21 February 2006
Our Ref.: HS-10123/2050000
AGENDA
Vetting Committee Meeting # 28
16th March 2006
Wyndham Greenspoint Hotel
Houston TX, USA
12400 Greenspoint Drive
Houston, TX 77060
Tel: (281) 875-2222
Fax: (281) 875-1652
Room: Gallery I-III
09:00-17:00
1. ANTI-TRUST/COMPETITION LAW COMPLIANCE.
INTERTANKO’s Anti-Trust/Competition law Compliance Statement
INTERTANKO is firmly committed to maintaining a fair and competitive environment in the world tanker trade, and to adhering to all applicable laws which regulate INTERTANKO’s and its members’ activities in this market. These laws include the anti-trust and competition laws, which theUS, the European Union and many nations of the world have adopted to preserve the free enterprise system, promote competition and protect the public from monopolistic and other restrictive trade practices. This meeting will be conducted in compliance with these laws and in accordance with INTERTANKO’s anti-trust/competition law guidelines.
2. MINUTES FROM THE LAST MEETING
The minutes from the previous meeting were approved by the committee via correspondence, circulated in the INTERTANKO Weekly news, and via Vetting Contact Bulletin, and also placed on the member’s area of the INTERTANKO web site in the usual manner. (For reference purposes a copy of the minutes from the last meeting are attached as Appendix 1). An overview of the action points arising are contained in Appendix 2.
3. AN AUDIENCE WITH CHEVRON
Tom Pappas of CHEVRON has kindly agreed to join the committee for a general discussion with the Committee, we are very pleased he has being able to join us and extend our hearty thanks and a warm welcome to him for agreeing to sit with the committee.
4. REPORTS FROM THE WORKING GROUPS
4.1 Terminal Vetting Database Working Group (Chairman John Hill)
The promotion of the INTERTANKO TVD continues to progress very well, we now have over 7500 reports in the TVD database, and the numbers continue to grow, the cooperation with BP has proved to be very successful, and the automated system via BP for direct data input from the BP Terminal vetting form is now in place and working satisfactorily, we expect to see an even greater increase now due to this regarding the number of reports entered within the database.
We have received quite a few enquiries from terminals expressing a desire to be able to either:
· Comment upon the TVD report before it is entered in the database.
· To be able to supply follow up comments to the report in the case of a “low-score”
In addition we have specifically received a concern, (passed to this committee from the INTERTANKO Latin American Panel (LAP) regarding an enquiry received by LAP pertaining PMI who have expressed concern that shipmasters "audit" their (PEMEX) terminals without their official knowledge of the results. PMI have also stated that they should be given the opportunity to discuss the findings as in any other audit process and do not accept the process of learning of the terminal report from the INTERTANKO web site with globalaccess, without having an opportunity to discuss/agree on findings.
The committee is invited to discuss this aspect in more detail and advise if it wishes to suggest changes in the TVD parameters at this stage.
4.1.1 We have received an approach of interest from the USCG “Houston / Galveston Navigation Safety Advisory Committee” (HOGANSAC) expressing interest in also being incorporated into the TVD scheme, this is being explored further and the committee will be kept advised.
The committee is requested to note
4.2 Detention Statistics Working Group (Chairman Peter Abildgaard)
The discussions regarding access to the Paris MoU detention data in tabular format to enable us to produce our annual detention statistics continues albeit positively, we believe that subject to clarification on some small aspects we will be successful in being granted access. A copy of our recent letter to the Paris MoU is available. (See Appendix 3)
The committee is invited to note
4.3 Officer Matrix Working Group (Chairman Steve Hardy)
As the committee is aware we have assembled a cross sectional representative sample from INTERTANKO members pertaining to 322 ships in total, (Oil, Chemical and Gas) and the corresponding current number of officers that are utilised to man these ships. This database matrix has been used to evaluate the current Officer Matrix requirements for TOTAL, KOCH, CHEVRON and Conoco Phillips. The aim of the evaluation work has being to try and ascertain how, if at all, the current Officer Matrix requirements for these oil companies can be complied with. However, due to a lack of clarity regarding the matrix requirements this has proved to be a very difficult undertaking as a manual process, we believe that in order to make a full evaluation this will require the development of a small computer programme in order to fully assess all the many variables and that are possible in assessing compliance.
