According to the Chamber of Marine Commerce, closing the St. Lawrence Seaway in December to accommodate higher water outflow at the Moses-Saunders dam would cost the Canadian and U.S. economies $193 million/per week. The measure, designed to ease flooding in the region, would impact farmers’ grain exports, manufacturing plant operations and disrupting deliveries of fuel, construction materials and road salt for winter safety to cites throughout the region. The $193 million per week figure is based on Business Revenue Impacts of cargo transiting the St. Lawrence Seaway, and excludes cargo carried by Canadian-flag ships through the Welland Canal.

The Port of Halifax is installing a berth extension that will enable the it to simultaneously handle two vessels of 14,000 to 15,000 TEU. The project is on track to e completed by the end of March. Already the largest marine terminal in Eastern Canada, The South End Container Terminal extension will create a 52.5-foot-deep berth that is 2,890 feet long, up from 2,165 feet. Terminal operator PSA International has ordered a new super post-Panamax crane for the extended berth and a rubber-tire gantry crane to add to four super post-Panamax cranes already in place along the pier.

Western Stevedoring is making some changes to their corporate structure, introducing two new executive roles: Brad Eshleman has been appointed President of Western Stevedoring Group of Companies, effective December 1, 2019. Brad’s mandate will be to ensure that the management philosophy of Western is maintained as they position the Western Stevedoring Group of Companies for growth and success into the future. Dave Lucas has been appointed President of Western Stevedoring Company Limited, effective December 1, 2019 and will assume all responsibility in running Western’s core business entities.

The collective efforts of over 100 participating organizations has led to the success of the ECHO Program’s underwater noise reduction initiatives. The initiatives were put in place as an effort to reduce noise in the Salish Sea in key feeding areas for the endangered southern resident killer whales over the summer.

A tentative deal was negotiated between CN Rail and TCRC on Tuesday morning, ending an eight-day strike for 3,200 train conductors and yard crews. While staff returned to work on Tuesday afternoon, CN's normal operations will resume at 0600 local time on Wednesday, November 27th. The parties have agreed to no further job action during the ratification process, which is expected to take eight weeks. The impact of the week long strike resulted in temporary layoffs and severe shortages of essential supplies across the country. The new deal is said to largely focuses on fatigue and safety issues.

General Electric has named Carolina Dybeck Happe as its Chief Financial Officer. Dybeck is leaving her post as Finance Chief at Maersk. She will start her new role at GE in early 2020.

Bloomberg has reported that ships are queuing more than twice as long as normal to stock up on new low sulphur fuel Singapore ports. Historically, the average has been five days but it is currently taking about two weeks book a barge in Singapore as only around of a fifth of the 300 bunker barges having completed the cleaning of their tanks to be able to handle low sulphur fuel.

Spanish authorities have refloated a sunken "narco-sub" smuggling vessel and extracted 3.5 tonnes of cocaine from its interior. Though the vessel type is common in the Americas, it has not been seen in Europe before. The narco-sub was headed for the port of Aldan, Galicia, but was intercepted by an international law enforcement team from the UK, Portugal and Spain. The vessel sank during the interdiction attempt, and two Ecuadorian nationals were arrested. A third managed to evade capture and escape. Polica have refloated the vessel and seized a significant amount of cocaine.