Independent Port Consultants (IPC) professionals have supplied valuable advice and experience to ports, terminal operators, shipping companies, banks, insurance companies, consulting firms and the legal profession in one hundred countries, for over twenty years.
IPC prides itself on the independence of its consultants and their extensive and high-level management experience in the ports, transport and maritime industries. Their expertise is based on first hand practical experience gained over many decades in a wide range of countries. At present IPC members are advising clients on projects in UK, Portugal, Black Sea, Arabian Gulf, East & West Africa, Caribbean and South America for a number of international ports and consultancy firms.
A recent example last year was a study by IPC’s Peter Bingham, who was asked to work with a leading UK-based transport planning and research consultancy, on a World Bank-financed project to provide technical assistance to identify sustainable solutions to improve public transport and city-port interaction in Odessa, Ukraine.
Odessa is one of Ukraine's largest and most lucrative sea ports, with a total annual traffic throughput of about 25 million tonnes dry and liquid bulk cargo. The port has an immediate access to the national rail system, allowing quick transfer of cargo between sea routes and to ground transportation and is a major freight and passenger transportation hub for the country. About 90% of grain exports are delivered to the port by rail, whilst the majority of containers are moved by truck.
The aim of the project was to seek ways to improve sustainable mobility in the city and to identify short and medium-term actions to reduce the impact of the port on the city and reduce the pollution exposure from, ships, cargo handling equipment, and the thousands of trucks that share Odessa’s roads with passenger and tourist buses.
The port of Odessa is long and narrow and follows the eastern limits of the city, many of which are developing successful tourist industries, and this presented the major challenge to the consultants. A port is naturally a noisy and often dirty working environment that does not combine well with modern tourism.
IPC’s task was to identify practical solutions to the problems of noise and dust pollution and transport congestion; The team developed its proposals over the course of several visits to Odessa and ran a workshop in the city in August 2017 to explain and discuss the issues, taking into account the diverse range of stakeholders, whose knowledge of the maritime industry ranged from, significant to none at all.
Peter Bingham’s recommendations are now being pursued by the client and include the introduction of:
*Improved dust controls throughout the cargo handling processes,
*Shore power to berthed ships with their main and auxiliary engines shut down,
*Low sulphur fuels in the port and its approaches,
*A road re-surfacing programme with wider, straighter roads throughout the port,
*Raised road levels and reduced gaps between rail and road surface to enable trucks and other vehicles to cross the tracks smoothly and without reducing speed, and
*Additional rail capacity in the port.
The IPC team covers all aspects of Port and Terminal activity for work and studies such as the Odessa example, from business development, traffic forecasting, analysis, and master planning, to engineering, finance, navigation, risk, and operations studies, plus the provision of experts for dispute resolution.
IPC has recently expanded its team with four new members who that significantly add to its expertise:
*Nigel Coulshed brings 20 years of, experience providing pragmatic solutions to key environmental aspects on projects, along with the management of stakeholders and regulators.
*Natalie Gupta holds advanced research and analytical skills developed through a mix of academic and non-academic work and experience including from working with DP World and the World Bank.
*Steve Cameron has over 40 years’ experience in global shipping, ports and the supply chain sectors, providing risk & safety consultancy, post event investigations, and experts for dispute resolution from a data base of 120 experts. He also provides due diligence expertise in the African and Middle East Markets.
*Richard Willis has extensive skills in the selection, procurement and deployment of systems and technology within the port environment. He has recently completed terminal design and operational best practice projects in the Caribbean and Arabian Gulf.
