These are challenging times for all of us. We had expected that the 2020s would be a transformational decade, but none of us ever anticipated that this year would start with such a severe test. The Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic is affecting daily activity across the world as governments seek to mitigate the impact of the virus. For many of us in maritime and beyond, routines in both our personal and business lives have been forced to change as efforts to contain the spread of this disease require us to stay home, limit contact and do things differently.
Like many of you, our focus is on the health and safety of our industry, our people and ensuring the critical supply chains of goods and energy provided by our industry remain robust. Doing this will mean the world is in a better place to beat this virus.
We remain committed to supporting our marine and offshore clients and have implemented work plans and practices to ensure business continuity while
prioritising safety. To protect our people and your people, we have introduced further protocols to assess the risks of specific jobs before work starts and in certain circumstances, we have agreed to postpone non-critical work.
Inevitably, vessels scheduled for routine or unscheduled drydocking, or repairs, have been affected but we are working with clients to reschedule these or undertake them remotely in appropriate circumstances. In recent weeks, we have welcomed many more requests for remote surveys as more of our customers explore the capability of remote technologies.
We have already learnt some early lessons from the actions taken in those nations first afflicted. Our colleagues in China and South Korea have already demonstrated that plan approval and office-based duties can be successfully maintained with our office-based teams working from home. In both of these countries, we are almost back to business as usual for surveys in ports, repair yards and the new construction shipyards. We hope the rest of the world will be able to recover as quickly.
As more regions are required to selfisolate, the model we used in North Asia is being rolled out to our teams around the world. We are confident that we will still be able to support your business needs. Our site surveyors, our Ship Emergency Response Service (SERS) colleagues and experts in fuel analysis and testing are ready to assist and are contactable via the usual methods. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch to talk through any challenges you may face. We will endeavour to find solutions.
We understand the stress Covid-19 is placing on your business and your teams and we are here to help. We will all get through this testing time together.