The Tokyo MOU, the US Coast Guard and the Indian Ocean MOU have all recently released their PSC annual reports for 2022. The Association studied these three reports and found that fire safety measures, safety of navigation and life-saving appliances continue to be the top three categories of deficiencies on ships. This article takes some key data from the reports and shares information with respect to safe operation of ships, so as to remind member companies and vessels to perform their duty of safety stewardship and to meet the international standards of the PSC inspections.

I. Tokyo MOU

1. Overview

In 2022, 24,894 inspections, involving 15,853 individual ships, were carried out on ships registered under 99 flags, including 2,515 remote inspections. The inspection rate in the region was approximately 60% and there were 12,678 inspections where ships were found with deficiencies.

2. Deficiencies

A total of 46,769 deficiencies were recorded in 2022. Deficiencies related to fire safety measures (7,107), safety of navigation (6,405) and life-saving appliances (5,918) continue to be the top three categories of deficiencies discovered on ships.

3. Detentions

In 2022, 725 ships registered under 56 flags were detained due to serious deficiencies having been found onboard. The types of vessels with higher detention rates are general dry cargo ships, oil tankers, bulk carriers, refrigerated cargo carriers and ro-ro/container/vehicle ships. Flag states with higher detention rates are Togo, Mongolia, Sierra Leone, Belize, Belgium, Cook Island, Antigua and Barbuda, Palau, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and United States of America.

4. CIC

5,908 CIC inspections on STCW were conducted in 2022. A total of 1,041 CIC related deficiencies were found on 802 ships representing 13.57% of the CIC inspections. The highest number of CIC related deficiencies were relating to the records of rest 289 (27.76%), followed by voyage or passage plan 253 (24.30%) and crew familiarization with Emergency Systems 114 (10.95%). 20 of the 5,908 ships subject to a CIC inspection were detained. The PSC Committee has also confirmed the arrangement for the joint CIC on fire safety in 2023.

5. Cybersecurity

The Tokyo MOU PSC database, APCIS, suffered an outage in July 2022 due to the unforeseen reason, likely a cyber-attack. The failure resulted the unavailability of the whole system for a couple of weeks and the restoration of full data for several months. Taking the lesson from this incident, the Tokyo MOU will pay higher attention to the matter of cyber-risks and that should mean the same for member companies.

II. USCG

1. Overview

In 2022, a total of 11,235 individual vessels, from 78 different flag administrations, made 80,280 port calls to the U.S., and 8,706 PSC exams were conducted, covering 10.8% of all ship visits. 4,694 deficiencies were recorded, and ports with higher records of safety examinations and detentions are Miami, Mobile, Los Angeles/Long Beach, San Diego, and Maryland-NCR.

2. Deficiencies

The total number of ships detained in 2022 for environmental protection, safety and security related deficiencies was 78, approximately 0.7% of examined vessels. Top detainable deficiencies include fire safety, SMS, and lifesaving appliances.

3. Enhanced Exam Program (EEP)

Beginning in 2021, the Coast Guard initiated the EPP, which is similar to the CICs carried out by port state control MoUs and focuses on a specific aspect of ship safety on a quarterly basis. In Q1 2022, enhanced exams on pilot/embarkation ladder were conducted and resulted in 24 deficiencies issued, 19 deficiencies in Q2 exams on immersion suits, 16 deficiencies in Q3 exams on fuel oil shutoff valves and 67 deficiencies in Q4 exams on ballast water.

4. Ballast Water Management (BWM)

To ensure foreign vessels are in compliance with U.S. ballast water laws and regulations, the USCG will continue to conduct enhanced exams on ballast water management in 2023. The majority of the deficiencies issued in 2022 were related to inoperable systems, deficient ballast water management plans, and failure to report mandatory ballast water practices to the National Ballast Information Clearinghouse (NBIC).

III. IOMOU

1. Overview

A total of 5,060 inspections were carried out in 2022. Out of these 5,060 inspections, 2,279 had deficiencies and the total numbers of deficiencies were 9,902. The average number of deficiencies per inspection in 2022 was 1.95, slightly increased compared to the previous year.

2. Deficiencies

Bulk carriers, container ships, oil tankers, chemical tankers and vehicle tankers were the most inspected types of ships in 2022. Fire safety (1,659), safety of navigation (1,168) and life-saving appliances (865) were also the top three categories of deficiencies, adding up to 37% of all deficiencies issued in 2022.

3. Detentions

Serious deficiencies noted by the PSCOs led to the detention of 199 ships and the overall detention percentage for the year was 3.93%. The type of ship with the highest number of detentions was bulk carrier (102), and with higher detention percentage were offshore service vessel (27.78%) and refrigerated cargo vessel (16.67%). The authorities with higher detention percentage were India (24.66%), France (7.84%), Oman (6.87%) and Australia (6.03%).

4. CIC

The CIC on STCW was also conducted by the IOMOU member authorities in 2022. A total of 1,230 inspections were carried out and resulted in 143 deficiencies and 4 detentions which were reported by India (3) and Oman (1).

5. MLC

The total number of deficiencies on MLC has significantly increased in the year 2022 with a 9.54 percentage of PSC detentions, primarily due to the various issues identified during the Covid-19 Pandemic.

For more information, please contact Managers of the Association.

Attachments:

File	File size
Tokyo 2022-web.pdf	1093 kB
USCG-2022-2023_04.pdf	7988 kB
Indian 2022.pdf	1432 kB