China’s Ministry of Transport suspends crew changes of two shipmanagers

The Chinese Ministry of Transport has announced a decision to suspend crew change operations for all two ship managers' vessels due to community coronavirus infections on the company-managed vessels.

During port inspections, Chinese health authorities discovered 15 crewmembers contaminated with coronavirus on board the 2006-built panamax bulker Omicron Sky and 21 crewmembers on board the 2011-built panamax bulker Asia Spring.

Omicron Ship Management and Dia Yuan International Shipping operate the two vessels, respectively.

According to China's new crew change strategy, due to their incompetence in epidemic management, the authorities suspended the crew change for all vessels operated by the two companies for 30 days. The decision will be re-evaluated by the authorities before approval for potential crew changes is given to them.

A list issued by the Ministry of Transport shows that six vessels are managed by Omicron Ship Management and 17 vessels are managed by Dia Yuan.

Maritime Business World