No piracy left?

According to the NATO statistics there have not been a pirated vessel off Somalia since May 2012 and only 11 in total the last two years. The last two reported attacks were performed January 2013. This off course doesn’t mean that everything is okay in Somalia, but it off course takes some pressure of the people passing through the waters. But no one is interested in lowering the guard so that piracy seems worthwhile again… as I have written before this makes for a tricky situation for the decision maker.

This is however not the end of piracy and other sources report higher numbers for the waters off Somalia and also presents numbers for the rest of the world.

The International maritime bureau piracy reporting centre (IMB PRC), an independent body set up to monitor attacks, reports 176 incidents, including 10 hijackings, worldwide so far 2013. Out of these 10 reported incidents, including two hijackings, off Somalia and 28 reported incidents including two hijackings off Nigeria.  There are also still 57 hostages hold by Somali pirates.

The total numbers are lower than 2010, but security issues are still important and must be addressed more widely than has been the case for the last years when Somalia piracy has taken all the focus and let the situation get worse off Nigeria without getting international attention. It is clear that piracy arises as a result of situations on land but also needs special conditions at sea to grow.

The maritime community needs to more effectively identify emerging areas and factors on land and at sea that can let piracy to grow. Hopefully also the blooming security industry can be harnessed for the good of maritime security and assist in analyzing emerging problems, which however needs more openness in security matters than has been the case off Somalia...

Costa Concordia: parbuckling, blisters, a lot of cement and almost 20 months of preparations for an 8 hour job!

Giving good weather the salvage of Costa Concordia will be performed during September, nearly 20 months after the accident in January 2012. The accident took the lives of 32 persons of which still two are missing and will be search for when the ship is upright again. The legal aftermath is still going on; four out of the crew and one company official has been sent to jail in July and the ship's captain Francesco Schettino’s trial for manslaughter and causing the loss of the ship is still going on.

Around and on the ship there has now been a lot of activity preparing for the salvage including blisters for buoyancy and supporting the bow and a foundation made of cement to keep the ship from sliding away. But before that also a lot planning and preparing for a thing that only will be performed ones. That’s what I think is so cool with salvage operations, they are always unique and it really pays off thinking before you act and choosing an alternative based on setting safety and reliability first.

This very clear example of thinking before you act is off course also, especially for Costa Concordia, in bright contrast to the chaotic evacuation of the passengers and crew after the accident as well as the choice of unnecessary risky route for the ship.

But no matter the level of preparations; the salvage is still unique and unprecedented in size. I really hope that it will work smoothly!

"Is it rational to minimize the expected utility?" - The Northern Sea Route case

The Swedish risk philosopher S.O. Hansson published in 1993 a paper with the title “The false promise of risk analysis” were he discussed five problems with risk analysis as it was used then (and now). The fifth problem was that it has to be rational to minimize the expected utility, which among other things means that the risks discussed has to be comparable. One example of risks that are not comparable is two risks with about the same expected value (probability times consequence) but with totally different levels of consequence, i.e. one very unlikely catastrophic event compared to a rather common event with a low level of consequences.

The Northern Sea Route case:

At the moment the ice along the Northern Sea Route, from Asia to Europe to the north of Russia, is at its season low and the amount of ships passing thru the route this year is expected to be ten times the number of ships that passed through the route only three years ago. The northern sea route takes weeks off the voyage which off course saves resources such as fuel. The route also at the moment is pirate free. Therefore the northern sea route is a win for everybody (except for the ones making money on ships taking other routes) the ship owners, the consumers but maybe especially the environment. This is true until there is accidents on the route were the cold climate makes the consequence of an accident so much severe. An oil spill in cold waters is very problematic, but also other consequences of an accident are worse because of cold water and scarcely populated areas.

If we would calculate the environmental risks for a ship with the traditional route thru the Suez Canal and compare them to the risks with the northern passage my GUESS is that the risk for the traditional route is higher, but the risk with the northern passage is potentially more catastrophic. Which is worse? I don’t know but the environmental organizations in media seem to think that the northern route is the worst alternative.

So here we have a good example of a case where it is hard to compare the expected risks, but also where it is difficult to obtain reasonable utility estimates which is Hansson’s third problem with risk analysis.

Reference: Hansson, S. O. (1993). "The false promise of risk analysis." Ratio-New Series 6(1): 16-26.

North Korean weapons in Panama?

To pick up the thread from the post “Nationalconflicts lead to maritime security risks worldwide”:

“…Another example of how conflicts in one part of the world affect shipping in a seemingly safe corner of the world is the discovery…” …is the news about “undeclared weapons” on a ship from Cuba to North Korea detained in Panama. The details are however sketchy and blurry pictures on twitter are only blurry pictures even if they come from a president tweet. No matter how sophisticated the equipment turns out to be every maritime security incident lead to new challenges.

