24 | telegraph | nautilusint.org | May 2017
MARITIME SALVAGE
Tough times for clear-up crews Spiralling costs, the challenge of responding to new ship types and the continued slide in the number of Lloyd’s Open Form agreements — all were on the agenda as salvage experts convened for their annual meeting last month. SANDRA SPEARES reports…
K
International Maritime Organisation secretary-general Kaitack Lim and ISU president John Witte presented the ISU’s award for meritorious service to the Italian Coast Guard’s head of plans and operations department, Rear Admiral Nicola Carlone. The award recognises the ‘extraordinary efforts’ of the Italian Coast Guard in handling the Mediterranean migrant crisis. In the first nine months of 2016 alone, its crews rescued more than 26,000 people ‒ including 6,952 on one single day in August. ‘The people of the Italian Coast Guard have demonstrated their commitment to saving life at sea ‒ their efforts have gone beyond boundaries and have been undertaken regardless of circumstances and often at great personal risk,’ Mr Witte pointed out.
International Salvage Union (ISU) members provided 213 services to vessels last year — up from 185 in 2015 — and they dealt with more than 2.5m tonnes of potentially polluting cargoes during 2016, compared with almost 1.9m tonnes in the previous year. ‘Members of the ISU are often the only agency available with the necessary resources and experience to intervene in a casualty situation,’ said president John Witte. ‘Improvements in shipping — vessel quality as well as crew training, improved aids to navigation and so on — have reduced the number of casualties, but we are all aware that it needs only one major incident to cause an environmental disaster.’ While ISU members have been busy, the use of Lloyd’s Open Form as a salvage contract has been declining steadily, and it is no longer the bread and butter of the salvage industry, its associate members’ day meeting heard last month. Lloyd’s appeal arbitrator Jeremy Russell QC said the use of non-LOF contracts — wreck removal ones, in particular — has been increasing. Many major
Pictured above is the winning shot in the ISU’s 2016 photograph competition ‒ showing a helicopter removing bunker fuel from the bulk carrier Benita after the ship ran aground off the coast of Mauritius. The salvage operation was conducted by the Greece-based ISU member Five Oceans Salvage.
salvage operators are now part of larger organisations which find the revenues brought by wreck removal contracts more attractive. The need to provide awards that encouraged salvage was highlighted in Lord Donaldson’s report, which followed the 1993 Braer tanker disaster, but the property market appears to have forgotten this, Mr Russell said. Long-term availability of essential expertise required investment, he told ISU members, and fixed hire contracts with agreed rates were self-
WERE YOU AWARE that following the successul outcome of a judicial review in respect of two Seatax clients, (brought before the Courts by Nautilus in collaboration with Seatax Ltd as expert advisors on the Seafarers Earnings Deduction), it was deemed that the two Seatax clients did have a legitimate expectation in applying the only published Revenue Practice with regard to the application of a day of absence in relation to a vessel sailing between UK ports. HMRC did not want to accept this practice (although referred to in their very own publications) but have now accepted that expectations of a claim based on such practice would be valid until the published practice is withdrawn. Following on from this, HMRC have now confirmed that this Practice is withdrawn as of the 14 February 2014. Seatax was the only Advisory Service that challenged HMRC on this point.
WHY TAKE CHANCES WITH YOUR TAX AFFAIRS? Let Seatax use their knowledge and 35 years experience to ensure you do not fall foul of the rules Please visit our website for full details of the case. OUR FEES ARE AS FOLLOWS:
Annual Return ...................................................................................................... £215.00 inclusive of VAT at 20% NAUTILUS members in the UK sailing under a foreign flag agreement on gross remuneration can obtain a 10% reduction on the above enrolment fee by quoting their NAUTILUS membership number and a 5% reduction on re-enrolment.
or ite, e now r W on re ph r mo : fo tails de Elgin House, 83 Thorne Road, Doncaster DN1 2ES. Tel: (01302) 364673 - Fax No: (01302) 738526 - E-mail: info@seatax.ltd.uk www.seatax.ltd.uk
24_salvage_SRedit2.indd Sec2:24
defeating when the whole point was to encourage investment in equipment, as well as allowing personnel to gain valuable onthe-job experience. The maritime industry ignored the issue ‘at its peril’, Mr Russell added, and ‘mischievous information spread’ about LOF — notably that awards were too high — did not help. Article 13 of the Salvage Convention aimed to encourage salvage operators through the awards system and criteria like cost should not be used as a starting point in a salvage operation, he argued. By turning their backs on Article 13, industry players had distorted the balance of interests contained in the Convention. ‘When we find we don’t have a salvage capability, what will be the judgement of the world?’ he asked. The meeting heard of new demands posed by changes in the industry. Smit salvage master Sylvia Tervoort outlined the technical challenges of salving LNG vessels. The Society for Gas as a Marine Fuel set up a working group in 2013 to develop guidelines for salvage and a number of issues need to be explored further, such as maintaining LNG pressure, and vaporisation control, she explained.
K
In the event of LNG being released, vapour cloud management and dispersion needs to be considered, as well as the safest conditions in which to work and the safety zone around the incident. Ms Tervoort also noted that consideration needs to be taken of how dealing with an LNG casualty differs from that of one involving conventional fuel — for example, in terms of detection equipment, training and personnel deployment. Captain Jori Nordström, head of operations at the Finnish Lifeboat Institution, explained the development of the TRIAGE concept to assess a casualty. The system involves colour codes for safety categories and it started around the time of the Costa Concordia accident in 2012.
TRIAGE aims to improve the exchange of information between ship and shore to assess threat levels. The Finnish Transport Agency has been working on risk assessment tools to help decision-making when, for example, considering the issue of places of refuge. Risk management in a salvage operation is a key issue, and the risk profile of an operation can change over the lifetime of the project. Pieter Lageweg, of CL Risk Solutions, stressed the need for both a technical plan and a good risk management and project
If you think emergency response is expensive, try wreck removal
“
”
management process. Given that the P&I clubs are shouldering the burden with their clients, parties’ expectations need to be managed, he stressed. Clubs will be assessing cost expectations and impacts, and one question is who will be driving the wreck removal process: clubs or salvors? Nick Sloane, of Resolve Marine — who played a key role in the Costa Concordia wreck removal — said risk assessment can be done on a more informal basis during an emergency response or on a more formalised one for wreck removal. ‘If you think emergency response is expensive, try wreck removal,’ he added. The ISU’s large casualty working group has identified government intervention as a significant driver of cost. Sam Kendall-Marsden, of Charles Taylor, reminded the meeting that around $1bn of the $1.5bn Costa Concordia price tag was for wreck removal – a good example of the need for cost control from the start.
25/04/2017 13:21