International Relations And Their Effects On Maritime Shipping

China and Japan have begun to warn each other about possible military actions over a disputed area that exists between them. The disputed area is a group of islands that the Chinese call the Diaoyu islands, and the Japanese call the Senkakus islands. 

Ironically, this tension comes only a week after the two nations celebrated 35 years of peace as a result of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, and perhaps more significantly to maritime traders, one month after the US and Chinese Navies collaborated on a joint counter piracy exercise. 

The US has been trying to get more effort from China with respect to counter piracy, and finally has started to do so, but only before their attention was drawn towards territorial disputes with their neighboring country. These islands basically amount to  a couple of barren rocks in between the two nations, but whatever the motive behind the aggression, there are consequences for maritime shippers.

As the navies of these countries turn their attention toward protecting their interests from each other, they will invariably loose sight of protecting their interests from pirates. Many pirate attacks occur inside the territorial zone of countries, and being that these navies will now be looking at each other they will not be looking at threats to private international shippers as much. 

This is but another example of the need to educate nations for the necessity of PMSCs inside the territorial zone of all nations. However, it is also an example of the need for the maritime community to start to voice this concern to their governments.

If it was just AdvanFort who was always saying it, it will look like just another marketing gimmick to win contracts, but if the maritime community repeatedly agrees that trustworthy PMSCs should be allowed to operate within the territorial zones of all nations then slowly a shift in attitude will take place among governments.

People in the maritime industry should start openly discussing these issues, from crew members and security team leaders to captains and ship owners. Eventually this conversation will carry over into the political chambers, and, if given enough momentum, will bring about change to the current distrust that many nations have towards PMSCs.

The Case For PMSCs

The private maritime security industry is sometimes just as much misunderstood as it is needed.

Private maritime security companies (PMSCs) have been absent in certain regions of the world, and in some cases, even reputable PMSCs are  seen in a negative light by many in various governments.

However, the truth is the need for a reliable PMSC could not be more glaring. In the West African region two US sailors were recently kidnapped, allegedly by pirates, though the search is still ongoing. This event highlights the lack of PMSC presence in many regions in the world.

We at AdvanFort believe that the need for PMSCs will become clearer in the coming months. In fact, we are optimistic that PMSC presence will soon be seen in more and more regions in the world as maritime trade increases, as it has year after year. In certain countries the use of floating armories raises a lot of concern, and for good reason.

Indeed, AdvanFort acknowledges that floating armories are very dangerous, and in fact, has built operator-supported vessels in response to these dangers. How so? First, let’s acknowledge, as has been documented by many experts in the field, that traditional floating armories are potential death traps that can be hijacked by terrorists and pirates.

In contrast, AdvanFort’s operator-supported vessels have complete accountability on board. Who is on board those vessels, when, and for what purpose is officially documented, and completely controlled, unlike other floating armories, which can make no such claims.

Moving forward, it is the responsibility of all in the maritime shipping industry to promote education and tolerance toward the solutions to the problems that arise from maritime trade – namely piracy. It is only through education, public awareness, and public acceptance that our industry will become more safe and resistant to threats from piracy.

AdvanFort Security Team Leader Talks About Duties

AdvanFort security team leader talks about the duties on the job!

AdvanFort’s New Linked In Group

Hey, Linked In members, you can check out all the latest news, information, and hot topics about AdvanFort right here.

 

It’s Time to Band Together

Some have been suggesting that the Indian government has the right to go after the SG OHIO for having weapons, even though she was outside the 12 mile territorial zone. Usually these accusations can be found in maritime-related groups online, sadly by people who work (or are trying to work) in the same industry that the SG OHIO is in, The maritime security industry. I will now explain why these people are wrong.

There are three zones from the coast line, the first zone is the territorial zone, which gives a country complete control over the water. This zone extends to 12 nautical miles, and the SG OHIO was outside of this zone.

The second zone, called the contiguous zone, extends over the next 12 nautical miles, and yes, the Indian government can go after anyone for having weapons within this second zone. However, in order for them to do that they must claim they thought the subjects were terrorists, or that they were perceived as a threat to the national security of the country.

There is simply no legitimate way the Indian government thought the SG OHIO was a terrorist organization given the fact that they knew exactly who she was when they asked her to come in closer. Furthermore, AdvanFort has worked to protect many Indian vessels in the past. 

Now, the SG OHIO, her crew, and the AdvanFort guards on board have all been arrested and are awaiting justice. Meanwhile, unemployed and underemployed competitors of AdvanFort’s are playing politics online to make themselves look better because of this situation.

