Consumer ultimately pays the price for container weight misdeclaration

The perennial problem of container weight misdeclaration once again came under the spotlight when Martyn Haines, senior claims director, UK P&I Club, addressed the industry in London recently. “Where container contents turn out to have been misdeclared in relation to substance, volume, weight and perhaps their dangerous or illegal nature, the shipper should have some explaining to do,” said. Haines. “However, this does not stop the spotlight being turned on owner and master when things go wrong. They will quickly find a range of parties breathing down their necks in their haste to attribute liability.” Not that lines are careless about the weights they load. They’re not, recognising that overloaded and overweight containers pose a serious threat to the safety of crew and vessels as they can affect the stability of a ship. But, even with all the care taken, working out the weight of a vessel’s payload is still always a bit of a thumbsuck. As Alex de Bruyn, Safmarine SA trades executive, told FTW recently, the shipping lines use the weights declared by shippers on the shipping instruction (SI) to determine the maximum amount of cargo that can be accepted for a voyage, and to optimise the revenue for that voyage. “In other words,” he added, “how much cargo we can load before we reach the required deadweight limits (while also taking into consideration the weight of fuel, stores etc).” But the lines have to make a bit of a guesstimate in these calculations. “If shipping lines have reason to ‘mistrust’ the information which is provided by shippers, they will compensate accordingly – always erring on the side of caution,” De Bruyn said. “In other words, lines will assume container weights are higher than declared and, in the interests of safety of crew and vessel, load fewer boxes than can actually be accommodated. While the decision may be made in the interests of safety, the cost consequences of ‘short-loading’ a ship are far-reaching and impact the shipper in the end.” Also, the huge liabilities that can be incurred by ship owners when containers are lost overboard are frequently compounded by the problems of establishing the circumstances surrounding a particular incident and incomplete knowledge of the containers’ contents, says Haines. “In our case the incidents are isolated, but it is an issue,” DAL Agency Johannesburg branch manager Roger Phillip told FTW. “And it’s a bigger issue than the lines – impacting on our infrastructure and road system. “From a stability and stow perspective there are serious implications for the line, for the cranes, for the plate rating on the containers and for the vehicles moving them on the inland leg,” he added. Another shipping line spokesman said that the problem would only be rectified once the lines could be assured that declared and actual weights were one and the same thing. And that will only be possible with Transnet buy-in in terms of weighing equipment. At the moment the lines have to rely on the veracity of their clients. Information from shippers about what’s in each box and its weight can be inadequate, misleading or inaccurate, says Haines. Mitsui OSK Line’s Iain McIntosh agrees that it’s as much of a problem as it ever was. “If they really wanted to do something about it on exports it would be simple,” he added. “All you need is a weighbridge at each terminal.” But so far Transnet has not come to the party, and until that happens, the problem will continue.