Caribbean Island News

Hurricane Beryl barreled toward Jamaica as a powerful Category 4 storm on Tuesday after battering smaller islands in the eastern Caribbean, and scientists cited human-caused climate change as the likely culprit for the storm's rapid strengthening.The unusually early hurricane felled power lines and unleashed flash floods. It has so far claimed at least three lives.Beryl, the 2024 Atlantic season's first hurricane and the earliest storm on record to reach the highest category on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, hit St.

Cuban state-run media said at the weekend that 90,000 metric tons of Russian oil had arrived in the cash and fuel-short country to help alleviate power outages and gasoline shortages.In 2022, Russia resumed some oil shipments to the Communist-run Caribbean island after they ceased with the collapse of the Soviet Union.However, according to shipping data no Russian oil left the country for Cuba last year even as Russian media reported in June an agreement was reached between the two governments to supply 1.64 million metric tons of oil and derivatives annually.Jorge Piñón…

An oil leak from a barge carrying up to 35,000 barrels of fuel oil that capsized in early February off the Caribbean island of Tobago has stopped, said the twin islands' government on Thursday.The spill, which was first spotted off the coast of Tobago's Atlantic coast on Feb. 7, damaged some of the island's mangrove and threatened its tourism and fishing sector. The spill also entered the Caribbean Sea, threatening nearby Venezuela and Caribbean islands, including Bonaire."The hydrocarbon discharge emanating from the overturned vessel located off the coast of Tobago has stopped…

Oil stains possibly coming from neighboring Tobago have reached the island of Bonaire, local media said on Monday, prompting authorities to begin organizing protection to beaches and mangrove areas.Since an oil spill from a capsized vessel was first spotted by Trinidad and Tobago's Coast Guard on Feb. 7, it has blackened the Caribbean nation's beaches and is threatening other countries, including Grenada and Bonaire, whose main source of revenue is tourism.Part of Bonaire's East coast…

The U.S. Coast Guard on Sunday said it had recovered the body of one person after a vessel carrying Cuban migrants capsized off Florida's Little Torch Key, adding it rescued nine people and was searching for five others. Survivors told rescuers a total of 19 people were originally on the homemade vessel and that four people drowned immediately after it capsized, Coast Guard spokesperson Nicole Groll said. Rough seas and winds of 30 miles per hour made an already dangerous voyage more perilous, she said.

A tanker carrying Russian fuel oil arrived in Cuba on Thursday, bringing supplies for the Caribbean nation's sputtering power plants and giving Russia an outlet for products shunned by the West.The United States and Canada have imposed sanctions on Russian oil and fuel over its invasion of Ukraine, while Europe and the United Kingdom are moving toward an end-of-year embargo on Russian crude imports.The Liberia-flagged Aframax tanker Suvorovsky Prospect arrived in Cuba's Matanzas port carrying about 700,000 barrels of fuel oil, loaded at Russia's Ust-Luga port. The cargo is worth some $70 million at market prices.The vessel is owned by a unit of top Russian shipping conglomerate Sovcomflot, according to maritime database Equasis. Sovcomflot is under British, Canadian and U.S.

A luxurious super-yacht linked to the owner of Russia's largest steel pipe maker, who is currently under British and European Union sanctions, docked in Gibraltar on Monday and was then detained by the authorities.Western sanctions on Russian oligarchs over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine have triggered an exodus of luxury yachts from Europe in recent weeks, with several heading towards the Maldives, which has no extradition treaty with the United States.Reuters TV footage showed the "Axioma", believed to be owned by Dmitrievich Pumpyansky, owner of steel group TMK, moored at Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory on the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula…

A diesel cargo sent by Mexico's state-run Pemex [was] due to arrive in Cuba's Havana port on Monday, according to Refinitiv Eikon data and sources, after Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador promised humanitarian aid to the Communist-run island, [Reuters reported Monday.]The Jose Maria Morelos II, a tanker owned and managed by a Pemex unit, is on its way to the Caribbean island after Mexico's left-leaning government last week announced it would send two humanitarian shipments, including food and diesel, to Cuba.Authorities in Havana have long said that a decades-old U.S. embargo on Cuba has caused widespread hardship on the island, where thousands took to the streets this month in protests.

