30 Years Ago

A LOOK BACK AT JANUARY 1993

HCB’S JANUARY 1993 issue began with some thoughts from the editor, Mike Corkhill, on the grounding of the oil tanker Braer off northern Scotland at the start of the month (Clearly they missed the print deadline on this issue – ed). The tanker had lost power and was forced onto rocks by the tide, resulting in the spillage of 84,500 tonnes of crude oil. Mike noted that this was the second such incident within a few weeks, after a similar mishap befell the tanker Aegean Sea off north-western Spain.

We wondered at the time whether accidents like these were due not to a failure of regulation but a failure of enforcement. But the accident led to a lot of changes, prompted in large by Lord Donaldson’s report into the incident and the failure of planning for such accidents. If notice was not taken of his lordship’s words, he had to be brought out of retirement once more only three years later to repeat the exercise when the tanker Sea Empress ran aground near Milford Haven. The two incidents marked something of a sea change in the management of tanker shipping and, thankfully, such incidents have become much rarer since.

January 1993 also marked the entry into force of some significant changes in RID and ADR. Back then, the European regulations had not been fully aligned with the UN Model Regulations, with a completely different arrangement, the use of ‘marginals’ and a long set of appendices. Indeed, the 1993 update was the first for three years. It might be interesting to note that the 1993 editions included a revised definition of ‘vehicle’ in ADR, which has come under scrutiny again lately following the introduction of two- and three-wheeled motorised ‘vehicles’, especially for urban delivery rounds. There was also some improvement in the training provisions, something that again is always on the agenda.

By 1993, HCB had fallen into a pattern of business coverage, with the January issue regularly featuring a special section on storage terminals. In those days, the notable trend was for greater internationalisation of terminal operations. The industry in the mature markets in Europe and North America had reached a comfortable level and, with a growing trend for shippers to consolidate their operations at fewer sites – along with increasing environmental legislation that was discouraging smaller operators – there was consolidation also among the tank storage operators themselves.

The response was to look to develop facilities in other parts of the world, not least in Singapore and the Middle East. However, the promise seen in Latin America, with growing liberalisation of the energy sector, took some time to come to fruition. Back in 1993, the thought of doing business or investing in China was still some way off. Over the past three decades, many of the international (particularly European) terminal operators have filled in the gaps in these territories but, with the energy transition now at the forefront of development plans, are turning increasingly back to their core markets, investing in the infrastructure that will be needed to handle the new and very different product flows predicted for the coming 30 years.

We also reported that, after a quiet decade, a new surge in LNG trade was underway. We hadn’t seen anything yet!