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Swire Marine News is published biannually.Please send written contributions/commentsto:

Charlotte Bleasdale1 Valley Road, Le Bons Bay,Akaroa RD3Banks Peninsula 8161,New ZealandTel and fax: +64 3 3048 583Email: clableasdale@xtra.co.nz

orSwire Group Public AffairsGPO Box 1, Hong Kong

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P 7 P 2 1 P 2 7Cover shows IndotransPacific and NGPL vessels atPapeete in Tahiti.

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Produced by Swire Group Public AffairsEditorial: Charlotte BleasdaleProduction: Teddy Lie

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The China Navigation Company Ltd

Managing Director, Geoff Cundle writes:

2 0 0 4 P E R F O R M A N C E

The China Navigation Company reported a favourable performance for 2004 as thetrades experienced solid cargo volumes and improving freight rates on the back ofthe cyclical upturn for the liner shipping industry. The better performing trades tendedto be those with a smaller exposure to the historically very high charter rate market.

The two new trades, Bank Line and Indotrans, were successfully absorbed into theCNCo network and reported a significant improvement in their trading results. TheChief Container Service had a particularly strong year thanks largely to robust breakbulkvolumes on its trans-Tasman sector. New Guinea Pacific Line ended the year credit-ably, having encountered increasing competition (more later on this topic). GreaterBali Hai had a record year with strong car and heavy vehicle volumes producing fullships as a strong Euro favoured Korea and Japan over Europe as a source of importsfor the Pacific Islands. Tasman Orient Line had a difficult year, with operational costsinflated by tonnage redeployments and a very heavy dry-docking schedule, but a traderestructuring was producing solid improvements by year-end and prospects are muchimproved for 2005. The P&O Swire Australia trade had a very strong peak season forsouthbound cargo, after struggling for most of the year, but the trade remains heavilyimbalanced due to a strong Australian dollar and the drought impacting Australianexports. The P&O Swire New Zealand trade had a satisfactory year, as did PolynesiaLine.

The new trade reported in the last edition has expanded to a five-ship service, withnew contract cargoes of aluminium ex-Australia and timber ex-New Zealand, supple-menting the core steel contract. The initial northbound voyages have been encourag-ing and the southbound prospects are also looking favourable - more details are pro-vided below.

As already mentioned, NGPL (and potentially TOL and GBH) has been encounteringincreased competition ex-Southeast Asia to Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands.

To counter this threat, a new monthly service, Indotrans Asia, has been established tooperate from Southeast Asia to PNG and the Pacific Islands, on to the USA West Coastand back via PNG to Southeast Asia.

CNCo has exercised a purchase option to acquire a 50% share in the previously MOL-owned Chenan and Chengtu. The two vessels are sisters to the Challenger-class Chekiangand Changsha, in which CNCo already holds an effective 50% interest. Chenan andChengtu will continue to be managed and manned by an associate company of MOL.

The past two years have witnessed significant growth in CNCo's trading activities withcontainer volumes up by 40% and breakbulk up by 76%, to boost turnover by 72%. Thishas required a lot of hard work by the growing CNCo team, as we expand our presence inNorth America, Europe, India and Southeast Asia. I'll sign off by expressing my gratitudefor the efforts that have delivered such positive results - we will need more of the same tohandle the challenges of 2005!

I N D O T R A N S P A C I F I C

I N D O T R A N S A S I A

C H E N A N / C H E N G T U

Bank Line, Greater Bali Hai (Kyowa vessel) and Indotrans Asia (CNCo vessel) in Tahiti.

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As reported above, China Navigation has added a fifth sister ship to the Indotrans Pacific linerservice, to meet the demands of an increasingly diversified cargo base, and to accommodate addi-tional port coverage. Pacific Future joined the four multi-purpose vessels currently operating onthe service in February, improving the liner frequency from 22 to 19 days. Pacific Freedom set sailon Indotrans Pacific's inaugural voyage from Port Kembla in early November 2004.

Indotrans Pacific now operates five modern 30,000 dwt, geared, versatile multipurpose ves-sels capable of carrying breakbulk, project and containerised cargo - the 'Pacific F' class. Thevessels have nominal container capacity of 1,130 TEUs, and are fitted with five cranes withsafe working load of 30 tonnes, which are combinable to provide a 60-tonne maximum heavylift capability.

Indotrans Pacific offers a dedicated breakbulk liner service with direct sailings between keyports in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA.The ports of Gladstone and Nelsonhave been included with the addition of the fifth vessel, as well as calls at Auckland andTauranga on every southbound sailing. The Tauranga call has been included in order to supple-ment capacity for CCS' trans-Tasman cargo.

Chris Blake heads up Indotrans Pacific, with James Woodrow managing the line day-to-dayfrom head office in Sydney. Peter Doring is the Northbound Commercial Manager andMerwyn Mathias the Operations Manager, both based in Sydney.

Indotrans Pacific is supported by a regional office in Oakland, where Tom Hendersonand Jon Allyn run the US West coast commercial activities. Jim Dillman is also based in theOakland office, from where he heads the North American operations for both Indotrans Pa-cific and Indotrans.

CNCo has commenced a new multipurpose liner service, Indotrans Asia. Three Challengervessels will link Southeast Asia, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands with the US andCanadian West Coast.

Indotrans Asia will operate the Pacific Adventurer, Pacific Explorer and Pacific Voyager on a30-day frequency. The three 23,737 dwt sister vessels have a nominal container capacity of1,200 TEUs and an operating speed of 18.5 knots.

Chris Daniells has been appointed General Manager of Indotrans Asia in Sydney; he is sup-ported by the regional office in Oakland.

ErradaleErradale continues to operate reliably after delivery to her new owners and bareboat charterback to CNCo. She has been engaged mainly on Atlantic voyages, and this pattern has kepther away from the Far East for some time.

T H E F L E E T

Erradale beinglightened off Bahrainby silo ship Bukaowned by Klaveness.

ErawanErawan continues to operate well. She recently returned to Port Moresby after a six-monthspell at Umuda, and is expected to stay until early November. A milestone was reached on11th April when Erawan completed five years of service to the Ok-Tedi mine. This remarkableachievement has been completed with negligible off hire or accidents, which is a result ofgood management, teamwork and dedication on the part of the officers and crew who havesailed on Erawan over the past five years.

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The statistics are huge: Erawan has exported 3.92 million tons of copper concentrate, dis-charging it into 212 bulk carriers and receiving it from 1,113 copper feeders. Her cranes havehandled a total of 7.9 million tons of copper concentrate - loading from feeders into hercargo holds then discharging into export bulk carriers. The three Hagglund Grab cranes haveaveraged around 12,500 running hours, lifting 210 tons per hour, or 5,056 tons per day percrane when in use. Erawan has also received and exported 31 million litres of fuel to thefeeders. This is carried up the Fly River by the feeders for use at the Ok-Tedi mine.

During the charter, the price of copper concentrate has risen from around US$750 per ton in2000 to around US$3,250 per ton today. Assuming an average price of about US$2,000 perexported ton, the total value of the exports handled by the silo ship over the past five yearshas been some US$7.84 billion, which makes Erawan a very important cog in the PNG economy.

Erawan is chartered to Ok-Tedi until 11th April 2007 and may be extended for three one-yearcharters up to 2010 at Ok-Tedi's option. The Ok-Tedi mine is expected to continue operatinguntil at least 2012 and possibly longer.

Kiribati ChiefKiribati Chief was the first Miho Mk II vessel to be lengthened. She arrived at WenchongShipyard in Guangzhou on 20th January and departed from the yard on 26th March. The

lengthening took longer than the projected 50 days, due to her late arrival and the clash withthe Chinese New Year holiday, plus greater than average rainfall for the period. Nevertheless,the end result was well worth the wait. Kiribati Chief sailed in ballast to Melbourne, arrivingon 9th April when she went back on hire to CCS.

Kiribati Chief is expected to depart from Brisbane for the Pacific Islands fully laden, which willbe a true test of her increased capacity. She managed to average over 16 knots in ballastsouthbound, which was better than expected. Her maximum speed when fully laden is ex-pected to be around 0.5-0.75 knots slower, at between 15.5 and 15.75 knots. Her new light-weight is 5,603 tons - an increase of 1,296 tons. Her new displacement is 19,276 tons - anincrease of 4,194 tons. Nominal TEU capacity has increased by 230 from 646 to 876, andhomogenous TEU capacity at 20 tons has increased by 126 from 460 to 586. The new hold isa combi hold without cellguides and with side-folding tween decks - giving what was previ-ously a fully cellular vessel a general cargo hold. The only other major change has been theinstallation of three new Hagglund GL3630 cranes, which are rated at 36 tons Safe WorkingLoad at 30 metres and 60 tons SWL at 18 metres.

In addition to the lengthening, the vessel's Third Special Survey was completed, and addi-tional upgrading work was carried out to enhance operational reliability and reduce futuremaintenance costs. This included fully grit-blasting the hull and applying self-polishing non-TBT antifouling, as well as refurbishing the hatch covers and holds - including renewing allrubber seals, landing pads, grit-blasting and repainting. The ballast tanks were also refur-bished where necessary and the boiler was re-tubed.

We are most grateful for the huge effort put in by ship's staff and the lengthening team atWenchong shipyard consisting of Tony Troy and Andy Cummings.

Aotearoa ChiefAotearoa Chief continues to perform well after a few repairs to the port and starboard hawsepipes in Tauranga and Brisbane. The vessel recently successfully handled a heavy-lift cargo,taking on board a Ruston power plant of around 66 tons at Lae in early February. AotearoaChief has also suffered from a few crane-related problems, which have upset the fixed-dayCCS schedule. Ship's staff have worked closely with the ship management team and Hagglundsto overcome the problems. She is now operating reliably.

Environmental pests continue to be a major issue in New Zealand and Australia, and floatingstaff are very aware of the problems associated with bringing unwanted pests into these

M I H O V E S S E L S

The China Navigation Company Ltd THE FLEET

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expected, progress has been swifter and the quality has improved as the yard gains experi-ence. She is expected to be delivered around 22nd May.

Kokopo ChiefKokopo Chief has also suffered from crane problems recently. Most recently, we had to fly aHagglunds engineer down to New Zealand to assist ship's staff to sort out the problem andthe No.2 crane hoist pump was successfully changed at Tauranga on New Year's Eve. Sincethen, the ship has been running well. Because of the recent crane problems on many of theMiho vessels, service visits by Hagglunds service engineers were arranged for all vessels. Theproblems are associated with age and heavy usage and will be a thing of the past post-length-ening, as new cranes are being installed on all of these vessels.

