The International Foundation for Aids to Navigation has announced the appointment of its new Chairman, former Global Head of BP Shipping Guy Mason.

Mr Mason, who was appointed into the position at a recent IFAN Board Meeting held in Bahrain, replaces the outgoing Chairman Alan Marsh who steps down after three years in the post. He joined the IFAN Board in March this year having retired from BP at the end of 2020 as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Shipping.

After accepting the role, Mr Mason thanked Alan Marsh, for his service to IFAN and for his willingness to remain on IFAN’s Board. He praised Mr Marsh’s continued support in encouraging ship owners to pay MENAS navigational light dues to maintain safer routes for vessels and crew.

“Alan Marsh has been an exemplary Chairman, so I look forward to following in his footsteps and continuing IFAN’s good work to make oceans safer while trying to hold ship owners accountable for the safety of their vessels and crews onboard,” Mr Mason said.

Peter Stanley, IFAN CEO, congratulated Guy Mason on taking on the new role saying: “We’re delighted that Alan Marsh is staying on the Board of Directors as he’s a valuable asset to the organisation. We’re equally pleased to welcome Guy Mason into his new role and look forward to forging ahead in our support of projects to bring safety to the forefront in our role of maintaining Aids to Navigation for safer oceans for all.”

Mr Mason said there were a number of issues on his immediate list of priorities. These included identifying ‘really great’ projects that IFAN can support financially, that are going to make a difference to boosting standards of navigational safety at sea, as well as supporting the valuable safe navigation service that IFAN subsidiary, the Middle East Navigation Aids Service (MENAS), supplies to ship owners and operators in the Middle East Gulf.

“The vast majority of the ship owners and operators happily pay for this important service, where the income we receive pretty much closely matches the cost of maintaining the infrastructure both of the buoys and the DGPS system,” he said.