Government agencies and their internal IT shops are considering how to match the private sector in efficient and successful development of information applications and infrastructure.  Although government agencies do not “fail” in the sense that private sector companies do (i.e., go bankrupt), the new reality is that with compressed budgets and austerity based scrutiny, agencies are looking to be lean, mean, current and increasingly effective.  Where the private sector has best practices, budgets and market signals to inform its IT decision making, the public sector relies on layers of oversight in the form of acquisition programs, engineering lifecycles and multi-level reporting and decision structures against a backdrop of public policy and regulation.  Typically, the cost of ramping up a program requires that it be sufficiently significant to justify the machinery used to manage it.  Having built a management and production methodology based on the “waterfall” large dollar approach to delivering information technology, the question for government managers – who are constrained by regulation, policy and multi-layered entrenched practices – is how they can be more agile, i.e., use practices that conform to institutional requirements but deliver lower cost, on-time, and on-budget.

At GreenLine Systems our Lean Software Development processes, small company “startup roots,” and successful work in large government IT organizations, have helped shape our views of a better way to build solutions for our government clients.     We base our approach on the following pillars:

• Build excellent teams,  ensuring that all necessary management and development roles are included and staffed with people with strong skills and the correct philosophy
• Understand and aggressively support agency requirements for the Systems Engineering Life Cycle (SELCs) and Earned Value Management (EVM) structures, but streamlined and tailored to support success as well as oversight
• Use Agile development processes in conjunction with business user oversight to release usable conforming code faster and in rapid iterations

Agile development has gained currency among IT shops in both the public and private sectors.  Though it has proven successful in the private sector for rapid and accurate delivery of coding projects, there are significant barriers to implementing agile development practices in government.  These barriers can include cumbersome acquisition processes; complex IT development and infrastructures environments; over large and layered management structures; and the need to support policy, regulation and oversight driven department, agency and office program control efforts.  At GreenLine, we have experience in successfully addressing these issues.

We are often asked by our customers to explain how Agile Development is different than Waterfall Development at the highest level.   Simply put, Agile development methods are adaptive and focus on adapting quickly to changing realities. That is, when the needs of a project change, an adaptive team changes as well.

The Waterfall approach focuses on planning what features and tasks are planned for the entire length of the development process.  See the following chart for a visual comparison:

The downside of the Waterfall approach for large development efforts primarily stem from the world changing so much by the time the project is complete (requirements change, customers involved turnover and new people with new ideas are brought in, or technology advances occur) and the result is either an obsolete deliverable or an over budget project that misses the delivery date.

At GreenLine Systems, we understand the Federal Systems Engineering Life Cycle (SELC) and how to effectively incorporate the appropriate aspects of Agile Development into it and have delivered many projects successfully for our government customers.  We also understand the need to report progress, track earned value and progress through gates.   We also recognize that as desirable as it may be to be “Agile,” the reality is that government ships can be difficult to turn.

If your organization has a true desire to try a new approach, we are happy to discuss with you our experience and approaches to see if we can help.  Please ping us at info@greenlinesystems.com.

The wreck of the Greek-owned vessel has been described as New Zealand’s worst maritime environmental disaster, leaking fuel oil and 300 of the roughly 880 containers that had been on board were lost when the ship broke apart.

Investigations by The Associated Press last month revealed that Australian authorities impounded the vessel, but released it the next day after Liberian maritime authorities intervened, essentially saying the ship was safe to sail and the problems could be fixed later.

Some 10 weeks later, the Rena ran full-steam into a well-marked reef off the coast of New Zealand. It’s not clear whether the previously identified problems played any role.

The captain and Rena’s navigating officer face criminal charges of operating a ship in a dangerous or risky manner, polluting the environment and altering the ship’s documents after the crash.

After reading the above AP news report I looked up the RENA in GreenLine System’s MDA/MSA risk application tool iBench and found the following:

The RENA is Liberian Flagged, Classed by the ABS, P&I coverage provided by the Swedish Club, and with a SMC/DOC issuer of Germanischer Lloyd.  Seemingly all up to date and with companies that are expected to provide good oversight on the vessels seaworthiness.

The vessel has been operating globally since being purchased by Costamare Shipping Co SA 9/27/2010 for $11 Million.  Costamare is the parent company for the RENA’s Registered Owner Daina Shipping Co. According to our database (provided by IHS Fairplay) the crew of the ill-fated vessel were comprised of 18 Officers and Non-Rates from the Philippines.

