The cost of compliance
I spoke to Dave Gardy this week on the impact of the new environmental regulations and the cost of compliance. Continue reading
Namepa’s National Maritime Day panel – Part I
As part of Namepa’s National Maritime Day celebrations I recently hosted a panel that covered a host of regulatory requirements from whistle blowing, to the Maritime Labor Convention, to harbor of safe refuge and seafarer welfare. Continue reading
Lessons learned again?
April is said to be the cruelest month. It is memorable for disasters, from the Titanic to Texas City, Deepwater Horizon and so on. Continue reading
Marintec China 2011
As NAMEPA’s (North American Marine Environment Protection Association) founding chairman I was asked to speak at the recent Senior Maritime Forum held in conjunction with Marintec China 2011 in Shanghai. Continue reading
Oversight, assessment of risk and management: Part 3
As we all know the ISM Code was adopted by IMO in 1993. The Code was drafted as a self-contained document. However, its provisions were bought into force internationally when, at the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Conference in 1994, compliance with its provisions became mandatory under a new Chapter IX to the SOLAS Convention. The Code differs from other quality assurance systems in that it is mandatory; it has been amended over the years, and is generally incorporated in OPA ’90. Continue reading
Oversight, assessment of risk and management: Part 2
In my last post I began looking at risk management and would like to elaborate further and see how this applies to shipping, the offshore oil industry, and particularly oil spills? Continue reading
Discovering things old and new, on E/V Nautilus
On an morning in late August, on the Aegean Sea near the Turkish port of Bodrum, a number of us joined the crew of the Exploration Vessel Nautilus in search of ancient shipwrecks. Continue reading
The Magnetic North
The United States has granted Royal Dutch Shell conditional approval of its plan to begin drilling exploratory wells in the Beaufort Sea, off the North Slope of Alaska, next summer. Continue reading
What do oil spills, piracy and the Greek crisis have in common?
There are at least three “received truths”, as one of my college professors sarcastically called them, that, in the world of shipping, may be open to challenge. One is that last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion had nothing to do with the rest of the shipping industry, being only about wells and rigs — and not ships Continue reading
Problem wrecks and their cargoes
The past century of commerce and warfare has left a legacy of thousands of sunken vessels along the U.S., Canadian and European coasts. Continue reading
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