Swire Bulk has closely followed the safety initiatives put in place by CNCo Fleet Management and the Green-Jakobsen project managers. With the acquisition of RAO and FW in April 2019 the same initiatives and standards have also successfully been rolled out in these new offices, and with our new colleagues and additional long-term time chartered-in (TC-in) fleet.
Swire Bulk's operators have an annual SMART goal to visit at least one vessel and make a safety presentation and observe operations on board. Our Safety presentation has been continuously revised to include concepts learned from the Green-Jakobsen's project, experiences and insights gained from new trades.
We continued to proactively address safety compliance in ports where we see a gap in stevedore performance. This was notably so for ports discharging logs and strap steel in India. We implemented a similar approach for ports in Thailand, and we will do so for Bangladesh in 2020.
We also saw an increase in stevedore safety reporting due to implementation of the revised reporting format and increase in the number of vessels chartered-in by Swire Bulk. Going forward the reporting and its compliance will form part of all TC-in Charter Parties as we will be including an additional clause for greater accountability.
The dry bulk Health and Safety Forum, an informal (and non-commercial) group, continued to meet in 2019. The group comprised other like-minded dry bulk operators. As organisers, CNCo and Swire Bulk are keen to promote the highest levels of safety and compliance with global regulations covering the shipping industry.
In our operators' interactions with Masters, crews and Port Agents there has been a continued emphasis on safety. The underlying message to them was: They are always empowered to ensure such safety, with the full support of the onshore management personnel.
The port of Koh Si Chang, Thailand was rated unsafe by Masters calling at the port during 2018 / 2019. Swire Bulk partnered the Ben Line Agency to visit five of our operated vessels (owned, long- and short-term TC-in) randomly, to assess actual safety standards during cargo operations.
Ben Line's focus was on supervising day-to-day operations, providing missing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), bridging the language barrier between crew and stevedores during daily safety briefings, as well as documenting the cargo operations and safety behaviour on board vessels and barges involved.
We are delighted to report that all five calls returned nil incident responses. PPE were worn at all times and cargo operations were performed in a professional and safe manner. Based on Masters' feedback going forward, Swire Bulk & Ben Line will continue random monitoring and attending the operations at Koh Si Chang.