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CRR
4,1
124
Received 3 September 2021
Revised 21 December 2021
Accepted 25 January 2022
Continuity & Resilience Review
Vol. 4 No. 1, 2022
pp. 124-143
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2516-7502
DOI 10.1108/CRR-09-2021-0031
Maritime resilience during the
COVID-19 pandemic:
impacts and solutions
Jie Ying Chua, Ryan Foo, Kim Hock Tan and Kum Fai Yuen
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore, Singapore
Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to study the resilience of the maritime industry by analyzing the impacts of
COVID-19 on the maritime industry, in particular, on the shipping management aspect and offshore sector,
investigate the effectiveness of current solutions and recommend future solutions for the industry to reduce or
mitigate the negative impacts.
Design/methodology/approach – In order to better appreciate resilience in the maritime industry, the study
conducted secondary research and semi-structured online interviews to (1) identify the impacts of COVID-19 on
the shipping management and offshore sector, (2) analyze the effectiveness of current solutions and (3) provide
some strategies to enhance the effectiveness of the current measures.
Findings – he results are congruent with existing literature which indicate that the pandemic has negatively
affected the global economy, changed the global trade network and contributed to the sharp decline in demand
for oil. In response to the pandemic, governments have implemented safety and health-related measures such
as lockdown, safe-distancing and travel restrictions. Often, measures differ from countries to countries and
these non-standardized and changing regulations further increase the challenges faced by the industry. From
the shipping management perspective, the industry experienced issues such as crew changing, trade
contraction and the expiration of shipping certificates, which supported and validated current research.
Meanwhile, the offshore industry is challenged by the increasing market volatility and uncertainty, increasing
need to source for alternative fuels and the declining oil exploration activities. Current strategies adopted by
shipping management companies include crew change management, capacity management and the extension
of ship certificates, whereas offshore industry chose to collaborate with oil majors.
Research limitations/implications – By identifying the impacts and challenges and studying the
effectiveness of solutions adopted by the maritime industry, this paper allows maritime industry stakeholders
and policymakers to develop strategies to mitigate the effects of the global health crisis and strengthen the
resilience of the industry. However, as the pandemic continues to develop and evolve, strategies need to be
reviewed continuously in response to the changing situations.
Originality/value – This research analyses the impacts and solutions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic,
which contributes to the development and formulation of strategies to strengthen the resilience of maritime
transport.
Keywords Maritime resilience, COVID-19, Shipping management, Offshore industry, Impacts, Solutions
Paper type Literature review
1. Introduction
On the 31 December 2019, the Chinese authorities informed the WHO of pneumonia cases with
an unknown cause (WHO, 2020a). It was later identified as a new form of coronavirus and given
the name “COVID-19”. Although COVID-19 is not as deadly as compared to SARS, the nature of
the virus is more contagious due to its long incubation period, after which symptoms would
start to show. During the incubation time, the carrier becomes asymptomatic and would be able
to spread the virus without showing any symptoms. As such, it was able to spread throughout
the world in just a few months, making it a global health crisis. As of 15 April 2021, there has
been a total of 138 million cases and 2.97 million deaths since its discovery.
The alarming rate of transmission and fatality rate has created havoc across the world. It
is no longer simply a global health crisis, as COVID-19 has led to several significant impacts
on the global economy (Permal, 2021) and the transportation industry (Menhat et al., 2021;
Notteboom et al., 2021; Oyenuga, 2021; Emamian and Mazlan, 2021). Since it is undeniable
that maritime transport is the backbone of the global economy, as it accounts for 80% volume Maritime
of the goods traded (UNCTAD, 2021), this paper would address the maritime sector. resilience
A review of the existing literature illustrates that there has been an emphasis on
determining the impacts of COVID-19 on the global trade and economy (Loske, 2020; Permal,
2021; Verschuur et al., 2021), and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on shipping activities
(Shi and Weng, 2021). Due to the contagious nature of the virus, countries rushed to
implement health and safety measures and regulations such as lockdowns, travel bans and
safe-distancing measures to curb the spread of this novel virus. As a result, these practices 125
serve as a sudden disruption that has put businesses in jeopardy of shutting down, as they
navigate through this tough period, especially for the shipping industry. To illustrate, it is
evidenced that the pandemic has resulted in a significant fall in commodity prices
(Worldbank, 2020) leading to a fall in trade that is estimated to be between 13% and 32%
according to the WTO (WTO, 2020). As shipping has a derived demand, it would depend on
international trade for the demand for their services. One of the greatest challenges that the
shipping sector experienced was the difficulty in crew change because of frequent changing
travel restrictions placed by the different governments across the world. There has been a
significant number of literature have analyzed the effects of COVID-19 on seafarers (Ciceri
and Prigol, 2021; Kaptan and Olgun Kaptan, 2021; Lucas et al., 2021) and concluded that the
seafarers stay onboard the vessel longer than the permitted time stipulated by the Maritime
Labor Convention 2006 (MLC), and this deteriorates the mental health of the crew members.
Although the available literature are substantial in answering the impacts of COVID-19 on
the global economy and merchant shipping activities (i.e. cargo transportation and cruise),
not much attention is given to analyze the effects of pandemic on ship management and
offshore industry. Ship management is an area that deserved more attention due to its ability
to determine business continuity and the profitability of the company. To elaborate, ship
management refers to the process of managing ships. It involves the planning and execution
of shipping processes which include services such as the provision of maintenance services
on the machinery onboard the vessel, crewing and insurance (MarineInsights, 2021). Without
proper ship management, the company faced a higher possibility of going into bankruptcy
(Shin et al., 2019). Furthermore, ship management is different from the maritime industry, as
the latter often primarily focuses on the provision of transportation services, whereas the
emphasis of ship management is on processes that enable smooth shipping operation. Next,
the rationale for analyzing the offshore industry is because besides dealing with the
challenges brought up by the pandemic, shipping companies have to comply with the
International Maritime Organization (IMO) sulfur cap regulation that was in force on
1 January 2020 with the effort to decarbonize the shipping industry. The offshore industry
focuses on the procurement of oil and gas which would be used for energy production. A brief
overview of the oil market suggests that the pandemic has contributed to the volatility of oil
prices (Devpura and Narayan, 2020; Michail and Melas, 2020), and the trend to shift away
from fossil fuel to cleaner fuel alternatives further weakens the offshore business.
As such, the aim of this study is to understand the resilience of the maritime industry
through (1) analyzing the impacts of COVID-19 on shipping and its activities, in particular,
ship management and offshore; (2) investigating the effectiveness of current solutions; and
(3) recommending future solutions for the industry to reduce or mitigate the negative impacts.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the literature
review. Section 3 describes the data collection method. Section 4 reports the results and main
findings, and Section 5 provides the concluding remarks.

