Weight misdeclaration remains a thorny issue for carriers

Shipping lines are continuing to battle the perennial problem of misdeclaration of container weights – a problem that disrupts ships’ stowage plans and could ultimately threaten the vessel’s safety. And it’s an issue that was highlighted for the SA shipping industry in more recent times with the grounding of the fully container-laden MSC Napoli, a ship bound for SA when hull damage threatened her safety in heavy seas off the south-east coast of England. At the time, Christine Barringer, head of the transportation section at the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said there were a “shocking” number of misdeclared containers. “Of the ones they were able to weigh, 20% were more than three tonnes different from their declared weight. The largest single difference was 20-t and the total weight of 137 containers was 312-t heavier than on the manifest.” The only answer, according to some of the lines, was to introduce a misdeclaration penalty fee – hoping that this would force shippers to focus on declaring correct container weights. And the problem that has to be highlighted, according to David Williams, SA MD of Maersk Line, is that it’s mostly an accidental mistake, the result of human failure, rather than a deliberate attempt to save money on freight costs. “It’s almost always an error in the paperwork,” he told FTW, “rather than deliberate malfeasance. At about the time, but not because of, the Napoli incident, MSC introduced a misdeclaration penalty charge applied in two cases. One where the client exceeds the plate weight of the container, and second, where they book a certain weight, then don’t ship that weight – a case on certain of the trades into SA. Safmarine's SA trades executive, Alex de Bruyn, suggested to FTW that the first step would be the line taking precautionary measures to curtail the weight discrepancies, for obvious safety reasons. However, he added, it does apply a WDF (weight discrepancy fee) when there is a difference between the booking weight, CTO (container terminal order) weight, and SI (shipping instruction) weight – currently a charge of US$50. “Safmarine is also required to comply with the statutory regulations governing the maximum payload of containers at both country of origin and destination,” De Bruyn said. “As such, the line cannot transport any containers that exceed load regulations (ie overloaded containers). “A cargo owner could therefore be held liable for a heavy weight surcharge (EMF) of US$100 for both a 20-foot (6-metre) and 40-ft (12-m) container. This EMF charge, which can be charged at Safmarine’s discretion, is currently being waivered.” Maersk also operates a misdeclaration fee where there is a discrepancy of around two tonnes between the booking instructions and the shipping instructions. But there seems to be some difference in the prevalence of misdeclaration on different trades. Although the UK and north-west continent (NWC) of Europe have all reported big problems with declared container weights, the Far East trade seems little bothered. Andrew Weiss of Mitsui OSK Line (MOL) commented: “We do have a fee but I don’t think we’ve ever implemented it. “There was one incident a few years ago, but it’s not a worry for us. That leaves the question of whether the penalty charge actually works. A couple of Maersk’s branches in SA do report that it is acting as a control on misdeclaration. “But,” said Williams, “it’s not going away, and the issue of discrepancy still exists.”