US EPA Vessel General Permit Training

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Dec 18 th 2008 issued the Vessel General Permit (VGP) under the authority of the Clean Water Act (CWA) requirements for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). The requirements will apply to 26 different discharges incidental to the normal operation of all commercial vessels greater than 79 feet in length when, operating in the 3 nm territorial waters of the USA as of 9 th Feb, 2009.

This course is designed to make the management aware of the facts, requirements, coverage and implications under the final VGP and will cover the following;

Introduction and Background to VGP
VGP structure
Discharges eligible for coverage and Effluent Limits
Corrective Action procedure
Requirements for Inspection, Monitoring, Reporting and Record-keeping
Vessel class specific additional requirements
Additional state specific requirements
Filing of Notice of Intent (NOI), especially E-NOI and batch upload & Notice of Termination (NOT)
Guidance on assimilating VGP requirements with the present SMS of the company


Who Should Attend

Ship Owners, Ship Managers, Fleet Managers, Superintendents, QHSE Managers, DPA's, Senior Vessel Staff, Port Captains, Port Managers, Shipping executives, Maritime Attorneys.

This Vessel General Permit course is presently designed for ONSITE delivery – You can request Wade Maritime to deliver this course at your location. Please visit www.wademaritime.com/Training_VGP.htm for more information and to register for this course.

Oil Tanker Market Spotlight Report - Dec 2008

Dry Bulk Market Report - Sep 2008

India LPG Update - Aug 2008

India is all set to grow close to 8% in the 2008-09 and 7.5% in 2009-10 fiscal years as per the latest figures, despite the high inflation (12.4%....has started to come of the peaks as per some experts….!!) and RBI targeting inflation as opposed to growth. Of course, this will further depend upon the other three most important points, price of oil, health of the US economy (Indian exports greatly depend upon the US economy) and the result of the forthcoming parliamentary elections.

The deregulation and opening up of the Indian economy after the BOP crisis of early 90’s had helped the fuels sector to grow at almost 10% per annum. This growth rate has been maintained to date because of further divestment in PSU’s and opening up of the fuels sector to private investors. However, the energy sector in India is still going through a cycle of public and private ownership. FDI up to 100% is now allowed in most industrial projects. The Indian Govt has taken significant steps (PSC’s, NELP…etc) to open up the economy to FDI and private players.

LPG in India is one of the basic fuels used for cooking. The three sources of supply are crude oil refineries, fractionation of gas and imports. The demand for LPG has grown from 2, 00,000 mt in 1970 to over 12 mill tonnes in 2008. Total LPG prod in India for 2007-08 stands at around 8.79 mill tonnes of which 6.73 mill tonnes (76%) comes from crude oil and the remaining 2.06 mill tones or 24% from Natural Gas. The imports will probably stand close to 3 mill tonnes in 2008 on account of increased demand and RIL converting its Jamnagar refinery as an EOU thereby refusing to sell LPG to PSU's at import parity pricing.

LPG consumption has grown at the rate of roughly 9.7% since 1990 with largest leap of around 20% per annum seen between 1990 and 2002. Since then an average growth rate of around 10% has been recorded. The customer base of the PSU’s increased from 17 million in 1990 to 99.6 million in 2007-08, an average growth of around 10.5% per annum. The PSU’s are adding around 6.5 million customers every year. The bottling capacity has shown a healthy rate of around 6.5% since the 1990’s keeping up with the demand.

Although the demand is increasing at a blistering pace owing to the rapid development in India, the infrastructure is lagging behind in a number of sectors including the fuels sector. There is an urgent need to develop more refinery capacity, LPG receiving terminals, storage, pipeline and bottling facilities. A number of private and foreign players have entered the market with independent and JV’s with PSU’s in the recent past.
IOC is building an import terminal at Ennore with a capacity of 60,000 mt.
IOC’s Paradip refinery is slated for expansion –planned 1 mill tones of LPG capacity.
CalTex has a planned terminal coming up in S. India.
Shell Gas is coming up with a 90,000 MTPA terminal at Pipava Port in Gujrat in W. India.
Total Fina and HPCL are building the largest underground storage terminal in Vizag (East coast) with capacity of 60,000 mt and will be able to handle 40,000 dwt vessels.
BP plc has plans in Haldia for LPG storage.
SSLPG has a storage terminal in Kakinada.

LPG has managed to make some inroads in the auto sector owing to the pain of high gasoline prices. However, its share of market is quite low at the moment as the priority for LPG in India is to provide for the cooking fuel first and thus makes it a very politically sensitive subject as well. CNG has over taken LPG in the auto sector and its use is gaining favour in major cities like New Delhi, Mumbai where the infrastructure exists to pipe the gas to filling stations. The other issue with using LPG in the auto sector relates to adulteration thereby defeating the very purpose of environment protection!!!... and economics.

In our opinion, the present economic and political environment is very conducive to investment in the Indian fuels sector, especially storage. A storage facility close to deepwater ports on the upper west coast (Pipavav, Mundra, Kandla, Mumbai) and along the east coast of India (Paradip, Vizag, Krishnapatnam), that are well connected to the inland transportation infrastructure will be highly sought after.

Tanker Market Report - Jul 2008

Despite the slow market observed in the first two weeks of August, July was a spectacular month for the tanker market. The VLCC TCE has averaged $120k since May’08. There might be some pressure on the rates because of the routine maintenance season for the refineries till September. However, we feel that the rates will remain range bound at these levels as the global oil prices have softened and Asian economies especially India and China are set to maintain decent growth rates through the end of 2008 and 1st half of 2009. In the coming weeks, the Suezmax and especially the Aframax markets seem prone to weakness due to dearth of requirements and ample available tonnage.