2. Literature review
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are various literature that research on
understanding the virus itself and drawing comparison of the ongoing pandemic with the
CRR SARS epidemic in 2003 or even the global financial crisis in 2008. For example, Haleem et al.
4,1 (2020) consolidated and identified the areas of academic research that need to be done to curb
the transmission of the COVID-19 virus. Notteboom et al. (2021) analyzed the impacts of
COVID-19 on global container shipping and port operations by making a comparison with the
pandemic with the global financial crisis, while McCloskey and Heymann (2020) cover the
lessons that can be learned from SARS and apply them to the COVID-19 pandemic. A
significant number of studies discussed the impacts of COVID-19 on global trade and
126 economy (Oyenuga, 2021; Permal, 2021; Verschuur et al., 2021; Xu et al., 2021). The above
studies concluded that the pandemic has resulted in a sharp decline in the global economy
and a significant fall in global trade activity. This can be further supported by Worldbank
(2020) and WTO (2020) which illustrate a fall in commodity prices arising from a fall in the
trade that is estimated to be between 13% and 32%. Apart from analyzing COVID-19 from
global perspectives, numerous researches focus on gathering data on the effects of the
COVID-19 pandemic on the maritime industry (Guerrero et al., 2022; Menhat et al., 2021;
Millefiori et al., 2021; Narasimha et al., 2021; Oyenuga, 2021; Saviolakis and Pazarzis, 2021; Shi
and Weng, 2021; Tai et al., 2021). To illustrate, Menhat et al. (2021) discussed the impact of the
pandemic on four areas, namely, shipping, fisheries, maritime tourism and oil and gas sector;
Ma nkowska et al. (2021) analyzed the response of seaport terminal operators concerning
COVID-19; and Charłampowicz (2021) explored the service quality of sea transportation
during the pandemic period. Furthermore, Wang et al. (2021) assessed the ship management
efficiency index based on congestion perspectives, which is relevant as the health measures
implemented by the government authorities such as safe distancing, quarantines
arrangement and travel restrictions would lead to a decrease in productivity at ports and
cargo handling operations. Furthermore, in view of curbing the spread of the virus, various
government authorities had imposed travel bans and restrictions which in the process
increases the difficulty for the shipping company to perform crew change operations.
Therefore, multiple scholars had conducted research to identify the impacts of the pandemic
on the well-being of seafarers (Kaptan and Olgun Kaptan, 2021; Lucas et al., 2021; Luchenko
and Georgiievskyi, 2021; Pauksztat et al., 2022). The findings of various studies concluded
that the seafarers stay onboard the vessel longer than the permitted time stipulated by the
Maritime Labor Convention 2006 (MLC), and this deteriorates the mental health of the crew
members. Next, the study conducted by Devpura and Narayan (2020) reflected that oil prices
have become increasingly more volatile which poses a greater challenge to the offshore
industry.

2.1 The case of SARS

Phylogenetically and pathogenetically, COVID-19 is similar to that of SARS as seen by the
similar receptors in which the virus uses to infect its host (Petrosillo et al., 2020). SARS was
categorized as an epidemic and had a total of more than 8,000 confirmed cases from 29
countries worldwide with 774 deaths (WHO, 2004b). The total duration of the epidemic was a
total of approximately one and a half years with the first case in November 2002 and the last
in May 2004 (WHO, 2004a); however, the major outbreak and development of SARS were in
2003. Because of all these factors, SARS was taken as a benchmark when COVID-19 begun,
however, it was noted that COVID-19 was less lethal than SARS and its asymptomatic nature
led to the higher transmissions (Petrosillo et al., 2020).
The global spread of SARS impacted the global economy considerably, as countries
implement measures to curb the spread of the virus. Negative sentiments would affect both
consumers and businesses, as it would discourage spending, investments and trade. All these
factors contributed to a predicted negative GDP growth rate across countries globally in 2003
(Lee and McKibbin, 2004).
 It would be important to note that although COVID-19 was discovered to be structurally Maritime
similar to SARS, the longer the COVID-19 pandemic persists, the bigger the differences we resilience
can see regarding its economic impacts that would be discussed below.

2.2 Impacts of COVID-19 on world economy

The world we live in today is highly globalized and connected, coupled with the
asymptomatic nature of COVID-19, it was able to infect 215 countries within the span of 127
10 months – as of November 2020. That is why COVID-19 was able to create multiple
epicenters with more than 1,000,000 cases around the world such as USA, India, Brazil,
Russia and Argentina. As mentioned above, the longer COVID-19 persist we start to see the
difference in impacts compared to the SARS global health crisis. In terms of global economic
impact, COVID-19 has forced majority of the world’s economies into lockdowns which
significantly impacts economic activity. This affects business all over the world, as the global
supply chain is disrupted, which subsequently leads to a drastic fall in the growth of
container shipping into the negative region, and break the record of lowest negative trade
growth in history after the Second World War (Bank, 2020).
As businesses were forced to temporarily cease operations during the lockdown,
businesses look towards ways to cut the cost to survive, and the most immediate way was
through retrenchment. The shipping giant, Maersk, is one example. They announced that it
would undergo a major restructuring in which 26,000 to 27,000 jobs will be affected
(TheStraitsTimes, 2020). Restructuring and retrenchment is a direct way in which a company
can cut the cost to tide through a crisis. This led to predicted negative growth of the world
GDP and GDP per capita to be at 5.2% and 6.2%, respectively, in 2020 (Bank, 2020) which is
represented by Figure 1.

