Maritime and Port Authority, Singapore speaks at IBIA in Asia Gala Dinner 2016
IBIA in Asia held its Gala Dinner on Thursday, 21 April 2016 at the historic Raffles Hotel as part of Singapore Maritime Week. The guest of honour was Capt. Segar, Assistant Chief Executive of the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA).
Rahul Choudhuri, Vice Chairman of IBIA in Asia, Chief Operating Officer Asia, Middle East & Africa welcomed him and reflected on a call for greater collaboration and industry leadership that had been made at the influential Singapore Maritime Lecture earlier in the week. He commented that IBIA, with its global status & local presence, was well placed to provide that collaboration and leadership, one example being the position that the organisation is taking on Mass Flow Meters.
He described how IBIA is now working together with industry partners to come up with a Standard Operating Procedure for Surveyors. This will allow surveyors not only to embrace new technology, but also to play a role in building trust in the day to day usage of Mass Flow Meters.
Over time, refuelling a vessel will become synonymous with a car filling up confidently at a gas station. Singapore is pioneering good bunkering practice and the adoption of these new procedures will deliver huge competitive advantages with other ports certainly following.
MPA’s Capt. Segar spoke about the previous year, saying that despite the industry challenges Singapore had retained its position as the world’s leading bunkering port. Despite economic uncertainty, 45.2 million tonnes of bunkers, an all-time record high, was delivered in 2015 and bunker sales reached 11.8 million tonnes in Q1 2016, a 11% increase year-on-year. He added that this achievement had only been possible because of IBIA members’ strong support and efforts to move the industry forward.
Capt. Segar also highlighted and thanked IBIA members for their active support of a different MPA initiatives. IBIA’s participation in the work of the Technical Committee for Bunkering, under the purview of SPRING Singapore, has contributed significantly to bunkering standards and development work in Singapore, including the review of the SS 600, SS 524 and most recently, the development of the Technical Reference for Mass Flow Meter Bunkering.
Capt. Segar went on to say that the MPA is committed to continue raising bunkering standards to safeguard Singapore’s position as a premier bunkering port of choice. There are now 73 bunker tankers approved for mass flow meter delivery for marine fuel oil and the port is seeing close to a million metric tonnes of bunkers being delivered via MPA-approved mass flow meters every month.
Furthermore, work has started on Mass Flow Metering for marine gas oil. The initial testing had been encouraging and work is now underway to implement MFM for marine gas oil deliveries as early as 2017, he said. Capt. Segar added that MPA is now working towards introducing an electronic bunker delivery note (E-BDN) mobile application which will allow near real-time transfer of bunkering information. The industry feedback has been positive so far, and field-testing will commence in the second half of this year.
Capt. Segar concluded by saying that the bunkering industry in Singapore has grown significantly over the years and that he is confident that with the various stakeholders working together, the industry will continue to thrive, grow and most importantly remain competitive in the years to come.
Singapore Maritime Week (SMW) is the leading maritime event in Singapore. Driven by the MPA , SMW brings together the international maritime community for a week of conferences, dialogues, exhibitions and social events in celebration of all things maritime.