“The ship sank because it lost balance in the storm after water flowed into open portholes,” the news agency RIA Novosti quotes the report as saying.  According to law, all portholes must be closed before a vessel departs.  The investigation noted up to 38 portholes were found open during an inspection of the sunken ship.

The report also stated that the vessel was heavily overloaded on departure, and that the captain had failed to inform navigation traffic controllers of the cruise, despite a storm warning.

Now Tuesday, two senior transport inspectors have been arrested as a result. According to a report by RIA Novosti:

Irek Timergazeev and Vladislav Semyonov, senior river fleet inspectors from Volga department of the country’s transport watchdog Rostransnadzor, allowed the AgroRechTour company to carry passengers on the Bulgaria, despite the vessel lacking the appropriate license.

“The illegal actions of the Rostransnadzor employees are directly related to their grave consequences – the death of the 122 people,” spokesman Vladimir Markin said. Keep reading

Two people have already been charged in connection with the incident, the general director of the company that rented the cruise boat and the river fleet inspector who certified that the Bulgaria was fit to sail.

Photo via RIA Novosti

Denmark’s A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S, the world biggest container carrier by volume; No. 2 CMA-CGM SA of France; and No. 4 Hapag-Lloyd AG of Germany said officials visited their headquarters unannounced on Tuesday and requested documents.

The commission said it “has reason to believe that the companies concerned may have violated the antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices and/or abuse of a dominant market position.”

The subject of the search: a rebound in container shipping rates in 2009 that confounded simple supply and demand.

Maersk, CMA and Hapag said they were cooperating with the investigation and that they comply with competition rules. A smaller line, Hamburg Süd, issued a similar statement. No. 3 shipping company Mediterranean Shipping Co. of Switzerland couldn’t be reached.

‘For several years we have implemented our compliance programme which includes guidelines and training of employees etc. in order to ensure, to the widest extent possible, that our employees are aware of legislation and how to adhere to it,” Maersk said.

The investigation, in cooperation with national authorities, “are a preliminary step into suspected anticompetitive practices,” the commission said. The inspections don’t mean that the companies are guilty, said the commission, the EU’s executive arm.

Since China revved up its export machine in the 1990s, the container-shipping sector has been one of the world’s fastest growing businesses, expanding around 10% a year.

Increasingly, transporting 20- and 40-foot steel containers across oceans has become the standard for moving everything from bananas to electronics around the globe. Ports built new docks. Canals were widened. Carriers ordered hundreds of bigger ships. The number of ships at sea able to carry over 10,000 20-foot containers or their equivalents increased to 48 this year from 15 in 2009. Next year, it will be 61.

But amid that growth came the global financial crisis. Trade in 2009 suffered its worst decline, 12% by value, since World War II. That led analysts to predict a collapse in rates and that at least one shipping line in the top 20 would fail.

That didn’t happen. In January 2009, the index price for shipping a 40-foot container was $1,603. A year later it was $2,517. It has since softened slightly, to $2,436.

“Traditional rules of economics have long not applied to the shipping industry,” said Ashley Craig, a transportation lawyer with Washington-based Venable LLP.

That triggered the curiosity of antitrust investigators in Brussels and Washington, as The Wall Street Journal reported last June. The U.S. Justice Department and Federal Maritime Commission have cooperated with European Union officials, but haven’t announced their findings. EU cartel investigations, which are run by the European Commission, can take years to conclude.

Shipping-industry customers, freight forwarders and other middle men have filed complaints with the EU and the U.S.

According to shipping-industry executives, rates increased because shipping lines laid up vessels, levied surcharges and cut the speed of their ocean crossings, a practice known as slow steaming, which can cut capacity by 5%.

The question, investigators said, is whether the companies acted alone or together. The shipping companies said they acted independently.

The EU in 2008 abolished a long-standing price-fixing exemption for shipping companies. “After the lifting of the exemption, carriers have continued announcing what they want to do their rate levels in the press, which has been described as signaling,” said Dirk Visser, an analyst with Netherlands-based Dynamar BV.

(c) 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

It is not clear if the day long search yielded more documentation relevant to the investigation launched two weeks ago against Stolberg and other Beluga officials, according to local media.

Earlier this week Beluga Fleet Management Beteiligungs GmbH, Beluga Fleet Management GmbH & Co KG, Beluga Marine Service GmbH & Co KG, Beluga Offshore Crewing GmbH, Beluga Sea Academy GmbH all filed for insolvency.

