Three Flag States Added to USCG Black List
The flag states of Portugal, Russia and Sweden have been added to the US Coast Guard targeted flag state list. The list reflects those flag states which the Coast Guard says have poor safety records, based on their detention ratios. All three were added last month. At the same time, Belize, India and Turkey were removed from this year’s list. Both Russia and Portugal scored seven points for having a detention ratio twice the three-year overall average, which this year is 2.00%, down from 2.3% last year. Sweden’s detention rate was just above average. The Coast guard’s system dictates that the more points a ship has through flag and class ratings, among others, the more likely it is to be targeted. No other flag states were added to this year’s list. The USCG list was updated almost concurrently with the Paris MOU PSC regime release of its updated black, white and grey lists. In contrast to USCG findings, Sweden and Portugal are on the MOU PSC white list of best-performing flags but Russia is on the average-performing grey list. Belize moved from the black to the grey list.