Royal Dutch Shell on Monday began evacuating staff from a U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil platform, and other energy companies began preparing for hurricane-force winds from a second Gulf Coast storm in as many weeks.

Tropical Storm Nicholas was about 105 miles (115 km) south of Port O’Connor, Texas, and moving north with winds of 60 miles per hour (97 kph). It could become a hurricane just ahead of landfall on Monday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Waves stirred up by Nicholas neared 12 feet (3.7 m) in height were reported outside of Port Aransas, near Corpus Christi, Texas, with wind gusts up to 54 mph about 40 miles east of Padre Island, the National Weather Service said.

Rainfall totals of up to 16 inches and possibly 20 inches in some isolated areas were in the forecast for coastal Texas.

Nicholas is the second cyclone to threaten the U.S. Gulf Coast energy complex in recent weeks. Hurricane Ida wreaked havoc on oil production and refining facilities in late August and early September.

More than 40% of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico’s oil and gas output remained offline on Monday, two weeks after Ida slammed into the Louisiana coast, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).

Shell began evacuating non-essential personnel from its Perdido platform, which was unaffected by Ida. It was continuing to assess damages to its West Delta-143 hub, a transfer station for three major oilfields that remain offline.

Ports batten down
Shippers were warned of hurricane-force winds at oil export terminals on the Texas coast. The Port of Corpus Christi could see hurricane force winds in the next day, the U.S. Coast Guard said, and pilots there suspended activities.

The Coast Guard ordered vessels in the Texas ports of Houston, Galveston, Texas City and Freeport to cease cargo transfers if winds reach 40 mph. It barred inbound transit of 500 gross tons and greater vessels at all four.

Refiners also began making preparations for the storm. Phillips 66 refineries in Sweeney, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana, activated their hurricane plans, Exxon Mobil prepped its Baytown and Beaumont, Texas, petrochemical complexes for severe weather, and Citgo Petroleum said it was securing its Corpus Christi refinery in Texas.

“The big thing is going to be the rain. It’s going to be a slow-moving storm. When storms move at 5 of 8 miles per hour it can take a while for them to clear out,” said Phil Klotzbach, a researcher at Colorado State University.

U.S. crude futures were up more than 1% on Monday to $70.56 a barrel, while gasoline futures were roughly flat at $2.1625 a gallon.

Oil imports and exports face potential delays from Nicholas. Vessels that were unable to load or discharge during Ida could be rerouted again, shippers said.

The first supertanker scheduled to dock since Ida at the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), the largest U.S. privately owned terminal for crude exports and imports, has yet to load, according to Refinitiv Eikon vessel tracking.

(Reporting by Liz Hampton, Marianna Parraga, and Arpan Varghese; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Steve Orlofsky)

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Royal Dutch Shell on Monday began evacuating staff from a U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil platform, and other energy companies began preparing for hurricane-force winds from a second Gulf Coast storm in as many weeks.

Tropical Storm Nicholas was about 105 miles (115 km) south of Port O’Connor, Texas, and moving north with winds of 60 miles per hour (97 kph). It could become a hurricane just ahead of landfall on Monday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Waves stirred up by Nicholas neared 12 feet (3.7 m) in height were reported outside of Port Aransas, near Corpus Christi, Texas, with wind gusts up to 54 mph about 40 miles east of Padre Island, the National Weather Service said.

Rainfall totals of up to 16 inches and possibly 20 inches in some isolated areas were in the forecast for coastal Texas.

Nicholas is the second cyclone to threaten the U.S. Gulf Coast energy complex in recent weeks. Hurricane Ida wreaked havoc on oil production and refining facilities in late August and early September.

More than 40% of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico’s oil and gas output remained offline on Monday, two weeks after Ida slammed into the Louisiana coast, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).

Shell began evacuating non-essential personnel from its Perdido platform, which was unaffected by Ida. It was continuing to assess damages to its West Delta-143 hub, a transfer station for three major oilfields that remain offline.

Ports batten down
Shippers were warned of hurricane-force winds at oil export terminals on the Texas coast. The Port of Corpus Christi could see hurricane force winds in the next day, the U.S. Coast Guard said, and pilots there suspended activities.

The Coast Guard ordered vessels in the Texas ports of Houston, Galveston, Texas City and Freeport to cease cargo transfers if winds reach 40 mph. It barred inbound transit of 500 gross tons and greater vessels at all four.

Refiners also began making preparations for the storm. Phillips 66 refineries in Sweeney, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana, activated their hurricane plans, Exxon Mobil prepped its Baytown and Beaumont, Texas, petrochemical complexes for severe weather, and Citgo Petroleum said it was securing its Corpus Christi refinery in Texas.

