Swire Shipping – Onshore Safety Performance

We continued to build on 2018's success in driving port safety performance, and we remain active in fulfilling our vision of Zero Harm - Behaving Safely. Always. Naturally.

Encouraging our stakeholders in ports to walk the talk, the General Manager for Swire Shipping undertook a safety pledge, reiterating our commitment towards Zero Harm (the video is available here). Swire Shipping brought on board a Safety Manager as a dedicated resource to drive a safety culture among the port services stakeholders.

All Swire Shipping owned, managed and chartered-in vessels continued reporting on the safety performance by stevedores during port calls through the integrated "ShipRep" reporting system. A gap analysis is carried out to address high-risk violations, and to close these gaps.

The Swire Shipping operations team is currently evaluating the use of digital technology in improving safety processes. A decision will be made in 2020.

Key Initiatives in 2019:

• We instituted safety as a part of daily activity among the workforce in South Pacific Island ports, and engaged Green-Jakobsen to study the safety behaviour and culture. Their representative visited Port Moresby and Lae in Papua New Guinea to understand the challenges and opportunities for improvements. They have recommended the Port Safety Concept be implemented in 2020.
• In Q4 2019, a Safety Awareness Initiative was launched to address high risks based on trends of the Port Safety Index (PSI) in South Pacific Island ports in Fiji, Kiribati, Tonga, Marshall Islands and Samoa.
• We rolled out an initiative in South Pacific Island ports where a nominated safety representative must ensure that stevedores, linesmen and pilots fully comply with minimum safety standards while attending our vessels.
• We set up a Monthly Regional Operation Managers Safety sub-committee with effect from October 2019 to share and learn from incident / accident investigation and to address regional safety challenges.

Key Performance Indicators for 2019:

• Three Safety Hazards Initiatives introduced in the first half of the year have shown consistent improvement in the Port Safety Performance to 99% for the identified parameters:
• Working at unsafe locations,
• Working under suspended loads,
• Smoking in non-designated / cargo spaces.
• Local Safety Awareness Initiative for identified High Risks has shown consistent improvement in personal safety for pilots, linesmen and stevedores at our South Pacific Island ports.

We continue our efforts in encouraging stakeholders to report any unsafe acts / conditions as Near Miss reports. These reports are shared with port personnel to achieve reductions in Lost Time Injuries (LTIs), Medical Treatment Cases (MTCs) and other incidents.

Dangerous Goods Desk:

Transport of dangerous goods by sea is regulated by the International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) Code to prevent injury to persons or damage to ships and their cargoes. In 2019, we:

• Implemented 2018 Edition of the IMDG Code which came into force on 1^st January 2020 and developed and communicated best practices to team members at all levels;
• Ensured compliance with the IMDG code and developed solutions to monitor of bookings and streamline dangerous goods (DG) stowage planning process;
• Implemented measures to control modifications of restrictions in the Swire Ship system to prevent unauthorised changes to the approval status;
• Trained our key stakeholders in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Kiribati on IMDG code for hazardous cargo shipments; in line with Swire Shipping requirements to ensure compliance with IMDG code for hazardous cargo shipments;
• Implemented the "4-Box" process to carry out root cause analysis and to implement corrective and preventative actions for all DG non-compliance issues;
• Developed Cargo Care policies to improve safe handling, stowage and transportation of hazardous cargoes including Copra and Copra Meal.

Special Lift cargoes:

• In 2019, we addressed handling methods and processes which include operational hazards assessment for each special cargo lifting plan and key control measures to mitigate and / or eliminate risk to operational personnel and to ensure safety at all times;
• 13,517 TEU IMDG containers were safely handled, stowed and transported in 2019;
• Achieved 100% verification and approvals for all Swire Shipping DG bookings;
• Achieved 100% safe handling of heavy lift cargo (Special Lifts) without incidents.