The findings marked the end of an investigation that stemmed from an April 2009 suit, in which a BP contractor alleged the company couldn’t safely operate its Atlantis platform because it didn’t have thousands of necessary engineering documents.

Investigators said that while BP labeled the engineering documents in a “confusing” way and some documents were missing the required stamps and signatures, those conditions didn’t create “specific unsafe conditions” on the platform. They said personnel on the rig had access to relevant safety information.

“Although we found significant problems with the way BP labeled and maintained its engineering drawings and related documents, we found the most serious allegations to be without merit,” Michael Bromwich, head of the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, said in a statement.

BP is still facing separate litigation on the issue. Food and Water Watch, an advocacy group, said Friday it will continue to pursue a lawsuit that asks a federal judge to shut down the Atlantis platform because of allegedly flawed documentation.

Zach Corrigan, a senior staff attorney for Food and Watch Watch, likened the incomplete documents to an “owner’s manual” that hadn’t been finalized before the platform started operating. He said an audit was necessary to prove the engineering drawings represented actual conditions on Atlantis, but federal investigators hadn’t conducted one.

“Their evaluation of the documents and the evaluation of the facility was woefully deficient,” Corrigan said. After an explosion and subsequent oil spill at a BP-leased drilling rig last year, U.S. regulators have reorganized, aiming to separate the responsibility of safety oversight from the business of collecting royalties from offshore oil production.

The reaction to Friday’s report illustrated the challenges facing Bromwich’s agency, which is enforcing safety rules and reviewing permits for new wells. While the agency is under intense pressure from the oil industry to issue more drilling permits, it is also taking heat from environmentalists who say it is not doing enough to ensure safety.

“Bromwich had promised reforms,” Corrigan said. “This report (Friday) was their first test and they failed.”

A BP spokesman said the company hadn’t yet reviewed the investigation report released Friday.

“Throughout this process, BP contributed its full cooperation with the agency investigation, maintaining our belief that Atlantis is, and at all times has been, safe and fit for service,” BP spokesman Daren Beaudo said in an email.

-By Ryan Tracy, Dow Jones Newswires

Click HERE for the full report from BOEMRE

The worker fell into the water as he was moving from a boat to the platform, located about 150 miles south of Lake Charles, Louisiana, U.S. officials said in a statement.

Crew members were able to get the worker out of the water and on to the platform, but he became unresponsive shortly afterward and was subsequently pronounced dead, officials said.

The incident occurred around 7:45 a.m. CST.

The worker wasn’t an employee of Apache. He worked for a maintenance company Apache had hired to do maintenance on the platform, Apache spokesman Bill Mintz said. The worker was wearing a personal flotation device, he said.

“Our goal every day is to operate in a safe manner and avoid accidents,” Mintz said.

After the incident, U.S. Interior Department officials flew to the scene to begin an investigation.

“This tragic accident underscores why we are continuing to work with the industry to ensure the highest safety standards on offshore facilities,” said Michael Bromwich, director of the department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

Apache is working with the department and the U.S. Coast Guard as they seek to determine what happened, Mintz said. Apache hadn’t announced the worker’s death until U.S. officials said Thursday they were conducting an investigation.

Mintz declined to provide details on the age of the worker because he wasn’t sure the next of kin had been informed of the incident.

-By Tennille Tracy, Dow Jones Newswires

Pictured: Rig in U.S. GoM courtesy Apache Corp

This is Part II of gCaptain’s hearing coverage. You can view Part I at the following link:
Deepwater Horizon Hearings – Live Blogging

This morning’s first testimony will be from Deepwater Horizon (DWH) Offshore Instillation Manager (OIM) Jimmy Harrell.

One BP Company-man has exercised his constitutional right to remain silent, another is not appearing due to illness and the DWH’s 1st Assistant Engineer is also not appearing due to medical concerns. This leaves us with the following witness list:

• Jimmy Harrell – Transocean, offshore installation manager Deepwater Horizon
• Curt Kuchta – Transocean, master Deepwater Horizon
• David Young – Transocean, chief mate Deepwater Horizon
• Chad Murray – Transocean, chief electrician Deepwater Horizon

We will be doing the live blogging slightly different today, recapping each testimony after it’s completed. Live video of the hearing can be found HERE.

Jimmy Harrell – OIM

Jimmy Harrell, Offshore Instillation Manager aboard the Horizon completed a set of interviews and his response was honest, contained important details and, most importantly, gave gCaptain the impression that he was truly interested in the hearings finding the cause of the event so that future incidents can be avoided.

