Next Concentrated Inspection Campaign Agreed

At a meeting last week, the Paris MoU Committee approved the questionnaire for the concentrated inspection campaign (CIC) on MARPOL Annex VI to be carried out jointly with the Tokyo MoU. The CIC will check compliance with requirements for the prevention of air pollution from ships. It will be carried out from September to November 2018, and the questionnaire will be published in August.

Anticipating the new maximum limits for sulfur in ships fuel oil entering into force on January 1, 2020, the Paris MoU has also embarked on an information campaign which will begin with the issuing a “Letter of Warning” starting January 1, 2019 to encourage timely compliance. Secretary General Richard Schiferli stated that this will be a signal to the industry that port State control will take enforcement of the new sulfur limits seriously from “day one.”

The meeting also reviewed the CIC on Safety of Navigation, including ECDIS, which was carried out from September to November 2017. The general conclusion was that the results show a good overall implementation of the requirements on board the ships inspected, although voyage planning remains an area of concern. The campaign resulted in 47 detentions (1.2 percent) directly linked to the related safety of navigation requirements.

Positive results were recorded on the familiarity with the procedure of emergency operation of steering gear (99.4 percent), the transmitting of the correct particulars of AIS (99.3 percent) and the recognition of stages of remote audible alarm of BNWAS (98.6 percent). Least compliant were recordings on appropriate up to date electronic charts and back up arrangements (96.2 percent) and complete passage plan for the voyage berth to berth(96.3 percent).

The number of ships which have been refused access to the Paris MoU region after multiple detentions has increased from 20 in 2016 to 33 in 2017 and is a threefold increase over the number in 2015. Most recently, the M/V Sunshine was refused access on May 1 after being detained in port of Kalymnos (Greece) on April 4, 2018. This was the third detention in the Paris MoU region within the last 36 months. The ship flies the flag of Togo which is black on the current Paris MoU WGB list.

The Blue Moon 1 was also banned on May 1 after being detained in port of Sitia (Greece) on February 22, 2018. This is the Togo-flagged vessel's third detention in the Paris MoU region within the last 36 months.