GCT has reached a critical milestone in their efforts to expand Deltaport berth 4.  The Initial Project Description has been approved by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) and the BC Environmental Assessment Office (BCEAO). This milestone marks the entry of the project into the Regulatory Process and opens official public access and engagement with Phase 1: Planning. The GCT Deltaport Berth 4 Expansion project seeks to provide incremental, market-driven capacity in the Port of Vancouver through a phased expansion of the current terminal footprint, adding up to 2M TEUs of new capacity.

A US Presidential Permit has been issued for a $22-billion early-stage project to build a new rail line between Alberta and Alaska. The news was gladly received by Prairie politicians and the oil patch, who have been looking for new oil export routes. The project has been in the works since 2015 and has the backing of Alberta government, which is supportive of infrastructure that will move more of its oil, gas and other commodities to export markets. While this decision has moved the project forward, it is still facing many challenges, including the regulatory process in Canada and the US and raising financing in challenging capital markets.

Transport Canada’s Office of Regulatory Innovation is conducting a survey on regulatory barriers applicable to the transportation activities and their impacts on Canadian supply chains competitiveness, innovation, and resilience. The focus is on the rules, forms and enforcement & inspection processes that:

• Are imposed by federal and provincial/ territorial regulatory agencies; and
• Impact your competitiveness and your ability to deploy innovations that improve your transportation chain fluidity; and/or
• Impact your ability to respond to supply chain disruptions due to pandemic outbreaks such as COVID-19.

Members are encouraged to complete the survey at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NF6WR5Y.

The federal government has announced that Canada has joined the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People. Along with Costa Rica, France, and several other countries, the goal of the coalition is to continue to champion important work for global biodiversity. The target would be adopted as a part of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework at the 15th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2021. The framework will include targets to guide the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity around the world over the next 10 years. Moving forward, Canada plans to continue to work with both the High Ambition Coalition and the Global Ocean Alliance to advocate internationally for conserving 30 percent of the world’s lands and oceans by 2030 and the conservation of biodiversity.

The US Coast Guard has selected shipbuilder Metal Shark and autonomous shipping tech company, Sea Machines, to supply an autonomous test vessel to the USCG Research and Development Center. The vessel will be a 29-foot welded-aluminum “Defiant” craft, with Sea Machines’ SM300 autonomous-command and remote-helm technology offering a full range of capabilities including transit autonomy, collaborative autonomy, active ride control and collision avoidance, and remote control vessel monitoring.

The US Coast Guard issued a Marine Safety Information Bulletin (MSIB 19-20) to highlight several recent cyber events involving increasingly sophisticated malicious email spoofing techniques within the Marine Transportation System (MTS). The types of reported spoofing attacks included impersonating Coast Guard (uscg.mil) email addresses, and Coast Guard industry communications regarding Area Maritime Security Committee meetings. Computer users should be alert to suspicious emails and report suspected incident.

The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) has published its Annual Review for 2020. The Review explores, in depth, the significant issues faced by the industry in 2020, including the impact of COVID-19 and the intensifying crew change crisis,  efforts to de-carbonize shipping, implementation of the IMO 2020 Sulphur Cap and the IMO Ballast Water Management Convention.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has become the latest high profile maritime victim of a cyber-attack and has stated that cyber-attack overcame robust security measures in place and that  IMO IT technicians have shut down key systems to prevent further damage from the attack. The IMO is “working with United Nations IT and security experts to restore systems as soon as possible, to identify the source of the attack, and further enhance security systems to prevent recurrence.” CMA CGM on Wednesday said this week’s cyber attack may have caused a data breach and it's trying to gauge the scale and nature of the potential theft as it gradually re-establishes back office connections to the company network. As of today, access to CMA CGM’s eCommerce websites are still temporarily suspended but all communications to and from the CMA CGM Group are secure, including emails, transmitted files and electronic data interchange (EDI). Maritime and port activities are fully operational and alternative and temporary processes for bookings are in place.

China is requiring all ships calling at Chinese ports to ensure their crew have tested negative for COVID-19 if the vessels underwent crew change in the 14 days prior to arrival. This applies to all ships on international voyages, regardless of the vessels’ flag state. The new measure seeks to maintain the health of seafarers on international voyages and prevent COVID-19 from being transmitted through seafarers. Crew members are required to be tested within three days before boarding the ship. Testing must be carried out in institutions designated or approved by Chinese embassies and consulates abroad. The ship agent, owner, or manager has to submit the necessary documents to the relevant port officials two weeks before the ship arrives in China and a copy of the certificate of the negative COVID-19 test results must also be kept on board. Ships that fail to comply with the measures will be denied entry into Chinese ports and may face criminal prosecution if local COVID-19 outbreaks are traced to such vessels. This new requirement is significant an will cause disruption throughout the supply chain.

Royal Dutch Shell has set its sights on net-zero emissions in shipping. In order to achieve this, they have set several key actions, including: calling on the IMO to adopt a clear path to net-zero emissions in the shipping sector by 2050, develop to use of hydrogen in a marine environment, establish a consortium to develop and trial fuel cells on a commercial deep-sea vessel, develop a set of performance standards for application on future new-build vessels, and more.