Salvors have reacted to pressure from cargo interests to allow independent oversight of 'no cure, no pay' emergency salvage operations.
For one year, until October 2015, salvors will trial the submission of a daily salvage report, briefing the owner and hull and machinery underwriters on the progress of operations.
The move is an alternative to the Lloyd's-initiated idea of a Property Salvage Consultant (PSC), employed by the shipowner and hull and machinery underwriters, who would oversee a standard Lloyds Open Form salvage to help cut back on costs and increase efficiency.
"We reject the PSC proposal, because we do not see that it will add any value," said Leendert Muller, president of the International Salvage Union (ISU), adding that a PSC "will increase bureaucracy and could even lead to interference which might hamper the conduct of operations".
The idea of a PSC has been on the table since 2008, but in 2013 a draft "clause" and guidelines for the PSC was drawn up and opposed by the ISU, the International Chamber of Shipping, and the International Group, among others.
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It was thus abandoned, but Ben Browne, a partner at Thomas Cooper, who drafted the clause, told IHS Maritime that a voluntary non-binding system was agreed on "whereby ISU members would agree to allow a surveyor appointed by hull and/or cargo insurers onto a casualty during the salvage operations if asked to do so by Lloyds". Browne believes it is unlikely this ever operated.
The draft clause outlined the case for a PSC (referred to in the draft as the Respondent's Independent Salvage Consultant - RISC) and how it would work in practice. The primary aim of the PSC is said to be to assist in the salvage operation with the aim of preventing and minimising damage to the environment. It also states that the PSC will help cut "unnecessary costs" and "increase the flow of information" from the casualty, to enable "timely', 'cost-saving" decisions ashore.
To this end, the PSC would keep a record of all the salvor's daily out-of-pocket expenses, as well as filing a "daily report on the craft equipment and personnel being employed on site, giving details of each if the Salvage Master's sitrep does not do this".
The PSC would "co-operate and consult with the salvor and may offer advice to the salvor", though the salvage master would always have "overall control of the salvage operation".
Muller said that the ISU recognised "the need to ensure all parties [are] properly briefed on the progress of operations", which is why the ISU agreed to a trial period where the salvage master "will submit to Lloyd's a daily salvage report in a standard format. That report can then be circulated to all interests to keep them updated and sighted on developments", said Muller.