Environment

PlayStation, treasure hunts and natural wonders: What life is like onboard a giant oil tanker

Published

2 years ago

May 1, 2023

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An oil tanker being serviced by a bunkering vessel.

Courtesy: Hafnia

If you think that life at sea is like the movie franchise “Pirates of the Caribbean,” think again.

The movies, which feature ambushes, looting and a drunken captain, are far from real life, according to shipping veteran Ralph Juhl.

“That is, of course, a lot of bollocks,” Juhl told CNBC by phone.

For starters, the consumption of alcohol is banned on many ships.

But there is one similarity with the movie, Juhl said: the code of conduct between seafarers. In the franchise, the Pirate’s Code was chronicled in a book kept by character Captain Teague, and loosely followed by some.

For those who sail for a living, there is a similar type of agreement, Juhl said.

The crew on board an oil tanker operated by Hafnia.

Courtesy: Hafnia

“Seafarers, no matter where they come from — India, Ukraine, Denmark, the Philippines — there is this conduct of how you behave on a ship … You can actually endanger both yourself and all of your colleagues if you are not playing that social game, being on board the ship. So, you take responsibility, you follow authority,” Juhl said.

Juhl, an executive vice-president at oil tanker firm Hafnia, has worked in the industry for several decades, starting as an ordinary seaman — the lowest rank of sailor — in 1983.

“When you as a seafarer [go] on board … you are a contribution to the society and you have to fit in … there is this code of the high seas,” he added.

A captain’s life

“Pirates of the Caribbean” is a seafaring stereotype familiar to Hafnia’s DSA Dixon, who has been a captain for five years. Dixon — who sails vessels known as product tankers, which transport both refined and unrefined petroleum products around the world — had to convince his parents-in-law that his role was nothing like the movie, he told CNBC by phone.

“A lot of people have a very different representation of a seafarer, looking at Pirates of the Caribbean,” he said.

Captain DSA Dixon (in black) says he invents games to keep his crew’s morale up during months at sea.

DSA Dixon | Hafnia

Dixon might be captaining a ship such as the huge Hafnia Rhine, which is about 230 meters long by 33 meters wide, with a capacity of more than 76,000 deadweight tons — a measure that includes the oil cargo, plus fuel, food, water and crew members, but not the weight of the ship itself.

Where the ship goes depends on where the demand for oil is and Dixon has sailed to every continent bar Antarctica, he said.

Dixon aims to keep to a schedule of three months at sea followed by three months at home in Mumbai, India, he said, and he started his most recent voyage on the Mississippi River in the U.S., sailing to Brazil and going on to Saudi Arabia via Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, before returning to Brazil.

The greatest part of my job is I’ve seen things that an average human being might not.

DSA Dixon

Captain, Hafnia

Compared to someone working an office job, Dixon said he spends more time with his wife and six-year-old son, as when he is at home he’s “completely” there. “I love this part of my life, because when I go back home, I’m Santa Claus,” he said. “It doesn’t get stagnated at any point – when it’s about to get stagnated, I’m back at sea.”

High days and holidays

Aside from navigation, Dixon said the most important part of his job is to keep the crew in good spirits, as they spend months at sea together.

“We have at times, 20, 25 people on board, they’re all different nationalities, different cultures, different languages … our ship is as good as the people on it,” Dixon said.

There’s no fixed daily routine, Dixon added. “There’s no one way to describe life on board. It’s challenging of course, but the challenge keeps you motivated all the time,” he said.

Along with navigation and managing the crew, Dixon might be talking to officials who come aboard when the ship is docked or coming up with ways to celebrate religious festivals.

The engine control room of an oil tanker. Hafnia Chief Engineer Dmytro Lifarenko spent around six months on board during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

Courtesy: Hafnia

“Irrespective of nationality, or religion, people celebrate each other’s events or festivals,” Dixon said. “I even invent something like a treasure hunt on board. The ship is massive, I divide [crew] into teams … and let them find their own way,” Dixon added.

These games might sound “kiddish,” but they serve an important purpose, Dixon said. “These are grown-up men, some might be 50 years-old, and they’re doing this, but it’s the way to bond … we need to socialize and a happy ship is always an excellent vessel,” Dixon said.

Dixon makes sure the crew take Sundays off, spending it as they choose: perhaps playing PlayStation, chatting or sleeping. “I make sure there’s an excellent lunch,” Dixon added.