Further pest problems were experienced on Kokopo Chief: this time black rats were found tobe infesting the holds.

countries and the penalties that may be incurred. The latest problem was a swarm of bees,which plagued the ship at Port Moresby. Master Teitimani Simeona reported:

"The bees were found coming out from one, possibly more of the timber packs, during load-ing into bay 17 hold. Operations were stopped for about two hours as the bees were scat-tered over the working area and attacking ship's staff and stevedores. Quarantine were calledin to investigate the situation and declared it necessary to fumigate No.3 hold and hatchcoamings, as well as the main deck area of the whole ship. Fumigation was carried out byPNG Pest Control, under the guidance of Quarantine, who identified the bees as Malaysianbees. The ship sailed from Port Moresby after fumigation and upon completion of cargo op-erations. From what I can gather, CCS and the Agent at Port Moresby need to make sure thatthe shipper fumigates all his/her timber and produces a certificate of proof to that effect."

The vessel's next port of call was Brisbane, and on contacting AQIS we were advised:

"If live bees are detected, you will be contacted to discuss the options for dealing with exoticpests. If no live bees are visible during preliminary inspection at sea, the vessel will be al-lowed to proceed to its nominated berthing site in Brisbane. AQIS is not prepared to allowany discharge of the cargo during darkness, as it is extremely difficult to detect the presenceof any live bees that may be congregating under or around containers and other cargo. At therequest of your company, AQIS has agreed to make an officer available at approximately2000 hours tonight to supervise the opening of the personnel access point into hatch No. 3so that your nominated fumigator can perform a knockdown treatment ordered by AQIS. Atthis stage, I am advised that discharge of the deck cargo is scheduled to commence at ap-proximately 0500 hours tomorrow morning. AQIS will ensure that an officer is available tomonitor cargo for any evidence of live bees. Once the deck cargo is removed, AQIS will thenbe in a better position to observe the hold areas for any evidence of live bees. Any additionalaction will be largely determined by the findings of the AQIS officers involved. As you are nodoubt aware, AQIS is a full cost recovery organisation. Therefore, I must advise you that yourcompany will be invoiced for the time that AQIS staff must expend dealing with this matter.All fees will be levied consistent with the details specified in the AQIS Fees and ChargingGuidelines..."

Aotearoa Chief will be the fourth Miho MK II to be lengthened and is due to arrive at WenchongShipyard in September.

Papuan ChiefPapuan Chief is the second Miho ship to be lengthened. She arrived at Wenchong Shipyardon 24th March, in time to see the newly lengthened Kiribati Chief depart for sea trials. As

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The China Navigation Company Ltd THE FLEET

The Master, Alan Kennedy reported:

"Our rodent problem does not seem to be improving. The Chief Officer reported a sighting ofone large black rat in No 2 hold this morning, and evidence of fresh droppings in both No 1& No 2 holds and evidence that the baits had been touched. AQIS in Sydney advised that ifthis problem did not go away fumigation with Methyl bromide or a similar product would betheir next call as our De-rat Certificate would not be valid."

The problem was eventually sorted out by fumigation.

Kokopo Chief will be the last vessel to be lengthened and is not due to arrive at WenchongShipyard until early 2006.

Coral ChiefCoral Chief shifted to the Australia Pacific Island Service to replace Kiribati Chief, while thelatter ship was being docked in January. She is now back to the Australia/PNG fixed-day weeklyservice trade, under newly promoted Master, H.J. Rodrigues. Coral Chief continues to oper-

ate reasonably well for CCS, but has suffered over the last few months from a series of minorcrane problems, which have been frustrating for ship's staff and charterers. Coral Chief willbe the third vessel to be lengthened and is due to arrive at Wenchong Shipyard in mid-Junewith delivery back into the CCS trade in early August. She will be the first combi ship to belengthened and after lengthening will have two combi holds without cell-guides and withside-folding tween decks.

Pacific Voyager (ex Chekiang)Chekiang was docked over Christmas and New Year at Unithai Shipyard in Laem Chabang,Thailand. The hull was fully grit-blasted and coated with a TBT-free antifouling paint. Post-docking, fuel consumption has reduced by almost seven percent. Ship's officers and crewworked hard during the docking period and the dry-docking went smoothly and was com-pleted within the planned timeframe and on budget.

Chekiang has recently been renamed Pacific Voyager and deployed on the new Indotrans AsiaService from Southeast Asia to the Pacific Islands and West Coast of USA and Canada. Herfirst call into Los Angles will be around 26th May. We hope the ship's staff will enjoy the newrun and new ports.

Pacific Adventurer (ex Changsha)Changsha has continued to operate reliably for NGPL. She has recently been renamed PacificAdventurer and deployed on the new Indotrans Asia Service.

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After a lengthy study, the maximum draft of the four older Challenger vessels - that is, PacificVoyager, Pacific Adventurer, Pacific Explorer (ex Chengtu) and Tasman Chief (ex Chenan) - hasbeen increased from 10.13 metres to 10.57 metres, enabling the vessels to load an extra1,800 deadweight tons of cargo. Voyager and Adventurer are now operating to the deeperdraft and work has been completed on Explorer and Tasman Chief, but at the time of goingto press, these vessels were still waiting for the paperwork to be processed - as were the fourvessels in the younger Challenger Class series, which are also having their draft increased.

of work consisted of grit-blasting the hull to apply a TBT-free self-polishing paint system,removing all hatchcovers for extensive repairs, including blasting and repainting, and alsoblasting and painting some of the ballast tanks and holds, which were in poor condition.

The officers and crew worked hard, but also enjoyed three weeks in Thailand.

Post-docking, the vessel has performed well for TOL on her New Zealand, Taiwan, Hong Kong,Vietnam, and Singapore run.

Tasman MarinerTasman Mariner was also docked over Christmas and New Year at Unithai Shipyard. It was hersecond special survey (at 10 years old) and her first docking under CNCo ownership. Her hullwas fully grit-blasted and a new TBT-free antifouling paint system applied, and the improve-ment in hull hydrodynamics was similar to Pacific Voyager. Other work included removing allhatch-covers for major repairs, boiler and main engine repairs, plus work needed to increaseher maximum draft to 10.57 metres in line with the other Challengers — young and not soyoung. Many thanks to ship's staff for all the hard work they have put in, which helped tokeep the docking within budget. She will not dock again until January 2010.

Tasman CommanderTasman Commander followed her two sisters and Pacific Voyager into dry dock at Unithai in Janu-ary. A lot of work was completed, including grit-blasting the hull and applying new TBT-free paint,major repairs to the auxiliary boiler and economizer, renewal of all main engine pistons, hatch-cover and crane motor overhauls, and work necessary to deepen her maximum draft to 10.57metres. Ship's staff all worked hard during the dry-docking. Since her docking, the vessel hasperformed reliably and has also experienced a major reduction in fuel consumption of aroundthree tons per day of MFO. She will also not dock again until January 2010.

Tasman EndeavourTasman Endeavour is on charter to Tasman Orient Line. Unfortunately, while manoeuvringduring berthing at Ho Chi Minh City on New Year's Eve, her propeller made contact with anunlit mooring buoy. This resulted in serious propeller damage, which required the vessel to bedocked for emergency repairs. The vessel was docked in Keppel Shipyard, Singapore, for twoweeks in January to refurbish the propeller. The time was also used to carry out other generalwork.

Since completing the propeller repairs the vessel has performed well for TOL, but the propel-ler will need to be renewed at the next docking, as it proved impossible to return the propel-

Tasman Provider in Unithai dry-dock.

Tasman ProviderTasman Provider was the first of the younger Challenger Class vessels to be docked for theirsecond special survey. The four 'Young Challengers' - Mariner, Provider, Commander andEndeavour - were built between 1994 and 1995 and purchased by CNCo between 2003 and2004. Tasman Provider was docked at Unithai Shipyard at Laem Chebang Thailand, arrivingon 1st December and departing on 18th December. Extensive repairs were carried out ondeck and in the engine room. Besides the normal dry-dock and survey work, the main scope

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C N C O S A F E T Y S E M I N A R AT I D E S S

The China Navigation Company Ltd THE FLEET

Eleven senior officers took part in a safety seminar at the IDESS Marine Training College at SubicBay, Philippines, from 14th - 19th March. The aim of the course was to teach the latest techniquesfor onboard safety training, and attendees will be conducting safety training onboard CNCo shipsto heighten safety awareness, standardise common working procedures, and help reduce acci-dents. Immediately after the Subic Bay course, the officers attended a CNCo management seminarin Hong Kong on 21st March, which provided an opportunity to update them on company plansand general safety issues, and for senior management to receive feedback on the IDESS course.The general feeling among sea staff attending was that the IDESS training and CNCo seminar hadbeen very useful and in addition to learning new techniques, it also provided a chance for seniorofficers to mix and discuss important safety issues facing the company. It is tentatively planned tohold another seminar at IDESS next year.

The Sea Staff attendees were: Captains Allan Dunnings, Margaret Pidgeon, Martin Pittand Peter Van Uden; Chief Engineers Nigel Drummond, Robert Orocio, StephenThomas, Fang Guang Qing and Perry Slako, and Chief Officers Noreen Hennessy andZheng Rong Hua.

ler pitch to the original, and there are some deep cracks near the base of the propeller blades.These were welded up, but are not acceptable for a permanent repair. Luckily, the result is alight propeller and not a heavy one, but the ship is only able to attain about 85% of fullspeed/power.

Indotrans JavaIndotrans Java continues to operate on the Indotrans service between Southeast Asia and theWest Coast of Canada and USA. Her gantry was removed ashore in Singapore in December,

so that the new tro l ley, which i s be ing bui l t inSingapore, could be installed and tested prior to thegantry being reinstalled on the vessel during her mid-May call. Java has operated without the gantry sincelast August. While on her last USA coastal in Marchthe oil-fired boiler tube plate cracked and unfortunately- despite taking all precautions - the exhaust gas boilersuffered a fire while running dry, after only 20 hours.Both boilers are interlinked and if one is out of servicethe system has to be drained and the exhaust gas boileroperated dry. A temporary repair was carried out onthe oil-fired boiler in New Orleans, enabling it to bereturned to service at reduced pressure. This has al-lowed both the main engine and generators to con-tinue to be operated on MFO. Both boilers will be fullyrepaired in Singapore in May, while the gantry is beingrefitted.

Indotrans FloresIndotrans Flores continues to operate reliably for the Indotrans service. The vessel upgradingprogramme has been making good progress: two new liners were recently fitted to the mainengine, and a new air cooler and jacket water pre-heater were installed. We are hopefulthese upgrades will solve the liner cracking problems.

As with all the Indotrans vessels, the gantry was checked and tested by Hagglunds after theJava trolley collapse in August. The officers and crew continue to work hard at upgrading thevessel to bring her up to normal CNCo standards.

Indotrans CelebesThe upgrading of Celebes is also ongoing, with similar work being undertaken.

Removing the gantry from the ship inSingapore.

Indotrans MakassarAlthough Indotrans Makassar is very similarto the other Indotrans vessels, she was builtin the UK at Swan Hunter Shipyard, whileher three sisters were built at the WartsilaTurka yard in Finland. There are positive andnegative points to both ship types, butMakassar's deck is not in as good a condi-tion as the others, and she requires morework to bring her up to CNCo standards. Toassist the crew and speed up refurbishmentwork, riding squads are being planned dur-ing the Southeast Asia coastal.

