Marine Wins Seatrade Honors
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Author: Saudi Aramco News
Released 6 December 2007
DUBAI, U.A.E., December 05, 2007 -- Saudi Aramco’s Marine Department was presented with Seatrade’s prestigious Technical Innovation Award in the 4th Seatrade Middle East and Indian Subcontinent Awards ceremony.
The Nov. 5 ceremony was attended by 800 senior executives of the region’s maritime industry. Seatrade has become an annual networking platform among decision-makers and senior executives in the industry, making it one of the most important maritime events in the region.
Saleh B. K’aki, president and CEO of Vela International Marine Ltd. congratulates Abdulsalam A. Yousef for Seatrade’s Technical Innovation Award, which recognizes Saudi Aramco’s innovative Vessel Tracking and Management Information System. Seatrade chairman Chris Hayman is on the right.
The Technical Innovation Award was presented to Marine Department manager Abdulsalam A. Yousef. The award recognizes Saudi Aramco’s innovative Vessel Tracking and Management Information System (VTMIS), which is being implemented as a joint effort by Marine, Information Technology and Terminal Operations. Once all phases of VTMIS are complete, it will use the company’s existing IT structure to provide a comprehensive, accurate and real-time representation of vessel traffic to onshore and remote workstations.
The system is expected to greatly improve fleet coordination and management.
The essence of VTMIS is that it collects information from multiple sources, including the Automatic Information System, radars, transponder sensor sites, bearing lines from VHF direction finders, and meteorology and hydrology sensors. It correlates that data and superimposes it on Saudi Aramco’s electronic chart to create a single integrated result.
Through the system, Marine will gain quicker identification of all vessels in the area, improved security, the ability to detect and track a large number of vessels, improved fleet use, and more efficient emergency response. Furthermore, VTMIS provides a record of vessel movements over a number of days, which will be useful for training and incident investigations.
In addition to the Technical Innovation Award, the Marine Department was the only runner-up in three other categories: The Environmental Protection Award, The Workboats Award and the Deal of the Year Award.
The department was nominated for the Deal of the Year Award for signing long-term contracts with three Saudi companies totalling more than $600 million.
Abdulsalam Yousef, second from right, accepted the Seatrade Technical Innovation Award. With him, from left, are Turki Al-Shihri, supervisor of Marine Training; Khalid Al-Dossary, supervisor of the Marine Planning and Contracting Unit; Ibrahim Al-Orainy, superintendent of Marine Maintenance and Shore Operations; Qasim Al-Ahmari, Marine Contracts coordinator; Samir Baotob, superintendent of Marine Technical Services; and Alaa Elyas, senior pollution control engineer.
The contracts cover the operation of 20 support vessels known as anchor handling tug/supply/safety (AHTSS) vessels. The new vessels will support the increase in offshore drilling rigs and maintain safety standards in Saudi Aramco offshore areas. The deal also contributes to the local maritime industry; some of the chartered vessels will be built in Saudi Arabia, and high Saudization rates will be required for the crews.
As for the Workboats Award, the department was nominated for its fleet of 164 vessels that handle such maritime tasks as sustaining offshore crude production at forecast levels, facilitating crude and NGL exports and product distribution at Saudi Aramco terminals, and providing emergency response for the protection of marine facilities and the environment.
The fleet consists of 50 AHTSS vessels, 23 docking tugs, six mooring vessels, nine jack-up barges, 10 pollution control boats, nine well-services and platform-maintenance boats, 30 utility and security boats, five diving vessels, 20 crew boats, a hydrographic survey vessel and a floating dry-dock.
Finally, the Marine Department earned its nomination for the Environmental Protection Award thanks to the company’s dedication to the environment and ability to respond to potentially polluting incidents.
Saudi Aramco maintains one of the world’s largest fleets of anti-pollution vessels. In addition to its oil-spill recovery vessels and pollution-control barges, the company has two fixed-wing air tractors that support aerial dispersant applications.
It also designed and built in-house portable dispersant systems that can be installed on any non-dedicated pollution-control vessel, making it capable of handling oil spills at any time.
The department also introduced a specialized oil-spill trajectory system this year, capable of predicting the movement of oil spills, helping emergency response groups mitigate the effects of spills and even trace them back to their point of origin.
Saudi Aramco is no stranger to winning such awards. In 2006, the company won the award for the category of Safety and Quality in Shipping for a major improvement in chartered vessel specifications and standards.