At its 45th meeting last month, the Paris MoU Committee approved the 2011 inspection results and adopted new performance lists for flag States and Recognized Organizations. These lists will take effect from 1 July 2012.
The "White, Grey and Black (WGB) List" presents the full spectrum, from quality flags to flags with a poor performance that are considered high or very high risk. It is based on the total number of inspections and detentions over a 3-year rolling period for flags with at least 30 inspections in the period.
On the "White, Grey and Black list" for 2011 a total number of 80 flags are listed: 43 on the "White list", 20 on the "Grey list", and 17 on the "Black list". The "White List" represents quality flags with a consistently low detention record. Compared with last year, the number of flags on the "White List" has increased by 1 flag to a total number of 43 flags. New on the "White List" are the Faroe Islands (DK), Vanuatu, Latvia and the Islamic Republic of Iran, which were still on the "Grey List" last year.
Germany has been placed highest on the list in terms of performance. The next in line of the best performing flags in 2011 are Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
Flags with an average performance are shown on the "Grey List". Their appearance on this list may act as an incentive to improve and move to the "White List". At the same time flags at the lower end of the "Grey List" should be careful not to neglect control over their ships and risk ending up on the "Black List" next year.
On this year's "Grey List" a total number of 20 flags is recorded. Last year the "Grey List" recorded 24 flags. New on the "Grey List" is Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, which was last year still on the "Black List". Kazakhstan and India dropped from the "White List" to the "Grey List".
The poorest performing flags are Libya, Bolivia and Togo. New on the "Black List" are the flags of Honduras and Dominica (medium risk).
A flag's ranking is taken into account when targeting ships for inspection and ships flying flags listed on the "Black" and "Grey" list are liable for banning from the region after multiple detentions.
The Paris MoU also agreed on the performance listing of Recognized Organizations (ROs). ROs have been delegated with statutory responsibilities by flag States. This list uses the same method of calculation as the flag State table but counts only those detentions, which the Paris MoU considers to be directly related to a statutory survey carried out by the recognized organization and a minimum number of 60 inspections per RO are needed before the performance is taken into account for the list. In 2011 28 ROs are recorded on the performance list.
Among the best performing Recognized Organizations were:
- American Bureau of Shipping (ABS)
- Det Norske Veritas (DNV)
- China Classification Society (CCS)
The lowest performing Recognized Organizations were:
- Phoenix Register of Shipping (Greece) (PHRS)
- Register of Shipping (Albania) (RSA)
- International Register of Shipping (USA) (IS)
On 1 July 2012 the performance lists will be used for calculating the ship risk profile and flags on the "Grey List" and "Black List" are subject to the more stringent banning measures in force since 1 January 2011. More information can be found in the 2011 Annual Report, which will be released in July 2012.
Source: Paris MOU