Unfortunately Makassar's port anchor and chainwere lost while anchoring off Malta to takebunkers in early January. A replacementwas sourced from China and shipped toHouston, where it was fitted by ship's staff. Departing fully laden from Houston in January 2005.

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In January 1990, Coral Chief (Miho Mk I) was one of the last vessels to call atBougainville before political unrest led to the closure of the main port of Kieta. Situ-ated in one of the most spectacular locations in the South Pacific, Kieta and its twinport of Arewa Bay had been cut off from regular international shipping links for 15years, until Bank Line's Foylebank, under the command of Captain David Miller,berthed at the once bustling port in the early hours of 14th March 2005.

Foylebank's call was made possible thanks to the close cooperation and considerableefforts of the vessel's Master, officers and crew, the staff at NGAL and SteamshipsShipping & Transport, Navueta Limited (for whom the vessel was due to load a maidenshipment of 1,000 tonnes of copra), the PNG Harbours Board, local government au-thorities, the United Nations representatives in Bougainville, the KIK Copra Board,the Australian Police Task Force stationed in Kieta, and of course the local popula-tion.

Travel to Bougainville remains challenging thanks to irregular air-links between PortMoresby and Buka, not to mention the demands exacted by banana boat rides acrossthe Buka passage, long drives on unsealed roads - including 16 river crossings - andthe limited accommodation available at the Women's Hostel, where electricity is ra-tioned to six hours a day.

Initial surveys of the port were not encouraging: one of the piers supporting the wharfhad collapsed, the soundings alongside the wharf were shallow (6.5 metres) in someareas, and only by diving with snorkel and goggles was it possible to mark the manyunderwater obstructions that included steel fabrication from burned-out copra sheds, oldforklifts and trailers, and a surprising number of steel cargoes.

The initial findings were presented to PNGHB Acting General Manager Kepas Wali,and Bougainville-born Operations Manager, Josh Taruna, agreed to fund the under-water survey and dredging required to obtain a nine-metre draft (the depth neces-sary for the Bank Line vessels to call). More accurate underwater surveys were carried

Swire flag flown in Kieta after 15-year absence

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out by a team of divers from Pacific Towing [PNG] Limited, confirming the need towater blast the shallow patches and remove any obstructions that might endangerthe vessel's hull integrity. Once underwater clearing and dredging operations hadbeen completed, Phil Ryan (Steamships Rabaul) set about the difficult task of coordi-nating equipment requirements and facilitating stevedoring practices with JoeSidaung, Managing Director of copra exporter Navueta.

After completing a safe passage from Honiara in the Solomon Islands, Foylebankentered the straits between the Banaru and Moto reefs. The navigation lights arelong gone, but derelict towers remain and continue to provide a safe approach line,enabling the ship to pass between the Kieta Peninsular and Pok Pok Island. Foylebankmade her approach after picking up a Bougainvillean pilot from a banana boat (oneof two in the port) and berthed without incident. Cargo operations loading bulk andcontainerised copra for Malaysia and the Philippines were watched by what appeared

SHIPBOARD ADMINISTRATION SYSTEM - SAS VERSION TWO

Version Two of the SAS system was recently sent out to all vessels. This version has beencreated by Spectral, a Manila-based software company, and is based on Peter Barton's origi-nal SAS system, created in "MS Access". Peter has been instrumental in guiding Spectral inthe development of the updated system. Spectral will continue to support Version Two andfurther developments are planned for release later in the year. An office module has alsobeen produced, to enable data to be transferred to and from the SAS and the office - forexample, exchange rates and wage scales to be sent out to the vessels, and ships' monthlyportage bills and accounts sent to the office.

We are confident that the system Peter developed in his spare time will remain a standard formany years to come.

to be the entire local popu-lation, keen to witness thishistoric event. For many ofthe school children from thethree local schools that hadbeen given the day off, thiswas their f irst s ight of alarge ocean-going vesseland the Master's hospitalitywas much appreciated bya l l those who had theoppor tun i t y to v i s i t thevessel.

Foylebank's call was a proud event for all involved - especially copra exporter Navueta,who will save on the costs of double-handling at Lae, and for the all-Bougainvilleansupport operation at the Kieta end, including the pilot, the ship's agent, the customsand the quarantine officers and the stevedores, all of whom were Bougainvilleans. Af-ter a 15-year absence, Swire Shipping is delighted to have played a role in the reopen-ing of Bougainville's main port of Kieta to international shipping.

The China Navigation Company Ltd SWIRE FLAG FLOWN IN KIETA AFTER 15-YEAR ABSENCE

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2005 is promising to be a very busy year, with new projects starting up and a new office inBombay (opened in October last year). We are looking forward to new areas of operationwhilst expanding our presence in West Africa and the Caspian. As ever, we rely on the sup-port of all our staff: SPO's success is a reflection of the hard work of everyone involved.

Our newbuilding plans are continuing, with more vessels on order. Probably the most signifi-cant are three UT 758 Ice Breaking Supply Vessels for operation offshore Sakhalin. These willbe delivered in April, July and October 2006. The first and third vessels will be owned by a

Swire company, while the second vessel will be owned by Prisco. Swire Pacific Offshore hasalso confirmed an order for a further four ‘P ’ Class vessels; these are to be named: PacificParakeet, Pacific Pelican, Pacific Pickle and Pacific Protector. These vessels will be delivered inDecember 2005, and February, April, and June 2006. A further two ‘R’ Class vessels, PacificRapier and Pacific Reiver, have already been ordered for delivery in March and May 2006.

Vessel relocations have continued:

Pacific Frontier has returned to Singapore from Australia and Captain Pete Smith is now atthe helm, with Chief Engineer John MacSween down below. Prior to joining Frontier, PeteSmith completed Pacific Server's long-term commitment in Brunei, ably assisted by TomSilvester. Pacific Server then enjoyed a brief sojourn in Australia, before returning home inthe first quarter; she has since departed for Dubai to take up a new contract.

Pacific Battler also arrived in Singapore from Australia, only to sail south again with an SPSMcrew headed by Captain Chris Gofton and Chief Engineer Michael Ping. Pacifics Ranger andRunner have both transferred to Singapore from India with Captains Uwe Ambrosius andPeter Sogaard and Chief Engineers Robin Collingwood and Fred Kissane. After five monthsin India, Pacific Champion has now returned to Singapore with Captain Bob Greig in com-mand, assisted by Chief EngineerEkong Udonwa.

Pacific Pilot continues in Asia, andhas mobilised to Myanmar underCaptain Esmeraldo Tejano andChief Engineer Rusty Abello.

Pacific Buccaneer has arrived inCape Town (and hence underSingapore control) from West Af-rica, and is under the command ofCaptain Graham Provis, assistedby Chief Engineer John Williams.Pacific Lance remains in Mossel Bayunder Captain Ed Orsel and Chief

The names selected for some of our newbuildings have been greeted with a certainamount of consternation, so here is a brief explanation of the reasoning behindtheir choice.

In 1805, the Royal Navy won a decisive battle against the French fleet at Trafalgar -as every schoolboy knows, a great victory for England and also the scene of Nelson'sdeath. After taking over command of the fleet, Vice Admiral Collingwood despatchedhis smallest and fastest ship to carry the news back home to the Admiralty. That shipwas HMS Pickle, a ten-gun schooner. Pickle was originally a merchant vessel namedSting. Built in Bermuda and purchased by the Admiralty early in the nineteenth cen-tury, she later struck a shoal and foundered whilst entering Cadiz harbour in 1808.

SPO's original Pacific Rapier has been much missed by those with long memories.She was to many the ideal supply vessel, having only fuel and fresh water capacitybelow decks and minimal deck cargo capacity for much of her life, thanks to therefrigerated containers permanently on deck for food supply to the field. The lack ofa towing and anchor-handling winch or even a tugger rounded off the ideal boat!And at only 2,800 BHP it was difficult to get into much trouble - although once in it,extricating oneself could sometimes be a little more exacting! The new ‘R’ classhave proved very popular with charterers and sea staff alike. The new Pacific Rapierwill be a welcome addition to the fleet.

And so to Pacific Reiver: Reivers were robbers or bandits who terrorised the bordercountry between England and Scotland between the thirteenth and sixteenth centu-ries. The term gave the English language the word "bereaved" - i.e. to lose a lovedone to a murderous Reiver.

N E W B U I L D I N G SS I N G A P O R E

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Swire Pacific Offshore Limited

What's in a name?

Pacific Buccaneer towing the Pride International rig Pride SouthPacific into Cape Town in April 2005.

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Swire Pacific Offshore Limited SINGAPORE

Engineer Ron Howle. After completing her charter with PetroSA at the end of last year,Pacific Searcher has continued to work in South Africa under Captain Chris Ryden and ChiefEngineer Julio Talahuron.

Pacific Commander spent the latter part of 2004 in Myanmar for Daewoo Myanmar, afterwhich she proceeded to Vietnam. She is expected to remain there for the best part of thisyear. Captain Wayne Grant and Chief Engineer Anatoliy Kopyl have the controls. PacificCommodore has continued with spot work in Singapore under the command of Captain TonyPorter, ably assisted by Chief Engineer Tom Messham. After completing her work inMalaysia, Wira Keris transferred to Bangladesh for a medium-term charter. Captain JuliusGadiano is in command, and Gregorio Bago is her Chief Engineer. Pacific Rover, with Cap-tain Keith Strudwick and Chief Engineer Paul Abeyesekera, has taken up what is poten-tially a long-term charter in Myanmar alongside Pacific Pilot.

Pacific Warlock (Captain Philip Fotheringham and Chief Engineer Neil Macduff) has takenup a long-term contract in Vietnam, while Pacific Worker continues her work in Sarawak inthe hands of Captain Jim Bowie and Chief Engineer Paul Taylor.

Pacific Supporter continues in Brunei with Captains Mike Baker and Tani Parmisano andChief Engineers Barry Watson and Adrian Cornfield.

There have been some staff changes in the Singapore Head Office. Ms Tee Chin Ting joinedus as Technical Officer (Naval Architect) on 15th February. Chin Ting has taken over fromThong Weng Choy, who has left the company for pastures new; we wish him every successin the future.

After six and a half years' service with SPO Singapore, Quah Joo Li, Assistant Human Re-sources Manager, has also moved on. With the increase in the number of sea staff and thefrequency of crew changes, two Crew Managers have been employed: they are Ivan Tan andSylvia Koh. Eileen Goh, Administrative Assistant, has also left the company, and has beenreplaced by Jessie Tan, who has been temping for us for some time. We take this opportunityto issue a warm welcome from Swire Pacific Ship Management to our new joiners.

