Maritime Transportation And Shipping Talk

A major oil spill in Saint Lawrence Seaway

Arild — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 03:55:21 +0000

It has been all over the news these last few days. A ship had an oil spill in the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Looking at the international scene this spill is just a minor little thing. The amount of oil that leaked out into the Seaway was not a lot but as with any oil hitting water surface, it spreads very fast and makes the whole thing look far worse than it really is. When you look at the local scene in the river of Saint Lawrence this is a major spill. It was major enough to shut down the traffic in the Seaway for a few days. The risk was also there for local water filtration plants to be contaminated and that would have affected several local communities water supply. As the Saint Lawrence Seaway have an emergency response team already in place, the response time was fairly quick and the contamination was brought under control fairly quick. The traffic was back up and ship was moving again by 1600hrs local time today Thursday July, 2010.
Looking back at this event we should ask some question, not to put blame but to see if things like his can be avoided in the future.
As in many maritime disasters the first thing that is looked at is the people onboard the ship. Did they react properly and quickly enough? What was the cause of the puncture in the fuel tank? Was this a double hull ship and fuel tank? It the ship lost engine power, what was the reason? If it was engine failure, was this a problem that was recurring or was it simply a new and unforeseen problem? Could it have been avoided with better maintenance?
Understanding that the current owner has recently acquired this ship is there a history of mishaps with the ship that they should be aware of?
I hope that whatever enquiry the authorities have after this is over that measures will be taken for this not to be repeated anytime soon
You can read the latest about Navigation Resumes In Seaway’s South Shore Canal

A low cost solution for sending a small shipment overseas.

Arild — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 17:50:31 +0000

If you intend to ship less than a full container load overseas a freight forwarding company can save you a lot of money. The advantages if you are using the service of a broker are that they will handle the shipment door to door. They will provide you with a drop off location for your small shipment or even come and pick it up. They will also follow up that your shipment is delivered at final destination.
If you have the time to ship your cargo or parcel(s) by container it will be your less costly way of getting it to your destination. Shipping smaller shipments that are less than a full 20 foot container can still be your most economical solution if you use the service of a LCL broker. What this broker does is simply collect multiple smaller shipments and packing them in a container that will be sent with a ship. The time involved is longer than if you ship by air but it is also a lot cheaper. Most containers are a week or so at sea before they reach the continent. Americas to Europe for most Shipping Lines are about 7-10 days crossing. Most major industrial centers have freight forwarding companies covering that area and getting a price and time quote would be the right thing to do. Ask 3 companies for a price quote before deciding

PRESS RELEASE! For Immediate Release

Arild — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:28:13 +0000

Reformar Inc enters into long-term charter agreement for the Research Vessel Coriolis II with Seaforth Geosurveys.
(Rimouski, Qc); March 15, 2010
Reformar

Reformar Inc. is pleased to announce that it has signed a long term exclusive charter agreement for the Research Vessel RV Coriolis II. This exclusive agreement covers the use of the Coriolis II for the private sector contract. The 50 m former Canadian Coast Guard vessel has been operated by Reformar Inc. of Rimouski, Quebec since 2002. While the ship’s primary function is for academic research and training, Seaforth will also utilize the vessel for its worldwide marine survey operations. The ship, which is certified for operations in both domestic and international waters, is currently being mobilized in Quebec City with various geophysical sensors including multibeam, sidescan sonar, subbottom profiler, magnetometer, USBL, multi-channel seismic data acquisition and processing systems, and geotechnical sampling equipment. The vessel will also be configured with a dynamic positioning system, providing excellent station keeping for geotechnical operations and as an ROV support platform. Based in Rimouski during the summer, it is expected that the Coriolis will be based in Halifax during the winter months to support Seaforth’s domestic and international initiatives. “We are very excited about the opportunity presented with this partnership with Reformar”, stated Seaforth President David Lombardi.
To read the whole press release CLICK HERE!

How Does Marine Spares Get Processed

Arild — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:58:57 +0000

Over on Maritime Community there was an article about Ship Spares In Transit and what the term means. Here in Canada when a Ship Spares In Transit shipment arrives it is preceded with a pre-notice of arrival containing way bill number, Customs invoice (value for customs), detailed list of all content in shipment including weight. This notice is usually sent from the shipper. Once receiver or receiver agent receives this note they can pre-arrange for custom clearing and forwarding of spares to the ship. The process entails completing various Customs documents that will be processed by Customs once the shipment arrive. In order to complete a process like this the custom broker and carrier has to be defined as a bonded operator. This again means that there is a Bond Insurance filed with the Customs (Federal Government). This Bond is of a value large enough to cover the value of shipments that they would be processing with Customs. There are a variety of different Bonds available and the value can also be very large. It all depends on what the operator would have arranged for and also what the volume of his bond would be. An operator/broker would most likely have sufficient coverage for the volume of business they are processing.
When all these documents are processed and no discrepancy is detected, the actual physical movement of the shipment usually goes rather quickly. In this case we are talking about “Ship Spares In Transit” as it was not to be cleared for payment of duty and taxes. To clear a shipment for and levy duty and taxes would be a whole other process and we will not cover that here.