“The big thing is going to be the rain. It’s going to be a slow-moving storm. When storms move at 5 of 8 miles per hour it can take a while for them to clear out,” said Phil Klotzbach, a researcher at Colorado State University.

U.S. crude futures were up more than 1% on Monday to $70.56 a barrel, while gasoline futures were roughly flat at $2.1625 a gallon.

Oil imports and exports face potential delays from Nicholas. Vessels that were unable to load or discharge during Ida could be rerouted again, shippers said.

The first supertanker scheduled to dock since Ida at the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), the largest U.S. privately owned terminal for crude exports and imports, has yet to load, according to Refinitiv Eikon vessel tracking.

(Reporting by Liz Hampton, Marianna Parraga, and Arpan Varghese; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Steve Orlofsky)

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PUBLISHED SEP 8, 2021 7:11 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

Additional information came out regarding the attack on an OSV in Gabon over the weekend. Details suggest that, unlike typical piracy attacks, the vessel may have been targeted with local authorities investigating people that were hired onshore to provide services to the vessel in the anchorage.

Family members of the crew along with a representative of the management company Proactive Ship Management based in Mumbai speaking to the Indo-Asian News Service confirmed the violent nature of the attack. The boarders came aboard shortly after midnight on September 5 and were reportedly armed with Ak-47s. They opened fire when the Indian crew aboard the Tampen attempted to fight back. The ship’s chief officer and cook suffered multiple gunshot wounds and were taken to a hospital.

The report also suggests during the fight, the boarders threw the ship’s second engineer overboard. Details are confused with some outlets suggesting he might then have been kidnapped while others said the authorities were searching the anchorage for the missing crew member.

Captain Sunil Kumar of Proactive speaking IANS said that the Tampen had been sailing with a crew of 17 Indians from Cameroon to Dubai when the vessel developed problems with its propulsion system. They had decided to anchor in Gabon’s Owendo anchorage.

While in the anchorage three people were hired from shore to provide services. Two were technicians servicing the vessel while the third collected garbage from the ship. The Gabon authorities are reportedly investigating these three individuals for possible involvement in the attack.

The shipping company said that there is an armed security guard aboard the OSV and that their focus has been on assisting the crew. However, the families complained to the Indian media that the company was not responsive. The company said it would provide a replacement crew but it expected that the crew would stay with the vessel and it would continue its voyage.

The Indian company began operating the Tampen, a 4,300 dwt supply vessel built in 2006 after it was sold by Bourbon. The Tampen is currently registered in St. Kitts and Nevis.

While there have been prior assaults on ships and kidnappings in Gabon, security analysts at Dryad International termed the attack unusual. They noted if confirmed it would be the first kidnapping in Gabon in 2021.

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Now in its second year, the compliance ranking aims to encourage rather than force distant-water fishing firms to improve their management systems

PUBLISHED SEP 13, 2021 5:00 PM BY CHINA DIALOGUE OCEAN

[By Zhou Chen]

Commenting on the state of China’s distant-water fishing, Zhang Xianliang, an official with the Ministry of Agriculture’s Bureau of Fisheries, said there are many with little risk resilience and poor management. “We are still seeing regulatory breaches and safety incidents in overseas waters,” he said, stressing the need to change how the industry is developing.

As part of addressing the issue, in March this year the Ministry of Agriculture released its second annual compliance rating scores for distant-water fishing (DWF) companies.

The China National Fisheries Corporation came top, with 106.1 points. In last place was Zhoushan Zhenyang DWF Ltd, with 54.7.

China has the world’s largest DWF fleet, and so how those vessels are regulated is of international concern. Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing threatens the sustainability of fish populations and the fishing industry itself. So, China has put a number of new regulatory measures in place, including this annual scoring of DWF companies.

Sally Yozell, senior fellow and director of the environmental security programme at the Stimson Center, a US thinktank, says “it’s fantastic that China is starting to acknowledge the problems of IUU fishing with its fleet” and is taking “very positive” actions.

Ranking DWF firms

This was the second year rankings have been published, with 180 firms rated on their compliance with Chinese and international DWF regulations.

The process involves each firm evaluating its own performance. That assessment is then checked by the local fishing authorities, before being passed on to the Ministry of Agriculture for publication.

According to the ministry’s website, 42 factors are considered, across four areas: internal rules; supervision and management; compliance and innovation; and violations.