Arctic research without validation!

I’m an engineer, but can appreciate the fact that many problems can’t be solved with new technology or by solving an equation. Since June, when I visited the ASME conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering (OMAE 2013), I’ve been revisiting a thought several times:

In the opening speech to the arctic symposium at the conference it was clearly stated that in arctic engineering everything starts with the arctic operation. Without understanding the intended operation there is no point in doing the engineering. This sounds very true and important to understand…

But then the presentations started and none of the ones I visited even reflected on the intended operation. Many presentations discussed calculations in model scale and calibration with model tests and when there were questions about agreement with the full scale situation everybody said: “Don’t know, we don’t have any full scale data”.

So my impression from the conference (hope it’s wrong) is that all over world there are a lot of researchers doing arctic studies with the aim make arctic operations feasible (and risk assessment on arctic operations) without validated relevant data. The excuse is that the full scale tests needed are very expensive. But maybe the tests it is more worthwhile than putting the money on research that can’t be validated?

”Somali style” pirates off Nigeria, “Chinese reports on fishing volumes wrong” and the Canadian Navy planes for taking control of their long north coast

We all know that shipping and the oceans must be seen in a global context, our national borders don’t matter much. If a nation isn’t able to control its waters others will use them to their will. As we have seen and are seeing out of Somalia in terms of pirates. The pirates of Somalia led to an unprecedented international engagement (and the political reasons for that can of course be debated).

It is unlikely that the type of international focus that today is put off Somalia will be applied to more than one place at the time and even that is probably wishful thinking. The rise of piracy off western Africa is therefore extra troublesome as the international focus still is on pirates out of Somalia (see also post from November 26, 2012 Better times off Somalia, but tougher for the decision maker!). The piracy off western Africa has its own specific traits (with a higher focus on the cargo rather than the crew and ship), but now there are also reports on “Somali style” piracy with the intent to keep the crew (and ship) for ransom (for example the reports about the tanker MT Matrix I). This could lead to a faster increase in incidents and a need for new security measures, but still with completely different conditions as compared to piracy off Somalia. One reason for the difference is that the national control of the waters off western Africa is far better than the control off Somalia.
 

Control of waters is however difficult as can be seen in the news on were the Chinese fishing fleet actually catches the fish (see for example Chinese fishing fleet in African waters reports 9% of catch to UN). This is of course a very important question in regards to natural resources and not primarily a maritime security issue. But fishing disputes lead to maritime risks and also affects relations between nations. There is therefore probably a need for better control of the waters off eastern Africa; especially I imagine several African nations wanting a bigger piece of the fishing off their own coast.

But also elsewhere nations are putting in extra effort to take better control of their waters. I have earlier written about Russia and their interest for their arctic waters, but also Canada is preparing for new Artic challenges and to take control of their northern coast as the reduction of the ice makes the waters feasible to visit (at least part of the year). Canada is commissioning new naval vessels specifically for this purpose and I imagine they want to make sure that they secure control of their waters before anyone else does it.

Quantitative risk analysis – Ship security analysis for effective risk control options

Abstract

This study reviews ship security assessment. The objectives are to explore the possibilities for quantifying and performing a more thorough ship security risk analysis than that described in the International Ship and Port Facility Security code and to evaluate to what extent this more detailed analysis increases ship security and facilitate the effective selection of risk control options.

The study focuses on Somali-based maritime piracy, using piracy on the Indian Ocean as a case study. Data are collected using questionnaires and interviews with civilian and military security experts who possess firsthand experience of piracy off the coast of Somalia. The data are collected specifically for this study and describe and quantify the threat’s capability, intent and likelihood of exploiting a ship’s vulnerability. Based on the collected description of the threat, the study analyzes and describes: probability of detection by pirates, probability of successful approach, and probability of successful boarding.

The performed work shows good agreement between calculated probabilities and frequencies in the cited incident reports. Also, the developed scenarios describe the most important influences on the analyzed areas. The research therefore shows that the proposed risk-based approach, which uses structurally collected and documented information on the threat, can increase ship security by assisting in selecting risk control options. The approach also allows for a better understanding of the causal relationship between threat and risk than that provided in today’s security analysis by ship owners, for example. This understanding is crucial to choosing effective and robust risk control options.

Authors

Hans Liwång, Chalmers University of Technology and the Swedish National Defence College
Jonas W. Ringsberg, Chalmers University of Technology
Martin Norsell, Swedish National Defence College

The article is published in Safety Science Vol 58 pages 98-112 2013. See more (including fulltext) here.