Doha, Qatar, served as the site of a training initiative focusing on addressing risks arising from chemical accidents and the potential misuse of toxic chemicals in ports and maritime venues.

“We aim to raise global standards and set norms for the safety, security, and efficiency of ports and coastal State authorities; and standardize port procedures through identifying and developing best practice guidance and training materials for secure transfer of hazardous chemicals,” Rohan Perera, senior program officer of the International Cooperation Branch of the OPCW, said.

Attendees shared views on new approaches to building ports and maritime security to transfer hazardous chemicals more securely, noting areas addressed included aspects of port and maritime chemical safety and security management, port security plans and assessments, risk management, and chemical emergency management.

Col. Khalif Mohammed Al Ali, vice chairman of the National Committee for the Prohibition of Weapons of Qatar, discussed the training’s wider context, referencing the challenges facing the world related to the ports, maritime security, and the region.

He said security and safety in sea port is one of the most important pillars for ensuring chemical safety and security and promoting economic and technological development.

Representatives from port authorities, coast guards and maritime security authorities from Bangladesh, China, Iraq, India, Kenya, Malaysia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Qatar, Spain, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam attended the sessions.

Source: homelandprepnews

THE WASHINGTON FOREIGN PRESS CENTER, WASHINGTON, D.C.

MODERATOR:  Okay, I think we will go ahead and get started.  Let’s see.  Okay.  So I am ready.  And welcome, everyone.  My name is Doris Robinson and I am today’s moderator.  I’d like to welcome you to the Foreign Press Center’s briefing on the Combined Maritime Forces coalition.  As a reminder, today’s briefing is on the record, and we ask that you please keep your microphones muted until you are called on to ask a question.  If you have any technical problems during the session, you can send an email to the chat box and one of my colleagues will try and assist you.  If you are disconnected to this session, please click on the link again to rejoin.

And now, I would like to introduce our two briefers.  First we have Vice Admiral James Malloy.  He serves as the Commander of the United States Naval Forces Central Command, United States 5th Fleet Combined Maritime Forces.  Our second briefer is Commodore Dean Bassett.  He is the Deputy Commander for Maritime Forces.  Commander Basset assumed the roles of the United Kingdom Maritime Component Commander and Deputy Commander, Combined Maritime Forces, in June 2019.

I will now turn it over to Vice Admiral Malloy for opening remarks.  Sir, please go ahead.

VADM MALLOY:  Thank you, Ms. Robinson, and I do appreciate you setting this up today.  It’s a pleasure to meet you virtually.  As Ms. Robinson said, I’m Jim Malloy, the Commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, 5th Fleet, and Combined Maritime Forces, which is the topic of today.  And I thank you for joining us today.

We asked to meet with you in order to talk about CMF and the importance of this unique maritime coalition and the importance it has in this critical part of the world.  In my time as CMF Commander, I’ve stressed that our common purpose and collective engagement as global and regional partners is what right looks like and what the future looks like when it comes to combating illegal activity.

For nearly 20 years, the Combined Maritime Forces has been a testament to the importance of a collective mission and capability brought by each of our members.  This area of operations that we work in is complex, congested, and contested.  However, our 33 member nations remain unified in our commitment to promoting and defending maritime security and protecting and allowing legitimate trade and commerce.

Yesterday we completed our annual Maritime Security Conference.  We had 31 countries participating, along with two international organizations from the EU and the UN, and Commodore Bassett will talk to you about that conference and our way ahead.  Dean?

CDRE BASSETT:  Sir, thank you.  Good morning.  Firstly, may I reiterate the Vice Admiral’s thanks to you all for joining us on this occasion today.  And as the Admiral has already mentioned, yesterday we held the Combined Maritime Forces Maritime Security Conference.  The conference is held annually, and on this occasion, recognizing the strength that comes from the diversity of our 33 member nations and our wider partnerships, provided the opportunity to discuss our international and regional – with our regional partners the recent Combined Maritime Forces Comprehensive Strategic Review.  The review was undertaken because we recognized that CMF must evolve in order to remain relevant and effective, and it has taken into account the global strategic shifts in threats and the need to remain flexible in our response to the dynamic and diverse non-state-actor security threats across the region.