Some of Royal Caribbean Group’s cruises will resume sailing in the Caribbean in June with vaccinated adult guests, ending a year-long hiatus brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.Adventure of the Seas and Celebrity Millennium ships will also have vaccinated crews and accept children under the age of 18 with a negative COVID-19 test, Royal Caribbean International and Celebrity Cruises said on Friday.“Returning to the Caribbean ... marks the measured beginning of the end of what has been a uniquely challenging time for everyone…

Carnival Corp reported a bigger-than-expected preliminary fourth-quarter net loss on Monday as the cruise operator’s business was brought to a virtual standstill by the COVID-19 pandemic.The world’s largest cruise company’s shares fell 2% to $20.04 in morning trading, after plummeting nearly 60% over the last year as the health crisis hammered holiday tourism demand across the globe.Carnival, which extended its pause on U.S. cruise operations until March 31, said it was working to bring all its ships back in service by the end of the year.

Cash-strapped Cuba has canceled its annual international trade and investment fair slated for November due to the pandemic, state-run media reported on Friday, even as fallout from the novel coronavirus hammers revenues and imports.Container traffic at the port of Mariel, responsible for 90% of containers entering the country, was down between 20% and 25% through May, compared with the same period last year, according to a shipping source with access to the data.Cuba does not reveal key economic information in a timely manner…

U.S. refiner Citgo said the Gerd Knutsen oil tanker, which had been carrying crude claimed by both the company and Venezuelan parent PDVSA, departed Venezuela's Jose Terminal on Thursday and entered international waters on Friday morning.The tanker over the past week discharged its 1 million barrel cargo, worth some $57 million, in Venezuela after being stranded for over a year off the South American country's coast amid fallout over U.S. sanctions on PDVSA, designed to force out socialist President Nicolas Maduro.The tanker discharged after Citgo, now controlled by the Venezuelan opposition, sought an order from a U.S. court seeking to block the tanker from returning its cargo to PDVSA.

The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has issued the order granting authorization for siting and constructing of the proposed on-water Jacksonville liquefied natural gas (LNG) Export Facility, developer Eagle LNG Partners LLC announced.The LNG export facility and terminal, planned in Jacksonville, Florida, will have a production capacity of approximately 1.65 million LNG-gallons per day with 12 million LNG-gallons of storage plus marine- and truck-loading capabilities located on-site.“The FERC authorization for Eagle LNG’s Jacksonville LNG Export facility has been many years and countless hours in the making. As one of only a handful of greenfield LNG project proponents to obtain their FERC Order…

Health officials for the Caribbean island of St. Lucia furnished 100 free doses of measles vaccine to a Church of Scientology cruise ship placed under quarantine in port after the highly contagious disease was diagnosed on board, the island's chief medical officer said on Thursday.St. Lucia health officials have confirmed one case of measles aboard the ship that has been docked in a port near the island nation's capital Castries since Tuesday, Dr. Merlene Frederick-James said in a video statement."The confirmed case as well as other crew members are presently stable but remain under surveillance by the ship's doctor," Frederick-James said, noting the incubation period of measles is 10 to 12 days before symptoms appear.The St.

At least 21 Venezuelans were missing after their boat sank on the way to the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday, citing information from that country's coast guard.The boat, the “Jhonnaly Jose”, was carrying at least 25 people from the Venezuelan coastal town of Guiria when it capsized in the early hours of Wednesday, UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch told a regular U.N. briefing in Geneva."This tragic incident highlights the extreme risks of sea journeys and other irregular cross-border movements undertaken by refugees and migrants.

