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miércoles, 2 de septiembre de 2009

SOLICTAN OPERADOR DE POSICIONAMIENTO DINAMICO

SOLICTAMOS OPERADOR DE POSICIONAMIENTO DINAMICO

Laborar en una empresa extranjera muy seria operando en Mexico, si te interesa mandar CV en INGLES al siguiente correo:

dpomexico@live.com para mas detalles esperar ser contactado.

Requisitos: documentos en orden y ganas de trabajar.

SOLICITAN ASISTENTE DE LOGISTICA (Contramaestre) FULL CREW‏

NUESTRO CLIENTE ES UNA EMPRESA INTERNACIONAL ESPECIALIZADA EN OBRAS PORTUARIAS.
REQUIERE UN:

Contramaestre o técnico, con experiencia en:
• Almacenes e inventarios
• Administración
• Dispuesto a viajar internacionalmente
• Compras
• Comercio internacional

• Nacionalidad: "latino americano"
• Experiencia: 2 - 4 años (como contramaestre)
• Inglés
• Ubicación: Latinoamérica
• Programa de trabajo: 2 meses de trabajo por 1 de descanso
• Viajes internacionales y viáticos

Descripción de actividades:
• Reportará al Departamento Técnico
• Colaborará con el Departamento Técnico en las compras y el transporte
• Colaborará con el Taller con el control y administración de inventarios
• Colaborará con el Departamento Técnico en la administración (planeación del mantenimiento, inventarios de materiales certificados, y la renovación de certificados; inventarios de equipos de grúa, etc.)
• Mantendrá actualizado el inventario
• Mantendrá e informa la situación de las importaciones/exportaciones, así como la documentación oficial requerida
• Estará a cargo de los fletes de material de bodegas a los sitios de obra y puertos, así como los cargos internos a las aéreas de Dragado y el Taller General
• Estará a cargo de controlar la documentación y notificar algún faltante de flete o mercancía
• Estará a cargo del inventario y del contenido y registro de los contenedores
• Es el contacto entre las necesidades del sitio de obra y las Agencias Aduanales
• Estará a cargo de las exportaciones de equipos y materiales desde la Oficina Central a los sitios de obra o puertos
• Es responsable de la organización y seguimiento de los materiales y el inventario de partes y refacciones
• Es responsable de la entrega y el seguimiento de pinturas, aceites y otros materiales

Si está interesado mandenos su curriculum a info@fullcrew.com.mx

Colaboración de navales en las capitanías

Fuente: Diario de Yucatán

PROGRESO.— Para fortalecer el control y la vigilancia en los puertos y costas mexicanas, el Poder Ejecutivo federal implementó una estrategia que tiene como propósito sumar y coordinar las funciones que realizan las secretarías de Comunicaciones y Transportes, y de Marina.

Por tal motivo, el 1 junio, en cumplimiento de la orden presidencial, los titulares de la Marina y la SCT firmaron un acuerdo que establece las acciones que permitirán incrementar la coordinación y la colaboración interinstitucional para optimizar y fortalecer las funciones que realizan ambas secretarías como autoridad marítima, teniendo como eje fundamental las Capitanías de Puerto.

En un comunicado se informa que los navales apoyarán a las Capitanías a fin de que éstas eleven su capacidad operativa para mejorar la vigilancia, supervisión e inspección.
“Para lograr este objetivo, la Semar comisionará a personal naval en la Dirección General de Marina Mercante y en las Capitanías de Puerto para conocer los procesos y actividades que en ellas se realizan, así como para apoyar en el ejercicio de la autoridad marítima y portuaria.

Se precisa que la Marina no tiene la intención de ocupar los cargos que corresponden a la marina mercante.

Aumentará Pemex seguridad de operaciones marítimas en Campeche

Fuente: Info7

Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), a través de la Coordinación de Servicios Marinos (SCSM) de Pemex Exploración y Producción, incrementará la seguridad en las operaciones marítimas que realiza en la Sonda de Campeche

Notimex - La paraestatal resaltó que mejorará su información sobre los pronósticos del tiempo y de las condiciones oceánicas.

En un comunicado, Pemex indicó que ante la necesidad de permanecer a la vanguardia en sistemas de pronóstico meteorológico y oceanográfico, celebró en días pasados un convenio de colaboración con el Centro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera de la UNAM.

Añadió que se busca utilizar de manera operativa uno de los modelos meteorológicos numéricos más avanzados para la predicción del tiempo en escala regional o mesoescala, llamado "Weather Research and Forecasting Model" (WRF por sus siglas en Inglés).

Señaló que la información que proveen diariamente los pronósticos meteorológicos permite planear mejor las actividades, optimizar recursos y reducir los riesgos inherentes a las actividades marinas, por lo que es necesario pronosticar con mayor precisión dichos eventos.

Explicó que durante la primera fase del proyecto y para la operación de dicho modelo, se establecieron dos dominios de pronóstico con alta resolución temporal y espacial, los cuales comprenden el Golfo de México, Mar Caribe y la Sonda de Campeche.

Destacó que este modelo es capaz de pronosticar desde una hasta 120 horas las variables meteorológicas, como velocidad e intensidad del viento, temperatura, presión atmosférica, precipitación acumulada y comportamiento de la atmósfera en sus distintos niveles de presión.

Toda esta información será procesada por el Departamento de Meteorología para la generación de alertas, boletines meteorológicos, avisos de huracán y notas informativas.

Destacó que en la segunda fase de este proyecto se implementará un modelo oceánico para la simulación del oleaje, con lo cual se tendrá una cobertura total del estado del océano y la atmósfera en la Zona Marina de Pemex Exploración y Producción (PEP).

Denuncian a la Armada de México

Fuente: Puebla Hoy
yucatanalamano.com

La Unión Nacional de Transportistas Campesinos denunció públicamente en el Congreso Nacional Ordinario del pasado martes 25 a la Secretaría de Marina Armada de México, ya que efectivos de dicha corporación han incurrido en actos violatorios de la ley.


La acción reclamada, de carácter por demás injusto, que hace la Marina Armada de México con una de las empresas afiliadas a la UNTRAC, ha provocado infinidad de pérdidas cuantiosas debido a que se aplica, según los denunciantes, un “criterio obtuso y no legal”.
Así las cosas, se entiende que el presidente de la República debería de “ponerse en alerta” ya que la Armada está “para proteger a la nación y no para golpear a las pocas y pequeñas empresas mexicanas que luchan por generar empleos y tratan de subsistir a pesar de la crisis que ha afectado también a este sector productivo”.
Y es que en una participación del líder de los marinos mercantes, afiliados a la UNTRAC, Cruz Colorado Viccón afirmó que efectivos militares de la instancia federal han detenido diversos barcos mercantes con el pretexto de que “nosotros somos la autoridad”, provocando perjuicios por más de un millón de dólares (unos 13 millones de pesos) a la economía de ese sector productivo.
Aunque no dio detalles del avance del proceso, Colorado Viccón reveló que el asunto va avanzando en un Juzgado Federal y que se espera que se falle a favor de la organización. Fue ovacionado tras su intervención.fd

Alvarado, de puerto pesquero a Petrolero; Chet Morrison invierte

Fuente: E-Consulta

La iniciativa privada extranjera invertirá 750 millones de pesos a principios de 2010 en la construcción del Puerto Profundo de Tuxpan, la transformación del puerto pesquero de Alvarado en terminal petrolera y la construcción de la Marina, en la ciudad de Veracruz.

