"On the last day of May we bid a fond farewell to Sean Nicholson who has been our Technical Adviser (Offshore) for the past three years. Sean returns to a new role in Chevron and I am certain all members active in Offshore matters in OCIMF will join me in thanking Sean for his dedication, enthusiasm and hard work during his time in OCIMF."
Director’s Log
Welcome to the May edition of the OCIMF newsletter. May is always a busy month, the OCIMF Principal Committee meetings are in full swing and there is an equally demanding schedule at the IMO.
This year has been no exception with the Ports and Terminals Committee (PTC), the Middle East and Africa Regional Panel, the Committee Chairs Coordination and the Legal Committee all meeting this month. At IMO Legal, IOPC Funds and the eight day Marine Safety Committee meeting dominated the agenda whilst in addition the United Nations Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS) held both Plenary and working group meetings in New York.
Voluntary Reporting to the newly established Maritime Trade Information Sharing Centre for the Gulf of Guinea is gradually increasing and a number of organisations engaged in improving maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea reached out to engage with the Centre.
On the IT front phase one of the roll out of new SharePoint to the secretariat was completed smoothly and after thorough testing and data migration phase two will be to migrate members from the current system. We also demonstrated the functionality of the newly developed incident reporting system to a section of the SIRE focus group. The system has been designed to provide a single repository to streamline access to incident reports to members using the SIRE system.
May also saw some staff changes at the Secretariat, Rachel Capeless commenced her maternity leave and we welcomed Nicki O’Keeffe who will be providing administration support to the technical advisers during Rachel’s absence.
We also welcomed Russell Pegg into the secretariat and the Technical Adviser Maritime Security post which has been vacant for some months. On the last day of May we bid a fond farewell to Sean Nicholson who has been our Technical Adviser (Offshore) for the past three years. Sean returns to a new role in Chevron and I am certain all members active in Offshore matters in OCIMF will join me in thanking Sean for his dedication, enthusiasm and hard work during his time in OCIMF. Sean’s successor has yet to be finalised.
Enjoy this month’s edition of the Newsletter.
Captain David Cotterell
News from the IMO
The 93rd Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) meeting, which was held at the end of May, was mainly focused on the Polar Code and Passenger ship safety.
The major achievement for the Polar Code was to get the applications in place from SOLAS that will govern the Code itself. This will form a new SOLAS Chapter XIV.
For the text of the Code itself, big improvements have been agreed including:
- The Index will be sorted by the drafting group at MSC 94.
- MARPOL was not discussed, but as a result of MEPC 66 the Polar Code will be subjected to MARPOL amendments in addition to the new SOLAS chapter.
- The short operational chapter (formally chapter 7) has been removed as the content is covered by the ILO MLC. The Code chapters will require renumbering at MSC94.
The other big news included:
- The final adoption of the new rule on fitting fixed IGS on tankers from 8,000 dwt. After lengthy discussion mainly on the small chemical tankers the text was approved with minor and clerical changes. It will normally be published in a future Resolution MSC 365(93). The FSS and IBC Codes have been amended accordingly. These amendments will be deemed to have been accepted on 1 July 2015 and enter into force on 1 January 2016
- Clarification on the ban of blending of cargo during sea voyage. Here again the discussion was quite long and it was decided that the clarifications was necessary and will be discussed at next sub-committee PPR.2, as wished by OCIMF.
The IMO’s full report on the MSC is available here.
At the Ports and Terminals committee
The Ports and Terminals Committee (PTC) met on the 13-14 May 2014 for its 80th meeting.
Twenty member companies participated in the meeting, and the highlights of the meetings included the approval of the final draft of the Competency Assessment Guidelines for Mooring, Loading and Lightering Masters which has moved on to the publications process with expected release in Q3 2014.
Progress has been made in a number of focus and working groups, in particular the Tanker Manifolds and Associated Equipment which is nearing completion, and the Ship to Ship Focus Group. The next PTC meeting will be held in Singapore on the 28-29 October 2014.
In the picture:
Top row (left to right) Andrey Tereshchenko (Primorsk Oil Terminal), Salvatore Bianca (ENI), Andy Glass - BP (Vice Chairman), Luciano Maldonado (Petrobras), Anibal Fernandes (Petrobras), Dominic Hardy (MIS), Bill Crabbs - Phillips 66 (Chairman), Masaud Ghamdi (Saudi Aramco), Frank Jan Thijssen (Vopak) and Tim Coombs (Chevron).