The CMF mission remains vital to support regional maritime security operations, and the Combined Strategic Review represents a reinvigorated CMF with an agreed focus on the maintenance of the international rules-based order within the region, in line with the common ambitions of all our member nations.

The review incorporates progressive reform of the organization, including capacity-building as a fundamental CMF output, which will greatly enhance our ability to effectively conduct operations as well as strengthening our efforts to build regional maritime security alongside our valued partners.

We recognize that CMF alone cannot directly address the root causes of illicit non-state-actor activity that occurs on the high seas and within the region, and so we will also leverage more on forging strong relationships with our regional and international partners.

Our enhanced approach will lead to a transformational organization, comprehensive in nature, adopting – adapting to meet the requirements of an evolving operational environment, and our shared commitment to maritime security and stability in the region.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention and we’ll now look forward to taking your questions.

MODERATOR:  Thank you, sirs.  We will now open for questions.  To ask a question, please click on the raised hand icon – I believe it’s at the bottom of the screen – and I will call on you.  When I call on you, please be sure to state your name and your media outlet.  And let’s see.  And we will give it just a few minutes for people to hit the raised hand icon.

Let’s see.  So I may – it looks like we have a question from Nico Pandi.  Nico, go ahead with your question, please.

QUESTION:  Hi.  Good morning, Doris.  Can you hear me?  Everything sounds okay?

MODERATOR:  Yes, it does.

QUESTION:  Thank you very much for doing this, gentlemen.  I wanted to go back to a comment the Commodore made about the threat of diverse non-state actors.  Could either one of you briefly review how that threat has evolved or changed since last year’s meeting, and what are some of the trends that you’re seeing in the region that are developing and perhaps alarming you that we didn’t see in the past?  Thank you.

VADM MALLOY:  Mr. Pandi, first of all, thank you for that question, and if it’s okay with you we’ll tag team this because of – again, Commodore Bassett and I look at things from two different perspectives and we want to give you the benefit of that.  Over the past year we have seen an evolution of illegal fishing.  We always are conscious of trends in narcotics smuggling in the region and how the trends change over time based upon where we have patrols, security patrols, monitoring for that and deterring those types of activities, and then we watch as the organizations that sponsor them morph and change.  So it’s not so much evolution of new threats, but how those threats metastasize that has changed over the course of the year.  Some of the things we’ve put into place in the changing of our strategic approach in CMF is designed to make us more flexible, more responsive to that, operationally more nimble to be able to maneuver as necessary – as those threats and how they metastasize – maneuver across the region.  Commodore?

CDRE BASSETT:  Sir, thank you.  I – the only thing I would add to that, Mr. Pandi, is that – on the narcotics front.  Not only do we see a change in the pattern of the routes of narcotics, but also we’re seeing a changing type of narcotics in the percentages that we’re seeing that we are successfully interdicting on the high seas.  And that change has been progressive over time, but for example, we’re seeing more heroin in the region than we would have in the past.  And last year we had the highest amount of heroin seized by CMF vessels on the high seas.

MODERATOR:  Thank you, sir.  And just a reminder to our journalists, to ask a question please hit the raised hand icon at the bottom of this screen.  And Nico, did you have a follow-up question?

QUESTION:  No, I didn’t.  Thank you very much.

MODERATOR:  Thank you.  Okay, let’s see.  And let’s check our phone line as well for those on the phone.  If you would like to ask a question, please hit *6 to ask your question.  I will call on – I believe it’s Ryan Hermelijn.  Ryan, did you have a question?  Ryan, you can go ahead with your question.

Looks like he’s having some technical difficulties, so I will offer once again.  If you would like to ask a question please hit the raised hand icon at the bottom of the screen, and we will just give it a few more minutes.

VADM MALLOY:  Doris, if he texts the question to you, you could pass it to us that way if you’d like, if there’s any kind of technical difficulty.

MODERATOR:  That’s right, absolutely.  If you would like to ask a question and you’re having technical difficulties, you can text us the question as well, and we can be sure and ask the question on your behalf.  Let’s see.  Okay, it appears we don’t have any other questions, so I will turn it back to Vice Admiral Malloy to see if he had any follow-up or final comments.

