Archive for June, 2011
Greek Seafarers Promise Further Day Of Action
Greece’s ports and ferry services face further disruption after becoming embroiled in a nationwide 48-hour general strike this week.
The Panhellenic Seamen’s Federation, which did not formally declare participation in the widespread labour protests on Tuesday and Wednesday, has called a one-day strike today, with threats of escalating its action over the summer.
It voiced its “fury” with government proposals for seafarers’ pensions amid a plethora of cuts to public spending.
The umbrella federation had initially taken flak from some factions for not seeming to throw its full weight behind the general strike.
Instead, individual seafaring unions joined the protests, timed to coincide with two days of critical parliamentary debates on a mid-term austerity programme intended to qualify the country for more bail-out money and avert a potentially catastrophic default.
The Federation of Greek Port Employees and the Piraeus port employees’ union both warned in advance of participation in the two-day strike.
After staging a widely-publicised protest on the Acropolis at the start of the week, members of communist party-affiliated union Pame this morning blocked ferries from leaving the port of Piraeus, stranding many travellers. They said they would not leave the port before the end of the general strike.
The action comes only a week after executives identified union disruption to schedules, and the lack of port security able to prevent such incursions, among problems to be overcome before Greece can realise its hopes of becoming a cruise hub.
There was a near-total lockdown of road and rail transport yesterday.
The Hellenic Chamber was among industry bodies which called on the government to take steps to guard free movement of passengers and connections with the islands.
The chamber said it was watching developments “with concern”.
Flights were disrupted due to a four-hour stoppage by air traffic controllers.
In a written statement, Panhellenic Seamen’s Federation general secretary John Halas said the federation’s governing council opted for its action as the government’s mid-term plan threatened to “literally destroy the benefit rights of Greek seafarers, which were shaped only after hard and endless struggle and decades of sacrifice”.
According to the federation, the new measures include cutting seafarers’ pensions and imposing a monthly withholding on pensioners yet to reach the age of 60.
The unions called on members of parliament to vote against the measures.
“The only ones not to blame for the disruption to the poor travellers and for the unrest in the country’s ports are the Greek seafarers, who are obliged to defend themselves against this unprecedented attack on their rights,” said Capt Halas.
The Greek government yesterday won a vote supporting new austerity measures that will allow the next round of European financial aid to be released, but risking further unrest.
Wallem Replaces Veteran Grool
Hong Kong-based shipmanagement and maritime services company Wallem Group has replaced long-serving managing director Rob Grool with Simon Doughty .
No reason was given for the sudden change of leadership, but Wallem’s statement said that the company needed “to grab the opportunities offered by outsourcing”, suggesting that the change at the top is linked to a switch in strategy.
Wallem said that outsourcing is a must in current shipping markets “to take advantage of economies of scale, add a wide range of personnel expertise and to maintain compliance with the increasing scope of international regulations”.
Mr Doughty was managing director of Wallem Shipagencies since 2005, and before that held a similar position at rival Inchcape Shipping Services .
He said: “Wallem has a huge opportunity to provide wider services to existing and potential customers who today need to outsource in order to survive. The opportunities are broad and changing and Wallem has the expertise to provide solutions to the challenges facing our customers.”
Mr Grool was managing director for nine years.
A spokeswoman for Wallem told Lloyd’s List: “He tendered his resignation. We haven’t heard where he is going yet.”
Mr Grool declined to comment when reached by Lloyd’s List, saying all would be revealed “in due course”. However, shipmanagement circles were rife with speculation.
A prominent shipmanager told Lloyd’s List: “Rob is well known as a forceful and highly opinionated character. We are intrigued to know what is going on at Wallem behind the scenes.”
A Singapore-based shipmanager said he was “surprised” by the announcement but did not know the reason for Mr Grool’s departure. He suggested the “spin” surrounding his departure seemed aimed at detracting attention.
A Hong Kong shipowner said that Mr Grool was “well respected” and that he had just decided to go his separate way.