Bottom row (left to right) Raj Shetty (OCIMF), Chris Brown (OCIMF), Patrick Vantenat (Total), Anuj Gupta (IMT), Famous Najomoh (Nigeria LNG), Anthony Pollock (INEOS), Arjan Maijenburg (Shell), Syed Ali (ENOC), William Asante (Exxon Mobil), Rakesh Dhir (Conoco Phillips), Eric Vincent (Hess Corporation) and Andrew Dogherty (BG).
The Ship to Ship focus group
The ship to ship (STS) focus group had its second meeting in Houston on the 30 April 2014.
The group reviewed STS related matters including fatigue during STS operations, weather parameters for STS operations, hose service life and retirement policy, double banking and simultaneous operations.
New team member – Technical Adviser Maritime Security
Maritime Security remains a key topic for the Forum and as reported in recent newsletters, we continue to see a growth in criminal and illegal maritime activity affecting the safety and security of our seafarers.
To improve service to the membership, we are pleased to welcome Russell Pegg to the OCIMF Secretariat. Russell has a strong pedigree of maritime experience across many levels of international governance and fills the Maritime Security role to provide maritime security expertise and advice in order to maximise the contribution and influence of OCIMF.
Russell can be contacted by email
Russell Pegg
Technical Adviser, Maritime Security
Middle East and Africa Regional Panel
Around 50 delegates attended the second Middle East and Africa Regional Panel (MEARP) which took place on the 15 May in Dubai. It followed the Ports and Terminals Committee (PTC) meeting (see above) which had been held earlier that week.
The panel included PTC chairman Bill Crabbs (Phillips 66), Regional Champion Waddah Ghanem (ENOC) and discussion included the lack of incident reporting and transparency in the marine industry - which struck a chord with the audience and a lengthy discussion followed. Improving standards at terminals was also discussed in detail, with the audience benefitting from the presence of the PTC members who contributed with their experience.
Capt. Shaikh Rahim (OCIMF Compliance Manager SIRE and OVID) gave an update on compliance matters. He spoke about progress on the SIRE/OVID Report Feedback system and the expectations on inspectors with regards to behaviour and ethics. He encouraged OCIMF members to use the report feedback facility to report any concerns with the reports.
The afternoon sessions allowed the three work streams to work in more detail on the issues facing members in the region.
The terminal work stream was chaired by Mr. Syed Ali (ENOC). The meeting was attended by 14 members from companies – ENOC, Qatar Petroleum Corp, Saudi Aramco, Petrobras, Phillips 66, TOTAL, Nigeria LNG, Shell, BG, Ineos, ENI, Chevron. The work group discussed number of regional issues including the promotion of MTIS to terminals particularly those operated by Local and National authorities.
The shipping work stream, led by Chairman Mohamed Khalaf (ADNOC) and Vice Chairman Ahmed Salem Al Shawi (ENOC) spent the afternoon session reviewing and prioritising regional issues. Representatives from Chevron, ENOC, ADNOC, SAMREF and BIECO participated in the discussions.
A wide range of topics reflected the dynamic nature of the region and included security, piracy, use of inert gas, crew competency and fatigue.
Ultimately, in response to several serious incidents in the region, the group identified a need to explore safety during afloat repairs (at anchor, etc.). This type of repair work sometimes includes large numbers of contractors, often lacks proper supervision, and is governed by inconsistent guidelines and regulations. The group plans to study several incidents to identify root causes with the goal of finding some areas for OCIMF to address.
For more information on regional panels, or to see when the next panel will held in your region, click here.
New Sharepoint on the way
The IT people at OCIMF have been hard at work developing a new, and much improved, SharePoint site.
The secretariat has been testing the system with our internal files over the past month – and it won’t be long until members will be able to access the new site.
Phase 2 will begin in June, as we gradually move our existing committee site structure to the new SharePoint site.
You will receive an email with your new username and password, and a link to our new updated SharePoint site once the documents and files you have access to have been moved.
The old site will be taken down once the new site is up-and-running – but not before you are given new login details. So keep an eye on your inbox!