VADM MALLOY:  Well, it’s lunch time there on the east coast and it’s dinner time here, which may be a reason.  Again, I appreciate people’s coming online and giving us an opportunity to brief.  This is a good news story.  This is a story of a coalition of the willing, partners that recognize the importance of maritime trade to the world.  And although it focuses on this region, it recognizes that free trade, free commerce in the maritime is critical to every nation in the world.

And so the 33 member nations that belong to CMF, they provide support for us in that common aim to promote that maritime security.  It is not necessarily anti-anything because secure maritime is a positive vision that we can all agree to and work for, and it has over the course of 20 years been a very positive working environment where generations of navies have grown up together and worked together and now stay in touch with each other as we – we come back and do this mission very often, and my fourth time to do this, this activity here.  And so it is a great opportunity for us to gather and to – and promote that security.  Dean?

CDRE BASSETT:  So I think I – all I would ask or add is that CMF is committed to the enduring task of maritime security in the region, and we welcome all nations, like-minded nations into the fold.  And we’re likewise committed to strengthening our relationships with other regional forces operating in the maritime domain with that common and mutual aim of strengthening security stability in the region.  Thank you very much.

MODERATOR:  Thank you, sirs, and if we get any follow-up questions, we will be sure to send those to our briefers.  I would like to thank everyone for joining us this morning, and this briefing is now concluded.  Thank you all.

Source: state.go

By now, the saga of a damaged oil tanker a breath away from an international environmental disaster stuck by Yemen has become more of a a ghost story than a news item. FSO Safer is a floating oil storage unit & offloading vessel moored in the Red Sea to the north of Yemen’s strategically important port of Hodeidah. Built in Japan in 1976, it was taken into custody by the Iran-backed Houthis in 2015, in the early phases of the civil war.

They have been holding the ship hostage since then, along with large portions of Yemen’s territory after pushing the internationally recognized Hadi government out of the country. Over the next five years, the physical conditions of the vessel degraded to the point that it has come to pose a significant threat of a potential environmental catastrophe, including risk of a major hull breach or an explosion of oil vapors. It is currently holding 1.14 million barrels of oil worth approximately $80 million USD. This cargo became the center of controversy between Yemen’s government and the Houthis. The ship is officially owned by Yemen’s government, but Houthis retain physical control of the surrounding territories. Both seek to obtain or retain control over the cargo and the ship.

The Houthis at one point had promised to allow international inspectors to visit the vessel over safety concerns, but subsequently withdrew permission. An oil spill in the event of continuing negligence could displace as many as 1.6 million people and affect the local area for generations to ,come. Yemen Coalition of Independent Women’, hosted by Dr. Wesam Basindowah, brought together high level speakers to discuss the possible resolution of the ongoing debacle. UK’s Ambassador to Yemen Michael Aron emphasized that the resolution of this dilemma remains a priority for his government, and discussed the role UK has played in pushing for the international resolution, including the attempts to inspect the ship. However, the Houthis complicated these international efforts by vacillating on whether to grant the permission. Ambassador Aron recently pleaded with the Houthis to allow inspections; UN and Yemeni officials fear that the oil leakage could block maritime trade through the Red Sea, which accounts for up to 10% of world trade. The situation also threatens the daily passage of approximately 5.5 million barrels of oil.

According to the UK Ambassador, the ideal solution in this case would be to haul off the ship before it’s too late to a safe location, sell off the oil (the quality of which is deteriorating over time), and dismantle the vessel for scraps somewhere in India or Pakistan. The proceeds from the oil would go to an escrow account pending final resolution of the dispute.

Taking the ship out of the zone of danger is imperative no matter where the money from the sale ultimately end up. This would not be a quick process because the work that it would take to implement this solution could not be done in one visit. The first visit would dedicated to a review by international inspectors, who would then file relevant reports about the condition of the ship with additional recommendations. Over time, these recommendations would be reviewed, and the best course of action would be decided upon.

