OREANDA-NEWS. A workshop has been held in Sovcomflot's Moscow offices on how to ensure safety during offshore operations, and how to improve the company's fleet and services.

The meeting was attended by captains and senior engineers of SCF vessels, as well as representatives of affiliate companies engaged in working with and servicing the fleet.

Data relating to Sovcomflot's navigational safety for the first nine months of 2014 was presented and analysed, and work undertaken by the Group to investigate the causes of incidents was evaluated. Ways to improve the system for staffing the SCF fleet were also touched upon.

Workshop participants placed particular focus on the practice of applying risk assessment during the planning and operation stages of vessels' navigation through Arctic and sub-Arctic seas.

SCF specialists voiced their opinion that on the current unstable market the success of a shipping business is entirely dependent on its ability to compete with the leaders of the global tanker industry.

In this situation, important factors in a company's competitiveness are its services, which must be of the very highest quality in order to guarantee safety in the long term.

Mikhail Suslin, Sovcomflot's Vice-President and Head of the Safety & Quality Department, underlined that in 2014 safety indicators for the SCF fleet showed a positive dynamic. According to Intertanko, its total number of incidents was 5.1 times lower than the industry average. The average number of reprimands after inspections this year fell from 4 to 3.5, which is almost half the industry average.

Sovcomflot Group has completely unified its safety management procedures into a single information platform. It is planning to harmonise its emergency response and prevention procedures.

At the workshop, the captain of the tanker SCF Baltica Dmitry Savin was awarded a medal “For Services to the Fatherland”, second degree, during a ceremony to mark his “significant contribution to realising Russia's naval potential, services to transport, and achievements during a distinguished career”.

In 2010 SCF Baltica (deadweight: 117,153,000 tonnes) became the first heavy-tonnage vessel to complete a transit crossing along the Northern Sea Route.