2.3 Impacts of COVID-19 on global trade network

Based on a study that was conducted by Vidya and Prabheesh (2020), the COVID-19
pandemic has impacted the global trade network. To illustrate, the authors have studied the
trade patterns of top 15 trading countries based on their trade contribution through a
mathematical model. Furthermore, in the research process, the authors also use the concept of
centrality parameters to examine the relationship of trade interconnectedness and density
among countries (Vidya and Prabheesh, 2020). As defined by the paper, the relative positions
on the network would determine how a country is positioned in the network and how

World GDP Growth Rate

2
1
Growth rate in percentage

0
–1 1975 1982 1991 2009 2020
–2
GDP
–3
GDP per capita
–4
–5
–6
–7 Figure 1.
Global recession years World GDP
growth rate
Source(s): Authors (2021)
CRR important it is. For example, China being the center of the network would imply that it is the
4,1 most important, which is consistent with the description of being the “factory of the world”
where most countries depend on its exports (Vidya and Prabheesh, 2020). Comparing across
the time periods, it was concluded that trade patterns had shifted through the changes in
positions of the countries. For example, South Korean used to be in the center of the network
implying used to be an important economy in 2018 but it became a peripheral economy due to
the outbreak of COVID-19 in the first quarter of 2020. However, an interesting observation
128 was that even when China was the originating country for COVID-19, although its position
has changed it is still part of the inner circle of the network showing its importance in
the world economy (Vidya and Prabheesh, 2020). This shows that COVID-19 has changed
the way nations interact and trade with each other, the shift in trade patterns could affect the
survivability of the country as the pandemic continues (Gruszczynski, 2020; Lee, 2020;
Zwanka and Buff, 2021). However, as the pandemic continues, only time will tell whether this
alteration in trade networks would be permanent or return to pre-COVID-19 days.

2.4 Impacts of COVID-19 on oil market

To find out the impacts of COVID-19 on offshore activities, there would be a need to
investigate how the pandemic has impacted the demand and supply of the oil market and how
it has affected price. The oil market is one of the markets that is extremely volatile and
uncertain due to the complicated demand structure which leads to the countless number of
factors that contributes to the volatility of its price (Yang et al., 2002). During this pandemic, it
can be concluded that due to the measures implemented by governments to curb the spread of
the virus, it has led to the fall in demand for oil. It has been predicted that oil demand could
possibly drop by 9% across the year 2020 (IEA, 2020a). One example that contributed to this
slump in demand was the airline industry, which was one of the industries that was hit the
hardest during the pandemic. The significant decrease in demand was due to actions taken by
the governments such as lockdowns and travel bans to prevent the import of the virus
through asymptomatic carriers. As planes all over the world are grounded, the demand for
aviation fuel drops which would reduce the demand for crude oil too. This in turn led to a fall
in revenue for airlines causing a drastic drop in their share price (Maneenop and Kotcharin,
2020). Overall, it has been reported that COVID-19 has increased the volatility of oil prices by
between 8.6% and 22% (Devpura and Narayan, 2020). This volatility of downstream demand
would impact the upstream offshore activities such as oil exploration and its related
activities, which this study would be investigating.

2.5 Research gaps

While there have been studies investigating the general impacts of COVID-19 on the global
economy and trade network patterns (Oyenuga, 2021; Permal, 2021; Verschuur et al., 2021; Xu
et al., 2021), there is little to no exploration into the impacts of COVID-19 on specific shipping
activities. Although some might argue that the impacts and their consequences can be
extrapolated by using the SARS epidemic, we can see that the impacts of COVID-19 have
already exceeded that of SARS in terms of duration and infection. Hence, there is a need to re-
evaluate the challenges posed by COVID-19 and the specific impacts that affect the specific
shipping activities. Furthermore, it would be important to identify current solutions and its
effectiveness to potentially identify any gaps to improve such that it makes the industry more
resilient to future crises.

3. Methodology
This study focuses on understanding maritime resilience by analyzing the impacts of the
ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the industry and current solutions implemented to aid the
industry in this pandemic. Both primary and secondary data are considered in the study to Maritime
get a more diverse and holistic view of how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the resilience
maritime industry and the effectiveness of the current solutions.

3.1 Data collection methods

Secondary research was conducted on the Scopus databases to search for relevant academic
papers using a systematic review of the literature method that was adapted from Rowley and 129
Slack (2004). Scopus was chosen because it is one of the largest citation databases for peer-
reviewed publications and academic documents. Furthermore, it provides a comprehensive
coverage on topics such as science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts and
humanities. Thereafter, the information gathered from secondary research would be used to
(1) identify research gaps as seen in the literature review and (2) compare with the primary
research data (i.e. interviews).
Primary research was used to get more current “on the ground” information compared to
secondary research which focuses on academic papers and articles. Given the social
distancing measures, online interviews were conducted through platforms instead of
physical meetings with industry professionals to gain insights into the impacts and outlook
of the pandemic. Semi-structured online interviews were carried out with the experts and the
meeting process was recorded using Zoom or Microsoft Teams recording functions. After
the interview, the authors downloaded the transcripts and went through the recording to edit
the transcript before sending the response to the interviewees for verification and
acknowledgment.

3.2 Interviews
The interviewees were also selected from different sectors of the maritime industry so that a
more complete analysis can be made. Table 1 illustrates the profile of the interviewees in
this study.
The interviewees were selected mainly based on their work experiences in the field and
their willingness to participate in the authors’ research study. Due to confidentiality concerns,
the authors were unable to obtain and disclose interviewees’ years of work experience in the
industry. Instead, the designation of the experts which indirectly signify work experiences is
presented in Table 1. Four experts were interviewed in this study and all of them held at least
managerial positions in their company, such as manager, general manager, assistant director
and director. Although the number of interviews conducted were limited, it has a relatively
good representative of the different areas in the maritime industry. The study includes
representatives from the government, container business, offshore and supplier to better
appreciate resilience in the maritime industry.
Interview questions are designed with both generic and specific questions that relate to
the interviewee’s sector of the industry. To illustrate, general questions focus on
understanding the challenges and impacts of COVID-19 on the maritime industry, and

Designation Sector of business

Asst. Director operations planning and pilotage/Deputy port master and in Government
charge of operations planning and pilotage
Deputy general manager Containership
Chartering manager Offshore
Director Bunker tanker owner/Marine Table 1.
fuel supplier Interviewees profile
CRR how has the pandemic affected their business and daily operations. While specific questions
4,1 emphasize identifying the solutions industry players put in place to mitigate and overcome
the challenges posed by COVID-19, as well as the effectiveness of those solutions. As such,
based on the responses gathered, the authors categorized the subsequent section into
challenges, impacts, solutions and recommendations.

130 4. Results and discussion

This section provides an in-depth analysis on the following topics: (1) the challenges imposed
due to COVID, (2) the impacts on shipping management and offshore industry, (3) the
effectiveness of existing solutions to mitigate the negative impacts and (4) recommendations
for the shipping management and offshore industry.