Yemen’s Ambassador to UNESCO Dr. Mohammed Jumeh gave the historical background of the vessel, then emphasized that by giving legitimacy to the Houthis, the international organizations enabled their ability to take advantage of this and many other situations. In a broader context, international humanitarian aid that flows through these channels is diverted by Houthis for recruitment of militias and to enrich their loyal clans. While the country has been devastated by the war and by the fragmentation of the society through various sectarian conflicts, separatist issues, spread of Muslim Brotherhood-driven Islamism, and other extremist movements, and proliferation of other terrorist organizations such as ISIS and Al Qaeda, the Houthis have taken advantage of international NGOs and UN programs by forcing the local organizations to accept the many Kafkaesque conditions imposed on being able to operate on the ground. Ambassador Jumeh explained that he was told of countless stories of humanitarians left in tears after testifying to the obstacles placed in their ways by the Houthis who had essentially blocked them from delivering the aid, and stole the resources and basic necessities, such as food, that should have gone to the starving YEmeni people.

Treating the Houthis as an equal partner to the legitimate government has repeatedly enabled them to get away with outright theft, corruption, various abuses, and grotesque war crimes while unjustly enriching themselves at the expense of the rest of the population. Ambassador Jumeh asserted that at this point after the Houthis have repeatedly shown their bath faith, security and defense issues had to be reassessed, prioritized and addressed. The Houthis have repeatedly ignored all internationally driven attempts to resolve the conflict and all arising crises. They showed they do not at all care about the political processes and flagrantly violated relevant agreement and resolutions, defying even basic conditions for resolving the situation.

They refused ceasefires in the midst of the pandemic that would have saved lives, looted essential medical supplies, attacked Saudi civilian cites with sophisticated Iranian made weapons, and have taken every opportunity to demostrate how little they care for the international agreements, laws, or basic civic norms. Yet despite all this, international organizations continued to pursue the same course of action, again and again trying to involve the Houthis as equal partners who are devoted to the agenda of resolving a dispute in an equitable way. That is not the case. The international organizations and institutions, continued Ambassador Jumeh, should be pushing for the return of the internationally recognized government to Yemen. No crisis can resolved with the offical government is forced into exile, and when there are no levers of pressure at all being exercised against groups engaged in blatantly illegal and destructive actions.

The Houthis have no incentive not to continue playing games over the ship and other matters. Denying entry to inspectors is just another way of blackmailing the international community and extorting additional financial bribes. There is no real justification, but the Houthis keep playing on the predictable international response and the fact that no matter what they do, no action will be taken against them; all the pressure will be directed at the YEmen government, because it responds to pressure and cares about the relationship with the international community. THat, however, can play no role in solving the situation with the ship because no matter how much the international community pushes the Hadi government, only the Houthis are in a position to allow in the inspectors. Without any pressure, however, they have no reason to do so.

The more panicked the UN and others are about the prospects of the ship exploding, the more they are likely to acquiesce to Houthi demand, so the Houthis have an incentive to procrastinate as much as possible short of letting the vessel and the cargo lose all value. Unless action is taken to change the status of the Houthis themselves, the situation is unlikely to improve. Hostage taking is what the Houthis are doing best. From holding hostage hospitals, civilians, and detainees, they have turned to holding hostage all of Yemen, and now the entire international community. It’s time to break through the cycle of manipulation and extortion and to put an end over a terrorist hold over the lives of millions of people.

There is another angle to the Safer situation that has escaped the attention of most analysts and media addressing the impending disaster. The Houthis are using the peril of the explosive oil tanker to reduce the likelihood of attacks or other incursions to the port of Hodeidah. Left unstated in their public demand is that the Houthis themselves may be willing to set the ship on fire if they see the possibility of the takeover of the port, which not so long ago was considered a vital point of attack for the Arab Coalition forces who were hoping to make a comeback and drive the Houthis completely out of the city. Had they succeeded in taking over the port after the siege that had resulted in the first major battle of the war or had the Emirati-led initiative to retake it in 2018 succeded, some believe, the course of the war would have been much more easy to reverse.

