Are AIS-based trade volume estimates reliable? The case of crude oil exports

Most global trade statistics in the public domain refer to official customs data, which are not generally available on a micro (individual cargo) level. With the increasing availability and completeness of ship positioning data from the global Automated Identification System (AIS), it is possible to derive more timely and detailed trade statistics for homogeneous commodity groups. The objective of this article is twofold: (1) to compare the accuracy of AIS-derived trade statistics to official customs data in the crude oil market and (2) to add a breakdown of trade by vessel size over time. We find that while AIS-derived data for seaborne crude exports show good alignment with official export numbers in aggregate, there are substantial temporal and geographical differences across countries and time due to the use of pipelines and transshipment in parts of the supply chain. We highlight the challenges in properly structuring and aggregating micro-level cargo data. Our findings are important for the proper derivation of shipping demand from trade data.     

Flag states and safety: 1997-1999

This paper examines the casualty rates of flag states in order to determine whether Flags of Convenience have a worse record than other types of register. The analysis uses the Lloyd's casualty database for the years 1997-1999. The data reveal that FOCs do, indeed, have a worse record than either second/international registers and national flags, but that there are considerable variations within the FOC group itself. This leads the authors to conclude that it is the newer, faster growing FOCs that are most likely to have inferior records to other flag states, and that this is due to the very nature of their, largely profit-making, regimes.     

Flag states and safety: 1997-1999

This paper examines the casualty rates of flag states in order to determine whether Flags of Convenience have a worse record than other types of register. The analysis uses the Lloyd's casualty database for the years 1997–1999. The data reveal that FOCs do, indeed, have a worse record than either second/international registers and national flags, but that there are considerable variations within the FOC group itself. This leads the authors to conclude that it is the newer, faster growing FOCs that are most likely to have inferior records to other flag states, and that this is due to the very nature of their, largely profit-making, regimes.     

Merchant fleet development by legislation: lessons from West and Central Africa

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, several developing maritime nations began to invoke their 'legitimate right' to carry, in their own vessels, cargo generated by their own import and export trades as one way to reverse their underdevelopment and dependency on traditional maritime nations. Consequently, they embarked on the establishment and development of national merchant fleets by means of cargo reservation legislation and flag discrimination practices. West and Central African states have pursued a vigorous policy of merchant fleet development for over two decades. This study examines some of the cargo reservation policies and flag discrimination practices in West and Central Africa and concludes that these two measures alone are insufficient to build up a significant merchant marine. Merchant fleet development depends equally on the resolution of problems such as shortage of ship finance or capital, disruptive bureaucratic politics among the state agencies concerned with shipping, low volume of trade, and contradictory and ambivalent fiscal and macroeconomic policies in these countries that impede the development of the maritime sector.     

Highly disaggregrated models of seaborne trade. An empirical model for bilateral dry-cargo trade flows in the World economy

The aim of this paper is to estimate an empirical model of bilateral dry-cargo seaborne import flows in the international economy. Seaborne trade elasticities are estimated for the first time, utilizing the Constant Ratio of Elasticities of Substitution Homogeneous/Homothetic (CRESH) function, a function very rarely used in the past. Highly disaggregated data on volumes of seaborne trade, published by the UN, distinguish between five types of cargo according to the type of ship used for its transportation, and 30 trading regions according to the major sea-lancs used by ships internationally. Multistage budgeting is employed to make the problem of estimation tractable. An empirical model for dry-bulk cargo is estimated based on the CRESH function. Estimation of bilateral export price elasticities enables comparison of the degree of competition in each import market over export regions, and amongst import markets themselves. Risk-averse ship owners may utilize such a comparison to operate in world shiplanes with low degree of competition.     

港口船舶溢油环境风险评价方法研究

在港口装卸作业以及船舶航行过程中,由于各种原因可能引发溢油事故,对周边海域环境造成损害。港口船舶溢油环境风险评价对船舶溢油的防治起到了积极的作用,但目前还有很多不完善的地方。通过对相关资料的分析研究,提出改进措施和建议,以期进一步提高港口船舶溢油环境风险评价工作的水平。     

Allision risk analysis of offshore petroleum installations on the Norwegian Continental Shelf—an empirical study of vessel traffic patterns

The Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) requires offshore petroleum operators on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) to perform risk assessments of impacts (allisions) between passing ships and offshore installations. These risk assessments provide a basis for defining the allision accidental load that the installation shall be designed for. Even though the risk of allision is small, the potential consequences can be catastrophic. In a worst-case scenario, an allision may result in the total loss of an installation. The ageing industry standard allision risk model, COLLIDE, calculates the risk of impacts between passing (non-field-related) ships and installations based on Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. Both the COLLIDE risk model and a new Bayesian allision risk model currently under development are highly sensitive to variations in vessels’ passing distances, especially close proximity passings. Allision risk assessments are typically performed during the design and development phase of an installation, which means that historical AIS data are used “as is”, disregarding future changes to the traffic pattern when the new installation is placed on a location. This article presents an empirical study of one of the most important variables used to calculate the risk of allision from passing vessels, namely passing distance. The study shows that merchant vessels alter course to achieve a safe passing distance to new surface offshore petroleum installations. This indicates that the results of current allision risk assessments are overly conservative.     

广西近海溢油扩散数值模拟

利用MIKE 21 HD模块模拟广西近海二维潮流特性,根据实测水文资料对广西近海二维水动力模型进行了验证。应用MIKE 21 OS溢油模块加载广西近海二维水动力数据,建立广西近海二维溢油扩散模型,对溢油事故进行影响预测。研究结果表明,风场、潮流场和溢油事故发生位置对溢油轨迹都有着重要影响。风场是油膜漂移方向的最大影响因素,在不同溢油事故发生位置的工况下,溢油的漂移轨迹和扫海范围可能完全不同。     

A risk model for the operation of container vessels

Commercial shipping of containerized goods involves certain risks for human safety and environment. In order to actively manage these risks, they must be identified, analyzed, modeled, and quantified. This requires a systematical analysis of design and operation of container vessels. Within the EU-funded research project SAFEDOR, a Formal Safety Assessment has been applied to establish the current safety level of generic container ships and to identify potential cost-effective risk control options. This paper describes a structured approach to develop the underlying high-level risk model. It is structured as risk contribution tree consisting of a series of fault trees and event trees for the major accident categories. Statistical analysis of casualty data is used to estimate the probability of occurrence. Finally, the summation overall individual risk contributions yields the current risk pro file for the operation of container vessels is presented as FN-curve.     

欧洲滚装船设计回顾

文章列出了近十年来上海船舶研究设计院为欧洲船东设计的滚装船的基本情况,着重介绍了部分滚装船的设计背景、设计思想、主要性能和技术特征。这些船舶的设计显现了欧洲船东及航运市场对此类船型的技术要求及市场需求变化的轨迹。     

亚丁湾水域交通特征分析及防海盗策略研究

亚丁湾是船只快捷往来于地中海和印度洋的必经之地,是世界上公认的黄金水道,是各国贸易和能源运输的重要航线,过往商船很多.根据航海图书资料和护航期间的观测,阐述了亚丁湾水域的自然环境条件.根据采集到的航经亚丁湾水域船舶的船载AIS信息,归结亚丁湾水域的交通规律,得出航经亚丁湾水域的船舶体现了大型化、专业化的特征.根据索马里海盗活动的情况,分析亚丁湾及附近水域海盗活动的特点和疑似海盗小艇的特征.针对航经亚丁湾水域的船舶情况,提出了船舶防海盗的策略.在实际的护航工作应用中,该策略措施对船舶防海盗和保证船舶安全通过亚丁湾水域发挥了积极的作用.     

Environmental risk evaluation criteria

This paper describes an approach to incorporating environmental risk evaluation criteria within IMO’s guidelines for Formal Safety Assessment (FSA). Such criteria are currently absent from FSA, and the discussion to include them has just started. Said criteria are relevant for evaluating on a cost-benefit basis Risk Control Options (RCOs) for reducing oil spill pollution risk. Oil pollution may comefrom any ship, including bunker spills from non-tank vessels. RCOs are not necessarily ship-based, and may include vessel traffic management information systems (VTMIS) and other options. The proposed approach may be useful in extending FSA to cover environmental risk evaluation criteria and combines such criteria with criteria already in use in FSA. It can also readily be extended to environmental consequences other than oil pollution. Recent IMO developments on this matter are also reported.     

