Tanker Industry Prepares to Discuss Key Issues at INTERTANKO Singapore Tanker Event

Published:

13 March 2000 04:25

Updated:

08 September 2011 10:05

The Singapore Tanker Event, the fourth in the new series of international meetings for the tanker industry organised by the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners (INTERTANKO), will be held in Singapore at the Westin Stamford and Westin Plaza Hotel on 3-6 May 1998. The Event, which is open to all interested parties, will feature a comprehensive conference programme with six distinct business sessions and an associated industry exhibition.

As with all INTERTANKO spring meetings, the Singapore Tanker Event will be held in conjunction with the Association's Annual General Meeting. Also taking place during the busy four-day gathering are meetings of various INTERTANKO committees, including the Council, the Executive Committee and Public Relations Committee.

INTERTANKO will also, during this period, conduct full-day courses on media, chartering and bunkering training as well as seminars on hedging/tanker freight futures, the appliance of hydrostatic balance loading and the ISM Code after the 1 July 1998 implementation date.

The consequences of the economic slowdown in Asia will be crutinised in the Singapore Tanker Event’s opening session on Tanker Markets. Equally crucial will be this session's examination of the new structures in the tanker market and their impact on tanker supply and demand. The session on tanker scantlings, service lives and the importance of the Enhanced Survey Programme (ESP) will run concurrently with a session which will look at the ability of shipowners to set the agenda and whether or not consolidating the industry’s efforts really helps to maximise efficiency.

In the first of another pair of concurrent sessions eminent speakers will explain how some of the world's busiest tanker shipping lanes, in particular the Malacca/Singapore Strait, Tokyo Bay and the Turkish Straits, can be made safer in the light of lessons learned in recent collision and grounding incidents. Delegates to the second of the pair of sessions will hear why, despite recent promises of a reduction in the number of new rules, IMO appears to be promulgating further new regulations at a pace equal to any achieved in the past.

The final session, on the afternoon of 6 May, will cover the ‘Responsibility Chain’. A provocative blend of speakers, representing most of the major interest groups bearing a share of the responsibility in the drive for safer shipping, will discuss the importance of a co-ordinated approach and the dangers inherent in a fragmented, ‘every-man-for-himself’ attitude. Directing proceedings in this open-ended session will be Paul Slater of First nternational who, as Chairman, will ensure that all the controversial aspects of this debate are given due attention.

The Singapore Tanker Event follows earlier successful Tanker Events in Houston in October 1996, Athens in May 1997 and London in October 1997. INTERTANKO launched the series of meetings to provide an opportunity for the entire tanker industry to gather to discuss issues of common interest relating to vessel safety and the protection of the environment.