As a result of the corona pandemic, port activity throughout the country has been restricted. Hodeidah is one of the two working ports that are under the Houthi control. In addition to strategic importance, Hodeidah carries an important psychological and symbolic value both sides. When after bouts of intermittent fighting, UAE withdrew from Hodeidah in the summer of 2019, it was considered a major blow to the Arab Coalition, though the Emiratis remained formally involved.

Additionally, Yemen’s humanitarian crisis is considered the worst in the world, combining elements of combat, famine, various epidemics, and now the corona epidemic with various shortages, mine proliferation, and corruption. Hodeidah remains the principal entry point for container ships, bulk shipments of food, and fuel. It is also one of the ways Iran uses to smuggle various contraband to Houthi control. Not only is Hodeidah essential for the Houthis’ hostage taking of Yemen through control of much of the humanitarian aid entering the country, but losing access to the port would make receiving shipments of missile parts and other arms from Iran much more complicated. Entire ballistic missiles have been known to be delivered to Hodeidah by Houthis in trucks. Corruption fuels this situation as the Houthis are able to pay off some officials to allow illegal shipments to enter the city via speedboats and other avenues. Not resolving the ship situation, is in a way, an immunity measure for the Houthis.

The Houthis have used the port persistently to show their power over the international institutions, most recently by holding up a UN-ship and preventing it from leaving the port. THis happened after a violation of the Stockholm Agreement which had all parties to the conflict withdraw from the HOdeidah port in May 2019; the Yemen government only a month ago slammed the Houthis for the complete plunder of the port assets in spite of the agreements. But without the interest in that port, the Houthi games over the control of the ship made little sense, since coming to terms and getting a significant financial benefit from the agreement would have benefited Houthis politically as much as financially, portraying them as a rational authority willing to negotiate, even if from a position of strength.

While Hodeidah and two other ports have been greatly damaged as a result of the fighting, the international community has come to believe that these ports hold the key to a “sustainable peace” (despite the fact that it is obvious that an organized group of thugs trained and supplied by the terrorist organization Hezbullah and Iran, and used as a proxy to attack Saudi Arabia can not be part of any peace solution, because its objective is war, damage to its enemies, and power), and the UN has committed to “restoring them to a functional state”.

What that ultimately means is that the international organizations, if they ever want to be freed from the yoke of Houthi entrapment, should direct all of the international humanitarian aid solely through the Arab Coalition units, depriving the Houthis from the leverage to make additional demands. Until this point the possibility of simply taking over the ship and hauling it off has not been entertained, due to a risk of an attack by the Houthis – but any such move should be considered an act of war and met with force, as one would treat any pirate organization.

At the end of the day, the only way to shut down these extortionist maneuvers is to deprive the Houthis of the power that makes it possible. THey cannot be dealt with as a legitimate party to a conflict; they should be considered a terrorist organization and treated with the same consideration accorded to ISIS or Al Qaeda; and the international community should make every effort to assist the Arab Coalition in liberating the territories controlled by the Houthis for what amounts to illegitimate and illegal oppressive occupation by a foreign funded insurgency. Furthermore, it is time to start thinking about depriving the Houthis of strategic arms superiority, which despite the attacks that have disrupted their cyber capabilities and missiles have failed to stop them from continuous and seemingly infinite reception of drones, missiles, and much more.

Source: republic-underground

How Mastermind has achieved Clarity & Scalability across Multicountry Operations with SAP?

The Mastermind Group (MSM) was founded principally as a ship-owning company that later expanded into ship-management. MSM technically manages a fleet of more than 20+ vessels, which consist of dry bulk, break-bulk and multipurpose vessels.

MSM prides itself in being very innovative and instrumental in developing its new ship designs with shipyards in Japan and China. The yards have eventually succeeded, delivering more than 50 vessels to various ship-owners worldwide. The company is dedicated to safety and quality, always minding the protection of the environment. MSM is determined to safely “Navigate Ahead” to the fullest satisfaction of its customers.

Mastermind Shipmanagement was looking for a comprehensive solution to power their businesses

However, existing software was neither flexible nor scalable enough to adapt to the changing operating environment and company growth. There was also lack of integration across all business units, leading to inefficiencies and silos of information in bespoke systems. Furthermore, proprietary financial system was difficult to maintain and upgrade, along with lacked insights to the financial information of its network.

