Issue 10

"It is pleasing to see both the number of ships with SIRE inspections increasing year-on-year, but even more pleasing to the number of times the reports used continues to grow with over 10,000 reports regularly being downloaded by users each month."

Director's Log

With our last newsletter of 2013 I would like to wish all readers compliments of the season and a peaceful and prosperous New Year and extend our thanks to all the member companies who have contributed to OCIMFs work this year.

December has been a month for reaching out to other organisations in the offshore. Representatives of several member companies, along with Sean Nicholson and I, travelled to Aberdeen to meet with operators and OVID inspectors under the Marine Safety Forum and the OVID team went on to the Gulf of Mexico to conduct training courses and familiarisation courses. OVID now has over 6,700 offshore vessels registered and registrations continue to grow. Not only are more member companies adopting OVID as a preferred inspection tool but we have the first oil port also to use OVID as part of their quality assurance process, full details below.

There has been quite a lot of external focus on ship inspections recently, to help people gain a better understanding of SIRE we have published a fact sheet on our web page. SIRE has been established for 20 years and has long been the primary inspection system for the worlds' tanker fleet. A critical element of SIRE is the systems' ability to share the inspection reports across the membership, meaning a ship can be inspected once and the assessment report used many times. It is pleasing to see both the number of ships with SIRE inspections increasing year-on-year, but even more pleasing to the number of times the reports used continues to grow with over 10,000 reports regularly being downloaded by users each month.

We are also publishing a look ahead to 2014, the dates and locations of all OCIMF committee and regional panel meetings have been set for 2014, they are listed below so please take note of the ones that interest you.

OVID's first port

Qatar Petroleum's Ras Laffan Port announced on the 21 November 2013, that as part of their continual improvement to operational safety in Qatar Industrial Ports, all vessels engaged in the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry in Qatar will be required to have a valid Offshore Vessel Inspection Database (OVID) inspection.

This new decree makes Ras Laffan Port the first in the world to use OVID as a basis for entering their facilities. OCIMF welcomes this move by the Ras Laffan Port Authorities, and we look forward to working with them on the smooth implementation of this new requirement.

The new rule will affect all offshore vessels from 1 January 2014 and will be in full compliance by 1 July 2014.

SIRE news

It as been a busy and productive year for the Ship Inspection Report Programme (SIRE) Training and Accreditation group. Courses took place across the word with 72 people attending new inspector courses and 152 attending refresher courses. The last of these were held in our London offices in early December.

The level of activity has reflected the commitment by OCIMF to maintain the integrity and credibility of the SIRE programme, ensuring the required number of qualified accreditation inspectors are available around the world in the strategic locations to help and assist member to arrange and conduct SIRE inspections.

During the year the auditing process for the new and existing inspectors was implemented efficiently for the inspectors to gain or maintain the required accreditation. In 2013 197 existing and new inspectors have been audited.

SIRE reports are regularly monitored and maintained in order that the members get correct and factual reports reflecting the condition of vessels at the time of inspections for them to assist in making sound business decisions. Through current implementation of SIRE report feedback system, the momentum of surveillance of reports and efforts will continue in the New Year. This is paramount to ensuring that the integrity and credibility of SIRE programme is maintained.

The Marine Terminal Focus Group

Left to right: Dave Schultz (Chevron), Raj Shetty (OCIMF), Zoe Wilson (OCIMF), Tony Pollock (INEOS), Tony Caldwell (IMT), Derek Thompson (Phillips 66), Clive Hurford (Shell), Dom Hardy (MIS), Salvatore Bianca (ENI) and Luke Fisher (BP)

The Marine Terminal Focus Group held its first meeting in our London offices on the 3 December 2013. The Ports and Terminals committee has tasked this group to ensure a smooth transition of the Marine Terminal project from the development phase to implementation.

During the kick off meeting, the group commenced work on creating composite guidelines for effective function of the Marine Terminal Information System (MTIS). Tony Pollock (INEOS) and Derek Thompson (Phillips 66) were elected chairman and vice chairman respectively.

Wind and Current Drag Coefficient Task Force

Left to right: Steve Banfield (TTI), Raj Shetty (OCIMF) and James Collett (BP)

Environmental loads, such as wind and current acting on a vessel alongside a berth are used by naval architects to design a vessel's mooring arrangement and by terminals to assess the adequacy of a terminal's mooring facilities.

The wind and current drag coefficients contained in The Mooring Equipment Guidelines are from an earlier OCIMF study carried out in 1985 and 1994 and were based on pre-MARPOL single hull form tankers. To ascertain the validity and accuracy of these coefficients on post-MARPOL double hull forms, a small sub group of the WCDC Task Force met to better understand the original OCIMF tests and compare recent industry technical papers on wind and current drag. The group has made significant progress and the findings will be presented to the Ports and Terminals Committee in May 2014. 

Competition time!

Would you like to win a copy of the Ship to Ship transfer guide?

We have a copy of our latest publication, worth £225, to give away to one lucky reader.

To enter all you have to do is send us an article or a (relevant) photo with a caption to be included in the January edition.

The entries will be put into a hat, and the winner will be picked at random on the 30th January.

To enter send your story and/or photo to عنوان البريد الإلكتروني هذا محمي من روبوتات السبام. يجب عليك تفعيل الجافاسكربت لرؤيته. before the 27th January.

2014 meeting dates

If you are interested in attending any of the Regional Panel meetings, please either register your interest via http://www.ocimf.org/organisation/regional-panels/ or email عنوان البريد الإلكتروني هذا محمي من روبوتات السبام. يجب عليك تفعيل الجافاسكربت لرؤيته..

IMO programme 2014

The 2014 programme is available to download here.