According to the South African Press Association, “The vessel at the centre of New Zealand’s worst maritime pollution disaster ran aground because the captain was taking a short cut, the New Zealand government alleged on Saturday…Environment Minister Nick Smith said it appeared the Rena hit a reef off the resort area of Tauranga when the vessel was trying to get to port quickly…it appears from the charts that they were in a rush to get to port, went full bore, cut the corner, and hit the reef.”

So while there is nothing blatantly wrong with the administration of the vessel RENA, the most glaring issue facing the vessel was the fact that it was detained by Fremantle Port Authorities for a list of 17 defects, but as was reported by the AP, was allowed to leave port the next day after being approached by Liberian Maritime Authorities.  When reviewing the list of discrepancies one notices some significant issues that if not directly impacting the grounding certainly leaves the impression that the vessel was not as well monitored or maintained as it could have been. This is evidenced by the fact that during its last three inspections the RENA was cited for numerous defects each time:

5 July 2011 Shenzhen, China 18 defects noted

21 July 2011 Fremantle, Australia 17 defects noted

28 September 2011 Bluff, New Zealand 19 defects noted

The below defect list is from the port visit to Fremantle at which time the vessel was subsequently detained and when the vessel was reinspected at Port Botany, Australia 22 September 2011 all the Fremantle defects were rectified with the exception of the ISM Related Deficiencies.  However, upon inspection in New Zealand six days later 19 defects were noted once again.

These pirate fishing vessels are classified as Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) vessels:

1)      Illegal – vessels operate in violation of regional laws, i.e., fishing out of season, catching wrong species, using wrong gear, catching more than their quota, not having the proper license.

2)      Unreported – either not reporting or misreporting size of catch.

3)      Unregulated – vessels that have no national registration, flying wrong flag, or fish where there are no conservation measures in place.

Of course it is the poorest of countries/regions, for example the West Coast of Africa, that are most affected by IUU fishing mainly due to their inability to patrol and monitor their territorial waters and economic zones leaving them very susceptible to IUU fishing vessels.  A case in point is the evolution of the pirates that currently operate off the coasts of Somalia.  It can be said that after its civil war and breakdown of a centralized government local fisherman took up patrolling their waters to save their way of life.  This waterborne militia eventually realized that they could exploit their new found capabilities and morphed into the modern day pirates.

Regional Fisheries Management Organization (RFMO) are responsible for managing fish population on the high seas and fish that may migrate from one region to another.  They adopt fisheries conservation and management measures that are binding on their members. They are also in charge of measures to combat IUU fishing, and measures to reduce bycatch of dolphins, turtles, sharks and other fish. These organizational responsibilities are divided as follows:

Major Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMO)

AIDCP – Agreement on the International Dolphin Conservation Program

CCAMLR – Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources

CCSBT – Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna

GFCM – General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean

IATTC – Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission

ICCAT – International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas

IOTC – Indian Ocean Tuna Commission

NAFO – Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization

NASCO – Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization

NEAFC – Convention on Future Multilateral Cooperation in North East Atlantic Fisheries

SEAFO – South East Atlantic Ocean Fisheries Organization

SPRFMO – South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization

WCPFC – Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission

Pirates use ruses and false certification to evade identification and even when they are caught they face minimal fines or may even be placed on an RFMO IUU List banning these vessels from fishing in the waters the group may monitor but with a quick change of the name and flag they are usually back in operation right away.

Fish pirates elude scrutiny and detection using a variety of tactics, making the beneficial owners of these illegal operations extremely difficult to identify and penalize. Changes in vessel name and flag are common and some vessels even have dual identities – using one name or flag while fishing in West Africa and a different one when using port facilities and landing catches. For many vessels spotted in the region, there is no information available whatsoever in the public domain.

Another activity that appears to be on the rise is the transshipment of catches to another vessel while at sea, rather than directly offloading in ports.  This serves to conceal any connection between the fish and the vessel by the time the fish arrives on the market, meaning the true origin of the catch is unknown.