Why choosing SAP and Supernova Consulting?

Supernova Consulting managed to successfully establish a management of MSM processes and information systems in one platform. That included: solution scalability, enterprise-wide and real-time operational visibility along with multi-company support with cross-company processes.

Captain Eugen Adami, Managing Director of Mastermind Group said: “We needed world-class software to support the changes in our operating environment and support our company’s growth. We knew about SAP but did not have the resources for a long implementation project. With the support and commitment from our Partner, Supernova Consulting, we managed to implement SAP® ERP Central Component (ECC) in 8 weeks with minimum resources.”

The fixed budget, combined with the minimum resources, made the fast implementation in 8-weeks possible. There was integration with AMOS® ship management and procurement software. Additionally, senior executives were on-board with their commitment and support.

A comprehensive, integrated industry solution

With SAP® ERP Central Component (ECC) solution, Mastermind Group gained operational efficiency with an affordable, right-sized solution that help them manage information flow and harmonize business processes.

MSM managed to improve financial management, maintain operational excellence, enhance agility, streamline and complete a process from end to end, by driving adoption and improving productivity.

Benefits:

• Maintain operational excellence
• Streamlined day-to-day operations
• Able to extract up-to-date information
• Increased productivity and data accuracy
• Reduced duplication of data

Objectives and Challenges

Mastermind Shipmanagement has desired to build a future-proof system that would enable the company to grow. They also wish to improve information flow by integrating all business units on a centralized business platform.

Lastly, their main goal regarding their information, has been focused in real-time and in-depth presentation, in order for the executives to make accurate and beneficial decisions.

Navigate your Digital Transformation Journey with Supernova Consulting!

The Liberian Registry said it has augmented its leadership team to help keep pace with nearly 12% over the last 12 months. The Liberian International Ship and Corporate Registry (LISCR) has added to its ranks Thomas Klenum as Senior Vice President of Maritime Operations, and Reynaldo Garibaldi as Senior Vice President of Maritime Operations and South America.

Klenum, based at the Registry’s headquarters, is in charge of the Regulations and Standards, Investigations, and Fleet Security and Certifications Divisions. Klenum joins the headquarters team after spending the last six years within the Registry and its group of companies in Europe. While in that role, he served as Technical Director and represented Liberia at IMO, spearheaded many technical projects, and represented the Registry in numerous industry forums globally. This follows a twenty-year career as a senior executive in Lloyd’s Register where he was General Manager and Principal Surveyor in the U.K., Denmark, and China.

Working closely with Klenum is Garibaldi, who will divide his time between the headquarters office and the Registry’s Panama branch. With over 25 years of experience, Garibaldi started his career as a deck officer before coming ashore and working for the Panamanian Maritime Authority, 10 years of which were spent in their New York office. While there, he was a surveyor a PSC specialist, attended IMO committees and subcommittees, was integral in the implementation of ISM and ISPS, and led major casualty investigations, and held the rank of Chief of Navigation and Maritime Safety after acting as IMO auditor and Technical Manager.

Chief Operating Officer of LISCR, Alfonso Castillero said, “Adding Thomas and Reynaldo was needed for many reasons, one of which is due to our huge growth. Since July 2019, Liberia has grown by over 18 million gross Tons, that’s almost 12% in one year. . . With this growth comes the need to augment the team to ensure fleet safety, and service delivery.”

The announcement follows the establishment of the Liberian Registry’s LNG and Offshore leadership, the opening of offices in Oslo, Imabari, and Houston, and the appointment of key Regional Compliance Managers in U.S. ports.

Source:  maritimeprofessional

As the shipping industry undergoes major transformation, with operations becomingly increasingly automated, maritime companies need to consider more than just efficiency and safety when it comes to operations. The current global situation has resulted in a growing demand for crew communication, for both work and social purposes, alongside the ongoing need for optimization. All of this causes higher levels of traffic on maritime networks, forcing shipping operators to place an increased focus on essential network management to protect business operations.

