In this video, Ben Harris, Chair of the International Group’s Salvage Committee talks about the projects that the committee is currently working on and the areas it is focusing.
According to Mr. Harris, the work that the committee does can broadly be divided into two main areas. The first relates to salvage and the collective role that the group plays in helping to sustain and develop the international framework that supports the provision of emergency salvage response services to vessels in distress.
This is key to ensuring that we do what we can to protect life to to protect the marine environment and also property
The second main element of what the committee does relates to wreck removal. As Mr. Harris says “unfortunately some vessels do become wrecks and do require to be removed and the the group plays an active role in ensuring that the regulatory and the legislative framework that supports wreck removal enables wrecks to be removed swiftly and in an environmentally and sustainable way.”
Regarding the projects that the committee is currently working on, Mr. Harris noted that they involve predominantly working with the Lloyd salvage group as a key stakeholder of the load service group and the SCOPIC committee working on the day-to-day operation of the Lloyds open forum and SCOPIC in terms of its development.
An example of that actually there’s a document review project going on at the moment which is to look at all of the documents that support the operation of the Lloyd’s open forum and make sure that they’re up to date
On the wreck removal side of things the group is participating in BIMCO’s project to ensure that the existing wreck removal contracts are up to date and relevant as well.
Another big project that the group is currently involved in is the salvage delay project. This is a project looking into the increasing propensity for there to be delay in the provision of emergency salvage response services to vessels in distress.
The group is naturally concerned by the risks to life the marine environment and property that such delays can bring about
Mr. Harris stated, adding that they have commissioned “an independent study that will make findings and recommendations related to the causes around delay and we hope that this will alleviate those risks and there will be cross-industry support for the findings.”