Transshipping and re-supplying at sea also allow pirate vessels to stay at sea and continue to catch fish rather than transit to port when their holds are full, where they could be confronted with port inspections or control of their activities.  There is very little if any monitoring on the hygienic handling or packaging of the fish product by these vessels and because of their lower costs the fish products are ending up on the unsuspecting population.

On any given day there are over 2000 Fishing vessels at sea as evidenced by the use of their AIS transponders (depicted below are 2392 fishing vessels).  While an AIS system is only required on vessels greater than 300GRT, there are many vessels below that size limit that have AIS.

Unfortunately, IUU vessels disregard this requirement and routinely operate on the high seas with the system turned off.  When looking at a current list of IUU vessels from the major RFMOs we have found that the vessels almost never use or have used their AIS systems, frequently change names/flags and use old names/flags, sometimes using false IMO numbers, etc.  Until a better job of enforcement is accomplished these vessels will continue to illegally operate.   The below list shows the vessels on the RFMOs IUU list and many are over the 300GT requirement to have an AIS system onboard, but have never used them.

According to the Environmental Justice Foundation many of the West Africa IUU Fishing Vessels operate from the port of Las Palmas as a port of convenience allowing them access to provisions, fuel, and transshipment of their catches to Europe.  As seen below monitoring of vessels via AIS in Las Palmas is available but only if the vessel has its system turned on.  IUU vessels simply don’t turn on their systems even within the territorial waters or harbors of Las Palmas.

The bottom line is that until fishery and safe navigation standards are applied to all vessels operating at sea, especially the IUU vessels, we will continue to see our oceans illegally overfished and vessels operating outside maritime standards.  A basic understanding of fisheries, species, seasons, gear, and licensing is required for navies and coast guards to monitor regional fishing activity and detentions and confiscations may be the message that needs to be sent to the IUU fleets that their activity will no longer be tolerated.

You can now see this article at the following link.

Sign up at info@greenlinesystems.com to apply for a no-cost subscription by sending us the following information:  Name, Company/Organization, Country, Email address to link to subscription.  Once you are approved you will receive an invitation to join the Maritime Risk Report.

Monitoring the Maritime Domain requires more than just assessing the risk of vessels and owners/operators.  When Maritime Security customers use IHS/GreenLine’s MDA WatchKeeper vessel risk assessment application they tend to naturally gravitate to the next questions of “what if…”.

• What if I could tailor the data going into the application?
• What if I could put all the ‘Crew’ data into the system?
• What if I could put all the ‘Cargo’ data into the system?

The questions go on and on…. and the mantra that ”vessels do not do bad things, people do” is a key tenant for all Maritime Domain/Situational Awareness (MDA/MSA) problem sets and the more unique data brought into the equation helps the risk assessment picture become cleaner.

Crew and Cargo information is regarded differently in countries and agencies; many times it is treated as sensitive law enforcement data, or exclusive customs data.  Naturally, a system with such sensitive data would require it to be hosted in a secure environment behind a firewall. GreenLine System’s enterprise product for this natural progression is called iBench™.

With our iBench™ product you get all the same features and functions as you do with MDA Watchkeeper (vessel risk assessment tool) but you also have the ability to extend the product with your own datasets providing unique insight into the problem by addressing many of the following data points.

The two most popular additional data sets we see customers using are Cargo and Crew. This information allows analysts to really understand the people, cargo and commodities, vessels, and companies that operate within the Maritime Environment.

Crew

The worldwide supply of seafarers in 2010 was estimated to be 624,000 officers and 747,000 ratings (Total 1,371,000). This is based on the numbers holding STCW certificates. (source BIMCO/ISF 2010 Manpower Study)

Key findings:

• There is little relationship between vessel flag and nationality of crew employed on the vessel.
• Overall, Asian countries supplied 59.4% of total crewmembers on foreign-flag vessels.
• Eastern European nations were the second greatest source of crewmembers at 22.1% of the total.
• W. European nations were an important source of command officers (master & chief engineer).
• Vessel Size, Age, and Type are important variables affecting crew size.
• Newer and smaller vessels had lower crew complements.

It is these lists of Crew members and Passengers, including data elements such as date of birth, nationality, identification number and identification type (passport, merchant mariner’s document), position, and place and date of embarkation, usually provided by national agencies that provide insight into this key aspect of MDA/MSA.  iBench™ ingests this data and then fuses it to the Vessel and Voyage. iBench™ then cross-references the crew and passenger names and other information against the designated terrorist and criminal databases and any other watchlists as part of its Risk Analysis
processing, i.e., Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) database.

