INTERTANKO launches Tanker Officer Training Standards initiative.

(ARLINGTON, VA – APRIL 23, 2008) — INTERTANKO launched its Tanker Officer Training Standards (TOTS) initiative, an ambitious project on which it has been working with some intensity in a bid to respond to industry concerns over how to establish officer training standards.

The main aims of the TOTS system are to provide the tanker industry with a clear standard of tanker officer competence, onboard and onshore training and assessment, and at the same time to provide a level of comfort to those oil companies that utilize officer matrix requirements; to ease the difficulties that tanker owners are encountering with differing “time in rank” and “time with company” requirements; TOTS aims also to address the current trend in increasing tanker accidents.

INTERTANKO anticipates that the amount of “easing compliance” that will be attained with any of the existing officer matrix requirements will probably be based on a one-to-one basis between the individual shipping company and the oil company concerned. It will include various factors that will be assessed by and may be determined by the oil company – not least how robustly the TOTS standard and associated verification process is implemented by the shipping company.

The Nautical Institute and by the Institute of Marine Engineering Science & Technology have approved TOTS as a professional standard.

By Professional Mariner Staff