Sea Views: Need for vessel routing and traffic control system stressed

According to Basil Papachristidis, chairman of Hellespont Steam-ship, lapses in newbuilding standards, plus the absence of a vessel routing and traffic control system, are posing unacceptable risks to the safety of shipping.

Quoted by Fairplay he said: "Operating in a regulatory vacuum, class societies are exposed to a ruthless exploitation by shipbuilders from the competitive pressures under which they operate."

Papachristidis was addressing delegates at the Mare Forum in Amsterdam and he claimed that design and construction standards have spiralled downwards, as a result, to "levels that history will show to be unsafe".

Callousness

He also said there was an urgent need for consistent rules across all class societies, adding that interpretation and application of those rules cannot be developed and upheld by the societies themselves but they must be mandatory.

Papachristidis also demanded that a vessel routing system, similar to the model currently used by the aviation industry, should be immediately implemented as an aid to saving seafarers' lives.

"That such a measure has not been adopted demonstrates a scandalous callousness on the part of politicians towards the risks to which we subject our mariners and our coastlines," he concluded.

P&O Nedlloyd reports profit

P&O Nedlloyd has announced an operating third quarter profit of $56 million before restructuring costs, compared with a loss of $46 million in the same period last year.

Average revenue per TEU improved by 18 per cent but continued focus on higher yielding dominant leg cargoes meant that throughput was only one per cent up on the corresponding quarter last year.

Adverse currency movements impacted costs although annualised cost savings of $320 million have been achieved since the start of last year, said the company. Furthermore, the positive trend of the third quarter is being maintained in the fourth quarter. Despite newbuilding orders, the supply/demand balance in the industry is expected to remain favourable until at least the end of 2005, with an increasingly positive outlook for next year.

ICTSI revenues climb 24pc

Increasing group-wide volumes and revenues from a new container terminal have contributed to improving operational and financial results for Manila-based International Container Terminal Services, Inc (ICTSI).

ICTSI has reported consolidated revenues of 1.9 billion pesos ($34.4 million) during the third quarter, an increase of 24 per cent over the same period last year.

The strong revenue growth was attributed mainly to the consolidation of new revenues from the Baltic Container Terminal (BCT) of 952 million pesos.

Group-wide volume for the third quarter of the year increased 22 per cent, from 349,128 TEU to 426,774 TEU.

ICTSI volumes were boosted by new throughput from BCT of 78,933 TEU, reflecting a 25 per cent growth from last year's volume for the same period. On the year-to-date basis, group volume grew 28 per cent, from 938,042 TEU to 1.2 million TEU.

Big orders boost Daewoo profit

The second-largest shipbuilder in the world, Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, has reported profits of 117.4 billion won ($99.41 million) in the three months up to September this year, compared with 51.7 billion won a year ago.

Sales at the South Korean shipbuilder increased 37 per cent to 1.05 trillion won, Reuters reported and the company has been enjoying a boom in orders, helped by tighter global regulations on scrapping old vessels and the competitiveness of domestic shipyards.

Furthermore, analysts are predicting a robust demand for ships over the next year or so and this bodes well for Daewoo and other shipyards.

Company spokesman Ahn Wook Hyun commented: "We had bumper orders for ships for the third quarter. Also, we had foreign exchange gains, not losses, through hedging."

– Frank Kennedy is a Dubai-based marine consultant