4.1 Challenges imposed due to COVID

As the virus continues to spread throughout the world, governments scramble to implement
measures to curb the rate of infections. These measures are meant to limit human interaction
invertedly affect businesses which affect the transport and supply chain sector. This section
explores the challenges that have arisen from the pandemic that has a direct impact to ship
management and offshore industry.
4.1.1 Lockdowns. Lockdowns were implemented to prevent the spread of the virus within
the country and through the importation by travelers. There were varying lengths and
degrees of lockdowns that were implemented globally.
Internally, governments have implemented measures to reduce human-to-human contact.
For example, Singapore had their version of a lockdown called “circuit breaker” which lasted
just over 1.5 months and ended on 1 June 2020, residents were not allowed to visit other
households, all businesses except essential services were told to shut down temporarily,
schools went into online teaching and restricted entry to supermarkets via ID numbers
(Bakar, 2020). Currently, Singapore has relaxed most of its measures such that more visitors
are allowed, and businesses are allowed to open with certain conditions. While in the
Netherlands, a lockdown was implemented since October 2020 and is still ongoing – as of
March 2021, it includes a curfew, a limit of 1 visitor per day and work from home measures
(Netherlands, 2021). This deviation of measures is due to the difference in a situation within
the country itself. In the examples above, Singapore was able to keep infection rates low,
while the Netherlands was still seeing a high rate of infection.
For measures regarding travelling overseas, most countries discourage travel unless it is
essential. Quarantine measures have also been set up due to the asymptomatic nature of the
virus. Quarantines can last from a few days to 2 weeks, depending on where the person
travelled from. Furthermore, people are required to take COVID-19 tests before flying and
after arrival. These measures put in place to ensure the safety of residents poses several
challenges for the maritime industry due to the international nature of the industry, especially
its impacts on seafarers and service route management, which would be expanded in impacts.
4.1.2 Social distancing. Social distancing was implemented as the primary mode of
transmission of the COVID-19 virus was through respiratory droplets (WHO, 2020b) when
people are in close proximity with one another. However, further studies have suggested that
the virus is able to remain on surfaces such as 6.8 h on plastic surfaces and about 5.6 h on
stainless steel surfaces (Van Doremalen et al., 2020). Coupled with the asymptomatic nature of
the virus, is why COVID-19 was able to have such a widespread infection.
To curb the rate of infection, governments have implemented social distancing measures
to ensure a safe minimum distance which can range from 1 m in some countries and 6 ft for
others. This has affected businesses as this puts a limit on the number of staff and customers
that are allowed in an establishment. For example, a rough estimate for the limit of people in Maritime
an establishment in the US is 1 person per 113 ft2 (USFA, 2020). resilience
This was a challenge for the maritime industry as it would have to find ways to adhere to
social distancing rules especially between shore staff and the ship’s crew. Furthermore, the
industry needs to think of ways to prevent the physical distribution of documents due to the
stability of the virus on surfaces. These have impacted the maritime industry, as it changed
the way processes and operations is done.
4.1.3 Non-standardized and changing regulations. Along with general regulations that 131
have been imposed on the general public, there have been some maritime specific regulations
that have been implemented by maritime authorities which affect ship management. The
difficulty comes when different authorities implement different measures as each country is
handling the pandemic differently. This affects ship management directly, as to operate they
need to be in compliance with all ports of calls.
In addition to non-standardized regulations, regulations are constantly being updated and
modified as the pandemic continues. One example was the discovery of the new UK variant of
the COVID-19 virus which was said to have a significantly higher rate of transmission (Van
Oosterhout et al., 2021). This has caused maritime authorities to amend regulations through
port circulars. For example, MPA Singapore issued a circular No. 02 of 2021 in January
prohibiting the crew change for crew with a recent travel history to the UK and South Africa
in reaction to the new COVID-19 strain. Ship operators would then need to make changes to
their crew change plan if a planned on-signer falls into that is the description. Hence, due to
the ever-changing circumstances of the pandemic and how each country handles it
differently, shipping companies need to be constantly updated when it comes to the
management of their ships which adds to their workload.