AdvanFort is asking all the maritime community to band together, ignore the opportunistic attacks and accusations that our competitors are shamelessly committing in the name of making themselves look better, and help us get our guards out; help us get the crew out; help us get the SG OHIO out of detention, because in fact, they were all wrongfully arrested. 

You can join in the petition to free the innocent victims here.

Ambulance Chasers in the Maritime Industry

The maritime security industry is a new one, having only been in existence for not even a decade – in which time the few companies that started out initially, AdvanFort being one of them, have gradually come under attack by the smaller companies who have only recently formed.

The preferred tactic of these smaller companies is to attack the larger ones, such as AdvanFort, because they do not have the resources to actually compete with them in the market. How can a small fish attack a large one in the industry, you might ask? With the advent of the internet, almost anything is possible.

Small fish like David Stone of IAMSP, Martyn Benson of Campbrian Maritime, Daren Knight of Knight Associates Ltd, Paul Hickling of TCD Ltd, and Lars Bergqvist, who is currently unemployed, have been using social media websites to attack the credibility of AdvanFort for months now.

Yes, attacking a company online is possible, and it is really the only method of attack that smaller companies have when they don’t have the resources to win clients over on their own. Their method of thinking is: “Let’s make the big companies look bad so that maybe we stand a chance at getting a contract.”

Of course, that will not work for them, even if they are successful in creating a negative campaign against companies like AdvanFort, because they don’t have the resources that AdvanFort does, such as their own floating armories so as to prevent surprise attacks from pirates, which is completely possible with regular floating armories. So, actually they are just full of hot air.

The sad thing is their terrible behavior actually heightens when AdvanFort becomes the victim of a government’s unlawful arrest of guards of her ship. Rather than realize that real human beings are being detained, and imprisoned in questionable environments, they rejoice at the opportunity to spread negative publicity about a competitor, and say that they deserved everything that happened.

They are like those sleaze-ball attorneys who chase ambulances for a living, hoping to catch a case: someone fell down a defective escalator, maybe they lost a limb, but as long as they can make money off it they are willing to go after it. So they chase the victim in hopes of getting a case, regardless of how qualified they are to represent the victim.

People like them don’t care about people, they care about their own pockets, and nothing else. The perfect example of this is in India, October, 2013. AdvanFort vessel, SG OHIO was wrongfully detained by Indian authorities, and the small fish jumped on the internet social media sites to create a storm about how awful the owner is, and how terrible the company is, and so on.

What actually happened is the SG OHIO needed fuel, so they called for a fuel vendor to meet them in international waters. In the meantime typhoon Phailin was barreling down on everyone in sight. So the fuel vendors informed the SG OHIO that they could not go out any further. They asked if the AdvanFort vessel would come just a bit closer, but still outside of India’s borders, and when she did come a little bit closer to get the fuel, she was arrested for bringing weapons to India, even though she was in international waters, and was never in India at all.

Now people like that don’t actually care about the men who have been imprisoned, or what their conditions are like, or how they are being treated. They only want to create a storm online so that they can pocket any change that falls out of AdvanFort’s pockets as a result.

These are the ambulance chasing attorneys of the maritime industry who live off other people’s misfortunes.  AdvanFort is not like them, and never will be. AdvanFort cares about the quality of their work, and that is why the owner has actually invested hundreds of millions of dollars in this business.

The next time you read an article in the news about AdvanFort stop and think about the legitimacy of it. Who wrote it? Who does the author know on a personal level? Who paid him to write it? Don’t believe everything you read because behind every negative story is a motive. AdvanFort’s motive has been laid on the table: to provide maritime solutions for business clients. That’s it.

This blog post serves as but a small example, but we are confident that it will shed some light on the facts of our industry, and why you have heard such a thunderstorm about our company in the news lately.

Piracy is Eradicated… Right? Wrong!

More and more people have started to say things like, “Piracy isn’t a problem anymore.” They read reports that compare Somalia’s handful of pirate attempts in 2013 with the hundreds of pirate attempts in the same region just two years ago in 2011, and they feel like the pirates have all disappeared.

While it is true that Somali piracy has been largely prevented in recent months, it is absolutely false to say that Somali piracy doesn’t exist. That’s like saying tuberculosis doesn’t exist anymore. Sure, TB isn’t a problem in developed countries anymore, but that is only because we have antibiotics to help combat it. If we stopped taking preventative medicine we’d see a rise in infections. And similarly, if you were to venture out into international waters without protection, just because piracy numbers are down, then you will surely be risking a terrible fate.

