INTERTANKO’s Hellenic Mediterranean Panel met this week in the Faros Room at the top of the ultra-modern Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center on the Athens sea front. More than 80 representatives from local and regional Members enjoyed an action-packed agenda, active discussion, good conversation and stunning views.
The Panel was offered an update on INTERTANKO election processes moving to online secret ballots and following discussions the Panel agreed to defer the election for Greek Council Members until after Council.
By the closing time for nominations there were two names for the two HMP Vice Chairman places: Capt Dimitris Mattheou, Managing Director of Arcadia Shipmanagement, and Sokratis Dimakopoulos, Chief Operating Officer of Minerva Marine. The Panel agreed unanimously that in the absence of any additional nominations by the closing time for nominations, then they would both be elected by the Panel as Vice Chairmen. There were no additional nominations. Thanks go to the outgoing Vice Chairmen Dimitris Patrikios and Takis Koutris for their support and inspiration over the last four years.
The Panel received an update from the INTERTANKO Marine Director, Phil Belcher, on behalf of the Managing Director covering INTERTANKO activities and upcoming issues at Council.
Updates followed on the activities of a number of important Committees and Working Groups by local members of those Committees/WGs:
- Human Element in Shipping Committee,
- CAV Working Group,
- LLAST Working Group,
- Worldscale & Markets Committee,
- 2020 requirements from ISTEC.
Kostas Deilakis, Lead Surveyor/ Client Relations Manager with Lloyd’s Register in Greece shared with the Panel LR’s experiences on tanker incidents/accidents since 2000, looking at trends emerging over the last 15 years.
Mark Williams, Managing Partner of Affinity Research in London, gave Members a full oil tanker market update and forward view of the tanker market, including showing month by month how the market has changed this year – supply and demand fundamentals versus earnings. The Panel took part in several polls during this presentation, the results of two of these are included here:
The meeting was attended by six students from the Master Degree Programme at the University of Piraeus together with Prof Stratos Papadimitriou, Director of Transportation in the UoP Department of Maritime Studies.