Over the past 12 months, Pacific Sword has continued her Seismic programme withVeritas, moving between SPO Singapore and our Australian regional office, andworking over a geographical area stretching from India to Vietnam, through Indo-nesia and to Australia. During this period, 107 Induction briefings have been car-ried out on board the vessel, as well as the usual hot work (183), enclosed spaceentry, working aloft or outboard, and hydrocarbon transfer permits completed.

Despite the large number of visitors and charterers on board, the high level of safetyawareness has enabled the vessel to achieve three years without any Lost TimeIncidents. In appreciation of this achievement, Veritas Asia Pacific Pte Limited kindlypresented the Master Bruce Willis with a second "Crystal Tower Award". Well doneto Bruce and his team!

After five months on the Australian coast, Sword has now returned to Asia and iscontinuing her survey duties under the command of Captain Taua Kaiteie, ablysupported by Chief Engineer Dennis Wheelan.

Safety Award

Captain Dick Sawczyn and Nigel Lace with 14 Iraq Campaign Medals presented to the crew of PacificCommodore by HMG for service during the last Iraq War.

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Since the autumn issue of Swire Marine News, the Dubai Office has seen the arrival and/orreturn back under its control of four vessels, the sale of one vessel, and the departure ofthree others.

After 24 years' sterling service with SPO, initially as the well stimulation vessel Big Orange XI,the SBV Atlantic Defender was sold in March to Indian owners as a maintenance supportvessel. Notwithstanding the last seven years bouncing around in the worst weather the SouthAfrican coast could throw at her, Defender still looked in superb condition, and was a creditto all those who have worked on her and maintained herover her life - finishing with Captain Fernando Manzanoand Chief Engineer Robin Faure, who brought her backfrom South Africa, and Captain Celso Pilapil and ChiefEngineer Ronaldo Bayacal who took her on her final de-livery voyage to Mumbai.

In India, activity has taken an uncharacteristic downturn,as a couple of clients catch their breath and regroup fortheir next campaigns. Pacific Runner and Pacific Riggerwere released by Reliance Industries Limited at the end ofTransocean Nordic's reportedly very successful east coastexploration programme. Pacific Rigger then immediatelysubstituted for Pacific Ranger to allow the latter to pro-ceed to Singapore for a Class dry-docking, and she willcontinue Ranger's contract with the drill-ship Discoverer534 - probably until the end of 2005. From the other coast,Pacific Champion was redelivered back to Singapore byReliance, at the completion of Trident 6's exploration well.

Pacific Taipan has mitigated some of the net losses in In-dian waters, by towing the ENSCO 53 from Qatar to thewest coast of India prior to commencing a term-charterwith the same rig for British Gas out of Mumbai/Bhavnagar.

At the time of writing, Pacific Wyvern with Captain JoeWalford, and Pacific Wizard with Captain Colin Burling,are gearing up to tow the Ocean Heritage - which they

have been supporting for Cairn Energy in India - to Qatar. On completion of the tow, bothvessels will be relocated back to Singapore, where Pacific Wizard will go on hire to Saipem towork with the rig Saipem Castoro 2 over the summer and autumn on the Dolphin pipe-layfrom Qatar to Abu Dhabi. Also involved in this major project - the laying of twin 48-inch gaspipelines - will be Pacific Banner and Pacific Blade, which will be towing in Saipem Castoro 6,from the North Sea, supporting the rig locally, and handling the return tow on completion;they will also be supported in the Gulf by Pacific Centurion. Pacific Brigand is currently sup-porting Castoro 6 in the North Sea alongside Banner and Blade, and will resume this supportonce the spread returns to the North Sea in early 2006.

Pacific Javelin, with Captain Socrates Vilahermosa andChief Engineer Sofronio Lacno, continues its term worksupporting Shell Iran as it moves towards completion ofits full field development of the Soroosh and Nowruzfields. The last commissioning phase is also being sup-ported by Pacific Sabre, with Captain Camilo Libron andChief Engineer Godiado Gabisan, and both vessels willprobably be busy on this project through the second quar-ter of 2005.

Continuing their term-charters are: Pacific Claymore (withCaptain Dudley Green and Chief Engineer Charlie Butt)for DPC, and Fishery Protection Vessel Pacific Marlin (withCaptains Bob Goodwin and John Probert, and ChiefEngineers Les Swart and Rod Richardson) for the Brit-ish Indian Ocean Territories.

Coming fu l l c i rc le , Pac i f i c Sc imi tar , w i th Capta inFernando Manzano and Chief Engineer Nester Lapuz,is providing a support platform for well-cleaning opera-tions in the Gulf for Dowell Schlumberger - resuming op-erations where the Big Orange boats left off nearly twodecades ago.

SPO in Dubai has been joined since the last issue by YuriAvdeev as Assistant Technical Manager. Alexander Laohas replaced N.C. Baby, who has retired after 25 yearsin the Dubai office as Purchasing Officer (see story on

D U B A I

Pacific Banner.

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Swire Pacific Offshore Limited DUBAI

page 25). Alex joined SPO inNovember, after holding thesame posit ion with anothero i l f ie ld supply company inDubai for nearly six years. Alexis marr ied and comes fromPampanga, north of Manila.We also have the Orbis Enter-prise Administrator, GabrielNapolean , res ident in SPODXB, as the time zone differ-ences al low him to providebetter support cover for bothvessels in the Far East andNorth Sea/West Africa fromDubai.

Swire Pacific Offshore's expanded office in Qatar continues with its build up in the WesternGulf. Under a long-term collaboration with Darwish Marine the fleet deployment has beenmost encouraging. Hopefully, given the awesome projections for the development of LNG(Liquefied Natural Gas) and GTL (Gas To Liquid) fuels, the area will continue to offer plenty ofopportunities. Captains Ken Jupp and Bill Hobson are keeping Pacific Dart busy, as are Cap-tains Manfred Muller and Bob Sangster on Pacific Oak. The standby boat fleet, with ChiefEngineers Willy Juntilla and Steve Remolana on Pacific Bear and Pacific Maple, providesafety cover for many of the offshore platforms. Wira Wijaya is fully occupied with a drillingprogramme and may stay until mid-year. Captain Frank Galloway and Chief Officer GrantMichels take the credit here.

The third new UT 780 (‘P ’ Class) Anchor Handling Tug Supply vessel, Pacific Pioneer, enteredservice directly from the builder's yard in Batam. Captain ‘Lino’ Villanueva and Chief Engi-neer ‘Manny’ Ventajar were the subject of a great deal of media attention at the namingceremony for the vessel in Doha Port in February. The Chairman of Darwish Marine, AhmedDarwish, presided over the event and his daughter Moussa Darwish was the vessel's sponsor.

The fourth UT 780, ‘P ’ Class AHTS, Pacific Prospector, arrived in mid-April for another long-

term production support contract. She is currently relieving Pacific Oak, which - after a Classdry-docking - will go on charter to Western Geco to support a shallow-water seismic spread.This project will also be utilising Pacific Server, which is currently mobilising from Singaporewith Gavin France and Lau Pedersen in charge. The spread will be working for WesternGeco for about six months, initially in Saudi Arabia.

Qatar is also providing a useful spot market for vessels moving back and forth between thereand the Dubai-based fleet. Pacific Spear, Pacific Centurion, Pacific Scimitar and HongkongSalvage & Towage's Mai Po have all made a useful contribution to the coffers during the pastfew months. The signs are good that this will continue, although Pacific Spear will be movingfurther afield for the remainder of the year, supporting McDermott operations in Qatar andSaudi Arabia.

The recent bombing incident in Doha by a group of extremists caused anxiety in some circles,but so far this seems to have been a local isolated incident.

On the staff front, Bertha Rodrigues started as Office Administrator with SPO Qatar inOctober.Q ATA R

Pacific Pioneer naming ceremony.

Alexander Lao.

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In Baku, Pacific Raider is now into the second year of her Caspian Sea charter. The autumn of2004 saw the vessel participate in the float-over installation of a 15,000-tonne topside, andsail up to Astrakhan in Russia to collect one of the modularised components of a gas platformthat is being assembled in Baku for installation in 2006.

Following a glittering first anniversary party at the Hyatt Hotel in November, the vessel beganoperations supplying the Chirag-1 platform for the Azerbaijan International Operating Com-pany, while the construction barge she usually supports underwent a six-month programmeof upgrades. The vessel continues under the command of Captains Adam Eager and LeeWayer, assisted by Chief Officer Simon Healy, with Chief Engineer Mike Jennings and Sec-ond Engineer Preben Lund on the engine side. Both of our Azeri Masters, Niyazi and FikretFarajov, passed their Dynamic Positioning induction courses in London. Chief Officer Bahman

Abdullayev will be joining the rotation to replace Fuad Maharramov, who is taking sixmonths unpaid leave following the birth of his daughter on 31st December.

The vessel carried out a vital cable lay repair job in February, when a trawler severed the fibre-optic cable between our client's platform and the shore - once again demonstrating the ver-satility of the UT738 DP2 design. The success of the cable repair meant that Pacific Raiderwas again used for the fibre-optic cable lay between Chirag and the newly installed CentralAzeri, which went online in February. The construction season for the derrick barge Azerbaijanbegan again in April, with further anchor handling, pile tows, jacket installations and topsidefloat-overs slated for 2006. Phase Three of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli project has been sanc-tioned by the project partners and funding approved, so there may be further work in 2007and 2008. Exploration activity continues on all sides of the Caspian, and production fromoffshore Azerbaijan is scheduled to rise from 150,000 barrels per day in 2004 to nearly amillion barrels per day by 2010.

The first quarter of 2005 has been an extremely busy period in the Australian offshore indus-try. The Australian oil and gas industry is currently very buoyant, and although a number oflarge projects have recently come to an end, more are starting up to take their place.

After considerable delays, the Multiplex/Saipem joint venture project to lay the Bayu Undangas pipeline was completed in late January. This was the last of three construction projects onwhich Pacific Battler and Pacific Frontier have worked with Saipem's pipe-lay barge Semac 1.It was with some relief that Frontier's Master, Glenn Frewin, redelivered Semac 1 back toSingapore.

Ongoing work continues for Pacific Sentinel and Pacific Wrestler supporting the rig OceanBounty, which is currently located on the Northwest Shelf. Pacific Wrangler also continueswith her programme of rig support with Ocean Patriot in the Bass Strait. Pacific Ariki wasrecently assigned to ENSCO's newly built rig, ENSCO 106, which will be deployed on theNorthwest Shelf. Pacifics Conqueror and Server have been working on the John Brookes project.

Pacific Challenger had a disappointing end to 2004 when the starboard engine block andcrankshaft suffered major damage. The repair on the vessel's engine was completed in earlyFebruary, after delays over the festive season hampered progress. It is hoped that nowChallenger is fully repaired and operational, she will soon make up for lost time.

