TAK Marine Ltd was established in 2011 to provide expert marine consultancy services to the industry.
Tariq Khan who is the Managing Director of the company has been associated with the shipping industry for over 30 years. While at sea he served on various types of vessels including, product, crude oil, LPG, LNG and general cargo / dry bulk carriers. From 1991 to 1998 he served with Shell tankers.
Having qualified as a Master Mariner in 1993 to further augment his knowledge of the shipping industry, Tariq, in 1995-96, completed an intensive one year post graduate degree in “International Transport” from the University of Wales Cardiff. The subjects read focussed on shipping and included Law of Marine Insurance and Maritime Law.
Tariq made a career change in September 2000 and joined Acomarit (later to be bought by V.Ships) as M.S&Q Superintendent. In early 2004, to broaden his experience, he left V.Ships and joined Gulf Energy Maritime, an owner’s management operating tankers in Dubai, as a Marine Superintendent.
Tariq returned to V.Ships UK Ltd. in May 2005 as the company’s first appointed Vetting Manager with the responsibility of establishing and implementing procedures to ensure that the company’s managed tankers always remain in a strong commercial position. He successfully achieved this by designing and developing tools to continuously analyse vetting inspection observations for up to 75 tankers in the fleet. The processes introduced ensured that while identifying areas requiring attention there was a consistent approach in addressing the observations including responses in line with the requirements of the industry.
In late 2005 he took on the role of Marine Quality Assurance Manager as the Vetting Manager’s role was expanded to include responsibilities of implementing and maintaining the ISM and Quality Assurance systems of the office. In the same year in preparation for the company’s TMSA submission he carried out a full analysis of the management systems in order to ensure that the TMSA KPIs were being complied with. He was also responsible for successfully leading the company through several oil company TMSA audits / management reviews. As a member of the senior management team at V.Ships UK Ltd. he headed the Marine, Safety, Quality and Vetting department of the company for a fleet of up to 90 vessels which included crude, product, chemical, LPG, LNG, dry bulk, SUL carriers etc. As head of department while providing expert marine operational advice to the managed fleet Tariq led and professionally developed a team of up to 19 superintendents.
With the responsibility of managing over 700 SIRE / CDI inspections the processes of the company were successfully streamlined to give very highly effective inspection results. During the period as head of department the management procedures of the company were strengthened through a continuous review process of the management systems. Since 2005, further initiatives have included arranging and delivering full day crew seminars (including ratings), several times a year, across the manning offices of the company. These seminars focussed on safety, vetting, navigational and operational issues etc.