The inaugural Tanker Safety Conference, in association with Gulf of Aden Group Transits, saw 137 high profile members from all areas of the tanker industry meet to debate the salient safety issues of the moment. Delegates came from 27 countries, including Europe, America, the Middle East and Asia, to attend the event, held at London’s Millennium Gloucester Hotel between 12 to 13 November. A total of 42 attendees represented owners and operators of at least 2,500 vessels.

Six sessions across the two-day event comprised discussions on mitigating risks, unravelling crew matrix requirements, enhancing safety at sea through regulations, fire prevention or operations, piracy and crisis management, and oil spills and emergency response. Lively and interactive debate characterised the conference.

John Denholm, chairman of BIMCO’s marine committee, opened the two day event with a speech which cautioned that, “While recent safety reforms have been good, there is no room for complacency, particularly at this time while the world and the shipping markets are going through a period of unparalleled economic upheaval. There is a real danger that these cost pressures will impact on safety. We are going to have to work harder to maintain or improve our safety record.”

Captain Rajalingam Subramaniam, MISC Berhad’s vice president of fleet management services, gave an emotive presentation about his firsthand experience of dealing with piracy (see page 3), and during the same session, Kim Barbero, principal of Carah Worldwide Consulting warned that, “It takes years to gain stakeholder trust and confidence, and only one incident to lose it. Preparedness is instrumental in protecting our organisations’ names and reputations.”

Tanker owner Teekay’s president, and newly elected Intertanko chairman, Graham Westgarth, spoke to the conference about his company’s open reporting scheme within a safety management culture. “To make our safety management system work on a day-to-day basis, we need competent, committed people, and an environment which facilitates reporting and the free flow of information,” he said. “If we really want to extract a dividend from the promotion of a pro-active reporting culture, then we need to add one very special ingredient: trust. Without trust, we run the risk of inaccurate or worse, no reporting at all.”

Höegh Fleet Services’ international safety management/health and safety auditor, Geir Jørgensen agreed with these sentiments. He described to the conference how Höegh is taking a pro-active approach to managing its data by employing Docmap’s Marine Suite software. The programme collects data pertaining to safety incidents, which enables Höegh to focus on actions which will avert future occurrences. “To be able to receive this data the company must build up a culture that encourages doing so,” said Mr Jorgensen. “The focus has been to motivate and to build trust.”

Recruiting sufficient numbers of skilled crew has become a priority for much of the sector. Kishore Nigam, general manager of Fleet Management Europe argued that experience requirements for officers should be made mandatory. “Senior staff must hold a rank for a period of time before being promoted,” he said. “Over-regulation of the industry has caused many seafarers to leave and seek shore careers. We need to bring pride back to seafaring and yet maintain skill and awareness levels.”

Captain Howard Snaith, Intertanko’s marine, environment, ports, terminals and chemicals director said that the Tanker Officer Training Standards (TOTS) scheme “ensures compliance with today’s rules and regulations, eases compliance with the officer matrix requirements and ensures the team on board will operate the tanker in a safe and environmentally aware manner”.

As with all Riviera Maritime Media-organised conferences, there were plenty of opportunities for delegates to network, with pre-conference welcome drinks, networking breakfasts and lunches, and an evening reception.

Following the success of this year’s event, the Tanker Safety Conference is now destined to be held annually. Furthermore, on 24 March 2010, the Tanker Shipping & Trade Asia Conference will be held in partnership with Asia Pacific Maritime in Singapore. The event consists of two independent and separately bookable themed sessions entitled: talking tankers: technology today and tomorrow; and talking tanks: coating, cleaning and carriage of cargo. For more information regarding future events, visit: www.rivieramm.com/events.