El director general del Sistema Portuario Veracruz de la Secretaria de Desarrollo Económico del Estado, Sergio Iglesias Rodríguez, informó que la empresa transnacional, Chet Morrison Contractors S de RL. de CV gastará 100 millones de pesos en la transformación del Puerto de Alvarado.

El funcionario no explicó qué se hará en ese caso con la actividad pesquera de Alvarado, pero confirmó que se tiene el objetivo de cambiar la vocación de ese puerto para convertirlo en una terminal petrolera.

Actualmente Chet Morrison ya está construyendo plataformas y estructuras petroleras, además se tiene proyectado que el puente –actualmente fijo- sea "abatible" para permitir el paso de embarcaciones de mayores dimensiones.

En el caso de Tuxpan, se planea una inversión de 500 millones de pesos, que se aplicará a partir de diciembre hasta finales de 2010, generando hasta 2 mil 500 empleos, según el funcionario estatal.

Esa, que será la primera etapa del proyecto Puerto Profundo Tuxpan 2, contará con la participación de empresas españolas, mexicanas y el gobierno del estado. No obstante, aún se encuentran cubriendo el trámite de la fase de licitación.

El total de la inversión de esa obra será superior a los 10 mil millones de pesos.

La tercera obra de la que habló Sergio Iglesias es de vocación turística y será construida en la ciudad de Veracruz, con una inversión de 150 millones de pesos, aportados también por la iniciativa privada.

Se trata de la Marina Veracruz, que constará de 180 posiciones de atraque para embarcaciones de veleros, de turismo y deportivas, además de una gasolinera, rampa de botado y servicios náuticos. Será construida entre la escuela Náutica Mercante Fernando siliceo y Torres y el Acuario.

Esta obra se comenzará a construir en diciembre y tardará exactamente un año en quedar lista.

El Puerto Lázaro Cárdenas acoge un importante Foro Comercial

Fuente: Empresa Exteior

De acuerdo con el Gobernador de Michoacán, este Puerto se erige como el de mayor potencial en el Pacífico.

El Gobernador del Estado de Michoacán, Leonel Godoy Rangel, inauguró el Foro Comercial: "Nuevas Alianzas Estratégicas de Éxito", con el compromiso de convertir al Puerto de Lázaro Cárdenas en un puerto singular en el país, tanto por su vocación comercial y ubicación estratégica, así como por su relevancia para el mercado asiático y América.

Frente a agentes navieros y aduanales, prestadores de servicios portuarios, transportistas de vía ferrocarril y de autotransporte federal, así como autoridades de los tres niveles de gobierno, el mandatario ratificó al puerto michoacano como el primero del país y el de mayor potencial en el Pacífico, según lo informó la SCT a través de su portal.

Por su parte, Rubén Medina González, director de la Administración Portuaria Integral (Apilac), ratificó su compromiso con el gobierno del estado y con los ciudadanos para contribuir al desarrollo armónico e integral del municipio que ha visto crecer al puerto y que por lo tanto merece beneficios del mismo.

El director general de la Apilac resaltó el trabajo tanto del gobierno municipal de Lázaro Cárdenas, como del gobierno del estado y el gobierno federal a través de la Administración Portuaria, quienes dijeron, "tenemos un solo proyecto y un solo objetivo, que el Puerto Lázaro Cárdenas siga creciendo".

Rubén Medina González celebró la realización del Foro: nuevas Alianzas Estratégicas de Éxito, el cual asentó, "permitirá a todos los participantes a salir más integrados, unidos y aliados y orgullosos". Asimismo, conminó a todos los mexicanos a enorgullecerse de contar con un puerto de clase mundial que compite al tú por tú con cualquier infraestructura del mundo.

Arrancarán tres obras magnas en materia portuaria en Veracruz


El proyecto cuenta con una inversión inicial en los proyectos de 750 mdp
Se generarán empleos y traerán derrama económica en medio de condiciones complicadas

Fuente: El Financiero

Veracruz, 1 de Septiembre.- A finales de este año arrancarán tres obras magnas en materia portuaria en Veracruz, a través del proyecto de los puertos de Tuxpan, Alvarado y la Marina que se construirá en Veracruz, con una inversión inicial en los proyectos de 750 millones de pesos.
Así lo confirmó el director de la API Sistema Portuario Veracruzano, Sergio Iglesias Rodríguez, quien expuso que las tres obras generarán empleos y traerán derrama económica en medio de condiciones económicas complicadas.

En entrevista, el funcionario estatal destacó que el gobernador Fidel Herrera Beltrán ha dado especial impulso a las obras portuarias, para aprovechar el potencial del litoral veracruzano, como sitio de inversiones y generador de empleos.

Como ejemplo, citó el caso de diversos proyectos en el puerto de Alvarado donde se invertirían 100 millones de pesos, para convertir al puerto de Alvarado, una vocación natural es pesquera, a un puerto petrolero para lo cual ya se otorgó la primera cesión parcial de derechos a la trasnacional Chet Morrison Contractors S. de RL de CV.

En el caso de Tuxpan, explicó que el proyecto comprende construir un puerto profundo de con inversión de 500 millones de pesos y su primera etapa durará entre 8 y 12 meses, y se tiene previsto que la obra inicie a principios de 2010 para generar entre mil 500 y 2 mil 500 empleos.

Sergio Iglesias expuso que la Marina Veracruz costará 150 millones de pesos y será en la bahía de Veracruz, entre las instalaciones de la escuela Náutica Mercante “Fernando Siliceo y Torres” y el actual Acuario de Veracruz.

“Esta marina tendrá 180 posiciones de atraque para embarcaciones de veleros y turismo así como deportivas, y contará con servicios especializados como gasolinería, rampa de botado y otros servicios para los usuarios, se prevé inicie en diciembre para ser inaugurada en la misma fecha de 2010”, reiteró.

El director general del Sistema Portuario Veracruz estatal confirmó que los tres proyectos iniciarían entre diciembre y los primeros meses de 2010, y que serán importantes para atraer inversiones privadas y generar empleos. (Con información de Finsat/Oved Contreras/TPC)

2º Foro de la Marina Mercante Mexicana y sus Perspectivas


PROTEGER A LAS BALLENAS ES MÁS RENTABLE QUE CAZARLAS‏


Panamá, 2 de septiembre de 2009. Con la participación de 15 profesionales vinculados con la conservación de las especies marinas, la ecología y el derecho ambiental, clausuró la primera versión del Diplomado de Biología, Conservación y uso Sostenible de Cetáceos organizado por la Universidad Marítima Internacional de Panamá (UMIP), y dictado por el Mgtr. Miguel Iñíguez, presidente de la Fundación Cethus de Argentina y Comisionado Alterno de Argentina en la Comisión Ballenera Internacional (CBI).

El Diplomado capacitó a los participantes en conceptos básicos de biología y uso sostenible de cetáceos para aprovechar de la mejor forma el recurso, y así aplicarlo como una alternativa económica y lograr un mejor nivel de vida. También sirvió a los participantes en la taxonomía, ecología, manejo, conservación y técnicas de avistamiento de cetáceos. Además mostró el potencial económico de la observación de cetáceos en las comunidades locales para asegurar que estas vean a los cetáceos como un recurso valioso que merece una protección especial.

Durante el diplomado se desarrolló una gira de campo en Pedasí, provincia de Los Santos, con el objetivo poner en práctica los conceptos teóricos aprendidos en clase, y adicionalmente se realizó un Taller de Avistamiento de Cetáceos que duró 16 horas.

Iníguez está en Panamá gracias a una colaboración del Gobierno Argentino a través del Fondo de Cooperación Horizontal FO-AR, por solicitud expresa de la UMIP, a través de la Oficina de Cooperación Internacional del Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas.

