Professional body for offshore marine warranty surveyors to launch

A new non-profit professional body for offshore marine warranty surveyors is set to launch on September 18. It will be known as the Society of Offshore Marine Warranty Surveyors (SOMWS) and will initially focus on upstream construction projects.

The group plans to eventually expand to include mobile offshore drilling units’ marine operations, renewables, and project cargo.

SOMWS’s establishment follows work by London’s Joint Rig Committee (JRC) to standardise insurers’ approach to the appointment of marine warranty surveyors, and to raise their profile in the wider upstream oil and gas industry.

Practitioners can gain SOMWS certification by meeting the requirements of the non-profit society’s formal admission process. The accreditation enables insurers to pre-qualify MWS efficiently - the firms would already know of the professionals’ experience and capabilities.

The JRC has published various codes of practice and scopes of work for offshore operations. The SOMWS board of directors comprises representatives from seven global MWS companies, and two insurance-market representatives from the JRC.

SOMWS will be launched at a JRC-hosted presentation on September 18 at Lloyd’s Old Library.