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C A S P I A N S E A

Captain Chinghiz Teymurov of SPO’s agents Transmarine addressing the guestsin Baku to celebrate the first year of Pacific Raider’s operations in the CaspianSea. He is watched by Sevda Mamedova (in red), SPO’s Deputy Manager inBaku, and Angus Bertram (foreground) of our client, Azerbaijan InternationalOperatiing Company.

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Expro Swire Production's rig ESP 1, located in Iranian waters some 70 nautical miles south ofIraq, was demobilised on the morning of 5th January 2005, and has departed from the Soroosh/Nowrooz fields.

The original award of contract by Shell Exploration BV was in May 2000, and the ESP 1 ar-rived on site on 1st October 2001 after a conversion period in Dubai. The unit has been inproduction at Soroosh ever since and has produced in excess of 50 million barrels of oil andoperational uptime to date of 99.89%.

Shell Iran Offshore's Operations Manager, Terry Letherby, has said of the contract:

"We can all pat ourselves on the back for a very successful early production period - notwithout its challenges, e.g. initial flare carry over, late arrival of the SWP-1 structure, increas-ing salt, etc - with the EPF (ESP 1) playing a key part as one of the main elements of theintegrated early production system. It processed over 50 million barrels, was in the field for1,188 days, had only three LTIs in total, with the last being way back on 15th January 2002(1,083 days without an LTI) and a terrific uptime record.

I would like to take this opportunity of thanking Bob Harris and the whole Expro Swire teamfor the tremendous effort they have given during this period, which contributed significantlyto this success. We have had great support from Bob and his team onshore, and offshore theguys really managed to work as an integrated team creating the successes."

The sale of ESP1 to Gulf Drilling International was concluded on 26th April. More news in thenext issue.

Prospects for HUD Ship Repair in 2005 are promising, with forward bookings up to the firstquarter of 2006. We have received orders from our regular customers - Hapag-Lloyd, NSB,E.R. Shipping and Claus Peter Offen from Germany, Mediterranean Shipping Company fromSwitzerland, A. P. Moller from Denmark, Evergreen from Taiwan, Star Cruises from Malaysiaand other new customers from all over the world.

In January, we experienced 90% dock occupancy, with workload and revenue well over bud-get. We docked five vessels: Xiang Yun He (1,702 TEUs), Canmar Dynasty (2,070 TEUs), Paris

New Zealand

Pacific Titan received a visit inFebruary from New Zealand'sMinister of Energy, the Hon.Trevor Mallard MP (third fromleft), Titan was in Wellingtonpreparatory to beginning the2005 NZ East Coast SeismicSurvey, which is being fundedby the New Zealand Govern-ment through the Crown Min-erals Unit of the Ministry ofEconomic Development. The vessel is on long-term charter to Multiwave Geophysi-cal of Norway, and the Minister was among 100+ invited guests of Multiwave andNZ Crown Minerals; a small presentation was made to the Master. Left to right: HonHarry Duynhoven MP - Associate Minister of Energy/Minister for Transport Safety;Captain Bruce Wallis of Pacific Titan, Trevor Mallard, David Lamb, Marketing & SalesManager Asia Pacific Multiwave Geophysical, Andy Neville, General Manager SPONew Zealand. Pacific Titan has subsequently mobilised to Irian Jaya for three months'work.

A number of employees recently marked 10 years with Pacific Manning Company:

Masters: Colin Parker, Murray Pennefather, Ray Pryer

Chief Officer: Ross Mickle

Chief Engineers: Tommy Boughton, Tom Cousin, Steve Mctigue, Andy Vinnicombe

First Engineer: Ken McEwan

Integrated Ratings: Con Brown , Vern Everett , Ron Gul l i ford , Bi l l Hughes , John

McCulloch, Andy Millington, Jim Wallace

Swire Pacific Offshore Pty would like to take this opportunity to thank each of these crewmembers for their hard work, loyalty and service over the last decade - it has been greatlyappreciated.

Expro swire production

Expro Swire Production

HUD Ship Repair

Swire Pacific Offshore Limited AUSTRALIA

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HUD Marine (Hongkong Salvage & Towage) again had a successful year for both harbour andseagoing towage. Taikoo recently made the longest tow in HKST history - a total of 4,890nautical miles from Hong Kong to Dubai - and Sung Kong became the second Hong Kong tugto circumnavigate the world. We maintained market share in Hong Kong and the companyeagerly awaits the arrival of the three newbuildings, so that we can maintain harbour fleetnumbers and continue to develop the overseas market.

In September, Taikoo departed Hong Kong under the command of Billy Cranham, towing afloating dock to Dubai. After calling at Singapore for bunkers, Taikoo sailed via the Malacca

H O N G K O N G S E A G O I N G

Express (4,626 TEUs), Mckinney Maersk (3,922 TEUs) and HUD Marine's ocean-going tugTaikoo. We also repaired four vessels alongside our berth - Fairmast (heavy cargo vessel),Mineral Oak (post-Panamax bulker), Mui Wo (general cargo) and Glenn Hong Kong (tanker).

Unfortunately, due to vessel delays andthe effects of the Chinese New Year holi-day period, February was one of ourworst months, with only 36% dock oc-cupancy. This demonstrates the volatil-ity of the shiprepair business, which canchange from riches to rags in a very shortperiod.

March turned out to be another goodmonth with 95% dock occupancy. Attime of going to press we were docking

five vessels: MSC Jenny (3,016 TEUs), P & O Nedlloyd Abidjan (2,506 TEUs), CMA CGM Capella(3,538 TEUs), Hongkong Senator (3,017 TEUs) and LT Utile (5,652 TEUs), with Doria (1,022TEUs) alongside our berth for afloat repairs.

The projected workload for the remainder of 2005 looks bright with the following forwardbookings:

Hapag-Lloyd Container Linie — six vesselsNSB — three vesselsE. R. Shipping — three vesselsClaus Peter Offen — five vesselsMediterranean Shipping Company — two vesselsA. P. Moller — one vesselEvergreen — two vesselsStar Cruises — one vessel

The demand for ship repair facilities in Southeast Asia and Mainland China is high in 2005, be-cause of increasing cargo traffic in and out of China. Shipowners are enjoying high charter ratesand docking and repair schedules are tight, so HUD Ship Repair is benefiting from a larger marketshare by providing prompt delivery and good and reliable workmanship. We expect this demand toremain high in 2005 until the supply of ship repair facilities is balanced by the opening of addi-tional new shipyards in Mainland China and Southeast Asia in 2006/07.

HUD Marine

Paris Express and Mckinney Maersk at HUD.

Mineral Oak.

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HUD Marine HONG KONG SEAGOING

Strait - which at the time was experiencing alarming levels of pirate activity - arrivingwithout incident in Dubai on 9th November. Due to the high level of ship movements inHong Kong Harbour, where she is station salvage tug, Taikoo was required to return homepromptly. However, after departure from Dubai her starboard stern seal failed, and shewas forced to return to AHI shipyard for docking. After departing a second time she saileddirectly to Hong Kong without incident.

With the northeast monsoon blowing from November to early March, this is usually a busyperiod offshore Hong Kong, but this year the emergency tows we are normally called upon

to undertake have not materialised. This has allowed Taikoo and Sha Chau to be utilised on theharbour.

We have been able to secure a towage contract in Sakhalin, Russia, for all four HKST salvagetugs. This will require a lot of repositioning, with Yam O and Shek O mobilising up from Austra-lia, Mai Po from the Middle East and Taikoo from Hong Kong.

Our tug Masters pass through Hong Kong regularly, and we have recently seen Billy Cranham,Hussein Augbaya, Angus Macleod and Edward Boyd.

HUD Marine Project Manager for Indonesia, Geoff Sizer, writes:

"Since writing my last report for Swire Marine News a natural disaster - the most devas-tating in living memory - has struck Southeast Asia, and in particular the north-westernIndonesian province of Aceh. Thankfully, none of our own tug crews or their immediatefamilies were directly affected by this catastrophic event. I say ‘directly’ because every-one here in Indonesia - no matter of what faith, creed or country of origin - was'affected' and we all know someone who has lost family or friends as a result of thetsunami. Even I, a mere visitor here, have a friend in Jakarta who lost seven members ofher family, including her mother and two younger sisters.

The scale of the human tragedy has been matched by the loss of homes and businesses.With fishing communities and their vessels destroyed and farmland and watercoursescontaminated by salt water, a relief effort on a colossal scale is required to rebuild thedevastated regions. The amazing response from governments and individuals across theworld has helped alleviate the suffering and the rebuilding has already started. Equallyamazing, was the response from Indonesians to the aid effort from other countries. Wher-ever I went, bank clerks, parking attendants, checkout operators, and people from allwalks of life wanted to identify themselves and their feelings with a ‘thank-you’ for thehelp given. So I feel it is only right that I pass on those thanks to you through SwireMarine News.

The monsoon season has given us a less busy towing period, but a difficult maintenance

one, with the tugs regularly having to anchor off to ride out the weather, rather thanremain alongside. The exception to this was the scheduled dry-docking of Tolo at DKBDry Dock in Tanjung Priok, Jakarta, which was conducted effectively and successfullyunder the guidance of Ip Kam Wah. Crewmembers are going through their biannualmedical examinations and senior officers will be attending the ISPS ship security officers'course at the Maritime Academy in Jakarta. This period has also given us the opportunityto welcome in the New Year (three of them actually) with Muslim, Chinese and ChristianNew Year celebrations being held, and their statutory holidays giving a bonus day off.

We also celebrated the wedding of one of the original members of our support teamhere in Indonesia when Aldo, our very first tug dispatcher, tied the knot at a truly splen-did and beautiful Indonesian wedding ceremony. Aldo is the son of Captain Nasdion Agoes,who is Director of Port Services at Cilegon - and who was a leading light in the initialcontracting of Hongkong Salvage & Towage tugs to Indonesia.

Last but by no means least, 7th February saw the retirement of Bob Kaunang, who, as Man-ager of the Jakarta office of Benua Malacho Lines (our Indonesian charterers), has been in-strumental in negotiating our contracts and ever-supportive of our project here in Indonesia.At a dinner to celebrate his retirement, I presented Bob with a retirement present and a copyof Best Endeavours - the inside story of marine salvage, which includes a fascinating accountof Hongkong Salvage & Towage's 1993 salvage of a China Airlines 747 from Hong KongHarbour. The book was signed by the Hong Kong office staff and sent down to Indonesia forBob to keep as a memento of his tug days."

Indonesia - battered but still beautiful

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On 20th September, Sung Kong's charter in Progreso, Mexico, finally came to an end. SungKong had been stationed there for six years, working first with Naviera Armanex and thenEquimar Progreso. Her Mexican flag status has been cancelled and she is now under Panama-nian registry. With Captain Edward Boyd in command, she departed Progreso, sailing viaSuez for Singapore and her Special Survey. Edward was relieved in Colombo by Captain HusseinAugbaya. In Singapore, Sung Kong was docked at Pan United Shipyard under the supervisionof Ip Kam Wah. Once her docking was complete, she sailed for Hong Kong to rejoin the fleetafter seven years' absence. With continued growth on Hong Kong Harbour her presence willbe required until the arrival of the newbuildings from Cheoy Lee.

