These were: - Kyklades Maritime Corp, Sun Enterprises, Marai Tankers Shipmanagement and Optra Shipping.
Currently, DYNAMARINe STS screening service clients fleet numbers over 1,200 vessels and by the end of this year, the company anticipated that the total would reach 1,500.
DYNAMARINe said that the worldwide interest generated in its services convinced the company of imminent growth, hence the setting up of a new representative office in Singapore earlier this year.
Among the enhancements to its services are an updated web portal for its clients, which is due to go live by the end of this month.
DYNAMARINe has also developed a tool that conveys weather and sea state conditions, along with criteria relevant to the vessel’s size, which will soon be online. This process has been under development since January, 2019 and is under calibration and verification with actual data received from STS operations undertaken.
In addition, STS FAQ Version 2 will be ready by the first quarter of next year.
STS FAQ was released in March, 2016 during an IFSTS event at the Clyde & Co offices in London. After almost three years and 5,000 distributed globally, the company was encouraged to work on the Guide’s second version.
Another service, auditing STS service providers, has been in operation for two years.
Thus far, DYNAMARINe has audited five STS service providers - two local organisations and three regional, on behalf of clients. During the audit, objective evidence was collected about their activities and management systems’ organisation.
Audit reports have also been sent to oil major organisations in Europe and the US, directly from the STS online provider.
DYNAMARINe said that large organisations were still very critical about this concept, although it provided a means to increase the standards in the industry and isolate sub-standard practices through a transparent process undertaken by an organisation, which does not have a conflict of interest.
In another initiative, PART B of the Screening and Risk Assessment report will be modified by the first quarter of 2020.
This modification will include a statistical section on observed incidents versus vessel size and type of STS. The report will also include a snapshot of the weather applicable for the location with a peer group analysis on past STS findings, as reported by Masters.
Furthermore, DYNAMARINe is working on a module that will allow STS service providers to create specific mooring plans for participating vessels online through the platform, in order to incorporate this information on Part B of the report delivered to the Master.
In addition, in the last 10 years, DYNAMARINe has seen a large number of fender maintenance certificates issued by various service providers or related technical organisations.
In many cases, it was observed that the information conveyed in a certificate was not consistent either with the manufacturers’ purchase certificate or with information enabling transparency, as far as maintenance and safety standards were concerned.
Shipowners participating in STS operations are requested to ascertain that the pneumatic fenders provided comply with the requirements and are in good condition. Shipowners have to exercise their due diligence by inspecting their maintenance certification. Almost all pneumatic fender maintenance certificates do not convey the correct information, DYNAMARINe claimed.
Therefore, shipowners need to have access to well-documented information as stated in the pneumatic fenders’ maintenance certificate.
Guidelines are available aimed at unifying and verifying the information conveyed on a fender certificate and should be considered when preparing periodical test certificates (PTC) for fenders.
Applicable standards are the ISO 17357-1:2014, as well as OCIMF and IMO related guidelines, the company explained.