Here is how this might look:

GreenLine’s iBench™ risk application crew detail page is displayed below:

Cargo

The World Customs Organization (WCO) promotes the use of risk management among its members in order to better utilize customs resources in a manner that enhances and balances trade facilitation with the secure movement of goods across borders and throughout the supply chain.  GreenLine’s iBench™ automatically performs a risk assessment of all manifest and Customs data and is designed to trigger and
identify on the risks associated with:

• Revenue Evasion
• Security
• Prohibited Items
• Narcotics
• Safety
• Other threats

iBench™ tiers the manifest and declaration data in order of high, medium, and low risk scores.  This will facilitate the triage of the data.  Presenting the data in this manner allows analysts to ensure they are focused on the highest risk trade while pre-approved and/or low risk trade can be facilitated.

This approach has been proven to be highly successful in identifying and interdicting threats upon arrival at a port of entry.  iBench™ can be used to refer shipments of interest for closer scrutiny. Results of inspections are collected and used to validate the reasons for selectivity.  This ensures that the system is always updated with the latest smuggling trends.

The next few slides provide a quick case study of how this would work within iBench. In this first slide you can see the voluminous amount of traffic around the Netherlands and when constraints are added so that we only see the ships having cargo onboard that is destined to a port of discharge within The Netherlands, we pare down the problem to a much more manageable number.

Cargo information, including description and type of cargo, quantity, harmonized tariff schedule code, HAZMAT code, shipper, owner/consignee, origin and destination, can be pulled from Export Declarations and Manifests. Additionally, Notice of Arrivals (NOA), Stow Plans, and Container Status Messages (CSM) provide varying degrees of cargo information. A NOA would typically provide general cargo information but not have Owner or Origin. Stow Plans and CSMs, while available in a wide variety of formats, will typically include the place of receipt and the place of delivery for the cargo and names and addresses of the Shipper and owner/Consignee.

You can also create views that allow you to drill down

on one ship and see the detailed movement track.

You might also want detailed information on what is driving the risk score as we see here:

Drilling down into the risk scorecard shows the anomalies that create the cumulative score and resultant level of risk, in this case theses anomalies are:

• Recipient is a bank, not normal
• Shipper is a Freight Forwarder, not normal
• Container Check digit sum is incorrect
• Vague Commodity Description

 Stow Plan Viewer

Another key aspect of GreenLine’s iBench™ risk application is the Stow Plan Viewer feature which allows users to quickly see where any suspicious containers are located on a ship and if any nearby containers are carrying HAZMAT, both key pieces of operational information in the event an interdiction is needed. Users can drill down into individual containers to see the full contents and additional logistical details.

Conclusion

Using a broad set of criteria, iBench™ generates risk profiles for vessels, crew, and cargo based on an integrated universe of transactional information, references, and watch lists.  iBench™ supports the simultaneous execution of rule sets for independently assessing risk on measures such as anti-terrorism, counter proliferation, narcotics, etc. It uses proprietary and third-party reference data and watch lists, and supports easy configuration of scores, thresholds, and weights associated with rules and rule categories while providing complete transparency into the criteria and rationale used to assess risk.

The system supports administrative controls that allow enabling/disabling specific rules; adjusting risk scores associated with each rule; grouping rules into risk categories such as Trusted Shipper, Origin Determination, Country of Risk, En route Compromise etc.; as well as adjusting risk thresholds and weights associated with risk categories and risk assessment modules.

Bringing multiple data sources to the MDA/MSA problem sets allow analysts to really drill down using complex and associated rule sets to really understand how vessels, cargo, and crew are inter-related and provides the analyst a multi-dimensional view of the Maritime Environment.

Modernization of Customs and Border processing requires a new emphasis on collaborative border management between government agencies.  The introduction of a Single Window Initiative (SWI) can establish an integrated solution for commercial trade processing that addresses both the needs of the Customs Service mandate in your country and those of other government agencies with a foothold in the commercial processing of shipments at the border.  Examples include the ministries of Agriculture, Plant and Animal Health, Food Inspection, Coast Guard, Immigration, Police, Bureaus of Statistics, Transportation Security Administrations, Military and Defense, and many other government departments (OGDs).  Greenline’s iBench technology and associated services can expand the number of OGD programs that interact with Customs commercial processing and deliver a more advanced electronic approach to the collection, consolidation, and dissemination of commercial trade data for both the trading community and the regulatory programs within your country.

