Container safety must focus on dangerous goods initially, TT Club said, on the back of recent reports of a spate of container fires and added that its Cargo Integrity campaign had gained “renewed impetus”.
The recent fire aboard Yantian Express, details of the final judgment on MSC Flaminia’s explosion in July 2012, and the ongoing investigation of the Maersk Honan fire are current issues. Recent news includes Grande America sustaining a container fire in the Bay of Biscay and sinking.
TT Club said in a statement “these incidents are merely the tip of a failing safety iceberg”. It estimated that a major container ship fire at sea occurs on average every 60 days. TT Club’s records indicate that across the intermodal spectrum as a whole, 66% of incidents related to cargo damage can be attributed to poor practice in the overall packing process; not just in securing but also in cargo identification, declaration, documentation and effective data transfer. The calculated cost of these claims in the Marine Aviation & Transport insurance sector is more than US$500M a year.
TT Club risk management director Peregrine Storrs-Fox is leading the insurer’s Cargo Integrity campaign. “We are endeavouring to focus all direct and indirect stakeholders on recognising and doing the right thing,” he stated. “One particularly critical aspect of this is the correct declaration and handling of dangerous goods (DG).”
ICHCA International, the cargo handling operatives association, has calculated that of 60M packed containers moved each year, 10% are declared as DG. Information from published government inspections, which are invariably biased towards declared DG loads, suggests that 20% of these are poorly packed or incorrectly identified. This translates into 1.3M potentially unstable DG containers travelling around the world each year.
Mr Storrs-Fox emphasises that this scale of risk is elevated when undeclared or misdeclared DG consignments are considered. “In these cases an estimate of volumes is more obscure. An indication has been given through the work of one container carrier, Hapag-Lloyd, developing a profiling algorithm to search its booking system for potential misdeclaration of commodities. Results from Cargo Patrol, when extrapolated to the carryings of all the lines, concludes a reasonable estimate in excess of 150,000 volatile containers in the supply chain each year.”
Container lines are making efforts to mitigate the problem. TT Club said the Cargo Incident Notification System has been active for several years and has successfully identified commodities that commonly cause problems during transport – not always limited to those formally identified as dangerous. TT Club has additionally promoted, together with UK P&I Club and Exis Technologies, the Hazcheck Restrictions Portal, designed to identify and streamline the complexity of regulations and protocols imposed by carriers and ports around the world in relation to transporting declared dangerous goods.
Mr Storrs-Fox said “There is very much still to be done in achieving true cargo integrity. Our diverse campaign is seeking significant cultural and behavioural change to say the least. Certain elements may require legislative action, enforcement and inspection and there are great challenges in the field of technological development. Above all there is a need for all involved in the supply chain to have a realistic perception of risk and a responsible attitude towards liability.”
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