Tag: PSC

Following remarks on IMO 2020 during his keynote speech at Connecticut Maritime Association’s 2019 Shipping Conference, Rear Adm. John Nadeau also gave attendees a rundown of some of the other initiatives and issues the US Coast Guard’s prevention program focused on in 2018.

The Med MoU involves ten Member States: Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey. In this rather busy maritime area, there are three important crossings for the world trade: the Suez canal, connecting Indian Ocean/red sea; the Gibraltar straight, connecting Atlantic ocean and the Dardanelles and Bosporus, connecting Black sea.

Australia Maritime Safety Authority published its Port State Control for 2018, exerting a positive influence on the quality of vessels arriving in Australia. AMSA has approximately 60 marine surveyors across Australia that conduct PSC inspections and every year AMSA publishes a report on the results.

In light of port of Mombasa's efforts to reduce sulphur shipping emissions, the Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA) reported that it had inspected 550 ships, adding that the exercise is ongoing. Ships calling at the port are subjected to random inspections by KMA’s State control officers.

In order to improve the exchange of information regarding PSC inspections to Panamanian-flagged vessels, Panama Maritime Authority requires all Masters, owners, operators and Recognized Organizations to report immediately all PSC inspections reports to Port State Control Section.

The UK is part of the Paris MOU PSC Regime. Inspections of foreign flagged ships in UK ports are undertaken by surveyors from the UK Maritime and Coastguard agency ( UK MCA) which publishes details of the foreign flagged vessels detained in UK ports each month.

Operators proceeding to ports in Gabon should note that all vessels are subject to PSC inspection and there is currently a long list of “deficiencies” which vessels should take care to try to rectify beforehand, or otherwise risk being fined, the London P&I Club warned citing information from correspondents TCI/Eltvedt & O’Sullivan. 

The North West Europe area, a high density trading route inside the North Sea ECA, is considered as one of the most challenging PSC areas within the Paris MoU region. The main ports included in this area are: Amsterdam (Netherlands), Rotterdam (Netherlands), Antwerp (Belgium) and Hamburg (Germany).

The Bahamas Maritime Authority announced that it recorded its lowest ever number of annual detentions after port state control (PSC) inspections. Specifically, only 24 ships were detained during 2018. The Bahamas is white listed and considered a ‘low risk’ flag within the Paris MOU and Tokyo MOU. It has also secured Qualship 21 status from the US Coast Guard.

Tokyo MoU with almost 40,000 inspection per year forms the biggest regime of PSC worldwide. Large countries such as China, Australia and Japan are members of Tokyo MoU and contribute to safety inspections.