Virgin Voyages has awarded a contract to ABB for the supply of electric power and propulsion package for its three cruise ships.

ABB will deploy its gearless Azipod XO propulsion system on the vessels, which is expected to reduce the fuel consumption by 15%.

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The vessels will be powered ABB’s TPL-C turbochargers and equipped with two 16MW Azipod XO units.

The first, second and the third vessels are expected to be delivered in 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively.

Cruise Lines International Association, Europe (CLIA Europe) has entered a partnership with MedCruise to promote cruise shipping services across the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, Red Sea, North Africa and the Adriatic Sea, as well as near the Atlantic Ocean.

The collaboration will present standalone studies for the sustainable growth of the cruise shipping industry before the national governments, EU organisations and other key stakeholders.

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“ABB will deploy its gearless Azipod XO propulsion system on the vessels, which is expected to reduce the fuel consumption by 15%.”

The data related to the current trends, advanced technologies, reports and other statistics will be shared between the two organisations.

A joint committee comprising 72 members and 32 associate members from both organisations will be formed.

The EU has agreed to provide €9.3m ($10.8m) in funding to a consortium led by Ferguson Marine Engineering to facilitate the development of a new hydrogen-powered car and passenger ferry.

The funds are being provided as part of the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

The fuel will be produced using renewable energy, under the HySeas III project.

The vessel will be deployed in Orkney, Scotland, by 2020.

Rotterdam Port Authority has signed a cooperative agreement with Germany’s HVCC Hamburg Vessel Coordination Center at the Port of Hamburg for the exchange of data through a digital interface to enhance the operational efficiency.

The collaboration intends to assist the port terminals in planning their resources efficiently and support shipping firms in optimising their operations.

The partners are currently exchanging the data related to the arrival and departure of ships, through information technology (IT) systems, as part of the joint project launched in early-2018.

The interface, on which digital co-operation between the ports is based, connects the HVCC software with Rotterdam’s PRONTO platform.

IHS Markit and exactEarth have entered a co-operation agreement to provide a new combined vessel tracking solution named AIS Platinum.

The solution is designed to offer the geographical position of vessels worldwide to quant analysts, commodity traders and other stakeholders.

AIS Platinum is based on exactEarth’s real-time satellite automatic identification system (AIS) service and exactView RT platform.

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