Traveling across oceans means getting to experience some of the world’s natural spectacles, with Dixon seeing the light phenomenon aurora borealis — also known as the northern lights — while sailing near Norway.

An aurora borealis light display in the southern part of Norway, one of the natural spectacles seen by oil tanker captain DSA Dixon during his seafaring life.

Heiko Junge | Afp | Getty Images

“The only regret I have is what I see I’m not able to share it, I want my family to see [things] at that very point, at that very moment, a photograph won’t capture it,” Dixon said. How did he feel seeing the lights? “You feel complete, I will say. You feel abundant,” he said.

“The greatest part of my job is I’ve seen things that an average human being might not,” he added.

Rough waters

Alongside enjoying scenes of wonder, life as a seafarer can be tough.

Hafnia Chief Engineer Dmytro Lifarenko is from Ukraine and was at home when Russia invaded the country in February 2022, fleeing with his wife and children across Europe to Valencia in Spain.

“I don’t know how I would handle … knowing that the bombs were there and I’m on board,” he told CNBC by phone, speculating about how he would have felt if he had been at sea when war broke out.

While his most recent voyage was five months long — sailing from Singapore to France and then Australia — he has recently taken extended leave to settle his family in their new home.

Chief Engineer Dmytro Lifarenko is from Ukraine and was at home when Russia invaded the country in February 2022. He has since moved with his family to Spain.

Dmytro Lifarenko | Hafnia

“I miss my family a lot during the voyage,” Lifarenko said — he and his wife have three children: a daughter of six months, six-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter.

“Being two parents for three kids, this is fine. Being [effectively] a single mom for our kids, that’s very difficult … to be honest, this is the worst part of the job.”

This is something Juhl is sympathetic to: “That’s a big ‘uncomfort’ for many seafarers, that they are now so involved in their family [while at sea], even though they can’t do anything about it,” he said.

The boiler suit dressed man with a big spanner — it’s not the sailor that we’ll need in the future.

Ralph Juhl

Executive vice president, Hafnia

During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Lifarenko spent about six months onboard, which is longer than his usual voyage. He said guided meditations sent to him by Hafnia were useful to deal with an uncertain situation.

“You keep thinking about the things that you actually cannot change, and that’s quite close to depression, but this [was] like a helpful hand,” he said.

But, despite some downsides, Lifarenko said he loves his job because of its variety. “You cannot say what is your routine, because the routine part is quite small. Most of the time, you are solving some situation, which requires you to use your brain, and you’re thinking, how to fix this … or how can we maintain this in a better way,” he said.

He has also enjoyed seeing the natural world while onboard, including spotting whales and sailing close to the volcanic Canary Islands.

Future sailors

Juhl spent more than a decade as a seafarer, starting at age 16 and sailing to places such as Honduras and South Korea, and becoming a navigator on chemical carrier ships before captaining ferries. He came onshore in 1997 and is now responsible for Hafnia’s technical operations. He described those onboard as “working their butts off.”

“They never go ashore anymore, there are terminals far away from cities and so on. So, this romantic life and impression of seafarers, it is pretty much gone. It’s hard work,” he said.

Oil tanker crew prepare mooring ropes to secure a bunker barge to their vessel for refueling.

Courtesy: Hafnia

This means attracting the next generation of crew is potentially tougher. “It’s a lonely life from time to time. And today you cannot offer young people loneliness,” he said.

Juhl wants to encourage more women to become seafarers and Hafnia is working on a pilot program to operate two ships where half the crew are female, to understand how the culture onboard might change, both positively and negatively, and how to solve that.

However, issues remain: Authorities in countries where women are discriminated against might not deal with female captains, for example, so Hafnia has had to temporarily assign a male captain for port stays in such places, Juhl said.

There has been internet access on board tankers for just a couple of years, Juhl added, and he wants to get creative about what might be possible as technology involves.

He’s especially keen for sailors to be able to communicate with their families at home, he said.

“Hopefully we can soon make holograms where the captain can go to his cabin with his supper, and then he can open his hologram and he can sit and eat with his wife … we have to think that way,” Juhl said. And new technology will mean seafarers need different skills. “The boiler suit dressed man with a big spanner — it’s not the sailor that we’ll need in the future,” he said.