After Christmas, Mai Po began work with McDermott, towing the crane barge DB27 fromDubai to India. Although it looked like an excellent start to 2005, the charter was cut shortand Mai Po returned early to Dubai. Since then, she has maintained a reasonable utilisationon the spot market with Lamnalco and Saipem charters, whilst waiting for the work in Sakhalinto commence. Mai Po had a very successful 2004, maintaining a high utilisation that sur-passed our expectations.

Over the past six months, business on Hong Kong Harbour has grown steadily, mainly due toincreased container ship calls. Towage to Lamma power station has seen a significant improve-ment, while Tolo Harbour has remained steady. The Hong Kong fleet now consists of 12 tugs,although one tug is normally out of service for docking, survey, or general maintenance.

Shatin, Ting Kau and Yuen Kok are the latest Hongkong Salvage & Towage newbuildings andthe next generation of harbour tugs to be added to our local fleet. They are due for deliveryin May and June. For the first time in the company's history Cheoy Lee, based in Hong Kongand Mainland China, was chosen as the preferred yard.

The new tugs are based on the previous Sha Chau coastal class, having a length of 29 metresand a beam of 9.5 metres, with maximum draft of 3.81 metres, and they are designed to beoperated as three-man harbour tugs. The internal design, including the accommodation, is

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N E W B U I L D I N G R E P L A C E M E N T P R O G R A M M E

similar to the earlier class, while the only external difference is the removal of the aft winch,which has been replaced by a towing hook. Plimsoll will provide the deck machinery, and theforward winch will be fitted with our standard 110 metres of 96-millimetre Supermix rope.

With the increasing size of container vessels calling here, these tugs are designed to meetHong Kong Harbour's future requirements. With 4,000 BHP and an expected bollard pull ofover 50 tons they will be a worthy addition to the harbour fleet. Other changes include areturn to Niigata 6L26HLX engines, with Omega clutches and ZP-31 Z drive propulsion units.These tugs will increase total HUD Marine tug fleet numbers to 25, of which, 13 tugs will bebased in Hong Kong.

AMS continues to grow market share in each of the ports where it operates, with towagemovements averaging 20-25% more than a year ago. This increase is, of course, also a re-flection of Australia's buoyant economy and therefore increased shipping activity, with AMSsecuring a significant percentage of the increased business.

Brisbane reverted back to a two-tug operation when Chek Chau departed for Port Botany toallow Botany (ex Peng Chau) to proceed to dry dock at Port Macquarie. John Hosie, assistedby Colin Stein, is superintending the repair and maintenance period and to date they arevery pleased with the commitment and flexibility being shown by the yard management. It isanticipated that Botany will be back in service in the third week of April, at which timeHunter (ex Shek O) will be released from AMS service and will return to Hong Kong, beforeproceeding to Russia for the Sakhalin charter, as mentioned above.

At the time of writing, Sung Kong is steaming towards Cairns, where she will be handed overto AMS before sailing for Brisbane. On arrival she will be taking over from Gibson (ex Yam O),which, with her sister, will be mobilising to Russia. This class of tug is not best suited tooperations in Australia, where they operate with a three-man crew, and so their replacementby simpler harbour tugs will be of benefit to our operations. The end result is that AMS willhave the sisters Ngan Chau and Sung Kong at Brisbane and Peng Chau and Chek Chau at PortBotany.

It is anticipated our Brisbane operation will move to a new base located at Whyte Island inthe middle of the year. This base is slightly further away from Fisherman's Island, but themove will be welcomed by all, given the close proximity of the coal stockpile at the QBHbase.

A U S T R A L I A N M A R I T I M E S E R V I C E S

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The Botany base location is also under review, because of the planned expansion of the port'scontainer terminals. More on this topic in later issues.

On 1st March 2005 Australian Maritime Services' Melbourne-based tugs were engaged toundertake the berthing, and subsequent sailing, of the Chinese heavy-lift ship Zhen Hau 5.

Zhen Hau 5 is a 50,000 deadweight-tonne bulk carrier converted into a heavy-lift ship bymodifying her main deck and increasing her beam to 45 metres by means of saddle tanks oneach side. Aboard was a post-panamax container crane to be delivered to P&O's Melbournecontainer terminal at West Swanson Dock. The A$10 million portainer crane is one of threedelivered into Australia, and is believed to be the largest of its type in the southern hemi-sphere. Nine more are on order. Built in Shanghai by Zhenhua Port Machine Company, thecrane was shipped in two sections. When operational, it has a boom length out-reach of 45metres. This new generation portainer is required to meet the demands of 4,000+ TEU shipspredicted to visit Melbourne once channel deepening has taken place.

T O W A G E W I T H A D I F F E R E N C E

The mammoth container crane faced challenging logistical constraints when transitting theWestgate Bridge, requiring the heavy-lift ship to ballast down to the maximum permitteddraft for the river transit, and to lower the boom to near horizontal. There was less than onemetre clearance under the Westgate Bridge, which has a 52-metre air draft.

To facilitate the transit and position keeping while the vessel was de-ballasting in the SwansonDock swing basin, Port Philip Sea Pilots specifically ordered both AMS tugs for the towage opera-tion and also requested one tug to be supplied by our competitors, Adsteam Towage. However, asAdsteam was unable to provide the third tug, the PPSP decided to proceed with the operation withjust the two AMS tugs, Flinders and Yarra, in attendance. The four-hour towage operation wascompleted without a hitch, to the total satisfaction of all concerned.

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AMS tugs, Flindersand Yarra in action.

HUD Marine AUSTRALIAN MARITIME SERVICES

21

Modern Terminals

After almost eight years as Managing Director and CEO of Modern Terminals, Erik BøghChristensen has decided to step down and - after more than 25 years in Hong Kong - ispreparing to return to his native Denmark.

Modern Termina ls ' Board of D i rectors has appointed thecompany's Deputy Managing Director, Sean Kelly (right), as Man-aging Director and new CEO. Mr Kelly, formerly a senior execu-tive with American President Lines, has been with Modern Termi-nals for five and a half years, his appointment will take effectfrom 1st April. Mr Christensen will continue as Senior Directorof Modern Terminals, and during a transition period until Sep-tember 2005, he will be supporting the Board and managementon a full time basis on special projects including Mainland Chinadevelopment projects.

On 8th March 2005, customers, business associates and government officials joined us whenModern Terminals hosted a quayside ceremony at Kwai Chung to celebrate the 50-millionthTEU to pass through our facilities.

The Secretary for Economic Development and Labour, Mr Stephen Ip, G.B.S., JP, said in aspeech at the event: "Way back in 1972, Modern Terminals invested and operated the firstpurpose-built container terminal in Hong Kong. Since then, Modern Terminals has been play-ing an important role in the development of the Hong Kong port.” Erik Bøgh Christensen,Modern Terminals' Managing Director, meanwhile told the gathering that the company wasvery proud to welcome its 50 millionth TEU: "This milestone event takes place at a significanttime in our company's history. As an integral part of our commitment to continue to growwith our customers, we have recently brought all our four new berths at Container Terminal 9(South) into full operation."

Looking back in time, it took us 16 years to handle our first 10 million TEUs at Modern Termi-nals, but we handled the last 10 million TEUs - from 40 million to 50 million - in less than twoand a half years. Adding more terminal land at Kwai Chung has facilitated Hong Kong's con-tinuous increase in annual throughput, however, our impressive productivity gains have been

equally important in supporting our expansion. Today, Modern Terminals handles more than50,000 TEUs per hectare of land, which is double the productivity of 10 years ago.

With continuous facility enhancements and productivity gains, and with the support of theHong Kong SAR Government, the total throughput capacity of Hong Kong's current dedi-cated container terminals is targeted to rise to 24 million TEUs a year, compared to its capa-city of 15 million TEUs prior to the completion of CT9.

To maintain our position as a leading international container terminal operator, Modern Ter-minals has recently launched a HK$1+ billion project that will comprehensively upgrade ourfacilities at Container Terminals 1, 2 and 5 (CT125). The objectives are to boost total through-

N E W C E O

Photo Caption (from left): Mr Sean Kelly, Deputy Managing Director of Modern Terminals; Ms.Sandra Lee, Permanent Secretary for Economic Development; Mr Erik Bøgh Christensen,Managing Director of Modern Terminals; Mr Stephen Ip, Secretary for Economic Developmentand Labour; Mr Gonzaga Li, Senior Deputy Chairman of The Wharf (Holdings) Ltd; Ms. AliceLau, Acting Deputy Secretary for Economic Development and Labour.

M I L E S T O N E C E R E M O N Y M A R K S T H E H A N D L I N G O F5 0 - M I L L I O N T H C O N TA I N E R

F A C I L I T I E S U P G R A D E T O B O O S T C A PA C I T Y A N DP R O D U C T I V I T Y

22

put capacity by up to 25%, by enhancing our productivity and efficiency to meet current andfuture customer requirements. The project will also support the recommendation of the Gov-ernment-commissioned Hong Kong Port Master Plan 2020, which is to improve existing op-erations at Kwai Chung Port before constructing additional terminals.

CT125 were originally de-signed and built around 30years ago with an alongsidedraft of 12.2 metres mCDand 13-ac ross quays idec ranes to ca te r fo r the2,500-TEU container vesselsthen in use. The quay deckswere upgraded in 1997 toaccommodate larger vesselsand quay crane loading; andthe berths were deepenedto -14 metres mCD in 2003to a l ign them wi th thealongside draft of the initialphase of Rambler Channeldredging for Container Ter-minal 9 (CT9). Neverthe-less, the company intends tofurther enhance the stan-dards of CT125 facilities, sothey match those of the new berths at CT9 (South) and meet the needs of the increasinglylarge container vessels now being constructed. Plans have already been drawn up for vesselsthat will carry over 12,000 containers, and the water depth alongside CT125 will be dredgedto -15.5 metres mCD.

To keep pace with demand, the company will deploy six new quayside gantry cranes at CT125,with an outreach capability of 22 boxes across a ship's deck; four more such mega-cranes willalso be installed at CT9 (South). The existing, obsolete rail-mounted gantry crane (RMG) stack-ing area will be converted into a rubber-tyred gantry crane (RTG) yard, with the capacity tostack containers six high. Other terminal equipment is being rationalised and the quay deckis being strengthened to accommodate heavier cranes and higher mooring/berthing loads.The yard layout, gatehouses and workshop are all being reconfigured.

The upgrade project is scheduled for completion in phases in 2005 and 2006. As a result,CT125 will be able to handle the new generation of ultra-large vessels; the company will alsohave sufficient yard area, stacking capacity and equipment to satisfy customers' needs forquayside productivity of 150-200 moves per hour.