It is important to note however that as all elements of each matrix requirement must be complied with in order to achieve compliance, i.e. a failure in any one of the matrix requirements will result in overall failure to comply, the variables become too large to model, to outline the variables that exist in an evaluation as an example, if we take “time with operator”, whereby the Master and the Chief Officer are required to have 2 years “combined” experience with the operator the variable options available are:
· Master > 1 year, Chief Officer 2 years = combined 2 years
· Master 1 year, Chief Officer 1 year = combined 2 years
· Master 2 years, Chief officer >1 years = combined 2 years
As we can see for one criterion 3 options are possible in the above example, if we look at another example “Combined time in rank of deck officers - 25 years” then applying the same approach there are at least 25 variables to assess depending upon the individual experience of each officer.
The Working Group would therefore like to propose that the committee assess an alternative approach to the Officer Matrix system that utilises “Training Criteria”. We have included examples of such an approach in Appendix 4.
The committee is requested to review the proposals with regards to the Training Matrix proposals and the current Officer Matrix evaluation and conclude a way forward.
4.4 Vetting Charter Party Clause Working Group (Chairman Bob Bishop)
A draft of the Vetting Clause Booklet has being produced and is currently under review by the Working Group, pending comments from the working group this will be sent to the Documentary Committee for a final review with a publication time line of early this year.
The committee is invited to comment
4.5 Vetting Publication Working Group- (Chairman Alan Johnson)
This Working Group completed its recent work with the production of the 6th edition of “A Guide to the Vetting Process”. This has being a resounding success as usual and greatly sought after by INTERTANKO members and non members alike. It is not envisaged that the 7th edition will be produced until some time during 2008. However, the committee is requested to discuss and conclude (whilst noting the current production of the Vetting Clause Book) if there are other publications that can be developed by this committee that would be beneficial to INTERTANKO Members. In particular the committee’s attention is drawn to an “old” industry publication titled “The Code of Practice for Organizing and Conducting Inspections of Tankers". This publication was produced by;
· CEFIC
· INTERTANKO
· ICS
· IPTA
· SIGTTO
The publication is apparently still made reference too by CHEVRON in their notifications of inspections to ships.
The committee is invited to discuss if this publication should be updated
4.6 SIRE/CDI Harmonisation Working Group (Chairman Patrick Russi)
The Working Group was asked to re-check with SIRE regarding what the existing OCIMF membership Criterion is for chemical companies to have access to SIRE reports.
We believe that the clarification we have received is appears favourable to chemical companies being able to access a SIRE report, but we have to take note of the various caveats that exist, for example the chemical company in question would need to have an interest in the shipment by tanker and/or marine terminalling of the derivatives of crude oil, LNG or LPG and related organic compounds.
“A chemical company could become an OCIMF member under the definition of an oil company if they have an interest in the shipment by tanker and/or marine terminalling of the derivatives of crude oil, LNG or LPG and related organic compounds”.
The issue we could face therefore is that if just one or two pure chemical manufacturers (world wide) do not qualify for access to the SIRE database then there remains a real need for CDI.
The committee is therefore requested to discuss and review this with the aim of scoping out a work programme for the working group outlining possibilities for closer cooperation between the systems for the future?
4.7 TMSA Working Group (Chairman Michael Wilson)
4.7.1 The committee is invited to review the document contained in Appendix 5, whereby the working group has attempted to draft a definition of “Change Management” with the aim of circulating this within INTERTANKO membership to assist our members accordingly
The committee is invited to approve this definition.
