- Shipping industry is facing a regulatory storm, including among other things the implementation of ILO MLC 2006 by August 20th of 2013 globally. There are many peculiarities related with ILO MLC, the most spicy one is with the deadline due. In case your flag state has ratified MLC by August 20th 2012 the deadline is by August the 20th 2013. In case your flag ratifies MLC after that date, say for example on 1st of February of 2013 then the deadline is by the 1st of February 2014, i.e. 12 months later. If your flag does NOT ratify the MLC you are not responsible for implementation. Is this correct ? Well, not exactly ... Actually in line with the "NO more favorable treatment" principle of the MLC vessel will be subject to inspection by PSC worldwide and especially to countries that they have ratified MLC already (e.g. Netherlands, Australia etc.). To implement MLC you will need the DMLC part I that will be issued by the Flag state accompanied by DMLC part II that will be developed by the "Shipowner" i.e. most probably the DOC holder for the vessel, accompanied by a set of procedures, forms, posters and checklists...

- IMO World Maritime Day theme this year was '' IMO Conventions: Effective Implementation'', so the point is- Are we doing enough? Is the implementation of regulation effective in Industry? Should we need more regulation? I have my own views on these questions. I believe that the industry is under performing and besides all good practices, the reality is worse than you think. However, IMO has a lot of initiatives to support the effective implementation for the Flag States and the Port State Control. Data in picture below is from IHS Fairplay published at DNV GL Maritime Impact 01-2014 show that the accident ration is growing over time. The trend line goes up and that means we have an underperforming industry. Unfortunately, many people have the perception that we do many things for safety in the industry however in the last five year major accidents happened, starting with Deepwater Horizon back in April 2010, then we had Rena on October 5th 2011, Costa Concordia in 2012, MOL Comfort in 2013 and the Sewol ferry tragedy this year.   Regarding MOL Comfort it doesn't make sense how a new containership only five years old, built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries - one...

First things first, when talking about Arctic shipping, firstly, we need to define the area we are talking about : Arctic is considered the Polar Region north of Arctic Circle, (the 66° 33 parallel) including two shipping roads: the Northern Sea Route (NSR) the one close to Russia shore and the Northwest Passage (NWP) close to the Canadian Shore. According to traffic statistics prior to 2010 there was no commercial traffic in the region, however due to climate change, there has been a substantial change leading to 71 transits for the 2013 season. Shorter roads are making these transits more attractive as distances may be shorter 1,000 miles or more on the NWP or 3,500 miles on the NSR as it may be seen in relevant figure: Historic Firsts in Arctic Shipping First foreign ship to transit NSR: Heavy lifts MV Foresight & MV Fraternity operated by Beluga Shipping Group in 2009 Largest tanker to cross NSR: MV Baltica (100,000 DWT) operated by Sovcomflot First foreign ship to cross the NSR: MV Nordic Barents operated by Nordic Bulk carriers First passenger ship to transit NSR: Russian state owned Georg Ots First Suezmax Supertanker through NSR: MV Vladimir Thikonov (162,000 DWT) operated...

- ILO Maritime Labour Convention (MLC), the so called "ILO Super Convention" is expected to enter into force on August the 20th as the 4th pillar of Maritime Regulatory Compliance along with SOLAS, MARPOL, STCW. As the clock is ticking towards the deadline let's see if the MLC will deliver the promised land by examining some key issues involved:   Myths about MLC MLC Will NOT necessarily provide for Seafarer rights as long as every "Shipowner" may select a flag that does not ratify MLC. Since MLC certificate is NOT a trading certificate, there is nothing that can change that. Many industy insiders speculate that MLC will certainly improve the situation onboard. This may be the case for the owner/manager of ICEBERG 1 (the vessel abandoned for 3 years to Somali Pirates) and the like; but for first class operators (especially in the Cruise, Tanker, LNG, Container industry) there are minor issues to be addressed ! If someone sticks to the regulatory nature of MLC, he has to also ask himself: Has SOLAS or MARPOL or STCW introduction improved the shipping industry? The answer is definitely NOT! All these regulations exist for many years; we are currently running 100 years...

IMO Greenhouse gas regulations: Is it over yet? Earlier this month the IMO adopted the first-ever greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations to be applied in the marine industry. It is considered the first industry wide global agreement. For many years shipping has been totally unregulated in terms of Greenhouse gas emissions and many within the industry still are not aware of the fact that shipping and aviation have been left out of the Kyoto protocol. The IMO legislation due to be implemented within the next 18 months covers all oceangoing vessels above the 400 tons line. All vessels need to be equipped with a new certificate on Energy Efficiency, a vessel specific Energy Efficiency Management Plan (SEEMP) that will cover all the energy efficiency initiatives onboard and the new vessels, built after 2013 need to be attached with a new index called Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) to measure compliance. Ships built in or after 2013 will have to improve their efficiency by 10 percent; starting in 2020, new ships will have to be at least 20 percent more efficient than today's new ships; and after 2024, new ships will have to be at least 30 percent more efficient. Despite the...

Apo Belokas, Managing Editor, SAFETY4SEA, delves into the evolving landscape of the shipping industry, emphasizing the imperative of addressing human factors in relation to decarbonization and digitalization as new industry realities.