I applied to BW Group together with a friend, with me applying for an engine-room position and my friend for deck. We were handled through a crewing agency, but I was rejected at the last moment. My friend was told that cadets were not being taken because the vessels called at Russian ports; during the interview, we were also told that hiring candidates from our country for vessels connected with Russian ports was inconvenient for the company.
I worked on a BW Group tanker. The crew was mostly Filipino among the ratings, while the officers included Russians, Romanians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Filipinos and Indians. The Filipino superintendent, based in Singapore, favored Filipino crew members. The food was good and we held barbecues onboard; the reported monthly salaries ranged from USD 1,670 for an oiler to USD 12,300 for a chief engineer.