Environment

VinFast starts US deliveries of its VF9 3-row SUV, and we got a quick drive in it

Published

30 mins ago

November 19, 2024

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VinFast starts US deliveries of its VF9 3-row SUV, and we got a quick drive in it

VinFast delivered its first VF9 vehicles to customers in Los Angeles yesterday, kicking off US deliveries of the new 3-row electric SUV.

VinFast is a relatively new EV brand, founded in Vietnam in 2017, under the umbrella of massive Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup. It started delivering cars to the US in 2023 with its VF8 mid-size SUV.

The VF9 is its three-row large SUV, which has been delivering in Vietnam since the 2023 model year, and also in some other Southeast Asian and a few European markets. But now it’s ready to start delivering the VF9 here in the US, and it started last night in Los Angeles.

VinFast held a small event at its US headquarters in Los Angeles to deliver the first 8 VF9s to the US market, and invited us out to the event and to have a quick look at the car.

VinFast told us that it currently has 36 dealerships in 15 states, with 13 company owned stores in California. So deliveries won’t just start right away in California, but other territories as well. However, VinFast couldn’t provide us an estimate of what the delay before delivery would be if ordering a vehicle today.

VinFast trim levels

The VF9 comes in two trim levels, Eco and Plus. The Eco model starts at $69,800 with the Plus version $4k more at $73,800. First deliveries will start with the Plus model, with the Eco coming a few months later.

But despite those somewhat high starting prices, VinFast is also offering a limited-time promotion for the first 100 vehicle deliveries to lease the Plus for $529/mo with $2,000 down. And since the VF8 has seen some really great lease deals, we could imagine the VF9 might get the same treatment after deliveries start happening in earnest.

The trim levels don’t differ significantly in drive capabilities, with the same battery and motor between the two. See the full spec sheet here.

The main differences are in a bunch of additional interior comforts on the Plus, like ventilated massaging seats, 2nd row seat heaters, seat and steering wheel position memory, rear LCD display, panoramic roof and a subwoofer. The Plus also has fog lights and cornering lights.

However, the Plus also has lower range at 291 miles instead of 330 miles, primarily due to larger 21in wheels compared to the base 20in wheels. Wheels can make a huge difference in aerodynamic efficiency, especially with different wheel cover designs.

The Plus is also about 100lbs heavier than the Eco, and can come in a 6-seat “captain’s chair” configuration, whereas the Eco only comes in a 7-seat layout.

Extremely quick first drive

We got a chance to drive the VF9 very briefly, but given that it was in the middle of LA rush hour traffic and only a few miles, this barely even qualifies for “first drive” status.

However, the vehicle felt quite spacious inside – as one would expect from a large SUV. We only sat in the seats for a few minutes, but the seat material was passably comfortable (not like the outstandingly comfortable EX90). The third row has a huge amount of headroom, but little legroom – you’re basically sitting on the floor back there, and it takes some work to get out of it, too.

The drive software does seem to have matured compared to the previous VF8 version I drove. That VF8 had horrendous throttle lag, especially when starting from 0mph, but I didn’t experience that quite so much here in the VF9. It felt better. They’re making progress.

The throttle pedal is a little weirdly jumpy though in sport mode, so despite that I set almost all EVs to sport mode and just leave it there, this might be a car that I’d drive in standard or eco more often. And hope that Vinfast continues to tweak the drive software to make it feel a little more refined. But that said, again, I’d like a chance to test this more and get a feel for it.

Power was good though not amazing, it’s a large car after all so comfort is going to be more of a premium than speed.

I like VinFast’s user interface well enough – it’s pretty well laid out, it doesn’t suffer from the lag that some other UIs do, and you can always escape to CarPlay or Android Auto if that’s your preference. Though the gathered media did experience some random faults on the 3 early-production press cars we had access to for the night, like a faulty anti-window-pinch sensor and rear hatch closure sensor.

All in all, after the relatively poor overall reviews for the VF8 and a middling experience myself when I drove one, I came away pleasantly surprised by the VF9, with a vehicle that was nicer than I expected on this very short drive. I’m still not a large SUV guy and would love to see some of VinFast’s smaller vehicles here (the VF7 is coming to the US, but I’d like to see the even-smaller ones), but as long as the arrow keeps going in the right direction and VinFast keeps improving, there could be a nice future here for Vietnam.

