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29 Jan 2018 / Australia

New visa requirements for crew of vessels calling at FPSOs

The Australian Border Force (ABF) has today (29 January) issued instructions covering Non-citizens participating in, or supporting, offshore resource activities. The main change to the regulations is that the Federal legislation covering “Offshore Resource Activities” is now deemed to also cover tankers loading at offshore FPSOs.

Effectively, all crew on board vessels loading at FPSOs or other offshore terminals are required to be issued with a “Working Visa” prior to the vessel berthing at the FPSO to load the offtake cargo. This new regulation is being implemented with immediate effect.

The simplest visa to obtain is a Class 400 Temporary Work (short Stay) Specialist visa, which costs A$280 per application per person. This visa takes a number of weeks to be approved. Currently, Immigration advise that 75% of applications are approved within 13 days and 90% are processed within 21 days.

This new regulation issued by ABF will seriously affect the ability of oil terminals and cargo buyers to fixing vessels to load cargoes at ball offshore oil terminals at short notice, given the time frames for the issuance of 400 class visas.

Currently, tankers can call at all Australian Mainland ports and all crew are required to be issued with are Maritime Crew Visas, which are simple to apply for and valid for five years.

This new regulation does not affect vessels calling at Australian mainland ports. The new interpretation of the legislation will ONLY affect vessels loading at offshore oil terminals.

Further, Gorgon Terminal will not be affected as it is deemed an onshore terminal.

For further details and information about operations at Australia ports and terminals, contact GAC Australia at [email protected]

If quoting any content from Hot Port News, please cite GAC Hot Port News as the source.

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