El profesor Iñíguez ha ofrecido desde el 2007 Talleres a pescadores de Pedasí y la Bahía de Panamá, también ha dictado conferencias a estudiantes y funcionarios públicos de las instituciones encargadas de este tema en Panamá como la Autoridad de Recursod Acuáticos, Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente, Autoridad de Turismo de Panamá, Universidad de Panamá, Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales y fundaciones como Fundación Isla Iguana, Fundación Marviva y Arturis Coiba.

En este momento Iñiguez trabaja en conjunto con especialistas de la UMIP y algunos estudiantes de Maestría en propuestas de investigación. Las propuestas han sido enviadas para su evaluación al BID, SENACYT y CPPS. Igualmente trabaja en nuevos proyectos para 2010 con Marviva, ARAP, ANAM y STRI.

Un estudio realizado con el apoyo financiero del Fondo Internacional para el Bienestar de los Animales, reveló que las ganancias obtenidas por la observación de las ballenas en 2008, fue de 2.100 millones de dólares. De hecho ha tenido un considerable crecimiento durante los últimos años, generando así unos 13 mil nuevos empleos.

Como ejemplo de la creciente popularidad de esta actividad, es que en solo un año 13 millones de personas viajaron a 3 mil santuarios ubicados en 119 países para observar a estos animales., según el Fondo Internacional para el Bienestar de los Animales.

Reconocido mundialmente por sus aportes en beneficio del estudio de los cetáceos, especialmente acerca de los delfines, orcas y toninas overas. Iñíguez es naturalista egresado de la Escuela de Naturalistas de la Asociación Ornitológica del Plata, Argentina e inició su trabajo conservacionista en 1984. Tiene una Maestría en Educación Ambiental (Málaga, España) y es autor de dos libros: "Orcas de la Patagonia Argentina" (1993) y "Toninas overas, los delfines del fin del mundo" (1996).

PEMEX extends contract for Pride Tennessee

Source: Energy Current

MEXICO CITY: Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) has extended its contract for Pride International jackup Pride Tennessee from the end of August until October 2009 at a day rate of US$117,200. The rig has been drilling offshore Mexico for PEMEX since March 2007.

Jackup Pride Wisconsin had also been drilling for PEMEX, but is now idle after its contract ended on Aug. 31. The rig is returning to the U.S. Gulf of Mexico to be stacked.

Pride Tennessee and Pride Wisconsin are both independent leg cantilever jackups. The rigs, and five other independent leg cantilever jackups, are all that is left of Pride's jackup fleet, following the recent spin-off of Seahawk Drilling, Pride's former mat-supported jackup business.

Q2 2009 Results - Rising fleet utilisation

Source: Ad Hoc News

Operating profit for the second quarter came to USD 46.8 million and net profit amounted to USD 43.1 million. Utilisation of the rig fleet was 86 per cent in the second quarter, even though MSV Regalia was in the yard throughout the quarter. A good market outlook, combined with a robust financial position, provides a good basis for further profitable growth.

Financials (Figures in brackets refer to the corresponding period of 2008)
After the spin-off of Prosafe Production (the floating production division) in May 2008, only one division remains in Prosafe; the Offshore Support Services.

Consequently, no segment information is presented in the notes to the accounts.

In accordance with IFRS, the figures relating to Prosafe Production Public Limited are presented net on a separate line in the income statement of Prosafe SE. Thus, when references are made to prior periods below, these figures are exclusive of the discontinued operations.

First half 2009 Operating profit for the first half of 2009 came to USD 84.3 million (USD 105.4 million). MSV Regalia has undergone a major refurbishment throughout the period, and this reduced the utilisation of the rig fleet down to 82 per cent (93 per cent). The impact of the lower utilisation was partly offset by higher day rates for the rigs on hire.

The contract for Safe Astoria was terminated for convenience by the client in February. The client had originally contracted the rig for a period of around two years from December 2007. Prosafe receives 85 per cent of the day rate until the new contract with Shell starts in October.

Safe Concordia completed the contract in the US Gulf of Mexico in early February, and commenced operation for Pemex in the Gulf of Mexico on 8 May. Safe Bristolia commenced on a bareboat contract in the Gulf of Mexico in mid-March.

Safe Caledonia has operated for Total in the UK North Sea throughout the period, interrupted by a period of 40 days due to a planned yard stay.

Safe Scandinavia completed the contract with BP in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea in early June.

All other vessels have been fully utilised in the first half year of 2009.

Net financial costs amounted to USD 4.3 million (USD 29.5 million). This improvement reflects lower interest costs and increased market value of currency forwards as at 30 June 2009.

Tax costs expensed in the first half equalled USD 10.6 million (USD 3.3 million). The increased level is due to a provision relating to an unrealised currency gain in a Norwegian subsidiary.

Net profit amounted to USD 69.4 million (USD 72.6 million excl. discontinued operations), corresponding to diluted earnings per share of USD 0.31 (USD 0.32 excl. discontinued operations).

Total assets at 30 June amounted to USD 1 387.9 million (USD 1 362.7 million), while the book equity ratio declined to 13.7 per cent (14.7 per cent).

Second quarter Utilisation of the rig fleet was 86 per cent (99 per cent) in the second quarter. Operating profit amounted to USD 46.8 million (USD 63.4 million), which reflects the lower rig utilisation mainly due to the yard stay of MSV Regalia throughout the second quarter this year. USD 1 million relating to a settlement of a previous operation has been charged to the accounts for the second quarter.

Safe Astoria was on 85 per cent of contracted standby day rate in April and on 85 per cent of full operating day rate from 1 May 2009.

Safe Concordia commenced operation for Pemex in the Gulf of Mexico on 8 May, and Safe Scandinavia completed the contract with BP in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea in early June.

All other vessels have been fully utilised in the second quarter.

Net financial items amounted to USD 4.6 million (net costs of USD 14.7 million). The main reason for this change is increased market value of currency forwards as at 30 June 2009.

Tax costs expensed in the second quarter amounted to USD 8.3 million (USD 0.2 million). This increase is due to a provision relating to an unrealised currency gain in a Norwegian subsidiary.

Net profit amounted to USD 43.1 million (USD 48.5 million excl. discontinued operations), corresponding to diluted earnings per share of USD 0.19 (USD 0.21 excl. discontinued operations).

Dividend The board of directors resolved on 26 August 2009 to declare an interim dividend of NOK 0.35 per share. The holders of the shares at close on 9 September 2009 will be entitled to a dividend payment on 23 September 2009. The shares will trade ex. dividend on 7 September 2009.

Outlook Seven of the company's rigs are bareboat chartered to Interpetroleum Services, operating for Pemex offshore Mexico. Safe Bristolia started a one-year contract in Mexico in mid-March. Safe Concordia started a 240-day contract 8 May. The other five rigs have firm contracts as follows: Jasminia until December 2010, Safe Hibernia until May 2011, Safe Lancia until January 2010, Safe Regency until August 2013 and Safe Britannia until January 2013.

Safe Esbjerg is in operation for Mærsk Oil & Gas in the Danish North Sea until June 2011.

At the end of July 2009, Safe Scandinavia commenced a 65-day contract for Shell in the UK North Sea, after completing a five-year special periodic survey (SPS) at a yard in Invergordon, Scotland.

Safe Caledonia is operating on a long-term contract for Total in the UK North Sea until September 2010.

MSV Regalia started operation for BP at the Valhall field on 12 July. This contract has a firm duration until January 2011 with an option period of six months.