Wallem paid tribute to Mr Grool’s role in steering the group through the economic crisis and in particular, the sale of the group in 2006. It also pointed to the creation of six joint-venture companies that contributed to the more than doubling of its managed fleet to over 350 ships.
Pacific And Indian Ocean Face Growing Risks Of Conflict
An Australian think tank has warned that the sea lanes of Asia are becoming “more crowded, contested and vulnerable to armed strife”.
The report, by the Lowry Institute for International Policy, says that the strategies of China , the US and Japan involve expanded maritime patrolling and intrusive surveillance, bringing an “uncertain mix of stabilising and destabilising effects”.
The report states that nationalism and resource needs are reinforcing the value of territorial claims in the East and South China seas, making maritime sovereignty disputes more difficult to manage.
Earlier this month, China confirmed that its first aircraft carrier was under construction in the northeastern port of Dalian and was expected to begin sea trials later this year.
The report cautions that the chance of a major military clash “should not be overstated”, but adds that the drivers, in particular “China’s frictions” with the US, Japan and India , are “likely to persist and intensify”.
One potential flash point, between India and China, concerns possible incidents arising from the international fight against Somali piracy in the Indian Ocean .
In 2009 India and China agreed in principle to establish a leaders-level hotline, which was announced as operational in December 2010.
Somalia Pardons Six Ransom Couriers
Somalia has freed six foreigners, including three Britons, two Kenyans and an American, convicted of illegally bringing money into the country to pay ransom cash to pirates, according to wire reports.
“Because of their illegal arrival, the two planes were each fined $50,000. And the $3.6m in cash has been taken by the government,” government spokesman Abdirahman Omar Osman said in a BBC report.
The six were given a pardon by Somalian President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed after being sentenced earlier this month to between 10 and 15 years in prison.
The British citizens were named as Matthew Brown, a pilot, and Andrew Oaks and Alex James from Nairobi-based security firm Salama Fikira.
The six foreigners were arrested on May 24 after a plane landed at Mogadishu.
The aircraft was waiting for another small aircraft to come in, collect $3.6m in ransom cash, and fly it to another destination in the country, according to the Somali government.
Since January 1, there have been at least 171 pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia and at the end of May the pirates held 26 vessels and more than 600 hostages, France’s UN envoy Gerard Araud said on June 21.
Shipmanagers Increasingly Recruited For Arrest Work
Inquiries are on the rise from banks looking for shipmanagers to provide services for vessels that have been arrested due to financial problems, according to Graig Ship Management chief executive Ian Morgan.
Graig’s consultancy service has been involved for some time as technical advisers for DVB Bank and Standard Chartered for ships in which they have equity interests, providing services such as technical advice and inspections for about 120 vessels.
But Mr Morgan said that in the last few months Graig was becoming more involved in work for various banks from a debt perspective, offering services for ships that had been arrested. He said that Graig had six active projects. “We are seeing a big increase in this work,” he said.
The work could involve dealing with ships with outstanding debts to various suppliers, to ensuring unpaid crew members were paid, and establishing what was owed to whom for services provided.
“We sometimes have to put our own crews onboard. We can just babysit the vessel while the arrest is cleared and its future is sorted out, or we can operate the vessel.”
Although Graig is relatively small compared with the largest ship management companies, with a managed fleet of nine vessels, Mr Morgan said that the company maintained sufficient resources and expertise to take on more of this type of work.
Graig is looking to expand and diversify its managed fleet. It has taken on its first shipmanagement contract for a Chinese owner — a panamax bulk carrier for Zhong An Shipping — building on its experience of supervising newbuildings in Chinese yards.
Shipping Industry Joins InterManager For KPI Milestone
Representatives from throughout the shipping industry joined InterManager at the International Maritime Organisation’s London offices on Tuesday June 21st to celebrate the completion of the Shipping KPI Project development phase and to formally launch the project worldwide.