The sticky part of the interview were the questions that surrounded who was in charge of the vessel, the OIM or Captain. Jimmy made a few minor errors, first describing his OIM endorsement as a license and mis-stating a few maritime specific terms but mostly he painted an accurate picture of the dynamic between himself and the captain.

Of importance to future regulations was his response when challenged about the structure of command. Captain Nguyen asked him the specific question; “Do you think it would be a good idea for the government to make it be required that one single person is in charge of the vessel?”. His answer…. Yes.

Jimmy concluded his testimony thanking both the USCG and the Bankston for rescuing his crew and requesting that, in future incidents in the gulf, that a better job is done in getting a shaken and tired crew home stating: “We could do a better job of getting these guys on the beach in a more timely manner.”

Curt Kuchta, Master

Captain Kuchta faced difficult questions from both the USCG and MMS investigators but remained calm, professional and in command. Further he was very honest as to what he did and didn’t know avoiding all conjecture or ambiguity which, in cases like this, have the potential to do more harm than good.

The USCG began with the standard boilerplate questions; where you taking any medication, how much rest did you get, etc. but quickly advanced to specific questions about his responsibilities vs. those of the OIM and specifics about Transocean policies and procedures. Questions were also brought up about previous incidents aboard the vessel including a blackout in 2008. Kutcha handled each with ease and confidence.

Questions were then asked by BP’s lawyers concentrating on specifics of the evening and Steve Gordon who had questions about safe manning levels.

Safe manning levels have been a reoccurring topic of these investigations but it has yet to bring up the differences between licensed and non-licensed personnel DPO’s, Mechanics, etc) serving in the same capacities.

Dave Young, Chief Mate

We will attampt to write a recap of Dave’s testimony later today but…. it was clear he did an excellent job both during the incident and today’s hearing.

In the opinion of gCaptain four organizations share primary blame for the events of April 20th; Halliburton, Transocean, BP and the US Government. (Halliburton has not testified yet so we will concentrate this article on the other three) And each is larger than the next which makes it easy to understand the complexity of the problem but difficult to understand who exactly is responsible for each failure.

The complexity starts on the vessel where the division of responsibilities between the Captain, with extensive marine knowledge, and OIM, with extensive drilling knowledge, are described in the organizational chart as:

Underway Mode: Master Is In Charge OIM.

Drilling Mode: OIM Is In Charge

But is it not the fact that a Dynamically Positioned MODU is always underway? Some would argue that it’s even making way through the water considering the thrusters are pushing the vessel through the current.

In yesterday’s testimony Transocean VP of Health Safety and the Environment, Captain Adrian Rose, was asked specific questions about the blowout procedures aboard the Horizon to which he responded; “Transocean owns 134 vessels, I can’t possibly have detailed information on each of them.” When asked specifically “Who is ultimately responsible for safety management?”, Rose answered that the CEO is ultimately responsible but TOI follows a process of line management.

The International Safety Management Code states:

To ensure the safe operation of each ship and to provide a link between the Company and those on board, every Company, as appropriate, should designate a person or persons ashore having direct access to the highest level of management. The responsibility and authority of the designated person or persons should include monitoring the safety and pollution-prevention aspects of the operation of *each ship* and ensuring that adequate resources and shore-based support are applied, as required.

Captain Rose stated that Transocean has designated persons in each of it’s nine districts and that contact information for this individual is posted aboard every ship… but he continued to say that safety concerns are a matter for line management and that safety concerns should be brought to an individual’s supervisor.

The line management system works but only if one’s supervisor has a thorough knowledge of the operations he overseas but it’s clear that Transocean’s line management, while having expertise in drilling operations, do not have a solid knowledge of the marine emergency, marine engineering or marine operations in general. Transocean does have a Marine Superintendent but with these expertise (it remains unclear whether they have a Port Engineer) but for marine crew to contact these people the direct line of management is sidestepped… exactly the thing Mr. Rose says Transocean policy was designed to avoid.

But a direct line of management, regardless of competency of bosses in marine operations, is better than BP’s structure of responsibility and authority in which Mr. Tink, HS&E leader for BP operations in the Gulf, was unable to clearly define during his testimony. In answering questions it was clear Mr. Tink had no knowledge of marine or general emergency management but rather was an expert in “Occupational Health”. Mr. Tink mentioned OSHA regulations, which don’t apply offshore, but did not display knowledge of ISM, ISPS or the myriad of other codes that do apply to vessels.

gCaptain is confident of BP’s in-house experience as an owner and operator of tankers and other marine vessels but these people did not testify and it is unclear who is responsible AND COMPETENT in planning and monitoring marine emergencies. Mr. Tink described spreadsheets, diagrams and advance computers that crunch injury data but made no mention of a program that records ABS deficiencies, USCG comments, BP Marine Audit reports, Marine incidents and other clues to problems in these areas.