“Internal rules” means internal governance, safety and crew management. “Supervision and management” looks at whether or not the company’s fleet submits to required monitoring and reports all relevant data. “Compliance and innovation” covers use of sustainable equipment and methods, as well as voluntary use of up-to-date monitoring and traceability systems. “Violations” means breaches of laws and regulations, including unlicensed fishing, illegal cross-border fishing and failure to keep vessel monitoring systems activated.

Firms gain points for following regulations and lose points for breaches. However, the Ministry of Agriculture only publishes an overall score for each firm – details of how those figures were reached are not made public.

Zhou Wei, senior oceans campaigner with Greenpeace East Asia, thinks that the first three of those areas can largely be assessed via day-to-day business records. But gathering information on regulatory breaches could be more complex.

She points out that companies have little motivation to hand over proof of their own breaches, and it can be difficult for the authorities and technical support agencies to verify submitted data. The technology currently in use does not allow all activities of a DWF vessel to be monitored in all weathers. It is still possible, therefore, for breaches to go under the radar of regulators.

Companies submit information and supporting materials on their regulatory compliance, which is then audited by the provincial fishing authorities, aided by technical support bodies such as Shanghai Ocean University and the China Distant-Water Fisheries Association.

Zhou Wei points out that the Chinese government will not be aware of breaches committed by Chinese vessels in the exclusive economic zones of other countries, unless an information-sharing arrangement is in place with the host government.

Closing that information gap, says Zhou Wei, will require Chinese regulators and the technical support agencies to actively gather information. Also, more transparency – such as regularly publishing the names of China’s DWF vessels – would encourage oversight by civil society and the public.

“In the United States, basically, when our companies are out of compliance, we fine them. We put them in jail,” says Sally Yozell. “The important question is, how transparent is China going to be with this [compliance] data? How is that data going to be used during enforcement?”

As far as she is aware, China’s system of ranking DWF companies is unique. Zhou Wei sees the system as still in a trial period, and so the results shouldn’t be used for rewards or punishments. So far, there have been no reports of that happening.

“China has the largest distant-water fishing fleet in the world. It fishes all round the world,” says Yozell. She believes publishing detailed information on DWF companies would help countries in West Africa, the Pacific, East Africa and South America evaluate them before providing fishing licences.

International pressure

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the ranking system has drawn on the experiences of regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs). It aims to “encourage” rather than force companies into “improving their management systems and implementing strict supervisory measures… avoiding illegal behaviour.” In other words, a high ranking may make a company look good while a low one may bring stigma. The ministry has also said it plans to use the compliance data as a factor in issuing DWF licences and providing support for the industry.

China is a member of eight RFMOs:

• The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas
• The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission
• The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission
• The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission
• The North Pacific Fisheries Commission
• The South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation
• The Southern Indian Ocean Fisheries Agreement
• The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources

Julian Chen, a fishing industry researcher at Greenovation Hub, a Beijing-based NGO, said RFMOs set rules for governments and fishing vessels in order to restrict fishing activity, conserve fishery resources and ensure the sustainable development of regional fisheries. China’s DWF ranking essentially translates RFMO compliance requirements and China’s own DWF management rules into a scoring system.

Chen explained that RFMO oversight relies on both monitoring of real-time location data, as well as cooperation with port states, coastal states and flag states. Port states check landed catches, while coastal states may patrol nearby waters via coastguards. He says countries that fish generally “have a central authority aware of the movements of their fleets, and they are obliged to take administrative or legal action against vessels when informed of breaches by RFMOs”.

According to Chen, RFMO standards are getting tougher, with a knock-on effect on compliance requirements. Countries with stronger fisheries management also try to export their standards, putting other countries under pressure.

China bolstering management of DWF

According to a 2020 Ministry of Agriculture white paper on DWF compliance, as of the end of 2019, China had 178 registered DWF firms, operating 2,701 fishing vessels. Of these, 1,589 fished on the high seas on the Pacific, Indian, Atlantic and Antarctic oceans, as well as in the national waters of other countries.

The 13th Five Year Plan (2016–20) for the DWF sector said that, to protect fishery resources, there would “in principle” be no more licences for DWF firms or vessels, and the fleet would be no larger than 3,000 vessels.

“Keeping capacity under control will also help tackle IUU fishing,” says Zhou Wei. “If there’s too much capacity, vessels are more likely to risk breaking the rules as they compete for catches.” She expects these measures to continue into the 14th Five Year Plan period (2021–25).

Sally Yozell thinks China could go further, by abolishing fuel subsidies, which encourage overcapacity and overfishing. Those subsidies mean bigger vessels spending more time at sea and catching more fish.