While on-board IT systems can be complex, they also offer large-scale opportunities for digital technologies to increase communication, reduce costs, boost productivity and ensure higher customer satisfaction. Because of this, investments in network management can have a significant impact on business operations and can also require a great deal of management and undertaking to make them pay off.

Network management

The most significant development for maritime communications has been the integration of standalone technologies into end-to-end solutions to create a manageable network. Gone are the days of shipowners and managers having to juggle boxes of the past, instead this integration offers higher network performance, simplification of operations and a reduction in the total cost of ownership.

With so many fundamental applications and processes, it has become essential for shipping companies to install a smart network management platform. This impacts everything from the seamless transition between shore-based 4G/LTE connectivity, VSAT and L-band satellite, to the operation of on-board information systems. Smart network management platforms also deliver automatic matching of demand of various applications to available networks and the management of traffic, whether that be voice, internet, email or video.

To ensure that the network can support all necessary services, operators need to utilize platforms that maintain the services and applications running on it to deliver value to all stakeholders. The network should be able to support every application required for daily operations while also offering the potential to provide new services to keep up with the ever-increasing changes in the industry.

A Reliable Platform

Having an integrated management service helps to support the whole network to carry out mission critical communications for the smooth running of operations instead of a patchwork approach which could cause potential disruption. This management service will become an integral part of maritime operations – with many aspects reliant on consistent, uninterrupted seamless connectivity. With services and applications running on the platform essential for delivering value to the ship, the business, its crew, and customers, it is critical that the network can support all elements of day-to-day operations.

Having a robust network is key for successful management and operation of the ship, where downtime and delays have no place. If a network becomes disrupted it can cause a multitude of problems for shipowners and business managers whose operations largely rely on having end-to-end network connectivity.

The system must also offer the ability to support new services in the future to adapt to the industry’s changing demands. For instance, being able to support real-time analysis of integrated data from IoT sensors or provide video conferencing, voice or email messaging similar to a traditional corporate network, these applications depend on a reliable network that is capable of handling varying levels of data at the same time.

Security First

With technology playing a pivotal role in maritime operations and with new innovations continually being developed, the reliance on digital applications and communication networks is growing. This presents a challenge for shipping companies as cyber attacks increase in sophistication and present a huge potential for devastating damage to be caused by compromise to a network. Therefore, security must be made a priority when it comes to the integrated management service, with the ability to defend itself from evolving threats.

To ensure security comes top of the list for maritime businesses, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has made it a requirement that from January 2021, cybersecurity best practices are written into Safety Management Systems (SMS). It will be crucial for the shipping sector to think ahead about how to implement these changes ahead of the deadline.

This IMO directive is leaving operators to determine exactly where these vulnerabilities and cybersecurity gaps lie within their SMS. They must then come up with ways to fix these gaps and incorporate these new protocols which are designed to protect maritime systems from attack. This however is challenging due to a worldwide lack of maritime cybersecurity experts, meaning it could leave companies with a large bill to seek support on how best to safeguard themselves and build in these new IMO requirements.

Remote Management

While shipowners and managers are experts at turning the complexities of global business into a profit, they now require greater control and visibility of their networks and services to remain ultra-competitive. On-board systems can be vast and complex, offering huge advantages for maintaining efficiency and boosting customer satisfaction while needing a large amount of oversight which can be challenging.

By utilizing the power of an effective, smart remote management service like Speedcast’s state-of-the-art integrated management and application platform, experts on shore can retain complete control with endless visibility into every ship. This ensures shipping companies can manage every detail of operations and maintain maximum efficiency.

Enabling control of multiple applications and networks, Speedcast’s SIGMA platform provides a seamless insight into business operations and crew welfare services through a flexible ecosystem that can be adapted to a customer’s specific current and future needs, including leveraging the numerous benefits and efficiencies of Virtual Machines.

All of this aids shipping businesses to remain competitive with substantial cost savings, high levels of operational efficiency and a boost in productivity by adopting a solution that manages network, voice and business services along with built-in cybersecurity that contributes to the IMO requirement.

As maritime industry digitalization continues to advance due to the increasing capabilities of emerging applications and communications technology, it is critical that operators have access to solutions that can maintain the smooth running of operations along with seamless, high-quality connectivity. To this end, the sector has a bright future as network management systems continue to serve the existing and future needs of shipping companies.

