More than 40 representatives from the shipping industry attended the inaugural meeting of the ABS Black Sea Technical Advisory Committee in Istanbul last week. The invitational Committee is formed from a wide range of senior representatives drawn from shipowners, shipbuilders, designers, vendors and academic and industry organizations domiciled in Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine. ABS maintains an extensive global technical committee structure which provides a forum for industry and the class society to exchange research and ideas that guide the refinement of the existing ABS Rules and provide guidance on future areas of technical research and standards development supportive of industry needs.