Here’s an example:

With our SW solution, all agencies with a foothold in commercial border processing can simultaneously access and review data reported by carriers and importers.  Take a look at how we organize information on our dashboard:

1. Conveyance arrivals (i.e. aircraft and vessels) can be monitored under “My Arrivals” where analysts from multiple agencies can quickly determine the number of shipments and containers arriving in port at any given moment. 

2. Shipments and containers are grouped together by vessel and voyage number in this example and also expand to show the associated risk with each shipment (more on this later).  By clicking on any of the vessel folders, the data is presented into a summary grid format (3&4) for an initial review.

3. Cargo data reported by the ocean carrier is displayed in the top portion of the grid.

4. Importer declarations are displayed in the bottom portion of the grid.

5. Workflow and collaboration functions provide an analyst with the capability to flag shipments of interest, perform follow on work, or refer a shipment to another government department’s analyst. Decisions to inspect refer, or release can be done collaboratively.  The system automatically updates to inform all users of shipment status!

In response to  the volume of trade and today’s more complex border environment, many global Customs administrations have adopted a layered risk management (RM) regime that identifies high-risk shipments for inspection and interdiction through the use of regulated pre-arrival information in its commercial trade filing systems.   Simultaneously, pre-approved and or low risk trade is facilitated.  This twinned approach to border management promotes economic growth and prosperity while focusing efforts on serious threats to your country’s health, safety and security.

GreenLine Systems understands the complexities of today’s border environment and the importance of not only collaborating with OGAs who have a foothold in border processing, but recognizes  it is also key to promote the principles of risk management in border decision making between all OGAs.  As such, Greenline develops technology with an emphasis on interoperable risk management frameworks.  All GreenLine technology has been designed and built to ensure alignment  with many  international standards and principles surrounding border risk management including; the Revised Kyoto Convention on the Simplification of Customs Procedures, the WCO SAFE Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade, the APEC Safe Framework, The European Union’s Risk Management Framework, the WCO Risk Management Guide, Canada’s National Security Policy, the Canada and United States  Smart Border Framework, the North American Security and Prosperity Plan as examples.

Greenline works directly for a number of government administrations with protection mandates involving the movement of people, goods, and conveyances across borders. These agencies or government departments include transportation security administrations, health and safety administrations, customs services, police, law enforcement, revenue agencies, and various military, wildlife, agriculture, and food inspection organizations.  To some degree, most of these mandates involve protecting the host country, citizens, and partners from a variety of threats including health and safety related threats, the spread of disease, security/terrorism, proliferation, narcotics, revenue tax evasion, plant and animal health hazards, and illegal migration.    Here’s how we address this with the iBench technology:

• By Clicking on any of the row items in the grid of the previous screen (3&4) the system launches all the details on file associated with the shipment. This screen shot is a sample of the shipment details view.
• This view includes parties, conveyance and routing, valuation, history of inspections and enforcement actions to name a few.
• 3 of our proprietary risk assessment modules are running in this example (to help address Narcotics, Revenue Evasion, and Security threats), with scores and colour thresholds to help the analyst decide where they should be focusing their efforts.

While our iBench technology can risk manage the volume of cargo for a customs administration, it can also do the same for the OGAs.  In many, if not all cases, resource limitations and rapidly increasing trade volumes preclude these administrations from maintaining a 100% inspection rate. As a result they must rely upon the application of appropriate risk management techniques to conduct business. GreenLine’s iBench technology is a cost effective way to stage and deliver an effective Single Window reporting regime that allows industry to file its commercial reporting “one” time, yet share the appropriate data among all OGDs for “one” common and uniform decision on risk and admissibility associated with the movement of goods across your borders.  Our collaborative workflow module facilities information sharing and interoperability between customs and OGAs.  The following screen shot provides an example workflow to the right of the screen.

We understand the benefits of introducing a single window, and using our technology can help with the following:

Limiting corruption: A common way of attacking corruption is to force an increase in the size of the conspiracy for it to be effective.  With multiple departments interoperating through a SWI, it forces more players to become involved for any corruption to be effective, thus increasing the chances of discovery/mistakes etc. by the conspirators.