Following an introduction from InterManager President Alastair Evitt, presentations from Svein Sorlie, Chairman of the KPI Steering Group, George Hoyt, Chairman of InterManager’s KPI Committee, Harald Sleire from Marintek and Markus Schmitz from software developer Soft Impact explained the project’s progress and future plans to a packed audience of invited guests and IMO delegates.
The Shipping KPI Project is an industry-wide initiative which proposes a global shipping industry standard for defining, measuring and reporting information on operational performance in order to boost performance improvements internally in companies engaged in ship operation activities and provide an efficient communication platform about ship operation performance information to internal and external stakeholders through increased transparency.
Svein Sorlie told guests: “The standard developed by the Project for measurement of operational performance is already widely recognised as a ‘de facto’ industry standard”.
Outlining how the KPI “Repository” will collect and present the data, Markus Schmitz explained that the data stored will be strictly confidential and only aggregated (averages) information will be displayed to ensure individual companies or ships cannot be identified. Mr Schmitz demonstrated the benefits of the KPI Project to ship managers, highlighting how the system will advise subscribers when their inputted data reveals their performance has fallen below the industry averages. More detailed analysis is then possible to identify problem areas.
George Hoyt advised guests that the whole Shipping KPI Project is a not-for-profit industry-wide initiative which will be overseen by the newly-established KPI Purpose Trust. InterManager is seeking industry stakeholders to become trustees and InterManager Executive Committee members have pledged their financial support to the project until April 2014.
Alastair Evitt, InterManager President, praised all the InterManager members and industry stakeholders involved in the Project and thanked them for their continuing commitment to raising standards throughout the global shipping world.
Below: (from left to right) Markus Schmitz, Kuba Szymanski, George Hoyt, Alastair Evitt, Harald Sleire, Svein Sorlie.
Below: Guests and IMO Delegates at the KPI launch event
KPI Initiative Launched at the IMO
Interview – InterManager Secretary General Kuba Szymanski and KPI Steering Group Chairman Svein Sorlie explain the Shipping KPI Project.
“Tortured by drunks”
Indian seafarers have been reliving their 10-month ordeal at the hands of sadistic Somali pirates.
The six men from the Egyptian-owned Suez made it to Karachi in Pakistan on Thursday.
They told the PTI news agency that they were tortured by a group of drunk pirates and starved for days.
The men had almost given up hope of seeing their families again when the vessel was released earlier this month.
“We were beaten when they were drunk and they would use anything they could get their hands on to beat us. We were sure they would kill us. There were moments when I wished they would just kill us so that we escape the torture,” said NK Sharma.
Ravinder Singh added: “I feel so happy. I have waited for 10 months for this moment. I didn’t think I would see this day…I thought we all would be killed.”
Food was scarce on the vessel. “Some days we just got water. We used to get boiled rice, spaghetti and potato once a week,” Sharma added.
But the release of the vessel was not the end of their harrowing tale as Suez ran short of fuel and faced the prospect of sinking.
“One way or the other, we were sure our end was near,” Sharma said.
Another crewman, Prashant Chauhan, said: “Even during our travel to Karachi, I didn’t think we were actually going back to our families. The thing we thought would never happen was happening now.
“When I de-boarded my flight I realised this was real. Our nightmare was truly over.”
Regarding efforts to free them, Singh said: “Indian and Pakistani media helped us a lot. As far as the Indian government’s role in the release, I don’t want to comment on it.”
The vessel eventually sank off Oman, but the men were picked up by a Pakistani warship.
Payment Of Ransoms Is Hard To Stop
There is no getting away from the fact that shipowners will find a way to get ships released.
Shipowners will continue to pay ransoms despite the sentencing of six security personnel arrested at Mogadishu airport while delivering money but now the UK Foreign Office has opened its own investigation into piracy and ransoms.
The six men, including three UK citizens hired by security company Salama Fikira, were handling £2.2m ($3.6m) intended to secure the release of the 17,300-dwt Suez (built 1984) and 22,350-dwt Yuan Xiang (built 1978). They received sentences of between 10 and 15 years.