Safe Astoria will start a 243-day contract, including mobilisation and demobilisation, for Shell in the Philippines early October 2009. Safe Astoria is now in layup at the Kemaman yard in Malaysia, after SEIC in the beginning of February terminated the contract for convenience.
Prosafe receives 85 per cent of the day rate from SEIC until the new contract with Shell starts in early October.

Within the harsh and semi-harsh offshore environments where most of Prosafe's accommodation rigs operate, there is a good supply-demand balance and the number of new-builds to be delivered over the next few years is limited.

In the North Sea, the majority of the fixed installations are mature and require greater maintenance and modifications to uphold production and safe operation.

Increased recovery and tie-ins of satellite fields to existing installations have extended the lifetime for many fields in the North Sea with ten to 20 years.

Therefore, we foresee a good outlook for modification and maintenance projects over the next years, and we expect that some of these projects will require additional accommodation offshore in order to carry out the projects efficiently.

The market for semi-submersible accommodation rigs remains strong in Mexico, where Pemex has high activity offshore in order to keep up production of the Cantarell field.

In summary, we expect a good long-term demand for semi-submersible accommodation rigs, especially in Mexico and the North Sea, with growth potential in other deepwater regions.


Risk Prosafe's main operational risks are the day rate level and the utilisation rate of the accommodation fleet. The company's results also depend on operating costs, interest expenses and exchange rates. These risks are described in detail in the chapter 'Risk management and sensitivities' and in the Directors' report in the Annual Report 2008.

Statement from the board of directors and president & CEO We confirm that, to the best of our knowledge, the financial statements for the first half year of 2009, which have been prepared in accordance with IAS 34 Interim Financial Statements, give a true and fair view of the company's assets, liabilities, financial position and results of operations, and that the interim management report includes a fair review of the information required under the Norwegian Securities Trading Act section 5-6 fourth paragraph.

Prosafe is the world's leading owner and operator of semi-submersible service rigs.

Operating profit reached USD 232.2 million in 2008. The company operates globally, employs approx. 400 persons and is headquartered in Larnaca, Cyprus. Prosafe is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange with ticker code PRS. For more information, please refer to www.prosafe.com.

Hoboken shipyard to receive over $500,000 in federal funding

Source: NJ
by Carly Baldwin/The Jersey Journal

They can thank Barack Obama (and Frank Lautenberg).

Hoboken shipyard Union Dry Dock & Repair Company will receive over half a million dollars in federal funding as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

Union Dry Dock Company will get $577,902, to be used for welding, lifting and blast and coating equipment. The shipyard, located off Sinatra Drive on the Hudson River, is a small shipyard which repairs commercial and private boats, as well as barges, military vessels and rescue boats. Maybe they can also use some of that money on fire prevention. Just sayin'.

"Modernizing our shipyards will create and save jobs and improve harbor operations," said New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who helped secure the funds. "It will help make our nation's waterways more viable and affordable for commercial transportation."

The government, through the Maritime Administration's Assistance to Small Shipyards program, hopes the money will help improve the local and regional shipping industry. Union Dry Dock is one of 70 shipyards in the nation to receive ARRA funding.

ARRA is part of the $787 billion economic stimulus package passed by Congress in February of this year, in response to the nation's economic downturn.

No Safe Harbor: The Shipping Industry’s Pollution Problem Part I: Low-Hanging Fruit

Source: DCBureau
Adam Sarvana
.
The shipping industry is an invisible and nearly unregulated environmental disaster, and if you haven’t heard much about its poor record, you’re not alone. Compared to power plants, cars and even commercial aviation, shipping has drawn little scrutiny ─ it gets few mentions in the media, and activist groups tend to focus their attention elsewhere. Seen as little more than an expensive tourist option or a humdrum conveyor of goods, the modern sea vessel is a mystery to the average person, either a love boat or a floating tractor trailer. If there were no pirates or seasick honeymooners, the shipping industry would barely register in the public consciousness.

This invisibility is unfortunate, because toxic shipping emissions bring about the premature deaths of thousands of people living near ports every year. Worldwide, cargo shipping pumps out more carbon dioxide (CO2) annually than the United Kingdom (UK). Most commercial ships are powered by a thick brew of sulfur and sludge called bunker fuel with a deserved reputation as one of the dirtiest energy sources on earth, even among industry representatives. Bryan Wood-Thomas, the vice president for environmental policy at the World Shipping Council (WSC), which represents many of the biggest shipping companies (including Møller-Mærsk, the world’s largest) in Washington, D.C., called bunker fuel “the residual crap that comes out of [oil] refineries.” It is so thick, he said, that “if you put a chunk on your desk, it would keep a three-dimensional shape.” Engineers need to liquefy it through super-heating before putting it into a ship’s fuel lines because it would otherwise clog them.

The high sulfur content of this fuel, which leads to sulfur-heavy emissions, is only one danger. Ships are prodigious emitters of several so-called criteria pollutants, those that are most heavily regulated under the Clean Air Act because they are the most dangerous to human health, including fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur oxides (SOx), the last of which not only harms lungs but can lead to acid rainfall. In addition to these risks, many observers (including some industry representatives) consider shipping a low-hanging fruit in the battle against global warming. Arctic shipping lanes can mean a quick melting death for polar sea ice thanks to emissions of black carbon, a sooty residue that absorbs heat and settles on anything it touches. As David Marshall, an activist with the Clean Air Task Force, somewhat casually put it in an interview for this article, “If the Greenland ice shelf collapses, we’re looking at significant sea rise.”

Why has the issue not received more attention? It’s a tricky question to answer. Unlike oil companies, which have invested millions of dollars and years of effort to deflect attention from global warming research, shippers can sit back and let the environmental conversation pass them by.

“The industry knows it’s under-regulated, and they keep a low profile,” said Sarah Burt of the environmental law firm Earthjustice, which has sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its failure to regulate shipping emissions. “When it does get attention it’s at specific ports, at the local level, not at the national level. . . . The industry has managed to lay low. There’s no smoking gun that you can point to and say, ‘This is the reason’” for a lack of regulation.

John Kaltenstein of the activist group Friends of the Earth agreed, noting, “A lot of areas [of the country] feel like they’re not affected by port communities. It’s a selective issue.”

Indeed, during a Feb. 14, 2008, hearing on a proposal to more strictly regulate ships in U.S. waters, on which more later, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) remarked that stronger rules would only be appropriate for “areas such as California that really have an air quality problem,” as opposed to nationwide rules that, he said, would put the country at a competitive disadvantage.

The idea that only a few ports here and there should be concerned about the industry’s health impacts is unarguably incorrect. Wood-Thomas did not always work for the WSC ─ before holding his current position, he was the associate director of EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality as well as a key Bush administration negotiator on environmental treaties. Testifying before Vitter and other lawmakers at last year’s hearing, still working for the government at the time, Wood-Thomas said, “Currently more than 40 U.S. ports are located in non-attainment areas [that exceed existing health standards] for ozone or fine particulates or both. However, the problem is not limited to port areas alone. Santa Barbara County, which has no commercial ports, estimates that by 2020, 67 percent of its NOx inventory will come from shipping traffic transiting the California coast, although the extent to which these emissions reach land depends on wind and weather patterns. . . . [Shipping] engines are massive in scale and they represent a significant source of NOx emissions with studies estimating emissions as 18 percent or higher of total NOx emissions worldwide.”

