Frontline, the world’s largest tanker shipping company, is committed to providing quality transportation services to its customers. Central to the company’s operations is its focus on quality systems to satisfy the most stringent safety and environmental regulations.
“Over the years, we have been building up our fleet and infrastructure to promote our quality management, philosophy and services on an international scale,” says Oscar Spieler, managing director of Frontline Management.
A solid infrastructure is important to quality ship management, and Oscar Spieler is determined that Frontline is to be representative of the best top-line ship management available to the industry.
As of today, the fleet that we operate has a total tonnage of approximately 18 million dwt and consists of 34 VLCCs, 23 Suezmaxes and eight OBOs. We believe that our vessels comply with the most stringent of generally applicable safety and environmental regulations for tankers,” he says.
According to Spieler the company regularly evaluates the manning, training and qualification standards on all its vessels. “As an example of our efforts, we have been working with the airline and offshore industry since 2001 to reduce the number of accidents on board ships. Human factors are the cause of around 90% of such accidents. This is far more than the figures published by CEFOR (The Central Union of Marine Underwriters, Norway),” he says.
Million-dollar investment
Frontline has so far spent around USD 2 million (NOK 12–13 million) on focusing on human values. That’s not necessarily a lot for a shipping company that earns billions of kroner. However Spieler emphasises that the money invested in these projects are some of the best investments Frontline has made as they have resulted in “less accidents, less offhire, less cost and better reputation in the market.”
“There are major differences in the cultures and languages of the 2,000–3,000 seamen on board the Frontline ships. Most of the crew are Russian and Indian. Although the 80–90 Frontline ships have not suffered especially great damage, we have been working for four years to reduce the number of accidents caused by human factors,” he says.
Further explaining the background for the initiative, Spieler says, “Some years ago the UK Department of Energy conducted a study of the accident involving the tanker Braer, which went aground and lost all its cargo on Shetland in 1993. The study concluded that the accident was caused by human factors such as lack of communication, culture understanding, fatigue and stress. In view of the findings, we contacted Braathens and Blå consultancy to share our cross-industry experiences. Later we constructed and filmed the entire dramatic accident onboard one of our vessels. The film has been subsequently used as a basis for enhancing the crew and officers understanding relating to human factors.”
From captain to messboy
“The symbol of the campaign that has been started is that everyone is to sail as one team. The barrier between the senior officers and the rest of the crew must be broken down by all kinds of crew being put together in groups,” he says and adds, “The challenge is to get everyone, from the captain to the messboy, to understand the message. We can already see results in the loss statistics.”
Another focus area for Frontline is the increasing global environmental concerns have created a demand in the petroleum products/ crude oil seaborne transportation industry for vessels that are able to conform to the stringent environmental standards currently being imposed throughout the world.
Greater inspection requirements
Spieler believes the heightened environmental and quality concerns of insurance underwriters, regulators and charterers are leading to greater inspection and safety requirements on all vessels and creating an increasing demand for modern vessels that are able to conform to the stricter standards.
“Our vessels are subject to both scheduled and unscheduled inspections by a variety of governmental and private entities. The entities include the local port authorities such as the U.S.Coast Guard, harbour master, classification societies, flag state administrations and charterers, particularly terminal operators and major oil companies which conduct frequent vessel inspections. Each of these entities may have unique requirements that we must comply with,” he explains.
Commenting on commercial aspects, Spieler says that the market for international seaborne crude oil transportation services is highly fragmented and competitive. “Competition for charters is intense and is based upon price, location, size, age, condition and acceptability of the vessel and its manager. Consequently, we believe that a large, high-quality fleet will enhance our ability compete and to obtain competitive terms from suppliers and shipbuilders and to produce cost savings in chartering and operations.”
The fact that the oil shipping sector is in very fine fettle is no secret and it is expected to remain so throughout 2005. Much of the robust demand is from Asia, where the booming Chinese and Indian economies are requiring increasing quantities of oil transportation. This is good news for quality tanker operators like Frontline.