溢油对海洋生态系统的损害研究进展

海上溢油污染规模不断扩大,造成了严重的生态破坏和巨大的经济损失,研究者在溢油事故发生后利用实验研究溢油对各种海洋生物的影响,主要集中于对海洋生物种群的致死和致突变机理的研究。文章在对这些研究进行综述的基础上,对溢油海洋生物损害研究的实用性进行阐述,并提出了溢油实验室研究的发展方向和建立毒性数据库的必要性。     

Introduction to an innovative crew composition approach based on safety/operational and financial requirements

This paper proposes a tool to estimate crew composition based on safety/operational and financial requirements. As there is a tendency of ship owners to implement improved technologies on board their vessels, there is no systematic way to predict their potential effect on crew size and composition (typically determined by flag state authorities on a case-to-case basis) nor on the type and complexity of on board duties new technologies might dictate. The main aim of this paper is to develop a tool to assist in determining crew composition, by taking into account both administration’s and the ship owner’s point of view. Based on data collected from ship owners, a data mining technique is implemented in order to form a generalized framework that estimates crew composition as a function of ship type, size, and degree of automation. The agreement of model predictions with records from specific (vessel) cases is very good in terms of safety (for operations such as watchkeeping, mooring/unmooring, loading/unloading). The specific intended use of this tool is to help a ship owner decide whether it is cost-beneficial to retrofit a conventional vessel with advanced technologies that would potentially entail a reduced crew (probably dealing with different and more complex on board duties). Its main benefits are that it can be used to estimate crew composition before any vessel construction or upgrade has actually taken place and that it allows crew composition to be easily adapted to the technological evolution of ship systems even at their current rapid pace.     

基于Matlab油船意外泄油性能的程序设计

基于概率方法的意外泄油性能参数计算是2010年1月1日及以后新造船破舱稳性需要评估的性能之一,满足一定的衡准要求方可。根据油船的分舱分别进行船底破损概率和船侧破损概率的插值,然后按照一定的公式求出船底破损后与船侧破损后的泄油量的加权之和,即意外泄油性能参数。由于手工计算费时费力,文章基于Matlab平台,开发了意外泄油性能参数的自动计算程序模块。计算结果与文献结果相比较,证明了本程序的计算精度,具有较好的工程实用价值。     

Citizen Participation and Collaborative Environmental Management in the Marine Oil Trade of Coastal Alaska

This study compares the contributions to policy change made by two Regional Citizens’ Advisory Councils that participate in the environmental management of the marine oil trade in coastal regions of Alaska. Both councils are remarkably well-funded and long-enduring examples of citizen participation in environmental policy. This study finds that both councils have applied their substantial funding resources to make significant contributions to policy change (policy contributions) in the marine oil trade of coastal Alaska. This study also finds that both councils have greatly magnified their policy contributions through collaborative efforts with many other organizations active in the marine oil trade of Alaska. Therefore, the overall policy contributions of the councils result from the joint application of council resources and collaborative efforts.     

Independent Baltic State ports: the outlook for commercial viability?

This study employs the 'shift-share' technique to assay the status of seaport in the newly-independent Baltic States in terms of their prospects for commercial viability. It delineates the material, economic and political conditions confrontiger port managers and policy makers in these states. Each must deal with the consequences of disruption of long-standing trade dependencis and the transition from opeation within 'the Rouble zone' to free market structures integrated with western trade systems. These problems are compounded by Russia's appaent policy decision to re-route transit cargo away from Baltic State ports, the traditional 'window on the West'. to ports located in Russia itselft. Disruption of traditional hinterlands and transit cargo volumes for Baltic State ports will impact their ability to invest in essntial modernization and expansion projects, necessitated by emerging competitive pressures. It is speculated that one potential strategy available for capturing a niche and reclaiming the role of the East-West commercial bridge is through participation in the Trans-Siberian Railway 'land-bridge' trade.     

MLC 2006公约新造船验证分析

MLC 2006公约对所有国际航行商船强制生效后,不仅影响船东运营,对新造船也产生冲击。文中介绍了公约的内容、船级社的阐释和挂旗国的要求,回顾了入级、挂旗和舒适度入级符号均不相同的某系列新造船的验证过程,最后总结了为满足MLC 2006公约在设计、建造和试航各阶段的注意事项。     

航运市场呼唤中国的航运运价指数期货

随着全球一体化与世界经济的迅猛发展，世界范围内的贸易不断扩大，2000年海运物流量达到58．8亿t^[1]。由于航运价格受到许多因素的影响而变化，它的变化对货主、船东与雇船者带来许多不确定的风险，通过航运运价指数期货可以降低航运业的风险，从而保障航运市场的稳定持续发展。     

深水铺管船技术研究

海底管道在海洋石油天然气的运输方面起到越来越重要的作用,但随着铺管海域水深的增加,对海底管道的铺设方法和主要铺设工具——铺管船也提出了更高的要求.文章介绍了目前普遍使用的几种深水铺管船的船型特点及铺管方法,并以ABS规范为基准,详细说明了深水铺管船入级在总体、结构、舾装等方面应达到的各项要求.