Risk Management for Vessels Maneuvering in Yangon Port

Abstract

Risk management has to be taken before performing any activities to prevent incident or accident or to minimize them. Particularly, navigational risk management for entering a port is also important among them as most of marine accidents happened in port areas around the world due to existence of navigational hazards, congested waters and other restricted conditions within port limits. For consideration risk management for entering a port, this paper has been based on formal assessment of the hazards and risks to navigation within the port which was introduced by the Port of London Authority (PLA), formal safety assessment of International Maritime Organization (IMO) and Hazard and Operability analysis (HAZOP) for hazard identification. Moreover, port legislation and the Port Marine Safety Code should also include this process, and then ship masters, officers and pilots should take it before entering a port. This study was also based on the method of data collection, phone interviewing, and my last 13 years seafarer experience in respect of navigation within the limit of the Yangon Port. The Yangon port is a river port which is far away from sea about 40 nautical miles and was a premier port of Myanmar, a port of handling 90 % of import/export cargoes of the Myanmar. This paper presents weak point of port authority, hazards and incidents occurred by master or pilot or port authority, and action taken not to occur incidents or accidents in the port of Yangon based on risk management.