4.2 Impacts on shipping activities

In this segment, the study focuses on the impacts caused by the challenges imposed by
COVID-19. The first part would be focused on ship management and the second will be on
offshore activities.
4.2.1 Shipping management. This section would discuss impacts concerning crew
changing, port congestion, trade contraction and ship certificates.
4.2.1.1 Crew change. Crewing has been one of the major concerns the shipping industry
faces since the spread of the virus at the beginning of 2020 (Berlan, 2020). Due to the
asymptomatic nature of the virus, an infected individual would not know that he has been
infected until later. Research was done stating that those infected would show symptoms
within 11.5 days from infection (Lauer et al., 2020). This made governments implement a
quarantine of 14 days to mitigate the importing of the virus causing a severe inconvenience to
seafarers due to the international nature of shipping.
During the start of the pandemic, governments rushed to implement measures to restrict
crew change and disallowed shore leaves leading to seafarers being stuck onboard the ship.
For example, according to the Port Marine Circular No.26 of 2020 by MPA, crew change is
only permitted in special circumstances such as the crew has served their maximum time on
board and no extension of employment contract is allowed by flag state, compassionate
grounds and the crew is no longer medically fit to work on board the ship. Even if the crew is
under one of these circumstances, further requirements must be met by the sign-on crew for
the crew change to happen. This makes it extremely difficult to conduct a crew change
causing a vast number of crew serving beyond the maximum time on board a ship of
11 months without leaves, in accordance with the MLC 2006. Furthermore, with airlines
grounding most of their planes as countries go into lockdowns, COVID-19 essentially halted
air travel. This restricts the planning for crew changes as the sign-on crew would not be able
CRR to fly down to any country for a crew change, while off-signers might have their flights
4,1 cancelled causing the crew change to be cancelled too.
This has affected the mental state and well-being of the seafarers negatively as feelings of
isolation, stress and uncertainty emerge during this pandemic (Sliskovic, 2020). Seafarers are
also fearful of contracting the virus as vessels make their port calls even if measures are put in
place to minimize interaction between seafarers and port staff.
This impacts how a company operates their fleet of ships. It has been said that human
132 error accounts for 80% of shipping accidents (Wang and Zhang, 2000), hence, low morale and
fatigue of crew could potentially lead to situations that might endanger the lives of the other
crew and ship. Ship management companies would then need to think of ways to manage the
morale of those onboard while coming up with ways to make crew changes happen. For
example, ships could increase the broadband of their ships to allow crew to contact their loved
ones to boost their morale. However, this can be seen as damage control to provide some relief
for seafarers while port authorities and carriers try to deal with the pandemic.
4.2.1.2 Congestion. Another measure implemented by port authorities relates to
quarantine. In liner shipping, vessels make scheduled port calls to fixed ports in
accordance with a published schedule. However, with the spread of the pandemic, port
authorities have implemented a quarantine of 14 days from the departure from the last port of
call especially if the last call was from a high-risk country. This would affect short services
which have transit times of under 14 days between port calls as the ship would have to serve a
quarantine at anchorage before they can proceed into the port (UNESCAP, 2020) leading to
additional cost and delays.
In addition, governments have implemented social distancing and encouraged a reduced
workforce with staggered working hours for essential industries. As shipping and port
activities are essential industries, they would be allowed to continue to operate but with strict
measures implemented. This would restrict the movements and the efficiency of workers at
the port as they would have to be mindful of the measures put in place by the government.
These factors would then lead to a bottleneck which gives rise to port congestions as they
try to handle the operations while fighting the pandemic, especially at popular hub ports such
as the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach (Chambers, 2021). Ship management companies
would then need to change their service plans and routings to accommodate these
congestions which affect their transportation service.
4.2.1.3 Trade contraction. As Covid-19 continues to spread, governments impose
lockdowns and movement controls to curb the spread of the virus. This measures forces
businesses to adopt a work from home business model as workers are encouraged to stay
home. Negative sentiments are also on the rise as people are uncertain about the duration of
the pandemic. This leads to a drop in global demand which causes a trade contraction that is
deeper than the 2009 financial crisis (UNCTAD, 2020a).
Due to shipping’s derived demand, the trade contraction would cause a drastic fall in
freight rates if the supply of sea transport is not managed. Hence, this forced service
operators to implement capacity management measures to restrict the supply of
transportation to stabilize the freight rates while maintaining the ship’s utilization factor.
This would require a high level of coordination especially while navigating through the
different rules implemented by port authorities.
4.2.1.4 Shipping certificates. Due to social distancing and lockdown measures, certificates
that are crucial for the ship to be deemed seaworthy are exponentially more difficult to obtain.
These certificates certify that the ship and crew are fit for the sailing. Although marine
surveys are one of the basic yet important operations in the shipping industry, however, it
may be seen as a threat in times of pandemic especially when the governments were afraid of
the transmission of the virus through ships. To illustrate, marine surveyors are required to go
onboard the vessel to conduct a physical inspection before issuing certificates. As such,
during the process of inspections, there might be a possibility of virus transmission from Maritime
either the marine surveyors (positive case and asymptomatic) who board the vessel resilience
unknowingly to perform an inspection to the crew members or vice versa. Therefore, surveys
were deemed as a lesser priority compared to the containment of the virus leading to the
potential of expiry of ship’s certificates which could lead to the detainment of the ship.
Another certification impact relates to seafarers. Seafarer refers to the worker that is
employed to work onboard a marine vessel. For seafarers to be able to sail, they would need to
obtain STCW certificates to prove that they have enrolled on the necessary courses and have 133
obtained the skillset to be able to work on the ship. Without these certificates, they would not
be allowed to work on the ship. Due to lockdowns, seafarers were not able to go to training
centers as they were shut down disallowing seafarers from renewing their certifications and
preventing them from joining a ship. This posed a huge problem as the pool of eligible
seafarers would potentially be lesser while those who are already onboard ships run the risk
of having their certification expiring while sailing if they are not able to sign off in time. To
maintain the operation of the ships, ship manager would need to contact their relevant
partners such as class societies and flag states to seek their advice and react appropriately to
ensure additional cost is not incurred.
4.2.2 Offshore industry. This section would discuss impacts relating to the volatility and
uncertainty in the oil market, the increased need for alternative fuels and the decline in oil
exploration.
4.2.2.1 Oil market volatility and uncertainty. COVID-19 has caused the oil market prices to
be increasingly volatile (Devpura and Narayan, 2020). At the beginning of 2020, countries
implemented lockdowns in effort to curb the spread of the virus. People were to stay at home
to minimize to curb infections and businesses were told to implement work from home
measures. In addition, countries shut off their borders which meant that international travel
was halted. All these measures contributed to the fall of demand for fuels and energy which
led to the drastic drop in oil prices. To elaborate, the fall in oil prices could be explained by the
demand and supply market forces. On the demand side, demand has declined significantly
due to the implementation of government containment measures and worldwide travel
restrictions (OECD, 2020). On the supply side, the failure to reach an agreement among the
members of the organization of the petroleum exporting countries resulted in the flooding of
oil into the market which aggravated the condition of market imbalances (i.e. weak demand,
relatively strong supply) and puts a downward pressure on the oil prices (Reuters, 2020). The
pinnacle event happened in April 2020, where the future contract prices of West Texas
Intermediate (WTI) closed in the negative region of -US$37.63 (Bloomberg, 2020b;
OPEC, 2021).
A negative price was possible because traders that had contracts for the delivery in May
2020 were trying to sell their contracts, as they were not equipped to take on the physical
delivery of the oil. However, it was difficult to sell those contracts due to the lack of demand,
so those traders had to pay buyers to take their oil which led to a negative price for oil
(Bloomberg, 2020a).
Although the negative oil price was a unique event, it demonstrates the devastating impact
of this pandemic. In 2021, the oil prices are gradually increasing but sentiments are still
uncertain as the COVID-19 virus continues to mutate which could cause lockdowns to happen
again. The discovery of this new UK strain has led to a lockdown in the UK, while several
governments imposed a travel ban on the UK to prevent the infiltration of this new strain.
However, with the creation and distribution of the vaccines, governments are slowly and
cautiously re-opening their borders and lockdowns have been lifted in phases. This brings
back the demand for oil again as life slowly returns to normal, but as the fight against the
pandemic has not been won yet, the world is still wary of any developments regarding
COVID-19.
CRR Since oil is an essential commodity for fuel and energy, it is highly affected by the news on
4,1 the pandemic, as the virus could shut down the market if a newer and stronger strain appears
which the vaccine is ineffective against. Hence, due to the uncertainty behind the COVID-19
situation, this leads to an increase in volatility in the oil market.
4.2.2.2 Increase need for alternative fuels. COVID-19 exposed the flaws of the using oil as
the majority source of energy and how a global health crisis could cause the market to be
increasingly volatile which would impact the global economy (Abodunrin et al., 2020).
134 Furthermore, there has been a growing awareness of global warming and the need to reduce
emissions to save Earth. This further emphasized the growing need for alternative sources of
energy, such as renewables, biofuels, gas, etc. This can be seen by the further increase in
renewable electricity capacity by almost 4% in 2020 compared to 2019 as forecasted by the
IEA (IEA, 2020b).
By diversifying sources of energy, the global energy market would be more resilient, as
there would be less volatility and less uncertainty while reducing greenhouse gas emissions
(Lima et al., 2020; ShareAmerica, 2015). However, for this ideal situation to become a reality, it
is important for the governments to have policies in place to support and incentivize the
industry to invest in renewable energy technologies (White et al., 2013). Government support
is even more critical especially during a pandemic because investment in technologies would
help to increase the efficiency and decrease the unit cost for producing energy to become
competitive with fossil fuels (Handayani et al., 2019). In general, countries are budgeting for a
greener future by investing in renewable energy. For example, Singapore is committing close
to S$1bn for the research on renewable energy, cooling Singapore and carbon capture
(SingaporeBudget, 2020).
Although it is important to fight the pandemic, it is equally important that governments
plan for the future. Since this pandemic has exposed how overly dependent the world is on
fossil fuels, governments see an opportunity to invest in cleaner and more sustainable sources
of energy which would lead to a less volatile and a future for generations.
4.2.2.3 Decline in oil exploration. The oil market has been said to be experiencing an
oversupply as seen by the falling oil prices before COVID-19 even though the demand for
energy continues to rise as countries continue to develop. However, as COVID-19 struck,
demand plummeted as seen by Figure 1 which sent cheap oil prices to the negative region.
This served as a wake-up call for oil producers such as OPEC and Russia, as they agreed to
cut supply by 10 million barrels a day for May and June in April 2020 (Reed, 2020).
With the existing oversupply issue and the decline in demand for oil due to persisting
lockdowns and travel bans, oil exploration projects got delayed and some even cancelled
according to one of the interviews that was conducted. This can be seen in countries like
Angola where oil drilling halted as international energy majors like Total, BP and
ExxonMobil, chose to reduce cost by idling or letting go of their drilling rigs (Browning, 2020).
This drop in oil exploration could potentially be the start of a trend as countries look for
alternate sources of energy as mentioned above, which COVID-19 was the trigger.