However, not only is there no push to examine shipping more closely, there is little reason to think someone will pick up the slack in the future. For activists, endangered species tend to make for better fundraising materials than pictures of cargo containers or rusty ocean liners. For government researchers, there’s little incentive to study a problem that no one is pushing to fix ─ air quality experts, without some political mandate to put their time and energy into such research, have little reason to spend precious days or weeks mapping dockside pollution dispersal patterns. As for the general population, shipping is the opposite of a sexy topic. The word conjures up images of big, slow freighters laden with hundreds of identical crates, steaming from point A to point B, trudging along like relics of a bygone era.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Shipping has burst onto the global economic landscape as the preeminent means of moving goods wherever they need to go. According to a general information document published online by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the industry’s global governing body responsible for regulating shipping pollution under the Kyoto Protocol, “It is generally accepted that more than 90 per cent of global trade is carried by sea. Throughout the last century the shipping industry has seen a general trend of increases in total trade volume. . . . [A]lthough the growth in seaborne trade was tempered by the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, there was a healthy growth in maritime trade since 1993.” According to the organization, world shipping output grew by 3.6 percent in 2005 and another 4 per cent in 2006. Especially poignant is the recent explosion of shipping in developing economies: India registered “an impressive” 9.2 percent shipping volume increase in 2006, and China “continued its strong performance of recent years” with 10.7 percent growth.

Based on this ever-expanding volume of overseas trade, governments and international organizations have occasionally conducted studies and issued reports, only to find that, indeed, more environmental regulation is needed. They have also found that no one has been keeping accurate records, government agencies have been asleep at the switch, getting reliable information is nearly impossible, and putting hard numbers to the problem is going to be difficult for years to come. An April report prepared for the IMO’s Marine Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC) found, for instance, that “statistical data presently available are likely to under-report the consumption of marine fuel,” and also noted difficulties in establishing any sort of baseline estimate for global shipping’s greenhouse gas emissions.

What little reliable information can be gleaned from the mass of estimates, best guesses and informed speculation paints a troubling picture. According to a pioneering 2007 study by James J. Corbett and others published in Environmental Science & Technology, shipping-related emissions of particulate matter contribute to approximately 60,000 premature cardiopulmonary and lung cancer deaths each year, mostly in coastal regions along major trade routes. In a 2007 rulemaking announcement, the EPA published estimates that worldwide shipping in 2001 emitted more than 54,000 tons of PM2.5, as much as 117 power plants, and approximately 745,000 tons of NOx, equivalent to about 800 million modern automobiles. That number is not a typo ─ the global fleet of approximately 90,000 ships really is that dirty.

These health impacts will only get worse. As the EPA wrote in March, “Without further action, by 2030, NOx emissions from ships are projected to more than double, growing to 2.1 million tons a year while annual PM2.5 emissions are expected to almost triple to 170,000 tons.” NOx is of particular concern because it can react with other particles in the atmosphere to form ozone, yet another criteria pollutant, which creates smog and leads to asthma and respiratory infections. The industry knows all this: Bill Box, a representative of the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners, was quoted in a 2007 article in the UK Independent as saying, “Shipping has not yet been regulated and for politicians it is the last low-hanging fruit.” Wood-Thomas admitted in an interview for this article, “The ability of ships to become more efficient is very real.”

The few attempts to address the issue domestically have failed, and not just at the EPA level. In May 2007, a bill labeled S. 1499 was introduced by six senators, including Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), that would have cut the sulfur limit in fuels to 1,000 ppm for any vessel within 200 miles of the West Coast and “within such distance of the East or Gulf coast or the shoreline of the Great Lakes or St. Lawrence Seaway as EPA determines to be appropriate.” The bill, which represented a significant step beyond anything the IMO had ever proposed, even passed the Environment and Public Works Committee unscathed, marking a strong congressional push to address an issue with almost no public visibility. Then-Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), now Secretary of Labor, introduced an identical companion bill with 23 cosponsors, including current House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman. There seemed to be every chance for action.

Then, unaccountably, the matter was dropped. The Senate bill was never brought for a full vote, and the House bill never moved out of the energy committee’s clean air panel. A call to Boxer’s office to ask about whether the issue will be revived was not returned, and calls to the six Representatives from California districts on the House Energy and Commerce Committee were similarly unfruitful. A staffer for one of the six, Rep. Lois Capps, suggested that Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) has been active on the issue, despite his not being on the relevant committee; Tom Mentzer, a Farr staffer, subsequently e-mailed, “We really don’t have anything to do with the shipping industry. It may be argued that HR 21, our comprehensive ocean management bill, could touch on the periphery of the issue, but it’s not something that has come up in that realm.”

The main global effort to address this ever-growing toxic cloud is the International Convention on the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, commonly referred to as MARPOL. When it was first written in 1973, it concerned itself with wastewater disposal and other better understood shipping issues ─ emissions controls were not even contemplated until 1997, when Annex VI of the treaty (“Regulations for the Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships”) was prepared. Under the annex’s terms, it would not go into effect until one year after it was ratified by at least 15 countries representing at least 50 percent of the world’s shipping tonnage, a requirement that was only met in 2004 when Samoa finally joined Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Liberia, Marshall Islands, Norway, Panama, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and Vanuatu as signatories. Combined, the countries accounted for 54.57 percent of shipping tonnage, barely enough to squeak past the post.

The air control protocol went into effect May 19, 2005, setting abstrusely conveyed limits on NOx emissions from ships built on or after Jan. 1, 2000, as a function of a ship’s engine type*. The original rules also limited the sulfur content of fuel to 45,000 parts per million (ppm) or 4.5 percent of total composition, a weak figure when compared to the current global shipping average of 27,000 ppm. The October 2008 rewrite reduced the sulfur content limit to 35,000 ppm, still well above the average. As a contrast, California currently mandates that diesel fuel, even that used by long-haul truckers, have no more than 15 ppm. (That standard is set to go nationwide in 2010.) For international shipping, a 5,000 ppm standard will not take effect until at least 2020 under MARPOL, and could be postponed to 2025 based on the results of a 2018 feasibility study. Ships that don’t or can’t meet the sulfur content restriction can install scrubbers on their exhaust pipes as long as their emissions do not exceed 6 g/kW-h. The sulfur content rule is also meant indirectly to reduce PM2.5 emissions ─ there is no explicit particulate matter limit.

The Annex created a process by which countries can request the designation of a special emissions control area (ECA), either for SOx and PM2.5 or NOx or all of the above together, inside which the limits are at least strict enough to have real teeth. An ECA extends approximately 200 miles from a petitioning country’s border, which has already meant the designation of the entire Baltic and North Seas as control areas. Currently, inside a sulfur ECA, fuel cannot contain more than 10,000 ppm of sulfur, and inside a nitrogen ECA the emissions limits for each engine type are strengthened fivefold from the original (pre-rewrite) standards.

Taken altogether, “complicated” would be a charitable description, which may be one reason nobody is watching.


No Safe Harbor: The Shipping Industry’s Pollution Problem: Part II: A Lack of Authority

Source: DCBureau
Adam Sarvana

Although the original shipping emissions standards established in the MARPOL treaty went into effect in 2005, they were written in 1997, and getting the more stringent 2008 revisions past the onerous IMO regulatory process was a battle that exhausted the few environmental groups that even engaged in the first place. Furthermore, the rules still do not address CO2 or other global warming risks, and some observers fear it is now too late to make a push to change the rules again.

“When you look at that slow track” of revising the NOx and sulfur limits, said Jackie Savitz, a campaign director with the ocean-focused activist group Oceana, “in terms of global warming pollution we can’t have another twenty-year process. We don’t have that time to wait. So we’re pessimistic that the IMO will be the way to control global warming emissions from ships.”

But waiting has become standard for activists in this arena: the environmental provisions of MARPOL only became enforceable in the U.S. in January of this year, with the passage of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships.