Establishing predictable border processing times:  In many modernizing economies, there is an inconsistency between how regulations are applied between ports, or even officers at a port.  This leads to highly variable border transit times which cause trade great stress in managing their supply chains.  This has continuously been one of the top complaints in many surveys polling the trading community.  A full SW implementation provides a common portal and communication strategy to trade such that new importers can easily and quickly find out what permits and other documentation are required, apply & pay for them all at once

Intra-departmental data sharing and reporting:  Many OGDs have been eager to work with a SW to meet their external stakeholder reporting obligations easier and cheaper.  We should consider that there are numerous departments who are signatories to international programs, and required to report on the import and export of controlled goods to an international body. Additionally, these departments usually have domestic surveillance-type mandates and better (more accurate) data regarding imports or exports is useful to reconcile with their issued permits to find examples of non-compliance.

Economic benefits:  Many studies have emerged in recent years to report out on the positive outcome of SW implementations. In one example,* South Korea performed a review of their SW approach in 2010 and estimated a net economic benefit of 4 billion USD per year.  (*For more information please see “The Korean Trade Network, KTNET and uTradeHub, 2010” by Peter Park)

In short, GreenLine Systems has leading edge technology and subject matter expertise to help your organization and its partners stand up, establish, tune, or configure your Single Window implementation.

Our iBench technology accommodates your Single Window needs with specialized multi-agency workflow and collaboration components, specialized risk assessment and decision support modules, and a highly configurable administration interface that accommodates or limits access to new and or exisiting OGDs.  GreenLine’s iBench technology can provide you with an opportunity for both Customs and partner OGDs to establish a common decision making framework -that will promote cooperation and interoperability.  iBench can help facilitate and share pre-border risk assessments with the ability for all stakeholders to apply risk-based resource allocations.  As our technology is aligned with international standards, and best practices, we can help facilitate Customs and partner OGDs to adjust or establish trade facilitation programs as well as ensure your combined efforts are truly focused on the highest risk shipments for Customs and OGA protection mandates.

You can now see this article at the following link.

Sign up at info@greenlinesystems.com to apply for a no-cost subscription by sending us the following information: Name, Company/Organization, Country, Email address to link to subscription. Once you are approved you will receive an invitation to join the Maritime Risk Report.

22 Sep 2011

Since the European Union agreed to embargo all imports of Syrian crude oil and petroleum products, including the financing and insurance in the shipping of oil from Syria, there have been six tankers that have called to Syria according to AIS tracking.

1)      Panama Flagged LPG Tanker, GAZ FAREAST, departed Banias Sep 13^th and declared its next destination as Cyprus.  Track to date:

2)      Panama Flagged Chemical Tanker, NORNA N, departed Tartous Sep 7^th and declared for its next destination as Izmir, Turkey. Track to date:

3)      Panamanian Flagged, LPG Tanker, GAZ CENTURY departed Banias Sep 7^th arrived at Limassol anchorage Sep 8^th, departed anchorage on Sep 9^th and has declared its next destination as Sarroch, Italy. Track to date:

 4)      Cyprus Flagged, Chemical/Oil Product Tanker, MOUNT ROBSON departed Banias Sep 7^th and declared its next destination as Limassol, Cyprus. Track to date:

 5)      Marshall Islands Flagged, Chemical/Oil Product Tanker, ALTESSE departed Banias Sep 12^th and declared its next destination as Suez Canal.  Track to date:

 6)      Panama Flagged, LPG Tanker, GAZ EXPLORER departed Banias Sep 17^th and declared its next destination as Reni, Ukraine. Track to date:

7)      Liberian Flagged, Chemical/Products Tanker, GLENDA MEREDITH departed Tartous Sep 18^th and declared its next destination as Izmir, Turkey.

If you would like to track this situation or situations like this please contact us at info@greenlinesystems.com 

©GreenLine Systems, Inc. 2011.  Reuse of this information is permitted so long as the following is acknowledged in any reuse:  The above information does not demonstrate that any vessel, crew or charterer, or other owner or user of the above vessels has violated any set of sanctions imposed against any country or group of countries by any country, group of countries or other geopolitical organization.