Source: maritimeprofessional

Hong Kong and Oslo-listed dry bulk specialist, Jinhui Shipping is looking to increased demand from China to scoop it out of a deepening pool of red ink created during the second quarter of 2020.

The net loss for Q2 2020 surged to US$5.285m compared to a loss of US$1.147m in the second quarter of 2019. The worsening loss came off reduced revenue for the period, which fell 39% to US$8.51m from the earnings of its fleet of 16 supramax and 2 post-panamax vessels.

Revenue for the first half of 2020 fell 34% to US$17.724m, compared to US$26.784m for H1 2019. Jinhui attributed the loss to a drop in the average daily TCE earned by the Group’s owned vessels falling 36% to US$5,293 during the period compared to H1 earnings of US$8,277.

In July 2020 Jinhui acquired a secondhand 50,259 dwt supramax for US$3.95m.

Looking to the immediate future the company said: “China is the biggest importer of raw materials by far given its important role in the global manufacturing supply chain.

“We remain cautiously optimistic that business and industrial activity will continue to pick up in China. We continue to see people heading back to work in orderly batches, with exceptionally high alert in public hygiene and the necessary protocols in place at work places. We hope this resumption to work in an orderly fashion will continue without too much new negative surprises, and hence global trade will begin to revert to normal albeit we wish at a higher speed.”

NATO is looking at ways to avoid accidental clashes in the Eastern Mediterranean while supporting German diplomatic efforts to defuse the worsening dispute over energy resources there, the alliance’s chief said on Thursday.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told Reuters the Western alliance was considering so-called deconfliction measures to prevent naval accidents in an increasingly congested region, although he did not go into details.

“I am also exploring the possibilities of NATO developing mechanisms to prevent incidents and accidents, a set of deconfliction mechanisms,” Stoltenberg said in an interview, after meeting with European Union defence ministers.

“The fact that there are so many ships, so many military capabilities in a quite limited area, that in itself is a reason for concern,” Stoltenberg said.

NATO allies Turkey and Greece vehemently disagree over natural gas reserves off Cyprus and the extent of their continental shelves.

They have drawn the European Union and nearby countries into the dispute, which earlier this month flared into a light collision between Turkish and Greek frigates.

Turkey and Greece, which were joined by NATO allies France and Italy, meanwhile held rival military drills in the same area of the Mediterranean.

‘Deconfliction’ in military parlance can mean setting up communications links between rival militaries in the same theatre, as the United States has done with Russia in Syria.

In late 2015, NATO also began using its Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) radar planes near Syria to avoid accidents, after Turkish fighters downed a Russian bomber that strayed into its airspace from Syria.

Stoltenberg said German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas’ whirlwind meetings this week in Athens and Ankara should be supported to allow Greece and Turkey to calm tensions.

“What I think is important now is to support the German efforts to try to establish a platform for dialogue, for talks between two NATO allies, Turkey and Greece,” Stoltenberg said.

(Writing by Robin Emmott; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

The armed guard who held the crew of the Eagle Bulk controlled Jaeger supramax last month has done it again.

The Ukrainian, who worked for private maritime security company (PMSC) Alphard, this week broke into the armoury onboard the Golden Palm, operated by Spain’s Palm Charters, and took the crew hostage again in his fight over back pay.

Splash understands that the tense standoff between the guard and the crew onboard the Golden Palm, which serves as a floating armoury and is currently in the Red Sea, has now been resolved.

Splash reported how the same man had taken over an Eagle Bulk ship for three days last month. He was one of three men who had been employed as security for a Red Sea transit.

The Jaeger case prompted James Wilkes from Grey Page to write a column for Splash earlier this month about the dire financial situation of many PMSCs.

“At the micro-level, an armed-guard, ostensibly driven out of his mind by desperation, lost the plot and hijacked a ship for three days,” Wilkes wrote of last month’s hostage taking, adding: “In mitigation perhaps, five months-plus stuck at sea, without pay and no prospect of relief can evidently drive a person beyond the edge.”