Modern Terminals handled 4,350,000 TEUs during 2004 - just under 10% more than the2003 throughput figure. This represents a good performance, considering the very competi-tive market conditions last year and the high figure for 2003.

It has been recognised bylocal industry stakeholdersthat severa l ine ff i c i entregulatory barriers govern-ing trucking arrangementsbetween Hong Kong andGuangdong Province haveresulted in cost disadvan-tages to Hong Kong. Theseinclude the ‘four-up-four-down rule’; high licensingfees levied on Hong Kongtrucks by the Guangdongauthorities, and strict l i-censing rules that al lowonly one Hong Kong truckdriver to be registered un-der each cross-boundary li-cence. The reported relax-ation of the ‘four-up-four-down rule’ on 1st Januarythis year is a good sign thatprogress is starting to be made on measures that will improve Hong Kong's competitiveness.If the Hong Kong and Guangdong governments continue to cooperate in resolving such is-sues, a level playing field will develop. Hong Kong can then expect to grow in line with theentire South China market, and this will benefit all concerned.

H O N G K O N G M A I N TA I N S C O M P E T I T I V E E D G E I N2 0 0 4

ModernTerminals FACILITIES UPGRADE TO BOOST CAPACITY AND PRODUCTIVITY

23

Swire Pacific Ship Management Hong Kong

P R O M O T I O N S

Our congratulations to the following officers:

Bernie Santos has been promoted to Master, with effect from October 2004.

Chris De Villiers has been promoted to Chief Engineer with effect from November 2004. InJanuary 2005, Chris acted as the Assistant Superintendent assisting Senior Ship ManagerPatrick Lee in overseeing the dockings of Chekiang (now renamed Pacific Voyager) and TasmanCommander.

Valeriy Didenko has been promoted to Chief Engineer with effect from February 2005.

Elmer Germanelo, Mykola Titov, Adrian Chesterman and Lin Jin Wei have all beenpromoted to Chief Officers.

Liu Wen Guang and Andriy Sydorenko have been promoted to Second Engineers.

Certificates of Competency have been achieved by Deck Cadet Ding Zhou Bo and EngineCadets Fan Yue Jun and Qin Kai; they are now sailing as Fourth Officer and Fourth/FifthEngineer in the fleet.

We welcome the following officers:

Chief Officer: Wang Yu HuiSecond Officer: O. YakushevThird Officers: M. Lyfar, I. Ter-Grygoryan, Guo Jin, Lin and Qing FuSecond Engineer: Hu JieThird Engineer: Yu Jin KunElectrical Officers: Li Yan Bin , Lin Gui Yun

Our congratulations to the following officers:

Assistant Master Rajendran Havinarayanah has been promoted to Master and has takencommand of Pacific Sword.

O F F I C E R R E C R U I T M E N T

M A N N I N G E S TA B L I S H M E N T

Assistant Master Simon Lee has been promoted to Master and has taken command of PacificCommander.

Assistant Master Stephen Tudor has been promoted to Master and has taken command ofPacific Shogun.

Second Officer John Bradley has been promoted to Chief Officer on board Pacific Shogun.

Second Off icer Ben Kilgour has been promoted to Chief Off icer on board Pacif icCommodore.

Second Engineer Danny Chong has been promoted to Chief Engineer and has joined PacificCommander.

Second Engineer Sivakuma Ramudu has been promoted to Chief Engineer on board PacificWorker.

Second Engineer Andrew Lynch has been promoted to Chief Engineer and is currentlyassisting as project manager.

Second Engineer Ieuan Dolby has been promoted to Chief Engineer and has joined PacificRanger.

Recruitment continued in the early part of the year and we welcome the following officers:

Captains: Bendt KristensenWayne GrantTheo Wit

Chief Officer: Keith Miller

Second Officers: Christopher GrayTimothy RyndGlen Murdock

Chief Engineer: Ronald Van Riet

Swire Pacific Ship Management Singapore

R E C R U I T M E N T

24

Second Engineers: Alex ShepelGreg SandersDaniel Leather

Third Engineers: Simon BrewerJohn BurlsEdward LancasterEric Seagreen

Chief Engineer Niall ‘Jock’ Sommerville has been seconded ashore to assist with thesupervision of the building of the ‘R’ Class vessels.

Chief Engineer David Forbes has been seconded ashore to oversee the f leet-wideimplementation of TM Master.

Captain Noel Leith and Chief Engineer Paul Leitch have been seconded ashore to assist withvessel design.

We welcome the following officers who have joined Prisco Swire Offshore:

Captains: Konstantin Dudarev and Nikolay GrinenkoChief Engineers: Leonid Kuchenin and Georgy DermenzhiChief Officer: Oleg BykonSecond Officers: Evgeny Maydanovich and Anatoliy LomakinSecond Engineer: Vitaliy Nosychenko

John Swire & Sons (HK) Limited's Head of Group Retirement Benefits, Paul Moore, gives anupdate of the Scheme's performance:

R E V I E W O F 2 0 0 4"Market rallies, which began in the second quarter of 2003 after any uncertainty as to whether

Swire Pacific Ship Management Singapore RECRUITMENT

T R A N S F E R S / S E C O N D M E N T S

S P S M P R O V I D E N T F U N D 1 9 9 0 ( T H E S C H E M E ) R E C E N TP O R T F O L I O P E R F O R M A N C E A N D C H A N G E I N I N V E S T-M E N T S T R U C T U R E

the US and its allies were going to invade Iraq was removed, continued into 2004. Over theyear the Investment returns were 15.32% against a benchmark return of 14.94%.

During 2004 world equity markets, as measured by the MSCI All Country World Index, rose by15.7% in US dollar terms, with the majority of the positive performance coming in the finalquarter. Looking at individual regions, North America added 11.3% whilst Europe added 31.3%.Developed markets in the Pacific region (basically Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, Singaporeand New Zealand) added 19.3% and the rest of Asia put on 15.3%. Returns between coun-tries within the same region were fairly diverse - Norway added 54.4%, whilst its neighbourFinland added only 7.1%, Indonesia added 52.1%, whilst Thailand suffered a slight fall of-0.9%.

Fixed income markets also provided satisfactory returns, with the MSCI Global Total BondIndex adding 9.6% over the year. (It was up 13.0% in 2003).

You may recall that in writing about the positive results achieved in 2003 I said that it shouldbe recognised that such returns came on the back of three years of negative returns. Accord-ingly, US$100 invested into the benchmark asset mix on 1st January 2000 would have onlybeen worth US$92.64 as at 31st December 2003. At 31st December 2004 the same US$100invested on 1st January 2000 would have been worth US$106.47. Indeed, the unit price at31st December 2004, at US$21.808, was the highest yet achieved.

The last five years for the Scheme have been somewhat of a roller-coaster ride, with the unitprice falling from US$20.483 as at 31st December 1999 to a low of US$13.976 as at 31stMarch 2003. Subsequent rallies in both the equities and bond asset classes have helped in-crease the unit value and reverse the previous losses. However, if we take a longer-term viewit can be seen that the unit price has increased by 6.95% p.a. over the 10 years to 31stDecember 2004 and by 8.79% p.a. in the 25 years since 1980.

Coming into 2004, Prudential had been the sole manager of the Scheme's investments for anumber of years. Members who can recall my previous reports will be aware that your Scheme'sInvestment Committee were aware that the manager’s performance against benchmark tendedto be somewhat of a 'curate's egg' - below benchmark performance in 2001 and 2002(-1.60% and -1.51% respectively) was followed by an out-performance of 5.12% in 2003. Asat 31st December 2003 the manager had outperformed its benchmark by 0.85% p.a. over theprevious five years, but only by 0.19% p.a. over a three-year period. The Investment Commit-

C H A N G E O F S C H E M E S T R U C T U R E

25

tee stated last year that they'd like to be in a position where the Scheme is able to achieve orbetter its 1.25% annual out-performance target on a consistent basis.

A review of various retirement benefit scheme structures at a Swire group level conducted in2003 showed that a specialist manager structure (i.e. one where various asset classes areallocated to different managers) was more likely to produce consistent above-benchmark re-turns than a policy of giving responsibility for all asset classes to a single manager. However,in order to benefit from a specialist approach, an individual scheme needs to have a certainamount of assets under management, as there is a point below which dividing assets be-tween managers becomes impractical. To solve this asset-size problem for the smaller schemesin the Swire group (and also to benefit from various economies of scale) a structure wasdeveloped and implemented in mid-2003 such that the assets of a number of Swire groupschemes have been combined into a single investment pool (more specifically two investmentpools - one covering equities, the other dealing with fixed income). Your Scheme now ownsunits in the various investment pools and so now has access to a structure employing severalspecialist managers (11 in the equities pool, three in the fixed income pool) with the hopethat this will provide for more robust benchmark out-performance going forward.

In terms of benchmark, your Scheme is currently invested 70% in equities and 30% in fixedincome. The equities benchmark is further split to be 37.5% North America, 22.5% Europe,30% Asia ex-Japan and 10% Japan. In addition, the manager mix chosen is intended to achievean annual out-performance of approximately 2% p.a. over a three-year period.

As ever, the performance of the Scheme will continue to be closely monitored."

SPSM Hong Kong's Fleet Mail Clerk, Peter Wang, retiredfrom our service on 28th March 2005, after completingover 40 years of service with the Group. Peter is replacedby Tony Yip, who has been transferred from Swire Ship-ping Agencies. Tony should be known to some of you serv-ing on vessels calling into Hong Kong as he used to be theBoarding Officer for the CNCo ships. We wish Peter a veryhappy retirement and welcome Tony to our team.

ETO Peter Byers has recently retired after almost 10 years'service, having joined the company in June 1995. An

R E T I R E M E N T S

experienced and competent ETO, Peter always worked to a very high standard. His technicalskills included extensive experience with electronics. Peter was always ready to help othermembers of the department, and with his easy-going personality, got on well with everyoneon board. We wish Peter and his wife Brenda every happiness.

N.C. Baby, the Chief Stores andWarehouseman for SPO Dubai, re-t i red on 31st March, after 25years' service. To mark the occa-sion, a farewell party was held onan Arab Dhow in Dubai Creek, at-tended by SPO Dubai office staffand their families. General Man-ager Nigel Lace made a retire-ment presentation of a laptopcomputer, which Baby will be put-ting to good use, running a kin-dergarten and primary school inKerala. So much for any thoughtsof a less stressful way of life be-ing pampered by his wife, Amala,under the shade of a rubber tree!

Nigel commented:

"During Baby's time with SPO there have been eight different General Man-agers. All have had the greatest respect for Baby, who was known for hisdependability and unfailing cheerfulness.

I first came across Baby in 1981 when I was posted to the Dubai Office tohelp out whilst Julian Thorogood was away for his annual leave. The nexttime we worked together was when I returned as Technical Manager in 1987.

