As U.S. Navy assets steam towards the Philippines to provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to the victims of Typhoon Haiyan, Navy hydrographers are busy charting safe passages through potential navigation hazards created by the receding storm surge.
 ‘USNS Bowditch’, a Navy survey vessel, was one of the first ships on station and began immediately surveying the approaches to San Pedro Bay.

“In many natural disaster situations around the world, forward-deployed Navy and Marine Corps assets act as first responders for U.S. relief efforts,” said Chris Kent, deputy operations officer for the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command. “Natural disasters can compromise navigation approaches, making it difficult, even dangerous, to access the harbors. Our job is to identify those hazards.”

Kent explained that the storm surge that devastated so much of Tacloban City and other areas around San Pedro Bay typically carry significant debris out into the bay as the surge waters recede. Additionally, powerful forces like this storm surge can shift ocean bottom sediment around, rendering existing navigation charts useless.

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Britain is sending the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious to help, Prime Minister David Cameron has announced.

HMS Illustrious and her 900-strong crew is now moving to the Philippines, equipped with a large flight deck, seven helicopters, medical and engineering capabilities, and the means to produce fresh water. Its helicopters will be used to assist with the distribution of food and water to survivors stranded in remote locations.

An Antonov aircraft has also been deployed. It will carry and provide 100 tons of airfield handling equipment to enable offloading of relief supplies at airfields and equipment for rubble clearance.

The UK Government had now given more than £20 million in aid in response to Typhoon Haiyan.

HMS Illustrious: Photo MOD

West Africa is experiencing a surge in piracy, with well-organised hijackers targeting the region’s growing oil and gas industries, writes national security expert Dr James Jay Carafano in ‘World Review’. Extracts by permission of ‘World Review’ follow:

Although efforts to combat crime at sea have been having an impact – for example hijackings off Somalia fell by half in 2012 compared with 2011 with only 14 ships successfully boarded – the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) reports a sharp rise in activity in West Africa in 2012 with 58 incidents off the Gulf of Guinea.

‘The most troubling aspect of these crimes is not the increase in the number of attacks and the spread of activity initially centred in Nigerian waters, but how piracy is expanding throughout the region,’ says Dr Carafano.

‘The Gulf and the surrounding coastal waters and wetlands include extensive oil and gas reserves, where petroleum extraction, transport and related activities are a lucrative target for personnel hijacking, disrupting activities, siphoning oil or stealing cargo,’ he says.

‘Furthermore, tanker traffic and pipelines are particularly dense in the area around Nigeria because the country is a major oil producer but lacks the capacity to refine petroleum products,’ he adds. ‘So in addition to its extensive exports it imports refined-petroleum products – all representing opportunities for piracy.’

The focus of the crimes is mostly in territorial waters. That means international naval operations would be less effective. And rather than a regional effort, anti-piracy operations will be driven by what each nation elects to permit and has the capacity to undertake.

‘The ability to mount effective anti-piracy operations is also hampered by poor governance and cooperation, and local politics,’ adds Dr Carafano.

In response to these threats there are efforts at increased interstate regional cooperation. The Economic Community of West African States and the Gulf of Guinea Commission drafted an anti-piracy code of conduct that was signed by 22 countries in June 2013.

‘While laudable efforts, these initiatives cannot address the core challenges within the states, particularly Nigeria, where governance, political, economic and security issues have created space for organised criminal activity to prosper,’ Dr Carafano says.

Read the full report at: http://www.worldreview.info/content/oil-and-gas-attract-pirates-gulf-guinea

Source: World Review

GE Marine reported that the United States Navy has ordered eight Digital Fuel Control (DFC) kits for LM2500 marine aeroderivative gas turbines. The DFC kits provide for improved gas turbine reliability and maintainability, yielding lower maintenance and reduced long term costs.

The eight LM2500s, to be retrofitted, will power U.S. Navy DDG Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. The DFC kits incorporate the most state-of-the-art controls available for GE LM gas turbines – a technology now standard on new LM2500, LM2500+ and LM2500+G4 engines. Previous-generation LM2500s use a hydro-mechanical control system.

Over the past year, GE has provided nine DFC kits to the U.S. Navy for installation on select DDG 51 and CG-47 class ships. The kits are part of a U.S. Navy ship system modernization program. The first LM2500 equipped with the DFC technology was installed by the U.S. Navy in 1994 aboard the Watson-class large, medium-speed, roll-on/roll-off ships. The DFC technology, as part of the standard engine equipment, also has been delivered to international navies for LM2500 gas turbines applications, as well as on a variety of commercial projects where GE gas turbines are used to power cruise ships and fast ferries.

According to GE, additional benefits of the DFC technology include:

• Updated control of fuel and air scheduling within the gas turbine provides more accurate fuel/air scheduling through electrical feedback and closed-loop control. In addition, fuel characteristics and variable stator vanes (VSV) positions can be recalibrated through the control software inputs.
• Gas turbine control sensor redundancy is available for compressor discharge pressure, compressor inlet temperature and pressure, gas generator speed, VSV position, and fuel metering valve position.
• Improved operator signals, alarms, and troubleshooting are provided by additional electrical sensors and actuator feedback. GE DFC kits also offer improved capabilities for data capture and condition monitoring.
• Improved engine resistance to possible fuel contamination through oil actuation of VSV and the fuel metering valve.

Primary DFC retrofit kit components include a fuel metering valve and two VSV actuators, both with redundant electronic feedback.  An upgraded engine controller and shipboard wiring changes also are required to incorporate the DFC kit.

ge.com