Gareth Williams (General Manager Odfjell Tankers Houston), Øyvind Møvik (Port Captain) and Brandon Calhoun (Commercial Manager) recently paid a visit to the IMTT terminal in New Orleans to give input to the terminal facilities for Odfjell vessel suitability. Odfjell vessels had 34 port calls to New Orleans last year, and the ship traffic on the Mississippi river is growing. High tides and currents give mariners and pilots an extra challenge when transiting the river.
In Brazil, Odfjell Tankers, a team from the shipping agency AMG and the Odfjell family terminal Granel Química welcomed customers from the US. The Granel Química is a state of the art terminal in Rio Grande, currently undergoing substantial construction activities. The visitors attended a tour of the terminal, followed by a presentation from tankers, terminals and the shipping agency. In the evening, Granel Química invited everyone to a famous Gaucho barbeque.
Global Head of Ship Management, Geirmund Drivenes, visited Bow Spring at Chengxi Shipyard in China as she was going through her 15-year class renewal in drydock. He met with the Odfjell site team and the officers and crew onboard and took the opportunity to present status and priorities for coming years. Special emphasis was on the safety aspect of our operations: "In Odfjell, we do not compromise on safety!"
VP Maritime Personnel Torger Trige was warmly welcomed by the crew onboard Bow Sun, Bow Hercules and Bow Sirius.
“I traveled to Ulsan in the period from May 19th to 23rd to visit three ships. The visits are referred to as ‘Senior Management Visit’, where the main purpose is to verify our safety culture. It also serves as an excellent opportunity to meet and greet our seafarers.
A general meeting is normally held for everyone that is able to participate. Information and updates from the company are shared, and questions or concerns the seafarers may have are answered. My personal opinion is that visits to the ships have a very high value, aside from the formal requirements. Interacting with each other face to face is a diminishing activity in these days of social media and digital communication. I am not a fan of that development.
My intention and goal are to visit at least six to eight ships per year, hopefully more. Being located in Manila means easy access to visit ships in South Korea. Unfortunately, Singapore has some restrictions related to boarding facilities, while China has visa requirements. However, our ships frequently call South Korean ports, so I focus my visits there. To do so, I need the assistance of our Odfjell Korea team in Ulsan, headed by General Manager JH Kim. They are a very professional and efficient team, taking good care of me and the ships, ensuring no problem to board for visits. A big thanks to them for everything they do!
This time around I visited Bow Sirius under the command of Captain Robert Karlsson, Bow Hercules under the command of Captain Jan Ove Fredheim, and Bow Sun under the command of Captain Fidel Perez. All ships were running world-class, efficient and safe cargo operations at the time of visit. Everyone I met onboard appeared highly skilled and focused while at the same time being friendly and smiling. Just the way it should be on an Odfjell ship! I already look forward to my next visits.”
Chief of Staff Øistein Jensen visited three of our ships in Antwerpen and Rotterdam in the middle of July: Bow Cedar, Bow Chain and Bow Titanium. He met with officers and crew to observe the operations, discuss relevant topics and get an impression of the ships. Among the discussed topics were safety, recent incidents in the fleet, use of our safety training program, anti-corruption, drug and alcohol, collaboration with headquarters, and other questions from the officers and crew.
Jensen also attended a full tour of the ships to observe the appearance and talk to the working crew.
“Bow Cedar (1996) and Bow Chain (2002) are some of our older ladies in the fleet, but they are well taken care of, and look great. It is good to see how a proud crew takes good care of our vessels, and keep them in good shape.”
During his visit, a full six different cargos were loaded/discharged at Bow Chain, and the ship was bunkering – all at the same time. Jensen was impressed with the professional conduct of the highly complicated operations with loading and discharging. These are advanced cargo operations that require a professional and well-trained crew.
One of the newest vessels in our fleet, Bow Titanum, is managed by Thome and currently has five different nationalities in the crew. Bow Titanium was also in Antwerpen during the said week, and Jensen was welcomed onboard by Captain Simieon Nicu Cristian.