Those global warming emissions, setting aside the health impact of sulfur and nitrogen output, are themselves considerable ─ and they are growing. The April report prepared for the IMO’s environment committee, officially titled Second GHG IMO study 2009, found that combined domestic and international shipping accounts for about 3.3 percent of the world’s total CO2 emissions, more than railroad freight (0.5 percent) and airlines (1.9 percent) combined. Unfortunately, the report noted that the interaction of black carbon with snow melt “has not yet been calculated for ship emissions,” a glaring omission when viewed alongside the mounting evidence that black carbon is second only to CO2 in its global warming impact. According to an April 15 article in the New York Times on Third World sources of black carbon, the substance accounts for about 18 percent of the planet’s warming, while CO2 accounts for about 40 percent. No other pollutant comes close.

For many countries concerned about the industry’s impact on the health of their citizens, this lack of information is hardly satisfactory. The Environmental Audit Committee of the UK’s House of Commons recently decided to examine shipping emissions in more detail. Its final report, Reducing CO2 and other emissions from shipping, published in May, was damning: it called the shipping industry irresponsible, the IMO a feckless waste of resources, and its own government woefully unprepared to face the danger. “[T]here can be no excuse for the lack of progress within the IMO in the years since the Kyoto Protocol was signed,” the report concluded. “That the IMO has yet to reach agreement even over the type of [global warming] emission control regime to take forward, let alone decide any details — much less bring any scheme into implementation — suggest that it is not fit for purpose in this vital area.” Taking a swipe at the idea that quantifying emissions is too difficult, the report stated, “It is perfectly feasible to track the emissions of individual ships, given they are obliged to keep their fuel receipts, and that it is straightforward to calculate CO2 emitted from fuel consumed. . . . Most of all, ships must physically enter a port at some point; it is not as though this were an industry beyond the control of individual governments.”

There is legitimate uncertainty, however, about just how much control individual governments really have. Shipping is an odd business because, even more than airlines, shipping companies are by definition regional or global rather than strictly national entities, with interests extending well beyond the borders of any one country. This has given rise to a phenomenon almost without parallel in the modern economy whereby shipping firms choose each ship’s official country of registration — under whose tax, environmental and labor laws it will be governed — based on little more than a whim, a practice so common it has a name: flags of convenience. (The Somali pirate drama that played out on television earlier this year was centered on a Møller-Mærsk liner flagged in the U. S. and ultimately rescued by the Navy. The company flags other ships in its fleet elsewhere around the globe.)

Despite being small and economically underdeveloped, the three largest registrars of commercial shipping worldwide are Panama, Liberia and the Bahamas. Greece is also among the largest markets and is home to many of the world’s most significant owners of shipping lines (and the current IMO head, Efthimios Mitropoulos). A market for shipping registration is now growing in, of all places, Mongolia, which enjoys the hard currency that such business can generate despite the fact that the country lacks a coastline.

Whatever the British government’s reservations about the IMO’s ability to regulate its members, the industry itself is largely in favor of the idea. Wood-Thomas of the WSC stressed multiple times during an interview that shippers strongly prefer uniform, worldwide environmental standards to anything resembling a global patchwork. Asked whether the Council supports a recent joint U.S./Canadian request for the IMO to create a large emissions control area (ECA) along each country’s coastline, his answer quickly veered to the bigger picture. “One of the worst things that can happen to us is regulations appearing unilaterally or regionally, because it creates a chaotic environment to move in,” he said, emphasizing that much of the industry is actually in favor of the request because it is being conducted through the international auspices of the IMO rather than on each country’s own terms. (A Møller-Mærsk representative gave a similar answer in a written response to e-mailed questions.) He returned to the point later, with a slightly different take: “If shipping is regulated uniformly through a global agreement, then there’s no competitive disadvantage [for any particular country]. More progressive companies will say, ‘That’s just the cost of doing business.’ If you fail to have a global agreement, you have a chaotic regulatory environment that’s more difficult and expensive to operate in.”

Although there is little for shipping lobbyists to do on the environmental front in Congress, since no one is threatening to write a new law, a few legislators are willing to carry the industry’s flag if necessary. During the 2008 hearing on Boxer’s emissions bill, Sen. Vitter echoed the industry’s call to wait for a single global standard: “Marine vessel emissions are a global issue, and should be addressed from a global perspective. The U.S. has already submitted a proposal for stronger emissions standards to the International Maritime Organization, and they are currently examining it as an option. Supporting S.1499 would push the U.S. toward unilateral action, rather than global cooperation. . . . Rather thank create a blanket, one-size fits all approach for both areas in attainment and non-attainment, I am interested to hear more about proposals that have come up through the IMO negotiations[.]” Vitter, it should be noted, received a $1,000 contribution in the 2008 election cycle from the Maersk Inc. Good Government Fund, the political action committee acting on behalf of Møller-Mærsk in this country.

When it comes to cracking down on shipping pollution, almost everyone involved in these issues knows what needs to be done. Savitz, of Oceana, echoed many sources (including Wood-Thomas) interviewed for this story when she laid out the difficulties in getting poorer countries to agree to strict international environmental regulations that could impact their own emerging economies.

“Under Kyoto, there’s ‘developing’ and ‘industrialized’ countries, and we have ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ under which the two types don’t have the same [environmental] requirements,” she said. “If your ships are flagged or owned by developing countries, they don’t feel they should have to abide by the same regulations” as those of highly economically developed nations like the United States.

Kaltenstein of Friends of the Earth agreed, pointing out that while some small countries have actually ratified more environmental treaties than the United States (which was never a party to Kyoto), the key question is enforcement. “Issues on the high seas outside any country’s waters,” such as emissions and waste dumping, “are resolved by the regulations of the flagging country,” he said. “It’s up to the flag state to penalize [a company] or whatever is called for. Other countries are powerless outside their waters if the flag country won’t enforce.”

Marshall of the Clean Air Task Force put it most succinctly: “Right now they’re deadlocked at the IMO between developed and developing countries over whether standards should apply only to developed countries.” This is particularly salient when it comes to Arctic emissions of black carbon, which are so far completely unregulated.

What more can these small, economically dependent countries do? Some countries are more interested than others in addressing these issues. But the question is perhaps better directed at the companies themselves, since the countries involved generally do not own the ships or provide the crew. Savitz pointed out that merely reducing a ship’s speed is one simple step with a large upside ─ a 2000 IMO study found that cutting the speed of all ships worldwide by only 10 percent would lead to a 23.3 percent reduction in their CO2 emissions. (“Think about what we’d have to do to reduce CO2 by 23 percent from power plants,” she said. “With ships you can just take your foot off the gas.”) Other potentially beneficial steps, some of which Wood-Thomas pointed to as promising money-savers for the industry, include more efficient hull design, route optimization to avoid bad weather, better ship maintenance and switching to lower-sulfur fuels. The April IMO report on greenhouse gases said that taken together, these and other suggestions could cut global shipping CO2 emissions between 25 and 75 percent.

The low-sulfur fuel option is attracting particular attention, especially in light of the recent joint U.S./Canadian petition to create a gigantic ECA along the entire Atlantic and much of the Pacific coastline (with the odd exclusion of much of Alaska). Although neither country actually flags many ships, the U.S. is such a major importer of shipped goods that it has the power to drastically affect the global market. Many ships, at one point or another, will dock at a U.S. port, and if the ECA is granted by IMO voting members next year, it will mean that most ships will have to carry at least some low-sulfur fuel on board, although as Kaltenstein of Friends of the Earth pointed out, even if the proposal is granted, “If you sail from Asia to the U.S., only a small part of that trip would require low-sulfur fuel.” Outside the ECA, only the weaker global standards would apply.

