phelan, the selection is an "operationally-driven, fiscally-disciplined choice" that will deliver oceangoing, beach-capable cargo vessels to the Navy and Marine Corps on a "responsible timeline." A present this capability is only found in the U.S. Army's watercraft community, which operates a small fleet...

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Offshore

German offshore wind farm

Wind Farm to Power Amazon and Google Sends First Power to German Grid

  The Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm started feeding its first power to the German grid on December 3. The wind farm marks another milestone both for Germany and the EU, becoming the largest offshore wind farm in Ørsted’s German portfolio and one that has contracted more than four-fifths of its power with long-term corporate power purchase agreements. Located about 45 miles off the German coast in the North Sea, the project is being developed in a partnership between...

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Shipbuilding

Saronic

Saronic Secures $392M Unmanned-Vessel Contract From the U.S. Navy

  Autonomous vessel company Saronic has secured a U.S. Navy production contract worth $392 million for its Corsair unmanned vessel, a 24-foot speedboat with a 1,000-pound payload. It is the entry point for an ever-growing series of vessels in the startup's lineup, which extends from a six-foot mini-drone up to an 180-foot aluminum vessel capable of carrying containerized payloads. The contract was first reported by DefenseScoop in August, but the announcement provides additional details. "With Saronic, we went from...

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Environment

tanker with suction sails

EPS Tanker Studied to Determine Results of Wind-Assisted Propulsion

A new study seeks to quantify the beneficial impact of adding wind-assisted propulsion to vessels while also establishing a framework for assessing the technology’s benefits in reducing fuel consumption and emissions. The study, which took place on the Eastern Pacific Shipping product tanker Pacific Sentinel (50,322 dwt), was conducted in association with the Global Center for Maritime Decarbonisation in Singapore.   The authors of the study highlight that one of the key barriers to the adoption of wind-assisted...

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Business

Cargo operations at the busy port of Shanghai Yangshan (file image courtesy Bruno Corbet / CC BY SA 3.0)

China's Trade Surplus Blows Past $1 Trillion

In the first half of 2025, the Trump administration made an unprecedented effort to shake loose China's grip on the American import market, employing sky-high tariffs to deter importers from buying Chinese goods. It worked, but not by reducing China's exports overall. Chinese manufacturers are making and shipping more finished goods than ever before - but they're now selling to other countries.   China's trade surplus in goods has broken an annual record: Chinese exports exceeded imports by...

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