So “Who is responsibility (and competent!?) for Safety (including marine safety) with BP”? Tink’s answer included steering committees, process vs people and layers of management but no single name emerged.

But Mr. Tink’s testimony was encouraging in the fact that he gave gCaptain confidence that BP did in fact have experts, including marine, that every Sr. member of BP access to provide expert advise as needed. Further that the steering committees, process vs people and layers, while not serving to make responsibilities clear, did serve to create an atmosphere of teamwork between departments which, as gCaptain recently wrote, is critical to safe operations.

The organization that has topic experts in every facet of knowledge is the US Government which, in regulating offshore operations, shares responsibility for the incident. gCaptain interviewed a number of MODU captains and OIM’s all of which had zero knowledge of ever witnessing a joint inspection with both MMS and USCG inspectors. Further they very few instances could be fond where these two government entities worked together closely to solve or regulate a problem. Our interviews also reveled that MMS inspectors generally have little knowledge of marine operations and USCG inspectors don’t have granular knowledge of drilling ops. The problem; things fall in the crack that exists between these two organizations.

gCaptain would like to report that the problem has been identified and rectified in the organizational structure, the structure of expert knowledge, and the structure of responsibility. But it hasn’t. While the term “Joint Investigation” is heartening and we certainly like the image of USCG and MMS logos in unison on the investigation website, there remains to be any evidence that no marine & drilling experts in Transocean, BP and USG have spent the time to sit down and learn from each other.

It has been suggested that smaller companies are more effective in preventing incidents due to the familiarity of management with daily operations but breaking down each company does not seem like the most likely solution. But one thing can be changed in the near future it’s that the drilling and marine experts in each organization stop depending on each other’s expertise and start the long difficult job of gaining real knowledge in each other’s jobs.

The ship pilot who was at the helm when a freighter spilled 58,000 gallons of fuel into San Francisco Bay in November suffers from a sleep disorder and was on prescription medication to ward off drowsiness, people close to the investigation told The Associated Press.Investigators want to know whether the disorder — or even the medication itself — contributed to the accident.Federal officials and others, speaking on condition of anonymity, said John Cota has sleep apnea, a breathing condition that can disrupt sleep all night long and leave sufferers severely fatigued during the day. Sleep apnea is blamed for countless auto accidents every year in which drivers nodded off at the wheel.Cota, 59, was also said to be taking a sleep-apnea drug whose known side effects include impaired judgment.Prescription drugs are “certainly a part of our investigation,” said G. Ross Wheatley, chief of investigations for the Coast Guard’s San Francisco sector.The disclosure has raised questions among members of Congress about the Coast Guard’s licensing practices and whether Cota should have been deemed fit for a job in which he was responsible for guiding giant cargo ships in and out of port and through the dangerous waters of the bay.Under Coast Guard policy, a sleep disorder can be grounds for disqualification, but is not automatically so. Continue Reading…

Those with medical concerns at sea should also check Global Rescue’s Medical Extraction Insurance for Mariners

At trial, it was proven that the M/V Tanabata had a removable bypass pipe or “magic pipe” that was used to discharge oily waste without the use of an oily-water separator, a required pollution control devise. The discharges were, however, falsely recorded as having been processed through the separator in the ship’s oil record book, a required log regularly inspected by the U.S. Coast Guard. An engineer testified that the defendant referred to the bypass pipe as the “illegal pipe.” It was also shown during trial that the pipe was hidden when the ship was in port so that it would not be discovered by the Coast Guard.

Sentencing has been set for Jan. 10, 2008, before Judge William N. Nickerson. Humphries faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count.

The M/V Tanabata was operated by Pacific Gulf Marine, Inc. (PGM). PGM pleaded guilty and was sentenced on Jan. 27, 2007, to charges of making illegal discharges of oil-contaminated waste from each of four ships managed by the company. After learning of the investigation, PGM conducted and voluntarily disclosed the results of an internal investigation and cooperated with investigators and prosecutors. PGM was sentenced to pay a $1 million criminal fine and $500,000 in community service payments and to serve three years probation under the terms of an Environmental Compliance Program subject to court approval.

Continue Reading for the full article

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