The topics brought up during the lectures on "Improving Ferry Safety and Profitability in Southeast Asia" on the second day of Asian Work Boat 2013 in Singapore are indicators of how far passenger and cargo ferries have come in a figurative sense, but the topics are also indicators of how far these invaluable ships still need to go.

The world’s first LNG bunkering vessel delivered its first cargo to the world’s largest LNG-powered passenger ship, the 2,800-pax, 57,000GRT, 218 metre-long ‘Viking Grace’ in Stockholm’s central harbour last month.

The MV ‘Seagas’ had undergone an extensive re-build last year to convert the vessel from the 1974 Norwegian local car ferry MF ‘Fjalir’, after its purchase at the Fiskerstrand BLRT yard in Norway in June last year.

Vast subsalt oil reserves have been uncovered in Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico and west Africa, but extreme pressure and inhospitable conditions have made extraction a challenge. But with new advances in technology, these subsalt oil fields may well be the future of industry, reports The New Economy.

The London Olympics has generated a lot of action on the maritime front.

Competing national claims for sovereignty over the Spratly islands and adjacent areas of the South China Sea are both complex and politically sensitive.