Dr. Kostas G. Gkonis, Secretary General of INTERCARGO, provides his insight into the trends that casualty data have revealed for the shipping industry over the last ten years. Dr. Gkonis says that cargo shift and liquefaction continue to be a great concern for the life on board and the safe carriage of dry bulk cargoes over this period. However, he notes, there still remain issues with the implementation of safety provisions for cargoes. Dr. Gkonis refers to Intercargo’s Bulk Carrier Casualty Report for further analysis on all reported marine casualties from 2007.
INTERCARGO has set up a database of reported total losses of bulk carriers since 1997. The analysis of casualty data and trends is submitted to IMO annually.
The Bulk Carrier Casualty Report 2016 covers reported bulk carrier casualties from 2007 to 2016 and provides an analysis on statistics and trends over the last 10 years.
Sixty (60) bulk carriers over 10,000 dwt have been identified as total losses over the years 2007 to 2016. Cargo shift and liquefaction continue to be a great concern for the life on board and the safe carriage of dry bulk cargoes over this period.
Those 11 casualties of cargo failure consisted of 8 bulk carriers carrying nickel ore (7 from Indonesia and 1 from the Philippines), 2 with Indian iron ore and 1 with Malaysian bauxite, and there were 102 lives lost associated with the 11 casualties of cargo failure against a total of 210 lives for all the 60 casualties.
There still remain issues with the implementation of safety provisions for cargoes and further efforts by some port States to establish effective Competent Authorities in their areas of control could do much to address the unfortunate situation.
There were 24 losses due to grounding among the 60 in total reported bulk carrier casualties over the last 10 years. The IMO GISIS database showed by end Jan 2017 that 13 investigation reports of 24 losses had not been submitted by their flag States.
Lessons learnt from past incidents play an important role in determining where additional safety improvement is necessary.
The importance of flag States’ timely submission of casualty investigation reports to IMO should be stressed, as a means for identifying the cause of incidents and enabling corrective actions to be taken.
By Dr. Kostas G. Gkonis, Secretary General, INTERCARGO
The views presented hereabove are only those of the author and not necessarily those of SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.
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About Kostas G. Gkonis
Dr Kostas G. GKONIS is the Secretary General of INTERCARGO. The Association was established in 1980 with the objective of giving a voice to shipowners, managers and operators of dry cargo vessels and better represent this shipping sector. Its Members commit to a safe, efficient, high quality and environmentally-friendly dry cargo shipping industry. INTERCARGO is an accredited NGO observer at IMO, and a member of the Round Table of International Shipping Associations.
Dr Gkonis has over 15 years of experience in industry and academia, with a background combining research with an applied market approach to the problematics of the shipping industry. He holds a PhD in Maritime Transport from the National Technical University of Athens – NTUA (Laboratory for Maritime Transport, School of Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering), an M.Sc. in International Business (Manchester School of Management, UMIST) and an M.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering with specialisation in energy (NTUA).