Green Award For Shipping

Arild — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:10:11 +0000

Back last summer when “Green Award” for shipping caught my attention for the first time and I didn’t realize how big this subject was going to be. “Green Award” for shipping was just the beginning. I soon realized that there was many other related ones happening around the globe and they were all having an impact on the environment.
“Green Award For Shipping” caught my eye in the beginning for one reason only and that was the ships getting a reduction on their fee to the “Port Of Montreal” and I wanted to know why. Why would a Port Corporation like the Port Of Montreal give a ship this kind of incentive or better yet, a ship owner or manager this kind of incentive? What were the benefits for Port of Montreal?
There was a whole lot of questions that I asked and during the study of this concept we will continue and try to answer some of these questions.
The last article that I wrote kind of ended as we started to get into the process of inspection and getting office and ships certified to the “Green Award” program. The certification process is a very detailed issue and we will not be able to cover it well and understand it all unless we go in dept and look at some of the underlying issues that brought this program into light in the first place. Therefore I will leave the certification process for a while and look at some of the underlying issues.
One issue that we have already touched on is the effect this has on port corporations. A port corporation, like the one we talked about previously, has a great responsibility towards its clients being shipping companies and some of that covers the environment. Proper protection and prevention against incidents that could damage the environment is part of that responsibility.
A port like “Port Of Montreal” being an inland port like it is on the shore of Saint Lawrence River has an even greater responsibility and that is adapting to River conditions. It means that people down stream are depending on Port Of Montreal doing the right thing if something is to happen, for instance an oil spill of major proportions. Do we know what kind of measures Port Of Montreal have in place to combat this kind of a problem or incidence? The “Green Award” program was one of the things that would help Port OF Montreal with this responsibility. If Port Of Montreal can draw these clients that has been awarded the “Green Award Certification” to the port they are standing a much better chance of not having any major incidences or at least reducing the risk. Port of Montreal is giving incentive for being and maintaining a “Green Award” certification. Many other ports around the globe are doing the same thing and the list is ever growing.
What is so important in this program for Port Of Montreal to issue a credit or reduction on your port fee?

Technorati Tags: Green Award for Shipping

What is “Green Award” For Shipping?

Arild — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:00:24 +0000

If we are to study this subject I think we should at least get the name right. The correct name is “Green Award”. It is a voluntary quality program for ship-owners, managers and their ships.
In the last article we covered some of the history and laid the base for our articles and study. The next step will be to look at the concept and how it works.
Green Award for shipping is primarily a scheme aiming paying extra attention to three primary items and they are safety, quality and environmental protection. The ambition is to create preference for ships conforming to these requirements, giving them a better market position. A safer ship will have fewer incidents and therefore avoid damage to reputation of owners/managers. Motivation and pride of crew becomes an important factor and will increase as improvement continues.

Ship-owners and managers are starting to recognize the importance of implementing this kind of certification. The cost recovery is also very fast. Conforming to the minimum legal requirements is no longer enough especially for tanker operation being such a high visibility type of operation.

More transparency is demanded by the general public and the shipping companies are starting to understand that they have to do more and also show that they are doing so. A way of showing that transparency is by having the “Green Award” flag flying in their mast visible to all. Visibility in the media was one of the reasons for tanker operators to be the first ones to come onboard in this program. The program was opened up for bulk carriers and their operators back in 2001, however the ship has to be 20000 DWT or more. Informing the general public and media at large about a program like this will hopefully have a snowball effect and have a positive impact on clients and future clients’ relation.

The concept or more correct the Certification System is based on ISO/IEC standards and the requirements formed from that are divided in to three parts under the headings of Basic Criteria, Ranking Criteria and Visual Inspection. Each criterion has its own checklist for auditors to go through together with appropriate department or employee.

What Is Green Ship

Arild — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:54:00 +0000

First, some history to bring us up to were we are today.

What does the Green Ship term mean? In International shipping “Green Ship” is mainly associated with the Green Ship Award Program. There is also something that is called Green Ship Initiative established in North America and some others but that is a whole other subject that we might get into another time. So here in these articles we are going to concentrate on “Green Ship Award System”.

