SUNY Maritime College has received a corporate donation of $10,000 from ConocoPhillips Marine to advance Maritime’s Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) training and educational program. Maritime will make upgrades to its liquid cargo simulator, increase the number of student stations within the simulator and purchase software for use in LNG tanker simulations. The program will also be expanded to include product tanker and crude oil tanker operations and training.
Anthony Palmiotti ’79, acting chairman of the department of marine transportation (MT) and director of continuing education says this donation is significant “for it provides the seed money we need to develop LNG training and curriculum for our undergraduates, as well as for our adult continuing education students.” A target date of fall, 2006 is slated to launch the program.
Captain George P. McShea, Jr., fleet manager,
LNG operations for ConocoPhillips in Houston relays that “the shortage of qualified LNG mariners due to the rapid expansion globally of the LNG shipping industry, prompted our company to make this philanthropic investment at Maritime. We want to ensure that American mariners are a viable option to meet ConocoPhillips’ future mariner needs as our LNG shipping ventures increase around the world.”
ConocoPhillips is an international, integrated energy company. It is the third largest integrated energy company in the United States, based on market capitalization, oil and gas proved reserves and production; and the second largest refiner in the United States. Worldwide, of non-government controlled companies, ConocoPhillips has the eighth largest total of proved reserves and is the fifth largest refiner in the world. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, ConocoPhillips operates in more than 40 countries. The company has approximately 35,600 employees worldwide and assets of $107 billion. ConocoPhillips stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "COP."
SUNY Maritime’s training ship; the Empire State VI was provisioned in September by the U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration’s (MARAD) National Reserve Fleet to provide housing and support for employees of ConocoPhillips and contract workers assigned to infrastructure rehabilitation at the Alliance oil refinery in Bell Chasse, Louisiana. It returned home on March 8 and MARAD presented the officers and crew, as well as the cadets of SUNY Maritime College the Administrator’s Award of Merit, better known as the Maritime “M” Award. Established during the Second World War and revived by MARAD in 2002, the award is conferred in the spirit as described by wartime Maritime Commission Chairman Admiral Emory S. Land, “for extraordinary efficiency and accomplishment.”