And that’s the thing… I really want VinFast to succeed. I like the idea of having another country join the international stage of auto manufacturing, and it would be great for Vietnam to gain some chops in the realm of complex manufacturing. The country already does well in textiles and electronics… but cars are a whole different thing. This drive was too short to draw many conclusions, but VinFast does seem to be improving from the short experience we had.

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Environment

Crude oil little changed after rallying on escalating Ukraine-Russia tensions

Published

3 hours ago

November 19, 2024

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Crude oil little changed after rallying on escalating Ukraine-Russia tensions

Croft: Enforcing sanctions will drop Iranian oil exports

Crude oil futures edged slightly lower on Tuesday, after rallying about 3% in the prior session on fears that the war between Ukraine and Russia is escalating.

President Joe Biden has authorized Ukraine to use long-range missiles to hit targets in Russia in a major departure from Washington’s previous position, according to media reports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday lowered Moscow’s threshold for using nuclear weapons.

Here are Tuesday’s energy prices as of 7:39 a.m. ET:

West Texas Intermediate December contract: $68.79 per barrel, down 37 cents, or 0.53%. Year to date, U.S. crude oil has declined about 4%.
Brent January contract: $73.02 per barrel, down 28 cents, or 0.38%. Year to date, the global benchmark has shed about 5%.
RBOB Gasoline December contract: $2.0133 per gallon, down 0.25%.Year to date, gasoline has fallen about 4%.
Natural Gas December contract: $2.950 per thousand cubic feet, down 0.77%. Year to date, gas has gained more than 16%.

Stock market futures fell on the growing geopolitical tensions, with Dow futures down more than 200 points.

Biden’s decision comes just two months before he departs office. President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on ending the war in Ukraine.

Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine roiled global energy markets in 2022 as European nations sought to end their dependence Russian natural gas.

Don’t miss these energy insights from CNBC PRO:

Environment

Xiaomi raises delivery target yet again for its new EV, as ‘demand surges’

Published

3 hours ago

November 19, 2024

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Xiaomi raises delivery target yet again for its new EV, as ‘demand surges’

Ford-CEO-Chinese-EV — Xiaomi SU7 (Source: Xiaomi)

China’s Xiaomi has reported a 30.5% growth in third-quarter revenue for its EV business, with the company also bumping up its yearly delivery target for the SU7 series EVs to 130,000 units.

Back in May, Xiaomi – the world’s third-largest smartphone maker – had said that it planned to build 100,000 EVs by the end of the year, with the company well on its way to achieving that goal. CEO Lei Jun said on his social media account that the company was bumping up its previous target of 120,000 of its first EV as “demand surges,” reports Reuters.

Last December, Xiaomi debuted its first vehicle, the SU7, which officially launched in March, offering three versions – Standard, Pro, and Max, with the Standard starting at $30,761 – strategically about $4,000 cheaper than the price of Tesla’s Model 3 in China. A souped-up hypercar version, the Ultra, has also since been unveiled.

Since its launch, the SU7 has been a hit in China and is set to easily surpass production goals of 100,000 units one month early. To boost that momentum, Xiaomi now expects to complete the construction of an expansion of its EV factory in mid-2025, which should ramp up its numbers even more – at least, that’s the aim.

In the third quarter of this year, Xiaomi has said that it delivered 39,790 units of the SU7, for a total sales figure from its March launch to the end of September to 67,157 units.

Huatai Securities has forecast Xiaomi will deliver 400,000 EVs in 2025, with its EV business accounting for about a fifth of its revenue compared with 8% this year, Reuters reports.

Of course, analysts have predicted the company would lose money on its SU7, to the tune of around $10,000 a vehicle, but the smartphone maker has a tidy cash reserve of $15 billion to help it weather the storm.

Xiaomi SU7 — Source: Xiaomi Weibo account

While facing plenty of competition in China from the likes of BYD, the company has, for one, tremendous brand appeal to the Chinese consumer, who are already familiar with its products and user interfaces. In addition to an alluring price point, the SU7 is a connected car that syncs with other devices. Compared to other EV makers, Xiaomi, too, has an edge on software and a jumpstart on autonomous driving, which it has been testing on roads for a few years.

The company says it plans to invest $10 billion over the next 10 years in building its EV empire, reports have said. By the end of the year, the company expects to expand to 22 sales stores, 135 service centers, and 53 delivery hubs in 59 cities.

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