Complying with the potential new American ECA, which would include NOx, SOx and PM2.5, may be a bigger or smaller challenge depending on whom you ask. Technically speaking, switching from bunker fuel to low-sulfur distillate mid-voyage is not difficult, and is already done routinely by ships around the world to comply with existing regulations. However, Wood-Thomas of the WSC and Joseph Cox, president of the Chamber of Shipping of America, which focuses on companies that do a large amount of their business in the U.S., both argued that the future availability of low-sulfur fuel may be a problem. “There’s a fair degree of confidence that low-sulfur fuel will be available [in the U. S.] in 2015,” Wood-Thomas said, “but the broader question is, can you get it in Singapore or Hong Kong? That’s difficult to project. Various specialists would give you a report with all sorts of question marks.”

Despite this uncertainty, many governmental and activist observers say creating a large new ECA around the world’s biggest economy would not only go a long way to improving American air quality but could expand the very low-sulfur fuel market the industry now fears is too small to allow compliance. This would have a global ripple effect that could literally mean the difference between life and death for tens of thousands of people living near major shipping lanes. Indeed, although everyone agrees that there is currently not enough low-sulfur fuel for all ships to use at all times, Kaltenstein suggested that anyone who questions the viability of strict standards is looking only at the short term. “The shipping industry argues there’s not enough low-sulfur fuel to go around,” he said, but “you need a rule to create the demand for low-sulfur fuel. It won’t just happen organically.”

Originally, the IMO allowing for the creation of ECAs was an incremental measure that fell short of some activists’ hopes for a strict worldwide sulfur limit, he said ─ a step that made better sense than everyone simply resigning themselves to the small amount of low-sulfur fuel and leaving it at that. But now, he said, the time has come to go beyond ECAs. “Land-side pollution sources have received more pressure to clean up, like power plants and refineries,” he said. “Fuel sulfur in trucks is 15 ppm now, and bunker fuel averages 27,000 ppm ─ that’s a tremendous difference.” The industry’s global warming potential is of particular concern: Kaltenstein pointed out that even switching to low-sulfur fuel “doesn’t necessarily get at black carbon.”

Speaking of pressure to clean up, how has the EPA responded to the challenge of regulating shipping? Not well, according to multiple sources. Burt, of Earthjustice, recounted a decade-long legal battle over whether to regulate shipping emissions domestically, a battle that continues to this day. Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA was supposed to issue some sort of regulation in 1992, a deadline that it ignored. By 1999, Earthjustice concluded that the EPA was never going to get its act together, so it filed a lawsuit that resulted in a settlement agreement to put out a regulation by 2003. The resulting rule did no more than codify the status quo lack of any emissions limit alongside a promise to publish a real cap by 2007 ─ an unusual “rule” by any standard that was nevertheless upheld by the D. C. Circuit Court in Bluewater Network v. EPA. In Burt’s telling, “the 2007 deadline came and went, and we sued again [in the D. C. district court] in October 2007 because they’d missed the April [2007] deadline.” In December 2007 the agency put out a rule changing the deadline to December of 2009, hardly standard content for a federal rulemaking procedure. Why was this done? Burt described it as “a procedural stunt whereby we were in the wrong court” to sue. Under the Clean Air Act, an outside party challenges a failure to make a rule in district court; if the EPA puts out a rule the party questions, they have to take the matter to the circuit court. Since the agency had promulgated a rule, no matter how meaningless, the lawsuit against the 2007 suit had to be dismissed ─ a process that Burt called “part of how the EPA is pulling out all the stops not to have any scrutiny over [shipping] regulations.” Despite this record of double-dealing, Burt said, “Now we’re going to take them at their word and see what regulations they promote in December.”

They won’t even have to wait that long. The agency in June formally proposed a new national rule under the Clean Air Act that would only apply to new U.S.-flagged ships, leaving foreign vessels off the hook. The rule would go into force in 2011 and would, according to the agency’s announcement, “require more efficient use of current engine technologies,” resulting in an estimated 15 to 25 percent reduction in NOx emissions below current levels. (In 2016, the rule would stiffen to require more effective exhaust treatment, reducing NOx by 80 percent below current levels.) It would also set new limits for hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions and forbid the production or sale of ship fuel with over 1,000 ppm of sulfur inside the ECA, essentially enforcing the IMO standard and no more. The proposal is currently accepting public comments and will not be finalized, in whatever form, for months.

U.S., Canada near agreement to control pollutants from ships

Source: Mc Clatchy

WASHINGTON — The five-story-tall engines on oceangoing vessels burn some of the dirtiest oil — bottom-of-the-barrel bunker — and churn out a substantial amount of the air pollution in American port cities, coastal communities along shipping lanes and places hundreds of miles inland.

Now the United States and Canada are nearing an international agreement to clean up the emissions of ships traveling within 200 nautical miles of shore. Scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency calculate that pollution controls will save the lives of 8,300 people each year and help more than 3 million avoid respiratory problems.

The biggest health benefits will be in deep-sea ports, but the EPA calculates that communities far inland also will benefit from cleaner air. The air in the Grand Canyon will be clearer. Acid rain will decrease.

The International Maritime Organization, the United Nations body that deals with marine pollution, is expected to approve an emission control area for most of the United States and Canada at its next meeting in March. The organization agreed in July that the plan met its guidelines.

"I think we're headed in a very positive direction," said John Kaltenstein, who oversees the marine program for the environmental group Friends of the Earth in California.

If the International Maritime Organization adopts the emission control area, ships traveling in a vast region will have to use fuel with a lower sulfur content beginning in 2012, and the sulfur content would be reduced further in 2015. Beginning in 2016, new engines on vessels operating in the area also would have to use equipment that would reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 80 percent.

The EPA plans to finalize a rule in December that would ban the sale of high-sulfur fuel in U.S. coastal and internal waters and would require the nitrogen oxide controls on new engines in U.S. ships, in line with the international proposal for a North American emission control area.

The engines of big ships emit large amounts of nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides, which contribute to ground-level ozone, acid rain and particulate matter.

U.S. scientists say that air pollution from these substances causes premature deaths, worsens asthma and is associated with other respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Ozone can irritate the respiratory system and limit lung function. Exposure to ozone is especially risky for children, elderly people and those with respiratory disorders such as asthma.

The EPA also classifies diesel exhaust from the engines as a likely carcinogen in humans.

Air quality advocates cheer the health benefits from tougher ship-emissions rules, but say that there's more to be done:

_ The nitrogen oxide emissions reductions will apply only to new engines after 2016. The EPA is considering a voluntary program for existing vessels, but environmentalists question whether it would deliver results.

_ The engine controls to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions and the strictest clean-fuel requirements apply only to the emission control area proposed by the United States and Canada. It doesn't include Alaska's Aleutian Islands and the Arctic. It also excludes Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

_ Carbon dioxide and black carbon (soot), two of the main contributors to global warming, are left unregulated. Black carbon is a particular concern in the Arctic, because it settles on snow and ice, reducing their reflective quality and increasing warming.

The International Maritime Organization hasn't adopted any mandatory controls on greenhouse gas emissions at sea.

Byron Bunker, the EPA official who's responsible for regulations for heavy-duty engines, said that the biggest immediate reduction in pollution from the International Maritime Organization's expected action in March would be from the change in the sulfur content in fuel.

Ships probably will have to stop using residual fuel — the byproduct of refining crude oil — and start using distillate fuel, which burns more cleanly, Bunker said. Black carbon and other forms of particulate also would be reduced, he said.