4.7.2 Oil Company Overview of TMSA Requirements, the attention of the committee is drawn to the assimilated information regarding various Oil Company requirements that have been gathered by the Working Group. This document will circulated under separate cover.
The committee is requested to discuss how this information should be best utilised.
4.7.3 INTERTANKO TMSA Benchmarking system, this project is underway and we hope will be completed very soon.
The committee is invited to take note
4.8 SIRE Inspector Working Group (Chairman Graeme Ross)
As agreed at the last committee meeting it was decided to inaugurate this working group in order to monitor and review the progress of work on this issue. For good order it is confirmed that the Chairman is Graeme Ross and Working Group members consist of Michael Wilson, Andy Hill, and Dinesh Pradhan. The Working Group has been inaugurated and to update the committee on this issue to date, we have, following the discussion at the committee meeting # 27, responded to OCIMF with our thanks for their suggestion of posting on the OCIMF web site a section such as a world map showing the location of SIRE inspectors by flags (for example), but we also requested to provide some of the information requested if an indication of which ports are covered by the SIRE inspector (as the base port) and which companies the inspectors inspect for could also be included. We have engaged in subsequent verbal discussions on the issue with OCIMF and are currently waiting for a formal response.
The committee is invited to take note
4.9 Questionnaire 88 Working Group (Chairman Ashley Cooper)
The work of this group is currently on hold at the moment having completed a revision of Questionnaire 88 during 2005.
The committee is however requested to discuss when or indeed if the 3rd revision might be undertaken if indeed its felt necessary at the current time.
5. MULTIPLE INSPECTIONS
5.1 General Discussion
The committee is requested to undertake a general discussion regarding multiple inspections;
· Is the number of various inspections being reduced?
· Are current systems resulting in a real reduction in multiple inspections?
· Is there more that can be done?
· If so what?
The committee is requested to discuss.
5.2 REPSOL- Un-announced SIRE inspections not entered in the SIRE database
We have received reports that apparently REPSOL are insisting on undertaking inspections at their terminals, whilst REPSOL will use the last SIRE inspection to allow the vessel to come alongside or not , the inspection is then carried out once alongside. The inspection is a full SIRE inspection but the results of the inspection are apparently very rarely submitted to the SIRE database on the basis of workload. However copies of the “findings” are left onboard the vessel. Another aspect to the concerns are that apparently there is no allowance undertaken of what other operations may be underway at the same time – including other inspections, in one report we have received the vessel was being inspected by another oil major for a potential time charter and REPSOL insisted their inspection took place first and the other major had to wait for the REPSOL inspection to be completed first – resulting in two inspections in the same port.
The committee is requested to discuss and conclude an action.
6. PORT STATE CONTROL RELATED MATTERS
6.1 PSC Integrity
As the committee will be aware the Vetting Committee has asked that we solicit input from members, on a confidential basis, on any incidents where the integrity of port state control (PSC) is not being upheld.We have assured members that any reports received will remain confidential between the member and the secretariat of INTERTANKO, the hope has being that by confidentially collating any comments it will assist us in addressing any problems which may arise.However the committee is advised that members remain reluctant to submit comments even on a confidential basis due to concerns regarding “retribution” from the PSC concerned during the vessels next visit.
The committee is requested to discuss this dilemma and suggest proposals to tackle the problem
6.2 PSC Harmonisation
As the committee will be aware INTERTANKO has on its work programme various issues regarding PSC, it is important to note from the outset that we are supportive of the work undertaken by PSC and that we have achieved some success to date there remains much more to be accomplished. Whilst INTERTANKO takes every opportunity to push our goals forward and work with industry bodies, MoU’s and partners to achieve these aims. The following is an overview of the various elements of work that INTERTANKO is involved with regards to PSC, as most of these elements centre within the work of this committee.
1. Harmonised standards and training of inspectors