IBIA restarts in-person training
IBIA Asia’s office swings into action as Singapore eases pandemic rules
On 13 November 2021, Singapore’s Ministry of Health announced that 85% of the country’s population had received two doses of COVID-19 vaccines, and 86% had received at least one dose, while 20% had had booster shots.
All IBIA Asia’s Singapore office staff and trainers have been fully vaccinated for some time and are currently on the booster vaccination list. This has meant we were able to bring back in-person training from July 2021. All attendees on our courses have been required to be fully vaccinated to enter our training venues.
We will consider organizing more in-person international physical conferences and events in 2022 if the Covid-19 situation stabilizes with high vaccination rates and low fatality and serious illness numbers.
Encouragingly, a Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) has been established to enable quarantine-free travel to Singapore for Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Malaysia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US.
IBIA Asia Conferences
As an attendee, I was happy to physically attend the 37th Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference (APPEC 2021) from 27 to 29 September 2021. The event model was a hybrid conference – on-site at Marina Bay Sands Singapore, online globally and on-demand.
On Day 3, Session Four on “Environmental regulations and decarbonization of the shipping industry. IBIA Director and IMO Representative Unni Einemo presented “Destination zero: Signposts on the road to decarbonizing shipping”. Two other IBIA board members also participated in the same session.
IBIA Global Board Vice Chairman and Chairman for IBIA Asia Regional Board Timothy Cosulich, CEO Marine Fuel, Fratelli Cosulich, took part in the panel discussion on “The transformation of marine fuels: decarbonization”. Meanwhile, IBIA Global Board members Adrian Tolson, Director and Lead at BLUE Insight, gave a presentation on “Processing versus scrubbing: Upgrading the bottom of the barrel.”
Technical Committee participation in Singapore Council
I also represent IBIA Asia in the Singapore Chemical Industry Council Technical Committees for Bunkering and LNG Bunkering. I aim to help drive the implementation of Singapore Standards for Bunkering for both conventional fuels and LNG.
A two-month public consultation on the revised SS 524 – Singapore Standard Specification for Quality Management for Bunker Supply Chain (QMBS) draft was completed on 5 November 2021.
Meanwhile, TC and the working group still review the SS600 – Singapore Standard Code of Practice for Bunkering by Tank Gauging. The target for the roll-out of both of these reviewed standards in Q2 2022.
Current Training Programme
The IBIA Asia office offers mandatory training for the bunker sector in Singapore with courses that have been approved and certified by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA). They are:
• Singapore Standard SS 648:2019 – 1 Day Training for currently approved Bunker Surveyors and Cargo Officers. In 2020, we conducted the training for 90% of certified cargo officers and bunker surveyors.
• Singapore Standard SS 600:2014 + SS 648:2019 – 2 Days Basic Training for new Bunker Surveyors and Cargo Officers.
• Singapore Standard SS 600:2014 + SS 648:2019 – 2 Days Advanced Training for new Bunker Surveyors and Cargo Officers.
The IBIA Asia office also offers specialized training for the bunker sector in Singapore with our MPA-approved course, Understanding Marine Fuel. We completed two successful live on line-courses in October and November 2020.
If you are interested in becoming part of the bunker community through IBIA membership or interested in the bunkering training IBIA Asia offers, we encourage you to contact Noraini at noraini@ibia.net or me on the details below.
Alex Tang, MIPM CMarSci MIMarEST
Regional Manager: Asia
M +65 88766491
E regionalmanagerasia@ibia.net
W www.ibia.net