Truck operators handling
containers could face additional delays at ports as from 1 July shippers will
be required to weigh and certify the contents of containers.
This
new measure, part of steps to stiffen up 'safety of life at sea' requirements, could have
implications for vendors of automotive components, including large and heavy
components such as castings, for gongs and even complete engines.
Critical are components supplied to vehicle
assembly plants that use Just-in-Time (JIT) procedures as part of vehicle assembly.
Effective 1 July 2016, any shipping container
leaving from any port in the world must be accompanied by a shipping document
signed either electronically or in hard copy by the shipper on the bill of
lading listing the verified gross mass of a container in order to be loaded
onto a ship.
The container weight mandate from the
International Maritime Organization (IMO) under the Safety of Life at Sea
(SOLAS) convention comes after misdeclared weights contributed to maritime
casualties such as the breakup and subsequent beaching of the MSC Napoli on the
southern UK coast in 2007 and the partial capsizing a feeder ship in the
Spanish port of Algeciras in June 2015.
The weighing must conducted in one of two
approved ways, called Method 1 and Method 2, on scales calibrated and certified
to the national standards of the country where the weighing was performed. Many
of finer points of the new regulation have not yet been finalized, such as
enforcement, and what happens to a container that arrives at a port without the
necessary documentation or if the VGM (verified gross mass) declaration for a
container turns out to be false or incorrect.
On 1 July 1 rule becomes not just
international law under the IMO but national law within the 162 countries that
are signatories to the SOLAS convention. The new law therefore affects
container ports world-wide.
The shipper is legally responsible party for
providing a verified gross mass (VGM) signed either electronically or on paper.
Carriers will not load containers anywhere in the world unaccompanied by a VGM,
because doing so would leave their ships out of compliance with flag state and
insurance rules.
Approximately 300,000 container weights need
to be certified each day globally, and roughly half of all booking requests and
shipping instruction submissions each day are non-digital, in other words, in
paper form. Drayage operators in the US are particularly concerned.
Marine terminals may in some cases offer
weighing services if it can be done without disrupting regular terminal
operations, but this will not be in all cases, as some terminals, such as Maher
Terminals at New York-New Jersey, earlier this year said it does not have the
capacity to offer weighing services for non-compliant containers and won't
in-gate any container without the VGM already received via EDI.
Overall, at close of first quarter 2016,
shippers world-wide were busy determining how they will be in compliance, but
many questions remain even the introduction of the new scheme has been in the
pipeline for some time.
Many US terminals like Florida International
Terminal already weigh containers to meet U.S. Occupational Safety and Health
Administration and other federal standards, so the decision to provide
container weights to help shippers meet the IMO’s new SOLAS rule does not represent
a change in operating procedures.
However, other US ports are not so well
equipped to deal with the situation.
The new rules have implications of truckers
not only in the US as precise weights will be known for containers thus
operators will be aware of overweight containers which could infringe maximum
gross vehicle weight requirements that are limited to 80,000lb in the US
(roughly 36,000 tonnes).
In the UK the maximum weight on six axles is
44 tonnes, or 40 tonnes on five axles, although in Germany the maximum is 40
tonnes.
Also, carriers could find themselves caught in
the middle of the new ‘safety of life at sea’ requirement. The argument is that
although shippers are the clear target of the new safety amendment, trucking
operations could face extra costs and delays.
The potential problem facing drayage operators
is what to do when they are left with a load that has not been certified by a
shipper.
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