In fact the number of pirate attacks have gone up in Indonesia over the past few years, and 2013 is proving to be a continuation of this trend. And it’s not just Indonesia: 68 fishermen were kidnapped in Bangladesh last month alone;  22 separate occasions of pirates boarding vessels happened just in the Singapore Strait this year… one of those became a full blown hijacking; 13 times shippers were fired upon by pirates in Gulf of Guinea this year alone. These pirates haven’t changed jobs, mainly because there are no jobs in their villages, and they’re hiding out, and waiting for the sucker who will venture alone.

Some articles give credit to the EU, and there’s no doubt that navies have deterred piracy in Somalia, but there is simply no way that the EU or any navy can be present at every single vessel to ensure that they have safe passage. Many pirate attacks occur quickly – from start to finish within 20 minutes. They want to rob the boat and get out. By the time the captain radios for help the robbery has been complete, and possibly, the crew has been taken hostage. Navies simply don’t have the capability to be everywhere all the time to prevent attacks.

Therefore the best deterrent of piracy in international waters is not just to rely on the EU or the navy of a nearby nation, but to have your own guards present on your vessel, for as long as there is international shipping in the world, there will be piracy in the world. Nothing will ever change that.

Interview with AdvanFort Captain

AdvanFort Captain Discusses Best Strategies

Nigeria’s Stolen Oil

Nigeria is the world’s 13th largest oil producer, but loses at least 100,000 barrels of oil everyday, mysteriously. None of this oil can be officially accounted for, and the sentiment is that it is obviously being stolen – but by whom?

There is no official answer for that question, however, there is a popular belief that whoever is stealing it is selling it, in the black market, to Asian countries. It is also believed that they are laundering the money in businesses around the world.

The latest country accused of buying stolen Nigerian crude oil is Thailand, but they deny buying it, saying they have strong ties with long-term partners.

There is a consensus among some in the international scene that it is not a big enough problem to get involved. 100,000 barrels per day comes out to only 0.0009% of the world’s supply of oil per day.

On the other hand, it is 5% of Nigeria’s total output. Plus, there are dire economic implications of allowing such activities to take place, including an increase in the price in oil. Specifically, as millions of barrels of oil per year are stolen and sold at an undercut price the use of oil increases, which causes an unnatural demand on the supply, which in turn will raise the price on the legally sold oil.

Furthermore, Nigeria is not the only country from which oil is stolen. The last report on Russia’s problem is that it was losing 150,000 barrels/day. So, a little bit of oil from this country and a little bit of oil from that country, all of which is being sold under market value, adds up to an overall increase in the price of oil.

Keeping global trade running smoothly and efficiently requires a collective team combating theft and corruption, whether it is in the form of forcible piracy, or secretive theft, lest we allow a small group of people to sabotage what most of us work so hard to achieve.

Greenpeace Pays For Breach Of Oil Platform

When we think of pirates we think of hardened criminals from poor countries who are desperate to make a living, and who turn to violent crime as a result. We think of Somalia, we think of West Africa, and lately we think of Southeast Asia, where the number of pirate incidents have surpassed that of all other areas in the world thus far in 2013.

What you don’t think of, however, is hippies. Yes, the kind who tie themselves to trees so that landscapers would not cut down a forest, or, in this case, the kind who would climb onboard a Russian oil platform in the Arctic to protest offshore drilling.

Last month Greenpeace activists sent a vessel named ‘Rainbow Warrior’ to the region to bring attention to what they consider unethical treatment of the Earth. They didn’t get enough attention, apparently, so this month they decided to actually climb on board the Russian platform. Now Russia has seized the Greenpeace vessel, towed it to Murmansk, Russia, with all 30 activists being held, and is planning to prosecute those activists.

If you’re having trouble imagining hippies hijack a ship, take a look at this 2011 video footage of a gang of Greenpeace activists trying to board a French fishing vessel.

Greenpeace has become notorious among many government organizations. That could explain, for example, why French agents sank a Greenpeace ship killing one activist in 1985.

Today, however, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, made a statement that in effect diminished these activists from pirates to measly lawbreakers. “They are, of course, not pirates”, he said (Reuters, 2013). That’s rather demoralizing, isn’t it? After all, when you’re a pirate at least you carry a little bit of fear with your label. But these ‘lawbreakers’ are now just waiting to be prosecuted by the Russian authorities like some juvenile delinquents. 

The question is who is Greenpeace really helping? They appeal to young people who are full of hope and ideas by using emotional issues to encourage them on, but then they get them arrested, hurt, and even sometimes killed for their operations. They constantly put themselves in the most dangerous and insane situations, and they have accomplished very little in terms of change in the political climate.

I am not saying climate change and the environment are not issues to be concerned about, but perhaps there are more effective ways of getting change to come about in the world.