Wartsila has won a 6 MW energy storage project contract for the Caribbean island of Bonaire from ContourGlobal Bonaire, a subsidiary of London based ContourGlobal.The engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) hybrid energy project includes both the hardware, consisting of batteries and inverters, as well as GEMS, the energy management software from Greensmith Energy, a Wartsila company."The energy storage system will enable Bonaire, part of the Netherlands Antilles, to increase its use of renewable energy such as wind and solar. In order to integrate more renewable energy and its intermittent nature, the Wärtsilä energy storage solution will provide the grid stability and reliability required for the island…

Damen Shiprepair Curaçao (DSCu) commissioned its floating D-dock on November 22, making both of its floating docks operational."Following the mooring of D-dock to her moorings on Friday, November 16th, final tests were carried out and D-dock was submerged onto the equalised seabed, ready for the first visiting vessel the Jara," said a press release from the ship repair yard.It said that the vessel is a Damen ASD Tug 3110 (L 30.82m x W 9.40m x D 4.08m) owned by Citgo Aruba.The commissioning of the D-dock is another historic milestone for DSCu and one that the yard is extremely proud of. Only recently, on the 2nd of November, DSCu commissioned its Panamax C-dock…

Damen Shiprepair Curaçao (DSCu), has on November 2, commissioned its large floating C dock. After the final tests had been carried out in the morning, the C Dock was submerged onto the equalized seabed.DSCu Nautical department, with the help of local KTK pilots and tugs subsequently docked the first commercial ship, a 63,400 tonnes deadweight bulkcarrier, thus putting the C dock into service.Lodewijk Franken, DSCu’s managing director commented about the 230 by 45 metres Panamax-class dock: “It is highly rewarding to see the yard’s infrastructure today…

Venezuela's crude exports to the United States declined to 494,400 barrels per day (bpd) in July after rising the prior three months, showing the impact of asset seizures against state-run oil firm PDVSA, according to Thomson Reuters data.July was the first month crude exports fell below 500,000 bpd since the months of January through March.U.S. oil producer ConocoPhillips in May began seizing PDVSA's overseas assets in an attempt to collect on a $2 billion arbitration award.

Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA has limited the damage from an unprecedented slump in crude exports by transferring oil between tankers at sea and loading vessels in neighboring Cuba to avoid asset seizures.But the OPEC member nation is still fulfilling less than 60 percent of its obligations under supply deals with customers.Venezuela has been pumping oil this year at the lowest rate in three decades after years of underinvestment and a mass exodus of workers. The state…

Shipments of gasoline and diesel into Puerto Rico have resumed after Hurricane Maria, with ports restarting operations, though there were still long fuel lines around the island on Thursday, according to traders and Thomson Reuters tracking data. Residents lined up for diesel for power generators and to fill cars with gasoline, while at least one tanker discharged at the port of San Juan as oil terminals reopened some facilities. The territory still faces logistical hurdles to distribute food, fuel and water. Critics called for more resources and a single authority to oversee relief efforts. Most of the Caribbean island's 3.4 million people still lacked electricity. Gasoline stations have been unable to remain open for more than a few hours at a time, the U.S.

At least half of Puerto Rico's island without power; storm likely to hit Florida Saturday or Sunday. Hurricane Irma killed eight people on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin and left Barbuda devastated on Thursday as one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century took aim at Florida. Television footage of the Franco-Dutch island of Saint Martin showed a damaged marina with boats tossed into piles, submerged streets and flooded homes. Power was knocked out on Saint Martin, Saint Barthelemy and in parts of the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. "It is an enormous disaster, 95 percent of the island is destroyed. I am in shock," Daniel Gibbs, chairman of a local council on Saint Martin, told Radio Caribbean International.

In the scorching heat of the Caribbean Sea, workers in scuba suits scrub crude oil by hand from the hull of the Caspian Galaxy, a tanker so filthy it can't set sail in international waters. The vessel is among many that are constantly contaminated at two major export terminals where they load crude from Venezuela's state-run oil company, PDVSA. The water here has an oily sheen from leaks in the rusty pipelines under the surface. That means the tankers have to be cleaned before traveling to many foreign ports, which won't admit crude-stained ships for fear of environmental damage to their harbors, port facilities or other vessels. The…