For instance, reaching into our own vessel database we find that there are 177 vessels whose status is either they have been “broken up” or reported as a “total loss.”  When reported in this manner one would not expect to see these vessels tracking via their AIS transmissions, however these 177 vessels are doing just that.       

Working with IHS Fairplay we have investigated these anomalies as to why we are still getting AIS transmissions and our findings can be best summarized as follow:

1) In the vast majority of cases it seems the transmitter has been removed from scrapped ships and sold on for reuse. Using Google Earth it’s been possible to precisely locate the source of the transmissions. In some cases they come from buildings usually near major ports so we would assume they’re being tested by marine equipment sales companies who didn’t bother to take out the original ships details. In other cases they come from berths or actually at sea, so we assume they’ve been refitted to other vessels either for further testing or because they’re going to use them for real and the crew have forgotten (or don’t know) how to reprogram them correctly. Sometimes this is close to the scrapping site of the original vessel, but in several cases the transmitter from a vessel broken up in Turkey has turned up in a warehouse in China. So it’s obviously an international trade.

 2) There are a few cases where for some unknown reason a small vessel has entered a valid IMO number belonging to a much larger (now scrapped) vessel in the IMO field on the transmitter, which obviously causes confusion. Probably it’s a genuine mistake and not having an IMO number they’ve put in some other random official number which unfortunately is also an IMO number.

 3) In a number of cases the dates of the status date in our system and the transmission date were very close or the transmission date was actually after the status date. We quite often only have the date the vessel arrives at a scrapping facility and it may be several days after that when they actually start the work and switch off the transmitter etc.

 Looking at the evidence and why we understand it may cause certain confusion, unfortunately that is down to the limitation of AIS system rather than errors on our data. In an ideal world we would attempt to contact the owners of vessels transmitting incorrect data and ask them to amend it, but as they are not transmitting their real name, that is an impossible task.  In most cases the transmissions are from a part of the world where maritime standards are likely to be less rigorously enforced, if for example a vessel tried to sail down the Dover Straits using someone else’s details it would be challenged immediately.

 ©GreenLine Systems, Inc. 2011.  Reuse of this information is permitted so long as the following is acknowledged in any reuse:  The above information does not demonstrate that any vessel, crew or charterer, or other owner or user of the above vessels has violated any maritime standards.

Syria has two ports where petroleum products are handled:

1. Banias Oil Terminal – has six submarine oil pipelines extending from the coast, loading and off-loading crude oil and petroleum products.  Approximately 330 vessels visit the port annually with a capability to load tankers up to 130,000 DWT and to discharge tankers up to 97,000 DWT.
2. Tartous – has two berths for loading heavy crude oil.   Tartous can handle tankers up to 120,000 DWT.  Loading at Tartous is by gravity and the rate depends on the height of tank and level of oil in the tank as well as tanker itself.

Of course one of the difficulties with imposing such sanctions is the ability to monitor the arrival, departure, and subsequent port calls for tankers that have visited either of these two Syrian ports.

Since sanctions have been in place, AIS tracking has shown that there have been three petroleum product carrying tankers that have called to Syria.

1)      Cyprus Flagged, Chemical/Oil Product Tanker, MOUNT ROBSON departed Banias Sep 7^th and declared its next destination as Limassol, Cyprus.  It has been anchored in Limassol Port since Sep 12^th.

2)      Panamanian Flagged, Chemical Tanker, NORNA N departed Tartous Sep 7^th and declared its next destination as Mersin, Turkey and is currently carried by AIS in port Mersin.

3)      Panamanian Flagged, LPG Tanker, GAZ CENTURY departed Banias Sep 7^th arrived at Limassol anchorage Sep 8^th, departed anchorage on Sep 9^th and has declared its next destination as Sarroch, Italy

Monitoring vessel movements via AIS tracking does not provide the complete story for Sanctions Monitoring but it allows agencies, organizations, and national authorities a place to start to ensure that their interests stay aligned with the group, in this case the European Union.

If you would like to track this situation or situations like this please contact us at info@greenlinesystems.com 

©GreenLine Systems, Inc. 2011.  Reuse of this information is permitted so long as the following is acknowledged in any reuse:  The above information does not demonstrate that any vessel, crew or charterer, or other owner or user of the above vessels has violated any set of sanctions imposed against any country or group of countries by any country, group of countries or other geopolitical organization.