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SINGAPORE MARITIME DIRECTORY 2020/2021
The pro-business environment makes Maritime Singapore attractive for leading maritime players to anchor their presence in Singapore. Among the companies to set up in Singapore last year were German joint venture OneBulk and Singapore Marine. OneBulk, which provides commercial management for ocean- going bulk carriers decided to site its new venture here as it was convinced by Singapore’s value proposition and track record in the shipping industry; while Singapore Marine, a dry bulk freight operator decided to site their Asian shipping operations in Singapore to capitalise on Singapore’s comprehensive maritime ecosystem. Britannia P&I – one of the 13 International Group Protection & Indemnity Clubs also established its Singapore branch.
Maritime Singapore achieved many successes together in 2019 in the area of connectivity, innovation and talent.
On the connectivity front, the Sea Transport Industry Digital Plan (IDP), a joint initiative with Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), Enterprise Singapore (ESG) and SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) was launched for the ship
agency and harbourcraft sectors in April 2019. Under the IDP, SMEs in the harbour craft and ship agency sectors can request for grants from a S$3.7 million fund to digitalise their businesses. The plan will equip companies with a detailed instructional digitalisation guide, as well as offer digital solutions in automation and vessel operations.
On 30 October 2019, Singapore Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Mr Heng Swee Keat announced the launch of the rst phase of the MPA ‘digitalPORT@SG’, a digital portal for One-stop Regulatory Transactions, Singapore’s maritime single window system that will serve as a one-stop portal for maritime regulatory and port services transactions. digitalPORT@SG simpli es the current reporting process required by three public agencies - MPA, Immigration and Checkpoints Authority and the National Environment Agency - for all arriving and departing ships. The portal will consolidate up to 16 separate forms into a single application, and thus is expected to save the shipping industry an estimated 100,000 man-hours annually. digitalPORT@SG will also have data exchange with port community systems such as Portnet
and Jurong Port Online to receive relevant information including declaration on dangerous goods (DG) operations at the port terminals. The system will be enhanced in Phase 2, to also serve as a single digital shopfront for booking terminal and marine services, facilitating just-in-time (JIT) operations for optimal vessel passage planning within Singapore port. These enhancements are expected to be operational from 2021.
At the Singapore Registry of Ships (SRS) Forum on 8 November 2019, MPA announced that Singapore is on track to be LNG-bunkering ready. MPA expects its two LNG bunker tankers to facilitate ship-to-ship LNG bunkering for ocean going vessels from 3Q2020 onwards. LNG bunker supplier licenses, FueLNG and Pavilion, have so far performed more than 150 truck-to- ship LNG bunkering operations. Singapore also performed its rst ship-to-ship LNG bunkering of Sleipnir at Sembcorp Marine in July 2019.
The maritime industry is also looking forward to the completion of Tuas Port in 2040, which will break new technological ground as the world’s largest fully automated container terminal. The S$20 billion project – described as a “formidable game changer on the global marine stage” - will house 26km of deep water berths, allowing Singapore to attract some of the world’s largest container ships. It will have a container-handling capacity of 65 million TEUs, almost double what Singapore handled in 2017, and it will replace existing container facilities in Tanjong Pagar, Pasir Panjang, Keppel and Pulau Brani. Built in four phases, the rst phase is expected to be fully operational in 2027, with 21 deep-water berths capable of handling about 20 million TEUs annually.
On the innovation front, Singapore is building a vibrant and thriving innovation ecosystem that is vital to the maritime industry. MPA launched the Maritime Innovation Lab (MIL) in
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