The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) director of external affairs Simon Bennett says he believes shipowners will not be discouraged and will still find a way to make the payments. “It will not alter the determination of shipping companies to meet their humanitarian obligations toward their crew,” he added.
Security companies say there are many alternatives available to owners including tried and tested methods of dropping ransoms on beaches and directly onto ships from the air.
Ince & Co partner Stephen Askins adds that ransom payments are still being made. “Ransoms have been paid since the arrest. Delivery companies will find a route and there are always alternatives depending on the circumstances. Inevitably this is a business and there needs to be some flexibility,” he said.
One potential problem, he suggests, will be the effect of the loss in transit insurance covering the ransom payments. While premiums are sure to increase, more security will also be required to protect the payments.
There is also some confusion in the industry about the stance of the Somalian government toward ransom payments after what turns out to be a sudden turnaround.
Earlier this year, the Transitional Federal Government is thought to have played a significant role in securing the release of two elderly UK citizens. Yet within a few months it seems to have had a change of heart, demonstrated by the arrest and conviction of those attempting to secure the release of hijacked ships and seafarers.
The UK government is also reviewing its policy toward the payment of ransoms. Although in principle it is against them, under UK law they are legal, provided the proceeds do not end up in the hands of terrorists.
The Foreign Affairs Committee this week opened a hearing into piracy that is expected to review the issue. Giving evidence were Andrew Voke, chairman of the Lloyd’s Market Association (LMA) Marine Committee, Ince & Co’s Stephen Askins, ICS director Mark Brownrigg and EU Navfor operation commander Major General Buster Howes.
Highlighting the human cost of piracy, Save Our Seafarers this week released a statement saying 62 seafarers’ lives have been claimed in bandit actions off Somalia over the past four years and 3,500 seafarers held hostage.
Deaths were caused by murder, malnutrition, suicide, drowning and disease. Dipendra Rathore, a 22-year-old deck cadet who survived the ordeal of being held hostage for eight months, said: “At my age, you can still bear pain but watching people twice my age being tortured, crying and begging for help is what really measured me. I felt so bad for them but I could do nothing about it, except for praying, and then came the time when I lost faith and stopped praying too.”
Pirates Thwarted By ‘Self-Help’ Practices
Best-Management Practices and other “self-help” measures were successfully used to resist around half of the reported piracy attacks against bulk carriers in the six months between November 2010 and April this year.
Of the 43 reported attacks against bulk carriers in this period, at least 19 can be identified as being repelled due to adherence to BMP, according to Intercargo in its bulk-sector analysis report this week.
“The vaunted adaptability of the pirates needs to be put within the context of a sector playing its part in meeting the challenge through self-help measures as well,” said Intercargo.
Those measures include training to undertake evasive manoeuvring, and protective procedures such as barbed wire.
Citadels have been used by crew in six cases during the period and armed guards have been influential in thwarting at least two attacks.
However, despite the success of BMP and self-help measures, some bulk carriers opted not to draw on them.
“We still find it staggering that some ships, albeit not as many as popularly imagined, are reported by EU Navfor as failing to fully implement BMP,” said Intercargo’s report.
“Bulk carriers have a lower incidence of this than their market share… but unless and until we have full compliance with BMP, we are missing an opportunity to defeat pirates.”
There is also, apparently, a link between poor performing shipping companies and an increased risk of being attacked by pirates.
Of the 38 bulk carriers seized since 2008, the average performance measurement, a tool used by Intercargo to measure performance and deficiencies, was below the benchmark. This suggests a “correlation between a quality culture and a propensity to be seized”, said Intercargo.
Also, nearly one third of all bulk carriers seized since 2008 have the origin or destination of their cargoes in countries in the Middle East and North Africa — areas that have seen civil and political unrest this year.
“Piracy has significant potential to destabilise entire regions,” said Intercargo.