By this time Baby's empire was expanding and not only did he have a ware-house with outside yard, but had also a wharf with workshop under his con-trol, and he was making serious moves towards acquiring our first forklift

Swire Pacific Chairman, David Turnbull presented a gold pin toPeter Wang on his retirement.

N C Baby (third from right) and his daughter Bessy, wife Amala andson Benoy, with Nigel and Mary Lace.

B Y E - B Y E B A B Y

26

The CNCo Australian reunion took place on 27th February 2005. Twenty-nine people attendedthe Chinese lunch at North Ryde Golf Club. Next year's event is planned for the last Sunday inFebruary and will follow the usual format. Following the great success of the NZ reunion the‘Australasian’ title has been dropped in favour of ‘Australian’.

S Y D N E Y R E U N I O N

Many congratulations toETO Vince Cullen andh i s w i fe Me l , on thebirth of a daughter, LelaAnnabel, on 26th Janu-ary 2005. Lela weighedin at 3.4 kg.

Congratulations to JuniorOfficer Marc Bagley andhis partner Ruth on thebirth of Isobel Rose, whowas born on 24th Febru-ary 2005 and weighed inat 7lb 8oz.

The first New Zealand Swire Mariners get-together was held in Auckland on 28th Novemberlast year at Pompinos Restaurant on Quay Street. The event was organised by Nick Edwardsand those attending included: Colin and Shigeko Taylor, David and Ainsley Ewings, Mac andRuth Post, Charlie and Wendy Nisbet, John and Helen Briggs, Andrew and Rosy Mitchell,Rupert Fairbrother, Gordon Smith, Caroline Parker, Mike and Helen Butcher, Peter King, Brookeand Maureen Hibberdine, Ken and Margaret Toon, Graham and Shelley Ward, Chris and Char-lotte Bleasdale, and Nick and Yoko Edwards. The next reunion will take place on 27th Novem-ber, when it is hoped to arrange a curry lunch.

B I R T H S

N Z R E U N I O N

Proud father of the bride, SPO ChiefEngineer Tom Messham and his wifeRaewyn have sent us this photographtaken at his daughter Zara's weddingto Daniel Rose in Sydney on 3rd April2005. The happy couple are honey-mooning on Pacific Sun in the Islands.

Congratulations to:

Captain John Madeley and his wife Diane, who were married in Truro, Cornwall, on 29thDecember 2004.

Second Officer Lu Jun and his wife Lu Yan, who were married in Shi Jia Zhuang on 11thNovember 2004.

Samuel Mboe, SPO West Africa's accountant, and his wife Augusta weremarried on 18th December 2004.

M A R R I A G E S

truck. Baby being the only person (with the exception of Captain Chris Fox) who could drivethe thing.

For the past 25 years, the team of [B.V.] Kumar and Baby have kept the vessels supplied withall the various day-to-day commodities required to keep them working and I would not like tocalculate how many miles Baby has travelled between Dubai, Jebel Ali, Sharjah and Ajman.This team has gained so much experience over the years that whenever things go wrong myfirst thought is to ask Baby what we did to fix the problem the last time it happened. Baby hasalways been capable of providing the solution".

As reported on page 13, Baby's shoes are to be filled by Alexander Lao.

We regret to advise that Bosun Cedric B Mokaburami passed away as a result ofheart failure on the night of 13th December onboard Papuan Chief when the vesselwas about to arrive at Napier. Cedric was only 53 years of age, and had served withthe company for over 33 years, having joined his first ship, Coral Chief, in July 1971.He was survived by his wife Deideigu and three children. A very generous donationfor his family was collected from the fleet, and has been matched by CNCo. Ourdeepest sympathies go to Cedric's family.

D E AT H

Swire Pacific Ship Management Singapore RETIREMENTS

27

Chris Nugent, Marine PersonnelCoordinator for JS&S London,has sent this dramaticphotograph of a tornado takenwhile on holiday in Majorca lastyear.

Over 50 ex-Hong Kong Swire mariners attended the second CNCo Reunion on 14th Janu-ary at the Rosedale Hotel. It was a great evening, enjoyed by all, with lots of good food,good wine, good laughter and good karaoke! This event was organised by Marso Law -now serving as a senior Hong Kong Pilot. It is hoped that this reunion will be heldannually.

H O N G K O N G R E U N I O N

This evocative picture of Kwangsi ready for launching at Taikoo Dockyard in 1959 was sent in by retiredCNCo Master, Captain Cyril Cocksedge.

28

Headline News A roundup of news fromaround the Swire group

JOHN SWIRE & SONS

SWIRE PACIFIC

Clyde Agr icu l ture has purchased 1 ,660hectares (4,103 acres) adjoining its Netherwaystation. The country consists of a propertyknown as Gidgenbah and part of Ottendorf. Itis a l l arable farming country and wi l l addfurther scale to Netherway - the company’s topper fo rming s ta t ion in 2004. C l yde pa idA$1,087/hectare (A$440/acre) for the land.

A major extension to Swire Cold Storage’sCannon Hill facility in Brisbane was completedin October last year. Cannon Hill now offers 7.4million cubic feet of refrigerated storage space,incorporating freezer (-20ºC) chiller (3ºC) andconfectionery (15ºC) rooms, blast freezing andchilling tunnels. A new innovation is Pick toVoice technology, which enables store workersto interact with the facility’s Warehouse Man-agement System via voice commands.

Kalari Holdings Pty Limited has been awardeda five-year road transport contract for the Ilukamineral sands Douglas project. Road transportoperations are scheduled to commence in thethird quarter of 2005 and Kalari will transportmineral sands concentrate from the Douglasmine to the minera l s separat ion p lant inHamilton, and finished product to the port ofPortland for export.

The Swire Pacific group has declared a profitattributable to shareholders for the year 2004of HK$6,544 million, a 33% increase on 2003’sf igure of HK$4,922 mi l l ion. Turnover wasHK$18,324 million, up from HK$17,387 millionin 2003. This reflects a sharp and broad basedrecovery, which has benefited the majority ofthe group’s operations.

PropertiesSwire Properties Limited signed agreementslast year with two international tenants to lease140,000 square feet of the newly completedThree Pacific Place at Admiralty in Hong Kong -representing 26% of the building. Two SocieteGenerale divisions, SG Corporate & InvestmentBanking and Fimat, will lease 67,000 square feetin the top zone of Three Pacific Place, whilstPhi l ips Electronics Hong Kong Limited wil loccupy five floors - 75,000 square feet - of theGrade A office development.

AviationThe Cathay Pac i f i c A i rways g roup hasreported a profit attributable to shareholdersof HK$4,417 million, a 239% increase on 2003’sf igure of HK$1,303 mi l l ion. Turnover wasHK$39,065 million, up from HK$29,578 millionin 2003. This represents the airline’s second-bestfull-year results on record, and would have beenits best, but for the sharp rise in fuel prices.Cathay Pacific launched a daily freighter serviceto Shanghai on 27th January. Th is i s thesecond Mainland China destination for the air-line. Meanwhile, Cathay Pacific has acquired9.9% of Air China, and will explore furtheropportunities for developing a closer partner-ship between the two airlines, with possiblefuture cooperation in areas such as marketing,engineering, ground-handling, catering, cargo,IT, purchasing, safety and security, and theexchange and secondment of staff.

Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering CompanyLimited (HAECO) has announced results for 2004,recording a profit attributable to shareholders ofHK$438 million, an increase of 27% on the figureof HK$345 million recorded in 2003; turnover wasHK$2,153 million, up from HK$1,987 million in2003. Earlier this year, HAECO signed an agree-

ment with the Airport Authority to build a sec-ond hangar at Hong Kong International Airport.The new facility will be able to accommodate twowide-bodied aircraft, and is scheduled to startoperation in the first quarter of 2007. It will havethe capability to undertake all maintenance andmodification work currently handled in HongKong. A new line maintenance facility, located inthe cargo apron area, will also be built to improveservices to freighter customers and will be com-pleted in ear ly 2006. HAECO has recentlyextended its franchise to operate at HongKong International Airport from July 2018 to July2031.

All-cargo carrier, AHK Air Hong Kong hastaken delivery of six new Airbus A300-600GFGeneral Freighters. AHK is the first airline inthe wor ld to opera te th i s new f re ighte rvariant, which features a unique cargo loadingsystem, capable of handling almost any type ofcontainer or pallet. The airline has confirmedoptions to buy two more A300-600GFs, fordelivery in May and June 2006.

Taikoo (X iamen) Ai rc raft Engineer ingCompany Limited (TAECO) is to increase itsparticipation in the Boeing 747-400 SpecialFreighter conversion programme, following theaward by Boeing of a further 20 passenger andcombi aircraft for conversion to freighters. Thecompany had already contracted with Boeingto conver t the f i r s t 13 a i rc ra f t in th i sprogramme. In January, an agreement wassigned between TAECO, Taikoo (Shandong)Aircraft Engineering Company (STAECO)and Pemco Aviation Group establishing a cargoconversion partnership for Mainland China andthe Asia Pacific region.

BeveragesSwire Guangdong Coca-Cola (Huizhou)Limited is constructing a new bottling plant inthe Huizhou Zhongkai Hi-tech DevelopmentZone. Scheduled for completion in June, theplant will have six production lines, and the

product ion capac i ty i s expected to reach400,000 tonnes a year.

Swire Coca-Cola Hong Kong has acquired theHealthworks ready-to-drink beverage businessin Hong Kong. Healthworks applies the wisdomof traditional Chinese medicine in daily life andoffers seven different varieties of ‘wellness’ bev-erages including: Self-heal Spike Drink, Chry-santhemum Drink, Chinese Prayer-beads Drink,American Ginseng Honey Drink, Wild JujubeJuice, Self-heal Spike, Mulberry & Chrysanthe-mum Drink.

Trading & IndustrialLiberty Motors was officially appointed as animporter for Audi motorcars in Ta iwan inOctober last year. The company started to dis-tribute Audi cars in May 2002 and has success-fully lifted Audi’s brand image and increasedits market share. In February, Volkswagen AGs igned an agreement appo in t ing Ta ikooMotors Taiwan (TMT) as its sole importer ofVolkswagen Commercial Vehicles in Taiwan. Tocoincide with the appointment, a range of newproducts - Multivan, California, Transporter,Shuttle and LT - were launched in Taiwan.

Construction work on Swire SITA’s new Main-land hazardous waste incineration plant, theShanghai Chemical Industry Park, commenced inlate November 2004 and is expected to completein mid-2006. The SCIP plant, with a throughputcapacity of 60,000 tonnes per year, will be thelargest hazardous waste treatment facility inChina, and the first one designed according toEuropean Union environmental standards.

Meanwhile, in January, Swire SITA signed anMOU with Towngas to jo int ly explore thefeasibility of utilising the landfill gas at WENTLandf i l l . WENT i s one of the la rgest anddeepes t l andf i l l s i n the wor ld and hassignificant potential for capturing and convert-ing gas for distribution to Towngas end usersin Western New Territories.