Actions Meet Ambitions at Singapore Maritime Week 2024

Singapore Maritime Week brought together more than 10,000 professionals from across the maritime, logistics and energy sectors to Asia’s leading maritime hub in April to discuss issues surrounding decarbonisation and Singapore’s continued position as the cornerstone of the global shipping industry.

Singapore, which was once again named as the world’s leading maritime hub by DNV and Menon Economics in its Leading Maritime Cities report earlier this year, made sure that this year’s event covered more than just talking about solving some of shipping’s biggest challenges but also offering solutions; thus, the theme for the week being “Actions meet Ambitions”.

The week included a speech by Singapore Minister for Transport, Chee Hong Tat, who highlighted Singapore’s increasingly important role in global trade as a maritime centre.  

Singapore has become renowned for its key position on major shipping routes in Asia and playing host to industry-leading shipping services, covering finance, law, technology and vessel support services. It is that very reason Brookes Bell’s Asia-Pacific team is headquartered in the Lion City to ensure its globally recognised technical and scientific consultancy services are able to support vessels and ship owners that are entering Singapore or passing through the South China Sea and beyond.

“Singapore Maritime Week once again showcased the importance of Singapore to the global shipping industry.  Crucially, the week showed some of the major actions being undertaken by the sector to lead on decarbonisation challenges, from the introduction of new electric vessel types to the launch of new training centres designed to ensure seafarers are suitably prepared for future challenges,” said Tom Ainsley, Director of Asia-Pacific, Marine Engineer at Brookes Bell.

“It was great to see the Brookes Bell team out and about throughout the week, engaging with customers, both new and old, and making sure people remember to speak with us if they need incident advice or inspection work.  Brookes Bell’s team in Singapore remains very agile and with Master Mariners, Fuel Chemists, and Metallurgists on hand, we are ready to assist our customers as they need us and, crucially, where they need us.”

“As always, we continue to invest in our team in Singapore to support our clients as we add disciplines and services that reflect the cases that we are seeing in the region,” he added.

This year’s Singapore Maritime Week was home to a number of announcements that showcased the City State’s decarbonisation and digitalisation ambition.  These include the announcement of a new maritime facility that will train maritime workers to handle clean marine fuels and facilitate the safe handling, bunkering or refuelling of vessels and incident management of alternative fuels.  In addition, the Maritime Port Authority of Singapore said it has now received more than 50 proposals from around the world to supply methanol bunkers, as well as the launch of a Green & Digital Shipping Corridor with Port of Rotterdam.

“Understanding the complexities of new maritime regulations and how these impact vessel operations will be a crucial challenge for shipping companies in the coming years. Brookes Bell is proud to support our customers around the world with our multi-disciplinary technical and scientific consultancy services.” Tom added.