John Allum

at Agoko Consulting

Speaker

John is a chemist with a PhD in Emulsion Explosives from Cranfield University. He has spent the last 20 years working as a consulting chemist, specializing in the investigation of fires and explosions, marine cargo spoilage / damage and chemical / hazardous marine cargoes.

John has been a presenter at various international conferences and seminars. He has been included being a Keynote speaker at FireNZ, presentations at Hazchem Australia, Fire Australia, Salvage and Wreck Singapore (liquefaction and container ship fires), DNV Container Safety Working Group, Australian Institute of Chartered Loss Adjusters (fire and explosion) and Asia Maritime. He also regularly presents to P&I clubs, lawyers, loss adjusters and insurers, often as part of their CPD programs. John has significant experience of agricultural bulk cargo claims, including determining causes of product deterioration, cargo liquefaction (fluorspar, nickel ore, iron ore, fines etc.) and providing advice on the carriage and care of the cargo. This work involves supervising surveyors, agricultural scientists and sampling experts as well as providing reports suitable for use in both local courts and London Arbitrations. He has frequently provided advice on incidents involving IMDG CODE and IMSBC CODE cargoes, including chemical and dangerous cargoes.John has given evidence as an expert witness in numerous cases involving fire investigation and chemical incidents, including in Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Korea, Norway and UK. This has involved attendance in both court and arbitration. He has prepared numerous technical publications for P&I clubs on dangerous cargoes, fires and explosions, confined space entry and other scientific issues as required.

He is the owner / director of Agoko Consulting, which provides expert advice and investigations for fire and shipping incidents.