4.3 Existing solutions and effectiveness

This section provides an overview and evaluation of the current approaches taken by
shipping management companies and the offshore industry.
4.3.1 Shipping management. Current measures adopted by ship management companies
include crew change management, capacity management and the extension of ship
certificates.
4.3.1.1 Crew change management. As seen from the impacts, seafarers have suffered the
most by COVID-19. There have been two impacts that have been highlighted, namely, the
financial impacts and the mental health impacts. As more seafarers continue to be stranded
longer than their maximum stay of 11 months, solutions for the crew change issue needs to be Maritime
implemented to ensure the safety of the crew and ship. resilience
At an international level, the Maritime Safety Committee has issued the circular letter
No.4104 to all member states of IMO regarding the recommendations on how to handle
seafarers during the pandemic (IMO, 2020). This circular letter included guidelines for crew
changes, compliance with COVID-19 testing and quarantine requirements and measures to
prevent transmission onboard ships. This circular serves as a guideline for governments to
come up with their own measures to ensure safe crew changes. Since this circular letter is just 135
a recommendation for member states, its effectiveness would still depend on member states
adopting these guidelines for the management of seafarers. It is important to note that
member states are also able to implement measures that are above and beyond the IMO
recommendations to ensure their citizen’s safety.
Zooming into flag state regulations, most countries initially closed their borders for crew
changes but have recognized the severity of the crew change issue and subsequently have
implemented steps to allow crew changes to happen while trying to keep their residences safe
from the virus. However, the degree of openness to crew changes would depend on how well
the country is handling the virus and the global context. For effectiveness, as countries get
used to operating in this pandemic, the number of crew changes have been increasing since
the first discovery of the virus.
For example, the number of crew changes done in the port of Singapore crossed 100,000 in
February 2021 since the relaxation of the crew change ban in March 2020. It was also reported
that Singapore is currently handling 500–600 crew changes a day, compared to 800 per day
pre-COVID-19 (H. L. Lee, 2021). This could happen because MPA facilitates crew changes
through a “safe corridor”, which entail a 14-day isolation, COVID-19 testing and direct
transfers from airport to ship and vice versa to minimize contact with residences (MPA,
2020a). However, the “safe corridor” does have its flaws which were unearthed by the
interviews that were conducted. For the crew change to happen, there needs to be a direct
transfer for both on-signer and off-signer within this “safe corridor”, but if the on-signer is
unable to make it due to flight delay or cancellation, the whole crew change would be called
off. This means that all the planning and coordination between parties would go to waste
which makes this “safe corridor” less effective.
Generally, although there are measures that aim to solve the crew change issue, it is a
complex multi-faceted problem that requires the collaboration of multiple agencies within the
government such that the protection of the country’s residences is maximized yet the welfare
of this group of essential workers are protected as well.
4.3.1.2 Capacity management. In response to the falling demand for trade, carriers have
implemented capacity management measures to ensure that a higher utilization factor while
controlling the supply of transportation to stabilize the freight rates. Some examples of
capacity management done by carriers would be blank sailings, suspending services and re-
routing vessels that have been used. In 2020, 3 carrier alliances, namely, 2M, THE Alliance
and the Ocean Alliance, implemented blank sailings to better suit the fall in trade demand
(UNCTAD, 2020a). These management strategies aim to reduce the supply of cargo
transportation to prevent freight rates from falling too much due to lockdowns.
From the carrier’s perspective, these strategies have been very effective. Although
suffering for the first few months of 2020, the decrease in supply caused a surge in freight
rates. For example, the freight rate for 40 ft containers increases from below USD 2000 during
the first six months of 2020 to above USD 5000 in the first quarter of 2021 (Drewry, 2021). This
rise in freight rates increased profitability while oil prices were still considered low,
additionally, demand for trade has started to increase as countries ease lockdown restrictions
and have begun administering the vaccine.
CRR However, it is the opposite from the shippers’ perspective. Less frequent services and
4,1 suspended services would mean higher competition for cargo transportation causing higher
operating costs. Less frequent services would lead to capacity restrictions which can cause
delays in delivery dates, affecting the supply chain (UNCTAD, 2020b). Ultimately, leading to
lower service levels for end customers.
In terms of effectiveness, the capacity management strategy is indeed very effective in the
carrier’s eyes when dealing with the impacts of COVID-19, but it does sacrifice the service
136 levels for shippers and end customers. This would put an upward pressure on freight rates
forcing carriers to increase supply in the future.
4.3.1.3 Extension of certificates. As mentioned in impacts, certification for the ship and
crew were both affected by COVID-19 due to social distancing and lockdowns. This led to
IMO releasing a guideline to tackle this problem. In the circular letter, it states that IMO is
aware that some flag states have been issuing short term certificates and have advised that
this should only be done for situations caused by COVID-19 and it should be on a case-by-case
basis (IMO, 2021). This allows carriers to delay their surveys until they can provide a safe
environment for both the crew and surveyor to conduct the survey. Additionally, some
countries like Singapore have chosen to extend the validity of STCW certificated by 6 months
for seafarers for them to be able to work (MPA, 2020b).
However, the validity of these certificates cannot be postponed indefinitely. As the
pandemic continues and measures start to relax, the effectiveness of these extensions start to
diminish. These extensions have the objective of postponing these inspections to a later time
where it is assumed to provide a safer environment whether by regulations or the ability to
handle the virus. However, even if measures are put into place the effectiveness would depend
on the obedience to these regulations. For example, MPA revealed that a marine surveyor
consumed food provided by the crew, which was a breach in a precautionary measure, this led
to the tightening of safety measures for the maritime industry in Singapore whereby shore-
based personnel will have to undergo testing every 7 days and advanced notice must be given
to MPA before boarding ships for any reason (CNA, 2021). Hence, although the extension of
validity might be a good short-term solution, it needs to cater for the long-term effects of these
solutions and design them such that they prevent non-compliance.
4.3.2 Offshore industry. Offshore sector mainly relies on collaboration among the oil
majors as a mitigation tool against the global health crisis. Like shipping, crude oil has a
derived demand. Crude has a derived demand as it is used to produce energy for the world to
operate. Hence, when COVID-19 hit, the demand for oil drastically dropped as seen by the
impacts. This caused the oil market to go into a frenzy and one solution that came up
especially since the price of WTI went into the negative region, was the joint effort to reduce
the supply of oil to stabilize the market. This joint effort was done by OPEC and non-OPEC
members to reduce their crude oil production by 10 million barrels a day for 2 months (OPEC,
2020) which was from 1 May 2020 to 30 June 2020. The aim of reducing supply when demand
is falling aims to stabilize the prices for oil in this time of volatility.
For the most part, oil prices have generally been stabilized and are on the upward trend
now that economies are relaxing lockdown restrictions and essential travel have begun.
However, the pandemic is still not over and although the reduction in the supply of oil was
effective in stabilizing the oil prices, getting to that point of collaboration between these oil
majors will be difficult, which is seen by the geopolitics between Russia and OPEC.

