CEO Update – June/July 2021

Welcome to the June/July edition of Making Waves. It is great to see that our Code of Practice on Environmental Sustainability is receiving a good deal of attention from our members and the offshore industry in both the oil & gas and wind energy markets. It is an exemplar of IMCA’s operational model, with the development of best practices by our members for our members.

Our work in the wind energy sector is proceeding well, with good relations with industry associations in Europe and the USA. Captain Andy Goldsmith is leading our renewable energy strategy and is well placed to do so, given his leadership of our Marine Renewable Energy Committee (MREC) for the past five years. Incidentally, this is the tenth anniversary year of our MREC and demonstrates that IMCA has been in this market from the very start. In this edition you will see an interview with Trevor Johnson, who recently retired from the UKHSE. Trevor has been a strong contributor to our MREC and we thank him for his steadfast support over many years. In our next issue of Making Waves we hear from Alan MacLeay, Chairman of the MREC since it began 10 years ago.

We will shortly be rolling out details of our planned Accredited Diving System Inspector scheme (ADSI). The scheme has been developed in conjunction with the International Diving Industry Forum comprising IMCA, ADCI and IOGP. And establishes a suitable standard of qualification and experience for inspectors engaged in auditing diving systems. This is a niche area but one that can create delays, unnecessary costs and duplication by a lack of alignment across industry. Full details of the scheme will be announced in a series of Information Notes together with various industry communications.

I am pleased to report that IMCA has recently recruited Richard Purser and Sarah Lawlor. Richard is an expert in DP systems and joins us in the role of Technical Adviser – Marine, after 14 years with DNV and the legacy companies GL Nobel Denton and PML. Sarah joins us in the role of Marketing & Communications Specialist after 4 years with the Institute of Chartered Accountants as Brand and Insight Executive. We welcome them to the Secretariat in support of our members.

Our remote form of events continues briskly, with webinars being augmented with web based podcasts and broadcasts, which we feel will be useful to our members in a crowded webinar space. Your feedback would be appreciated – [email protected]

Finally, despite the IMO buildings being closed since March 2020, work has continued unabated. IMCA has made significant contributions in many areas, such as: COVID-19 and the crew change crisis, crew vaccinations with the industry developed roadmap being recommended by the IMO; the ongoing development of both the IMO Diving Code and, the Industrial Personnel Code; the MASS initiative; and the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC). In the case of the MEPC, we have presented papers in support of KPIs, or proxies, for emissions from DP vessels. To support this strategy we are in the process of collecting comprehensive data on fuel consumption from our marine members and using this to calculate IMCA’s proposed proxies and this needs to continue. There is a short article in this issue of Making Waves with more details and we will be promoting this campaign aggressively in the months ahead and need your support for our proposals to be successful.

I wish you all a safe, healthy, and happy month of July.

Allen Leatt

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