In order for us to get an understanding of what it all means I think we should lay a bit of background.
The ships that we are using on the seven oceans have always had a great attention to the safety. The ship owners were always greatly concerned with the safety of the vessel and the cargo that it transported. After all the aim was to make money as a transporter. Onboard the ship, crew was always concerned with the safety and the equipment needed in situations of emergency.
As ship types and technology has changed so has the quality of the ship. The navigational equipment used to navigate safely on the oceans and especially in areas of high traffic has seen a great improvement and made the logistic quality very high. Probably the greatest advancement we have made so far is the GPS and all the technology that became possible due to that technology.
Our Ships, the way they are constructed and the way they operate, are safe. The crew onboard and the management office ashore are all part of making it safe. Today the big word in ship safety is prevention.
Just after the Second World War United Nations founded a body name IMCO overlooking the safety of maritime shipping. This body has since become IMO (International Maritime Organization). Imo have been laying the laws applying to shipping and has bodies in place to enforce those rules. These laws that IMO has set for shipping to follow are basic minimum requirements and to some they are not strict enough. Looking at the ships we could see a large spectrum of ship types and also quality. The age of the ship was also an issue. If we had a quality level of let’s say 1-10, 1 being the top, the gap between 1 and 10 was simply too large. There had to be a second set of higher standards set in place and also incentives to owners for bringing the operation up to those higher standards.
This was the base for the governing body at the Port Of Rotterdam when they took the initiative in 1994 to establish these higher standards. It was all on a voluntary basis and became “Green Ship Award ” standards. It was to be applicable to the whole shipping company both ashore and onboard the vessel. The first ships to get into this higher set of standards were tankers. Since then we have seen the bulkers come along also. Personally, I’m still waiting for the container ships to catch up.
I think that in this first article about the Green Ship Award we have opened up for some interesting subjects and discussions. Where are we heading from here? Come back and visit as we get the next article online soon.

Green Ship – What Is It?

Arild — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:33:11 +0000

Lately there has been a lot about Green Ship and it seem that many owners has decided to join the “Trend”. Is it a trend or is this here to stay. I guess the first thing we have to do is examine what it means to be a “Green Ship”.Where does this Phrase come from.

In this series of articles to be posted we will do just that, examine the subject and also look at what it means to have your ship certified as a “Green Ship”.

The project will be a ongoing thing and we will post our findings and comments here on this blog.

Seaway Season Number 50 on The Books!

Arild — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 18:12:46 +0000

The 2008 shipping season into the Great Lakes is finished for this time. This concludes this the 50th Navigation Season into the Great Lakes. The first section of the Seaway from Montreal to Lake Ontario was kept open until December 30th (280 days)and the Welland Canal section was kept open until December 31st.
The year had seen some decrease in traffic volume mostly due to decrease in Steel Imports and Grain Exports.
Looking back and the year passed there was some very good news and one of them was the uniform ballast water management for all ships trading into the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Seaway issued a press release on January 6th and you can read it here!

Seaway Shut Down For The Winter

Arild — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:43:38 +0000

A question that has been asked me many times by local and people abroad is why the Seaway shuts down in end of December for 2-3 months? In this article we will try to answer and lay out some of the reasons for the shut-down.
When the cold period come in Canada, the Rivers and lakes freezes over and the Seaway being a man made part of Saint Lawrence River is a body of fresh water that will also freeze. The part of the seaway that is man made namely the Seaway Locks or Sluices are no different.

Technorati Tags: Saint Lawrence Seaway

The water freezes up and sticks to the cement walls in the locks and also to the lock doors. This build up of ice can be very destructive if it is allowed to get hold. It will decrease the volume of the lock it self and Seaway Max ships will not be able to pass unless it is removed. The doors them self can not be closed properly and also to get them open will be difficult as the groove or hole in the cement where they would fold in would be covered with ice and it is simply not possible to pass the ships inn and out of the locks with the doors protruding as they would in this case. Some elaboration on the above would be to explain that a Seaway Max ship might have 10” clearing on each side between the ship side and the lock wall. If that clear space is filled with ice the ship will not be able to move and would get stuck in the ice. In order for the ship to enter into the lock the water has to be able to flow out of the lock. If the space is not there for this to happen it wouldn’t be possible to enter or exit the lock by the ships. The time from the fist ice build up until the closing of the seaway is kept ice free in front of the doors by the use of large compressors that are forcing air into the water and therefor creating a bubbling action that pushes the warm water to the surface and also a current that keeps the ice away from the lock doors. In the latter part of December the ice pressure on the upside of the locks are simply to great for this system to work. The natural flow of the Saint Lawrence River is simply forcing the ice against the upside of the lock and mechanically removing the ice is simply not feasible.