Ships today account for about 17 percent of the air pollution from mobile sources in the United States, Bunker said. If oceangoing vessels weren't regulated and shipping increased as expected, they'd represent about half the mobile-source pollution by 2030.

The fuel changes start in 2012, and fuel would have to have still lower sulfur content in 2015, reducing sulfur oxides and particulate matter emissions by more than 85 percent.

"The health and welfare benefits we estimate are breathtaking," Bunker said.

The EPA is studying whether to include the rest of Alaska and the Canadian Arctic in the emission control area. "Essentially, we don't have all our science done to make the compelling case," Bunker said.

The Alaska Wilderness League and other environmental groups asked the EPA to include Arctic Alaska for the sake of health and the environment. Ozone and black carbon are short-lived, but they warm the region where they're emitted. Reducing them would have immediate benefits, the group wrote in a letter to the EPA last spring. A recent report on Arctic marine shipping by the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental group, said that black carbon and nitrogen oxide could have regional effects on climate even in small amounts.

In the Arctic, "a large increase in shipping is projected, and we're just starting to see it," said Scott Highleyman, the international director of the Pew Charitable Trusts' Arctic program. Much will be regional transportation for oil, gas and mining, but in the future new international shipping lanes are expected to open in the summer as a result of global warming.

"The people living in the Arctic in Canada and Alaska deserve the same protection from air pollution as the rest of us, especially given the dramatic increase in shipping traffic that will result from the melting ice pack," Highleyman said.

The EPA proposed the emission control area instead of applying U.S. regulation to foreign ships, which make up about 90 percent of the total.

California decided not to wait for federal and international action and passed its own law that applies to U.S. and foreign vessels. Since July 1, all oceangoing vessels within 24 miles of the state's coast must use cleaner fuel.

Organizations that represent the shipping industry support the international cleanup plan for zones such as the one the U.S. and Canada want to put in place and others in the Baltic Sea and North Sea, even though they'll pay more for fuel.

The EPA says the costs will be small compared with the health benefits. It estimates that the cost will amount to about a penny more for a pair of shoes. The shipping industry, on the other hand, says that fuel costs are hard to predict but could double.

"We've been saying for ages and ages that if you need to regulate shipping, because it's an international kind of industry, it needs to be done at the international level," said Kathy Metcalf of the Chamber of Shipping of America, a trade association that represents U.S. shipping companies.

The EPA may have underestimated the higher cost of clean fuel, but the shipping organization isn't challenging its scientific analysis, Metcalf said. "When it's put in terms of tens of thousands of lives and illness and disease, that's not something we're going to argue with."

Brian Wood-Thomas, who helped the EPA devise its marine emissions plan in the 1990s and negotiated the emissions agreements, left the agency last year to become the vice president for environmental policy at the World Shipping Council.

He said the council generally supported the international standards. Weaker standards wouldn't hold up, because some countries would be dissatisfied and impose stronger ones of their own, he said. "That leads to exactly the type of thing everybody in the industry sees as a nightmare."

Piracy and the safety of our seamen

Source: The Manila Times

Filipino marine officers and seafarers are the most threatened and harassed among our overseas workers. They have become frequent victims of international pirates, in addition to facing dangers from intermittent storms, rough waters and unpredictable accidents. There is hardly a marine disaster or interdiction where Filipino seamen are not involved, because of their dominant presence on the high seas.

President Gloria Arroyo will take up their plight at the African Union Summit in Tripoli, Libya. The Department of Foreign Affairs, in a statement, said that she will meet several heads of states and governments on the sidelines of the summit scheduled to begin Monday. Currently 22 Filipino seamen crewing for a Greek-owned vessel are being held hostage by Somali pirates for a $2.8-million ransom off the Coast of Aden.

The seizure on the Indian Ocean of foreign vessels, their crew captured and kept as hostages, mainly by Somali terrorists has been a continuing saga for more than a year. Since late 2008, more than 200 Filipinos have been kidnapped on waters between Yemen and Somalia, the “pirate alley,” for varying amounts of ransom.

The Philippines is the world’s largest supplier of shipping crew with more than 250,000 sailors working on oil tankers, luxury liners, passenger ships and other international seagoing vessels. The Filipinos constitute a fifth of the world’s supply of seafarers.

President Arroyo will seek the cooperation of the African leaders to address the scourge and the safety of crew and passengers. At home, Manila is seeking a temporary ban on the deployment of Filipinos on the ships sailing the pirate-infested ocean. The government has also given shipowners a free hand to negotiate the release of hostages.

Mrs. Arroyo’s trip to Tripoli is also a good time to build stronger relations with the leaders and governments in the large continent. A great deal of trade, investments, political goodwill and cultural exchange awaits the future of Philippine-African relations.

Let us hope, for the sake of our seafarers, that the President gets attention and help in Libya and in the other African capitals where Filipinos are making a contribution through peacekeeping troops, volunteer staff and overseas workers.

On the other side of the globe, we hope that the US-sponsored training program for Filipino seamen on safety and protection would start on schedule. On the sideline of Mrs. Arroyo’s meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C., last month, Philippine Foreign Minister Alberto G. Romulo and US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood signed a timely memorandum of understanding to provide Filipino seafarers training and education against global piracy.

The memorandum seeks to promote cooperation between Manila and Washington on combating piracy and protecting each country’s maritime interests. The agreement commits American resources, including the US Merchant Marine Academy, and those of Philippine maritime training institutions.

The areas of cooperation include exchange of information on vessel security, cooperation on international conventions against piracy, drills and exercises against acts of piracy, rescue and recovery work, and possibilities for student and faculty exchange.

Vigilance, training and preparedness should help in the fight. So would prosperity and growth in Somalia and other African countries. Mrs. Arroyo’s representation in Libya and the RP-US maritime safety training are expected to improve the safety and protection of our seamen. The alternative is to put troops and arms on the merchant vessels. That, or invade the pirates’ fortresses in the beaches of Somalia.

Give the Fil-Am veterans their checks

The United States government should speed up the release of the checks Filipino-American war veterans are entitled to. The survivors of World War II had waited for half a century to get justice from the US Congress. They should not suffer further delay receiving the little money due them.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Filipino nationals and Americans of Filipino ancestry who served in the US Army during the Second World War have complained they have not received the war-related compensation approved by the US Congress.

The compensation package was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the US Economic Stimulus Package, passed by the US Congress and signed into law on February 17 by US President Barack Obama.

The law provides for a one-time payment of $15,000 for veterans who are American citizens, and $9,000 for those who are not. An estimated 8,000 veterans are living in the US and at least 13,000 in the Philippines.

Six months after the bill’s approval, most of the veterans—now in their late seventies and ‘80s—continue to wait for the one-time, lump-sum compensation for their wartime services. Most are frail and sickly, a considerable number are without a family. They are dying day after day because of age, poor health and frustration.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs should expedite the processing and release of the checks. The US Embassy in Manila should look into the problem. We could use some of the enthusiasm US Ambassador Kristie Kenney displayed the day the embassy started receiving applications, when she posed happily with the aging veterans on the chancery grounds.

President Gloria Arroyo brought up the subject in passing during her meeting with President Obama at the White House on July 30. A little nudge from the Philippine Embassy and the Filipino-American community in Washington, D.C., should help.

The Philippine Caucus in the US Senate, which includes old-time supporters Senators Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka, should flex some muscles. Aside from payment being a matter of honor, the high mortality rate was one reason Senator Inouye insisted on getting his lump-sum amendment in the bill, despite strong opposition from some Republicans.

Time is very important.