Page 31: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (April 1992)

C.F. Laborde Elected

Senior VP, Co-General

Counsel Of Tidewater

Tidewater Inc. recently elected

Cliff F. Laborde as senior vice president and co-general counsel of the global oil service company. Mr.

Laborde's duties include the corporation's litigation, claims, insurance and contracts depart- ments. He also oversees the safety department.

With the addition of Mr.

Laborde, Tidewater's legal depart- ment has been divided into two groups: litigation and contracts, handled by Mr. Laborde, and other legal matters, handled by Victor I.

Koock, senior vice president, secre- tary and co-general counsel, handles other corporate legal matters. Mr.

Koock is also responsible for corpo- rate development, mergers and ac- quisitions, employee relations, ad- ministrative services and realty of oil and gas.

Prior to joining Tidewater, Mr.

Laborde was a partner in the New

Orleans law firm Gelpi, Sullivan,

Carroll & Laborde for 13 years. He was previously associated with the law firm of Phelps Dunbar in New

Orleans. Mr. Laborde is a member of the American, federal and Louisi- ana State Bar associations. He also holds membership in the Maritime

Law Association of the United

States, the Louisiana Association of

Defense Counsel and the Offshore

Marine Service Association.

MMS Receives

Five Ship Contract

From Oglebay Norton

Marine Management Systems (MMS), Inc., Stamford, Conn., re- cently received a contract to imple- ment additional MMS ship manage- ment systems on-board five vessels operated by Oglebay Norton Com- pany.

The new shipboard condition monitoring and planned mainte- nance systems will be integrated with MMS systems already in use in

Oglebay Norton's Cleveland office.

Adding these systems to the ships will connect the shore office to the ships more effectively, providing full system integration and increasing operating efficiency and perfor- mance.

The condition monitoring system will allow ship's engineers to detect problems in equipment before fail- ures occur, utilizing vibration-based predictive maintenance techniques.

The planned maintenance system is designed to reduce vessel repair and downtime expenditures by allowing the company to effectively manage a scheduled maintenance program.

MMS will also be providing

Oglebay Norton with complete hard- ware packages for each ship which will offer prompt replacement of hardware components on a world- wide basis. MMS will be performing on-site database preparation, train-

April, 1992 ing, startup assistance and compre- hensive technical support.

MMS has been providing com- puterized ship management systems to the marine industry for over 20 years, and currently has installed almost 500 active systems world- wide, operating at more than 250 shipboard and shoreside locations.

For more information about MMS ship management systems,

Circle 29 on Reader Service Card

U.S. Cruise Ships Poised

To Sail To Havana

Should Castro Be Ousted

Should the Castro government fall, industry experts say U.S.-based cruise ships that have had to sail around Cuba for the past 30 years would be among the first symbols of capitalism to return to the island.

There would be no need to wait for Cuba to rebuild its antiquated hotels, communications and infra- structure, since the luxurious ocean- going ships stock their own food, water and supplies. Vans and auto- mobiles could be carried aboard many of the big ships for tourists to use as ground transportation on the island.

According to one projection, as many as 2.4 million passengers could disembark annually in Cuba within 10 years of a change in its commu- nist government. The figure includes about 600,000 passengers traveling from Miami to Havana aboard eight- story high-speed ferries, much like those used in Europe.

Contingency plans for entering the Cuban market have already been prepared by many major U.S.-based cruise ship lines.

Cuba is reeling from the disman- tling of its former key trading part- ner, the Soviet Union, and tourists from Europe and Canada remain important contributors to the Cu- ban economy.

Cuba, which has a population of about 10 million, is in the middle of the world's most popular cruising waters.

Subic Naval Base

Losing Its Drydocks

A big blow has been dealt to the

Philippines by Washington's deci- sion to remove the three U.S. Navy floating drydocks from the Subic

Naval Base. Plans had called for conversion of the area into a com- mercial ship repair facility.

Recently, the smallest of the floating drydocks was towed out to

Guam preparatory to a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces by Decem- ber. The others are due to be taken out before the onset of the rainy season in May.

The U.S. Navy will soon start laying off its 4,000 Filipino ship re- pair personnel, many of whom will likely seek employment in other countries, such as Singapore.

Manila, which appears to have been jolted by the developments, had pleaded for the retention of the drydocks while offering a commer- cial access arrangement with the

U.S.

Plans are now being considered by Philippine authorities to reserve

Subic for commercial port opera- tions and transfer its ship repair functions to the Philippine Ship- yard & Engineering Corp., located some 8.9 miles from Subic.

MarAd Issues 1991 Survey

Of U.S. Shipbuilding

And Repair Facilities

The Maritime Administration has issued its "Report on Survey of U.S.

Shipbuilding and Repair Facilities for 1991."

The report may be obtained from

MarAd's Office of External Affairs,

Room 7219 (phone 202/366-5807) or the Division of Ship Production,

Room 2116 (phone 202/366-5841,

Nassif Building, 400 Seventh Street

S.W., Washington, D.C. 20590.

Major Undiscovered

Oil Reserves

May Be Present In U.S.

A recent study showed that there may be reserves of undiscovered oil in the continental U.S. The study of the Bakken Shale formation in North

Dakota revealed that the previous presence of oil between layers of bedrock may not be as large as was originally believed.

As a result, oil that may have seeped to other formations may still be in or near the Bakken Shale for- mation, meaning that there could possibly be billions of barrels of un- discovered oil.

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Circle 242 on Reader Service Card

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Circle 339 on Reader Service Card 105