Colin Gillespie, Deputy Director Loss Prevention, North of England P&I Club, addresses key challenges that the shipping industry needs to take into consideration and put forward action plans in 2017.Mr. Gillespie explains how 2016 impacted bulk cargoes, human element, cyber security and fishing safety and shares his aspirations for the new year.
Bulk Cargoes
The range and amount of cargoes carried in bulk has increased dramatically during recent decades, rising to over 3 billion tonnes a year. They extend from traditional ore, grain and coal cargoes to ever-growing quantities of animal foodstuffs, fertilizers, scrap metal and biofuels.
While the vast majority of bulk cargo voyages are completed without incident, there are many occasions when things do not go according to plan. Cargoes with well-known hazards, such as coal, can still cause serious problems. Meanwhile owners and seafarers are also faced with new cargoes like organic grain, which bring new challenges, such as avoiding contamination with any chemicals or non-organic materials.
2016 has been a very busy year for North’s Loss prevention department. At the beginning of the year we published Bulk Cargo: A Guide to Good Practice. Bulk Cargoes explains the basic rules to be remembered on every occasion during loading, carriage and unloading of bulk cargoes. It describes where various regulations, recommendations and general guidance can be found, and discusses procedures, preparations and good seamanship practice for appropriate and safe carriage of cargoes in bulk. It also describes the problems and recommended procedures associated with particular types of bulk cargo and sets out the points to be remembered during passage planning and the voyage itself.
Bulk cargo related initiatives have continued during 2016 and include a briefing on the loading and carriage of Soya beans which can sometimes give rise to claims arising from the inherent vice of self-heating, which leads to mould, a briefing on the Carriage of Grain Cargoes – again in relation to inherent vice’ and a briefing that considers the problems that can be experienced when loading fertilizer cargo in Chinese ports.
Liquefaction of bulk cargoes continues to be problematic and periodic advice has been provided throughout 2016.
Coffee Briefing
North P&I Club has helped restore the commercial balance between ship owners and cargo interests by successfully supporting a Member in its appeal against a UK High Court decision (10 November 2016). The Court of Appeal overturned the 5 March 2015 decision in Volcafe Ltd and others v. CSAV, which has been viewed by the shipping community as widely detrimental to ship owners. North’s loss prevention department has followed this up by producing advice to ship owners on the carriage of this high value and sensitive cargo.
The Human Element
A root cause analysis exercise of all large claims in the past 5 years has identified mistakes and poor practice by seafarers together with a poor safety culture as some of the main root causes of major claims. As a result the Club is bringing an increasing loss prevention focus on crew matters.
As a first step we have published a series of briefings for its members on how to attract, recruit and retain the ‘right crew’ for their ships. Recruitment, selection and retention of appropriately trained and qualified seafarers, with the right attitudes, is the key to reducing the number of incidents and to the long-term success of ship owners.
Current crew shortages are predicted by some to become increasingly acute over the next 5 to 10 years and this will make recruiting the ‘right crew’ problematic. The briefings are designed to assist members in their efforts to attract, select, recruit and retain the right crew.
Cyber Risks
In an increasingly interconnected shipping industry cyber risks are a both a current and future threat. North has considered the risk arising from cyber threats and it is our view that P&I policies cover liabilities arising from cyber risks in the same way as those arising from traditional risks, subject to P&I club rules. The rules generally require members to show they have taken all reasonable measures to prevent losses and liabilities arising.
Given the increasing use of technology on board and connection with the outside world, the potential impact of cyber risks on vessel operations is increasing. A proper cyber security policy should now be a key feature of an owner’s risk management programme.
Our new loss prevention briefing therefore focuses on raising awareness of the cyber threats of unauthorised access and malicious attack. North P&I Club is continuing its drive to highlight the range of cyber threats facing shipowners through its active support of the Be Cyber Aware At Sea campaign.
Security
North P&I Club has partnered with CSO Alliance – a fast-growing online community of maritime company security officers (CSOs) – to encourage its members to join and take part in security related information sharing. In a first for the P&I sector, all CSOs in North’s 131 million GT owned fleet will receive a 20% reduction in membership fees for the first year and North will subsidise a further 40%.
North supports the concept of information sharing on security-related risks, both physical and cyber. As such we believe membership of the CSO Alliance will offer real benefits to CSOs employed by our members, so we have negotiated a subsidised rate for their first year of membership. Numerous North members have taken advantage of this member benefit.
Fishing Safety
Sunderland Marine, a North group company, is one of the world’s leading insurers to the fishing industry. Following a review of worldwide fishing vessel claims, it was apparent that many of the incidents were due to failures in safety management on board. In an effort to address this we produced our Safe Out Safe Home guide. It is designed to work on two levels. For new joiners, it aims to introduce the hazards on a fishing vessel and the safety questions they need to ask the skipper and other crew members. For skippers and ‘old hands’ it aims to serve as a reminder that new joiners need to receive proper safety training and familiarisation as soon as they come on board.
CINS
Tony Baker, Director of Loss Prevention, is the current IG representative on the CINS board. CINS is a shipping line initiative, launched in September 2011, developed to increase safety in the supply chain, reduce the number of cargo incidents on-board ships and highlight the risks caused by certain cargoes and/or packing failures. The group has been very active in the last year and has issued joint guidelines with the IG on the carriage of calcium hypochlorite, a common cause of fires onboard container vessels. It is also currently considering the safe carriage of lithium ion batteries – another potential fire risk.
Looking Forward
Looking forward to 2017 and beyond, the industry faces numerous challenges, not least of which is the dire state of the market in different sectors. Whether or not this will have an impact on maintenance and safety standards remains to be seen – the level of oversight of ship owners remains high and this means standards have to be maintained. Notwithstanding there are very significant safety and operational challenges facing ship owners.
One of the biggest challenges appears to be the supply and quality of crew. Some of the officer shortage forecasts that have been published are so large that owners may find that they simply cannot find enough crew for their vessels in five or 10 years’ time. This situation will inevitably put pressure on seafarer quality as it means that owners will not be in a position to pick and choose quality crew – they will simply have to accept whoever they can get. The industry must consider developing a collective approach to attracting more officers into the industry – a very big challenge.
There is concern across the industry over very large container ship casualties. The concentration of risk is enormous and at present salvors may have great difficulty dealing with a serious incident involving one of these vessels. North is working with other interested parties across the industry to consider the response to this type of event.
Piracy continues to be a problem with governments in some areas seemingly unable to control piracy in their area. Seafarers lives will continue to be put at risk by this failure of government.
Liquefaction of dry bulk cargoes continues to be problematic and there are indications that the nickel ore ban in Indonesia may be relaxed during 2017. This may lead to an increased risk of bulk carriers capsizing.
Cyber risks are an area where the industry should start to focus. The most common threats will be in relation to commercial networks and the criminals’ efforts, through various means, to defraud the participants in the networks or manipulate data for smuggling or other purposes. There are of course safety concerns, AIS, GPS and ECDIS may all be vulnerable to hacking. Cyber risks can affect many areas of an owners business and they should be considering the steps they can take to better protect themselves.
On the regulatory side of things challenges also include compliance with existing ECA regulations and the forthcoming environmental legislation on the fuel sulphur cap. Owners will also have to make decisions on which ballast water treatment systems.
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