Zhou Wei says China has toughened up on the DWF sector in recent years, with new or revised regulations, and some measures look very strict when compared against those in force in other countries. For example, Chinese vessels are required to report their location to the Ministry of Agriculture every hour, compared to every four hours before, and observers are now required on all transhipment vessels.

A 2020 revision of DWF regulations created a “blacklist”, which will see company executives, managers and captains given temporary bans from the sector if they are found to be involved in regulatory breaches.

Zhou Wei says the blacklist targets individuals, while the ranking system is focused on companies – different approaches, both intended to improve DWF management.

“Reasonable oversight from civil society and the public can also encourage firms to improve compliance,” says Zhou. She also points out that a review of investigations and sanctions of DWF firms over recent years shows these often originate with reports from Chinese or international NGOs, or the public.

China still needs to improve its systems for oversight of DWF activity. The Ministry of Agriculture says China supports tackling IUU fishing via port monitoring and is actively looking at joining the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Agreement on Port State Measures, implementing cross-departmental cooperation, and steadily improving its ability to carry out port checks.

Sally Yozell hopes China will sign up to the agreement. “Seafood traceability is expanding all around the world”, meaning better mechanisms to prevent IUU fish from reaching the market, she says.

She adds that tackling IUU fishing will not make fish more expensive or result in less consumption of fish. But IUU fishing will result in fish disappearing from the ocean more rapidly, harming compliant firms. Creating a fairer market will mean more sustainable fisheries, and more wild-caught fish available to eat.

Zhou Chen is a veteran environmental journalist, previously with Caixin Media and the Paper. She currently lives in Vancouver, Canada and is the Climate Justice Reporter at Ricochet.

This article appears courtesy of China Dialogue Ocean and may be found in its original form here.

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PUBLISHED SEP 13, 2021 4:45 PM BY RONALD O’ROURKE, CRS

Over the past several years, the South China Sea (SCS) has emerged as an arena of U.S.-China strategic competition. China’s actions in the SCS—including extensive island-building and base-construction activities at sites that it occupies in the Spratly Islands, as well as actions by its maritime forces to assert China’s claims against competing claims by regional neighbors such as the Philippines and Vietnam—have heightened concerns among U.S. observers that China is gaining effective control of the SCS, an area of strategic, political, and economic importance to the United States and its allies and partners. Actions by China’s maritime forces at the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea (ECS) are another concern for U.S. observers. Chinese domination of China’s near-seas region—meaning the SCS and ECS, along with the Yellow Sea—could substantially affect U.S. strategic, political, and economic interests in the Indo-Pacific region and elsewhere.

Potential general U.S. goals for U.S.-China strategic competition in the SCS and ECS include but are not necessarily limited to the following: fulfilling U.S. security commitments in the Western Pacific, including treaty commitments to Japan and the Philippines; maintaining and enhancing the U.S.-led security architecture in the Western Pacific, including U.S. security relationships with treaty allies and partner states; maintaining a regional balance of power favorable to the United States and its allies and partners; defending the principle of peaceful resolution of disputes and resisting the emergence of an alternative “might-makes-right” approach to international affairs; defending the principle of freedom of the seas, also sometimes called freedom of navigation; preventing China from becoming a regional hegemon in East Asia; and pursing these goals as part of a larger U.S. strategy for competing strategically and managing relations with China.

Potential specific U.S. goals for U.S.-China strategic competition in the SCS and ECS include but are not necessarily limited to the following: dissuading China from carrying out additional base-construction activities in the SCS, moving additional military personnel, equipment, and supplies to bases at sites that it occupies in the SCS, initiating island-building or base-construction activities at Scarborough Shoal in the SCS, declaring straight baselines around land features it claims in the SCS, or declaring an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the SCS; and encouraging China to reduce or end operations by its maritime forces at the Senkaku Islands in the ECS, halt actions intended to put pressure against Philippine-occupied sites in the Spratly Islands, provide greater access by Philippine fisherman to waters surrounding Scarborough Shoal or in the Spratly Islands, adopt the U.S./Western definition regarding freedom of the seas, and accept and abide by the July 2016 tribunal award in the SCS arbitration case involving the Philippines and China.

The issue for Congress is whether the Administration’s strategy for competing strategically with China in the SCS and ECS is appropriate and correctly resourced, and whether Congress should approve, reject, or modify the strategy, the level of resources for implementing it, or both. Decisions that Congress makes on these issues could substantially affect U.S. strategic, political, and economic interests in the Indo-Pacific region and elsewhere.

This excerpt appears courtesy of CRS, and the report may be found in full here.

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