4.4 Recommendations
As COVID-19 continues to plague the maritime industry, it is important that the industry
adapts to this unprecedented event by coming up with solutions to fight the impacts of the
pandemic to make the industry more resilient to similar events in the future. This section of
the study aims to explore the possible solutions that can be adopted regarding ship Maritime
management and offshore activities. resilience
4.4.1 Shipping management. Recommendations for shipping management covers the
enhancement protection of seafarers through accelerated vaccination, horizontal
collaboration and cooperation for a crew change and the increased investment in
unmanned vessels.
4.4.1.1 Accelerated vaccinated of seafarers. Since the alarming rate of infection of this
novel virus, the world has scrambled to come up with a vaccine to combat this pandemic. In 137
December 2020, Pfizer was the first company to obtain approval by the US FDA authorities
for the administering of their vaccine citizens. Following this, many other countries have
come up with their own vaccines to combat COVID-19. Currently, certain groups of people are
being prioritized as they are being classified as vulnerable group. For example, frontline
workers such as nurses and doctors, and the elderly are prioritized.
However, this study would like to propose that seafarers should be treated as an essential
group of workers who are vulnerable. As the world economy continues to grow because of
globalization, there is a growing need for shipping to become more efficient so ensure
competitiveness and efficiency of this mode of transport. As shipping is international in
nature, countries are afraid of importing the virus through shipping, which led to the banning
of crew changes and shore leaves. Although there are some countries like Singapore, that
have recognized the importance of seafarers and have prioritized them for vaccination
(Nautilus, 2021), there needs to be a unified approach for this solution to be effective.
Accelerating the vaccination of seafarers would not only protect the seafarer but also
those around them, including the countries where their ships call. First, it would be easier for
the crew to travel which greatly improves the crew change issue the industry is facing now.
This would then improve the mental wellness of seafarers who have been stuck on vessels
due to the lockdowns and allow the hiring of those who could not sign on due to the strict
regulations which ensure their financial survivability. Second, with the ship’s crew being
vaccinated, quarantine restrictions put on ships can be relaxed as the human transmission
would be minimized which reduces port congestions. This allows the shipping companies to
save on the cost needed when serving quarantine and allow the ship to make more round trips
per year. Thus, vaccinations could effectively reduce the harmful impacts of COVID-19 as it
minimize the chance of transmission.
4.4.1.2 Horizontal collaboration and coordination for crew change. Although tight
restrictions on crew changes are implemented on the port side, another reason for the crew
change issue is the availability of flights. A forecast has been done stating that there would be
a reduction in seats offered by airlines by 47–58% (Suau-Sanchez et al., 2020), this would
reduce the supply of flights for crew change by more than half. Furthermore, a crew change
must be coordinated such that an on-signer has to take over an off-signer, the crew change
would be cancelled if any one of these people fails.
The horizontal collaboration approach between shipping companies could help fill up
seats on flights such that they would not be cancelled due to excess capacity. However,
shipping companies would need to be willing to collaborate and coordinate their crew change
schedules which might be difficult. Alternatively, an external company could handle the
coordination of crew changes. This would allow shipping companies to concentrate on their
core competencies while the third-party company coordinates and consolidates the flight
plans to allow for a higher success rate for crew changes.
This solution could be implemented with the vaccination of seafarers to further enhance
the crew change process as this allows the consolidation and grouping of seafarers from
different shipping companies to be more flexible knowing that the seafarers are protected
from the virus. Hence, these two solutions would go hand in hand with each other to solve the
crew change issue that the industry is having.
CRR 4.4.1.3 Increased investment into unmanned vessels. For a long-term solution, this study
4,1 would suggest an increase in investment into unmanned vessels. Although the main factor
for the investment of unmanned vessels is to improve the navigational safety by reducing
human-related accidents, COVID-19 has exposed one of the weaknesses of traditional
manned shipping. As seen by the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world
implemented strict measures in order to curb the transmission of the virus, and due to the
international nature of shipping, it was seen as a potential area for importing the virus. With
138 unmanned vessels, the chance of human-to-human transmission of diseases would decrease
to zero unless the virus is able to remain on surfaces for a long period of time. This would
suggest that there would not be a need for ship quarantines, as there is no crew onboard the
vessel.
However, the investment into unmanned vessels is easier said than done. There is a
plethora of finance, legal and operational issues that come with it. For the operational impact,
although there would be a reduction in human-related accidents, there could be an increase in
non-navigational accidents such as fires or engine failure (Wrobel et al., 2017). Furthermore,
regulatory and legal frameworks have to be overhauled due to the major change in shipping
operations which is a major barrier as governments might not be willing to do that
(Chwedczuk, 2016).
Even with the presence of these barriers, COVID-19 has given us another reason for the
maritime industry to push for the further development and innovation of unmanned vessels
such that they would eventually be put into operation which allows the industry to be more
resilient against future global health crises.
4.4.2 Offshore industry. Recommendations for the offshore industry covers the investment
into other offshore energy sources, and the increased usage of automation and digitalization.
4.4.2.1 Investment into other offshore energy sources. As mentioned in impacts, black
swan events like COVID-19 caused huge volatility in the offshore oil market. This would
imply that there is still a high reliance on crude oil as the primary source of energy. However,
the investment into other sources of energy could help alleviate the volatility of the market by
diversifying the source of energy in the global market. Some of these alternative sources of
energy could be offshore wind or offshore solar energy. These technologies could provide two
major benefits. First, it would allow the oil market to be less volatile, and second, these are
green sources of energy that would lead to less emissions to combat global warming.
Both these technologies are not new to the industry. However, since COVID-19 has
exposed the flaws of the oil market, it would be a good opportunity to increase the investment
into these technologies such that more economies of scale could be achieved to make them a
viable source of energy. Ultimately, diversifying would make the energy market more
resilient to big scale events which would have downstream impacts on essential goods such
as goods and transportation.
4.4.2.2 Automation and digitalization. Another solution that would help the offshore
industry would be to investigate the possibility of automation and digitalization. As
pandemics like COVID-19 transmit through close contact, governments have implemented
social distancing to try to curb the spread of such virus. However, these viruses can remain on
surfaces which do limit the effectiveness of social distancing. The primary role of automation
and digitalization technologies is to improve productivity while reducing operating costs.
However, automation and digitalization could allow the industry to be more resilient to global
health crises. For example, digitalization of delivery notices that is grounded on the
blockchain would allow the safe and secure transmission of delivery notifications between
parties without being physically in contact with one another. Furthermore, the automation of
plugging and unplugging of connection hoses would allow for less human contact and
accidents which raises the safety level of operations.
 Essentially, increasing the investment and research into automation and digitalization Maritime
would increase productivity, efficiency and resilience of the industry by transitioning into a resilience
more technological way of operation.

