As many as 60% to 80% of ship owners are in favour of arming their vessels even though the cost can be as high as $50,000 per passage, a leading Danish ship owner has claimed.“We took the decision three to four months ago that we could not defend our ships without contracting-in armed guards with light machine guns and who will shoot back,” said Per Gullestrup, CEO & Partner of Clipper Ferries/Ro-Ro. “I hear that 60% to 80% of owners are in favour of arming their ships, which is a lot, and if you figure out that every time you do, it costs an owner between $30K and $50K to put armed guards on each passage then you are talking about a lot of money,” he said. Mr Gullestrup has built up first hand knowledge of dealing with pirates after he negotiated with Somali pirates over the release of the CEC Future back in 2008. Pirates held the CEC Future for 71 days, and only released the ship after negotiations and the payment of a ransom of nearly DKK 9 million. Per Gullestrup was heavily involved in negotiating with the pirates in 2008. A Somali pirate now faces a 25 year prison sentence in the US after he was convicted. “Despair is a good word,” to describe the way ship owners feel about the whole piracy issue, he told Ship Management International.
“We now have the monsoon season and this will have a strong reflection on the level of activities going on. But even when the monsoon settles down, I suspect you will see a lot of the ships being armed now. But what will that do to the equation? Hopefully it will put a dampener on activities but it won’t solve anything. Because the pirates might start to lose too much money and the investors will stop getting the returns they want, they will retrench and ease off. The naval forces will then say the situation is better and the pirates will be back in action and we will be back where we started. We as ship owners are very frustrated. If this kind of criminal activity happened anywhere else on this scale something would have been done about it but 94% of the seafarers involved in this are from developing countries and that is the reason. If the 94% of seafarers were from Europe or the US, I guarantee we would not have been talking about it now. It is a disgrace,” he added.
With the assistance of its members, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) in association with the European Community Shipowners’ Associations (ECSA), has compiled a useful reference document collating the policy and rules of Flag States on the carriage of arms and private armed guards on board vessels, reports MarineLink.com.
The document, providing tabulated information on Flag States’ rules, has been added to the ICS website and is proving to be a popular reference tool for shipowners and other interested parties within the shipping community.
Kiran Khosla, ICS Director of Legal Affairs and secretary of the ICS’ maritime law and insurance committees, says: “When the information is compiled together like this it is interesting to see the similarities and variations in approach throughout the international community. Piracy remains a major cause for concern among shipowners and the wider shipping industry and we are not surprised that members are keen to ensure they are up to speed with the latest recommendations and advice." “The consensus view among ICS national shipowner associations remains that private armed guards are a clear second best to military personnel. However, in view of the current crisis, ICS has had to acknowledge that the decision to engage armed guards, whether military or private, is a decision to be made by the ship operator after due consideration of all the risks and subject to the approval of the vessel's Flag State and insurer,” she said. The ICS points out that this information is for general guidance only and is not a substitute for proper verification with the Flag States concerned.
West Africa Piracy
Pirate attacks off the coast of West Africa are increasingly sharply in a region that is becoming a major oil-producing zone and trading hub. Security and shipping analysts say the number of attacks is underreported and that, left unchecked, the emerging crisis could soon rival the Somali piracy scourge off East Africa that now extends deep into the Indian Ocean. Nigeria, the main oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, and Benin, its tiny eastern neighbour, have reported 27 attacks this year. Piracy in these waters and the Gulf of Guinea, which runs along the Atlantic coasts of a dozen countries from Guinea to Angola, has gone from low-level robberies at sea to hijackings, cargo seizures and major holdups over the last eight months. So far, there have been no hijackings for ransom, the primary tactic used by the Somali pirates. But London's maritime insurance market has added Benin to its list of high-risk zones for shipping, on a par with the Gulf of Aden off Somalia on the other side of the continent. Benin is the maritime access point for land-locked states such as Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso and its economy depends heavily on shipping. "Dozens of ships are already fleeing our shores because of fear of these pirates," Maxime Ahoyo, commander of Benin tiny navy, said last week. The Gulf of Guinea, the center of the West African oil boom, is the main focus of the pirate gangs, who are becoming increasingly organized. Oil tankers are prime targets. Earlier this month, Lloyd's Market Association, a London umbrella for a group of insurers, listed Nigeria, Benin and nearby waters in the same risk category as lawless Somalia, where there has been no central government since 1991 and anarchy has flourished. That could signal higher insurance rates for Nigeria's shipping agency, which exports crude oil across the Atlantic to the United States. The West African oil fields, many of them offshore, are crucial to U.S. efforts to reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil imports. Within the next few years, as much as one-quarter of U.S. oil imports will come from West Africa. So any serious threat to supplies could have an impact in the United States - UPI.com.
The question asked: Is piracy turning the Gulf of Guinea into the next Gulf of Aden? U.S Institute of Peace expert, Raymond Gilpin weighs in. Piracy attacks are escalating in the Gulf of Guinea, endangering the future of one of the world's emerging shipping hubs and highlighting the weak state of maritime security in West Africa.
The Gulf of Guinea stretches along a dozen West and Central African countries, including Nigeria and Angola, the continent's top oil producers. Though waters off the coast of Somalia remain the uncontested epicenter of global piracy, the Gulf of Guinea has reported an alarming spike in attacks this year, particularly off the coast of Benin.
Raymond Gilpin, the director of the Center for Sustainable Economies at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said, "It's clear that the gang or gangs involved in this know exactly what they are looking for - oil tankers that are either anchored or moored in some form. The intent is to take over the vessel, direct it to a safe location and offload its cargo."
Armed robbery at sea is not new to the Gulf of Guinea, nor is the illegal sale of oil stolen from its waters in West African and European ports. Over the past six months, however, analysts say the attacks have become more systematic and the criminals, more organized.
Naval authorities say evidence suggests the pirates are from Nigeria. Gilpin said their method of attack, particularly their use of violence, resembles that of criminals in the Niger Delta. Ships that are taken over, he said, also are often diverted to waters near the Nigerian border. Read more at VOANews.