Seychelles oil tanker ‘Career at Sea’ Seypec envisions an all-Seychellois crew by 2020 onwards |06 October 2017
Medlynn Esparon, Martin Roucou, Anthony Moulinie, Daniel Hoareau and Adrian Mondon are but the few vivid highlights of the successful ‘Career at Sea’ programme developed by the Seychelles Petroleum Company (Seypec) for over 15 years with five masters accredited. An impressive 63 trained and fully-fledged officers have since emerged on the human resource map of Seychelles. This is a new breed of professionals that are now skilled and experienced Seychellois mariners out there on mega oil tankers around the world earning international level salaries that are coming back to the Seychelles as well as global recognition alongside their foreign counterparts.
The oil tanker diversification project has not only yielded its economic and financial results. It has now produced a human development activity for our compatriots that are nowhere to be seen on the yearly balance sheets of the company, but yet, it is maybe the greatest achievement of this venture.
“It is most gratifying for me to see that we have produced a highly competent generation of mariners,” Seypec’s chief executive Conrad Benoiton explains.“An uptake in 2014 recruited a cohort of young Seychellois and we are now on a steady trend to man on our six tankers with an all-Seychellois crew in the coming years. The yearly cohort recruitment is a strategic and aggressive mission to attract, recruit and train young Seychellois enthusiasts who want to pursue a career in the maritime industry. It takes an investment of R1.5 million to commence training from a cadet to a Master or Chief Engineer – this is what the industry demands, and if one does not have the equitable trained and experienced crew matrix, oil majors will not grant a vetting approval for charters.”
More interesting times are signalled ahead as Seypec recently announced that the loans on the oil tankers are now fully erased from the list of liabilities. Presently the 115 active mariners coming from Seychelles are deployed on the five long-haul tankers and the one inter-island vessel. The financials being positive, the company can pursue its recruitment and training exercise with serenity as the company funds the programme entirely on its own. Actually, the critical question now is how to induce young Seychellois into that promising career. There is a need to recruit about 150 more young people in the coming years and the job does not look easy.
“We are ploughing to ensure this recruitment,” Mr Benoiton states. “We focus on encouraging young people to consider seafaring professions when making choices concerning their careers or their further education. We thrive to show them that seafaring is a viable, attractive and exciting career option. Many promising young Seychellois must be aware that a career on our tankers is a unique blend of variety encompassed in a single domain. With such an option they can combine a lot of different facets and acquire a lot of exposure in terms of professionalism, adaptability and travel. Up to now, Seypec has disbursed R78 million to obtain this new class of Seychellois expertise. We equally note these very same young men and women will in good time, through natural attrition, be ‘shore seasoned workforce’ that the country is also in need for now and the long term. This means that that we do not want the tanker business to bring in cash only but also allow another profitable activity with a human perspective.”
The recruitment and deployment process goes through all internationally approved procedures. With comprehensive agreements with the Seychelles Maritime Academy (SMA) and the Colombo International Nautical and Engineering College (CINEC), the path of competence acquisition is well under way. Further, with the expanded opportunity secured after an agreement in 2013 with the German Tanker Shipping (GTS), this platform is offering a unique exposure for our young Seychellois.
“This relationship with foreign tanker operators upgrades the integration of Seychellois mariners into the global oil shipping sector,” the Seypec CEO adds. “It puts our fellow young boys and girls into focus with comprehensive continental European training to attain internationally recognised level competencies and obtain European Certification. It allows a fast track progression as 36 months of sea time is needed over and above the certificates of studies before someone can climb to the next level. With an enlarged fleet of 18 vessels (including the five Seypec long-haul tankers) GTS provides just that.”
Without the human element factor of the agreement, Seypec would never have attained the number of 197 Seychellois mariners that it trained over the years and who have gone through systematically. It would have reached only 75 because the company would have been able to provide them with space on its five tankers only. With the pool of GTS and Seypec tankers it has therefore more than tripled the capacity for granting sea time to our young compatriots.
The other economic implication of this human development programme is the repatriation of salaries in forex to Seychelles. It is estimated that R80 million is sent back yearly to the country by its mariners and growing. This in itself represents a foreign exchange earner activity apart from the proceeds of the tankers’ operations. With the career advancement of the mariners and the new recruits, this amount is called to witness a substantial increase. This is part of the sustainable policy to build a competent and flexible workforce capable of meeting the challenges of the external and internal environments.
The company has in addition to international seafarers insurance policies covering mariners, a foreign pension scheme, put into place a ‘family medical plan’ that provides a range of medical insurance cover to the incumbent while on shore along with their spouse and children 24/7, 365 days a year to advanced medical facilities and treatment into leading hospitals outside Seychelles inclusive of flight repatriation, fully funded by the company as an extended condition of support to its mariners. This is a unique benefit, and without doubt, the first in the country as we seek to ensure that the personnel working for the country’s economic enhancement, and the wellbeing of their immediate family members are well safeguarded.
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