5. Conclusion
In conclusion, COVID-19 has restricted the maritime industry by limiting the physical contact
of people. For ship management and offshore activities, the people that were hit the hardest 139
were the most essential group of workers, the seafarers. Although not the deadliest of viruses,
COVID-19 is most likely to have the greatest impact compared to other epidemics or
pandemics in this century, such as the 2003 SARS epidemic. This is due to its ease of
transmission which led to its widespread infection and possibility of infection. With its
asymptomatic nature, it allows the virus to remain undetected until after its incubation
period, but by then, its host could have already infected many others. This study has
analyzed the resilience of the maritime industry through the investigation of the challenges,
impacts, current solutions and the effectiveness of those solutions. The key findings of this
study are as follows. First, the study has identified four impacts of COVID-19 on shipping
management; difficulty in performing crew change operation, port congestions, a decline in
trade which affects trade activity and challenges in performing physical inspection onboard
the vessel before the issuing of compliance certificates. Second, the study discussed the three
impacts of the pandemic on the offshore sector which include increased volatility and
uncertainty in the oil market, increasing emphasis on the need for alternative fuel and
decreasing oil exploration activities. Thereafter, mitigation strategies such as crew change
management, capacity management through collaboration with other shipping companies to
increase space utilization, the extension of shipping certificates and increase cooperation with
other oil majors are presented. Lastly, recommendations such as increasing the vaccination
rates to better protect the seafarers, incorporating horizontal collaboration and coordination
to support crew change, increasing the investment on unmanned vessels, diversifying energy
sources and increasing usage of automation and digitalization are provided in the last section.
The study has supported, and value-added to the findings of existing literature on the
impacts of COVID-19 on the maritime industry by providing an in-depth discussion with
regards to ship management and the offshore sector, as well as supplementing the current
research with mitigation strategies and recommendations. However, the study may not have
sufficient interviewees to provide a complete overview of the maritime industry. Perhaps,
future studies could consider inviting government authorities and policymakers to provide
their insights to ensure a more holistic analysis of the pandemic situation.
For the time being, the most critical values that the industry needs to adopt is adaptability
and cooperation. Being adaptable allows the industry to handle whatever challenge this
pandemic brings up. Ideally, the industry could think of solutions that allows the industry to
be more productive and yet increase the resilience of the industry. Such an example would be
investing in technology where automation and digitalization could obtain both objectives.
There also needs to be cooperation between stakeholders throughout the supply chain to
have a unified approach in combatting the pandemic. This allows the standardization of
regulations and practices such that confusion and misunderstanding are minimized. Lastly,
this study hopes that it has shed some light on the current issues regarding the pandemic and
what can be done to help increase the resilience of the maritime industry.

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Corresponding author
Kum Fai Yuen can be contacted at: kumfai.yuen@ntu.edu.sg

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