SHIPMANAGEMENT | 63
K Line is rolling out the Kare project across its UK-managed fleet
‘FROM MASTER TO MESS BOY’ K LINE KARE PROJECT TACKLES SAFETY CULTURE
K
Line is rolling out a shipmanagement initiative for its Europe-managed fleet to improve service quality and safety performance and to promote openness within the company, on shore and on land. The KARE project aims to encourage staff at all levels to speak out and speak up, to benefit safety and service quality. Japanese shipping conglomerate K Line has two in-house LNG shipmanagement units. Japan-based K Line Shipmanagement (KLSM) Tokyo manages five ships on the water; three on long-term charter to BP-led Tangguh LNG and two to Qatargas I. It will also manage four ships delivered this year, for Chubu Electric and now fixed to JERA, for Inpex and for Australia’s Ichthys LNG project. K Line LNG Shipping UK (KLNG) manages eight LNG carriers on the water. It will take over three newbuildings booked against US exports, chartered to BP for Freeport LNG and to Mitsui for Cameron LNG, delivered in 2018-2020. KLNG launched the KARE Project two years ago. It chose seven seafarers to lead the project and held a two-day workshop in Windsor to identify the stakeholders, business goals and living values and to agree the issues to be tackled, ship and shore. Part of the KLNG 2020 business plan, the project seeks to change the company’s culture, to help stakeholders to carry LNG safely and to energise those involved.
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Japan’s third-largest LNG shipowner is rolling out an innovative human resources programme that aims to transform its safety culture. K Line’s radical KARE programme takes a bottom-up approach to empower and engage crew and shore-based staff. Karen Thomas reports
Roll-out
Eighteen months ago, the 145,200m³, Mitsui-chartered Trinity Glory hosted the first on-board safety culture workshop. Next came the RasGas-chartered trio, 210,157m³ Umm Al Amad, 145,702m³ Al Thakhira, 210,198m³ Al Oraiq, and the BP-chartered 147,608m³ Celestine River. KLNG will now roll out the programme across its remaining three live ships. Because human error contributes to 80-90 per cent of unwanted incidents on board ship, the safety culture initiative works from the
LNG World Shipping | March/April 2017