Ag shippers, ocean carriers discuss new container weight regulations

Industry officials say there are many practical issues to work out prior to new International Maritime Organization regulations going into effect July 1, 2016.    The Agriculture Transportation Coalition (AgTC) and the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement (TSA) have formed a committee to create best practices and address concerning a regulation requiring shippers and NVOCCs to supply a verified total container weight to the vessel master and terminal operator before their cargo can be loaded on a ship.
   The law is contained in an amendment to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) that goes into effect on July 1 next year.
   “The goal is to keep cargo moving through our US ports, without causing further delays or congestion,” Peter Friedmann, AgTC executive director, said of the new regulations. “We have much to do in a very tight time frame.”
   The amendment to the SOLAS treaty was adopted by the International Maritime Organization’s Maritime Safety Committee in November 2014.
   The World Shipping Council, the main trade organization for container shipping companies, had advocated the rule for many years, noting in a document called “History of the IMO Efforts to Improve Container Safety” that misdeclared container weights were identified as a cause of the structural failure and break-up of the containership MSC Napoli off the coast of the United Kingdom in 2007. Misdeclared weights have been blamed for causing other accidents on ships and at marine terminals as well.
   “Container vessels do not have the capability to weigh the containers that are loaded onto them,” says the WSC. ”Proper and safe vessel stowage planning requires the verification of accurate container weights before the vessel loading process occurs; the verification of the actual container weight must be obtained on-shore, and provided to the vessel and the port terminal facility prior to the vessel loading process.”
   While getting a proper weight for a container might sound like a simple matter — running container over a truck scale — Friedmann said “the concept sounded easy, but it is not that easy.”
   Donna Lemm, vice president of global sales at Mallory Alexander who is chairing the AgTC/TSA working committee, noted that today shippers are required to provide the weight of the cargo they load, but that the new regulation requires them to certify to weight of both the cargo and container.
   As shippers dissect the regulation she said they are discovering many practical difficulties:

• Many scales are not certified both at the port terminals and at inland locations. Scales may not be conveniently located for shippers, particularly for shippers who are source loading agricultural products in the interior of the country.
• Containers and chassis have varying weights and shippers don’t know in advance what those weights are before they stuff containers.
• If a truck with the tractor and chassis are weighed together on a scale with the idea that the weight of the tractor and chassis can be subtracted, the weight could vary based on how much fuel the truck is carrying, not to mention the variable weight based on equipment size and type.
• Reefer containers absorb moisture, so the weight of a container may vary.
• Agricultural products are not absolutely uniform. The regulations allow shippers to calculate weights, so a shipper stuffing a container with 1,000 boxes containing televisions that weigh 20 pounds can be certain that this cargo weighs 20,000 pounds. If they are shipping bales of cotton or hay, there may be some variation in weight due to moisture.

   Lemm said the requirements mean it will take additional time to produce documents with signature for every container as will be required.
   “You have to get the documentation to the carrier and terminal well in advance, because if they don’t have it, they are not going to accept it,” added Friedmann. “It is another one of these no-document, no load situation. It’s not like you can just drive up and the terminal has a scale and you drive over it. It has to be certified by the shipper, with liability to the shipper. Some of the carriers are saying they have to have that two days before the ship.”
   The committee is currently comprised of 25 AgTC member shippers and truckers, eight ocean carriers, and three software providers. It may be expanded to include other members such as terminal operators and port authorities.
   Brian Conrad, the executive administrator of the TSA, a group that includes 15 container shipping companies that carry over 90 percent of transpacific containerized cargo, said its members “look forward to addressing the concerns from the shipper community to come up with a system that works for all parties. Each carrier will implement their own protocol independently of one another, but the committee provides an exceptional forum to hear from U.S. shippers before the rule goes into effect.”
   A Refrigerated Cargo Sub-Committee has been established, chaired by Perry Bourne of Tyson Foods, who says, “Refrigerated shipments are particularly complex and sensitive to any delay; our objective is to ensure that these new rules do not hinder US refrigerated exports.”