Tag: PSC Focus

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Tokyo MoU announced a Remote PSC inspection practice that took place in the MoU region’s PSC inspections in different countries and ports, from April 2021 until the end of the year.

PSC MoUs have a common system to assist PSC Officers (PSCO) identify deficiencies during ship inspections, using a 5 digit code with a specific description attached to it, so that PSCOs report class and codify PSC findings. All PSC Regimes, including the US Cost Guard, use the same unique deficiency codes and the list includes 578 of them.

Whether a ship is to be inspected, it’s a decision based on specific MoU procedures. Commonly, if a ship is inspected once in a MoU and the inspection ended without any severe findings, then the ship will be inspected again within the inspection window set by each MoU.

While every port operates under a specific set of PSC procedures and ships are prepared to be inspected in line with the priorities set by the MoU and the Port, it is a common understanding that this may not be the case at all times.

The Secretary General, Abuja Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control, Captain Sunday Umoren, says only 14 out of 22 coastal countries in the West and Central Africa conduct inspections on ships calling at their ports.

During 2021, an increased number of inspections and detentions was noticed in comparison with 2020. A total of 1,394 detentions marked worldwide on all ship types. The global Detention rate (for all ship types) has been marked to 2.23%, while the last 3 years (2018-2019-2020) average was 2.43%

Every Ship Manager aims for the smoothest PSC inspection in order to avoid unnecessary costs and delays and protect Company from any reputational damage caused from a poor PSC performance.

During the COVID-19 outbreak, we have seen a decrease in the inspections within 2020 (-28% compared to 2019) with numbers bouncing back in 2021( -14% compared to 2019), expecting a full recovery in 2022.

The Indian MoU published its annual report for 2021, reporting a total of 4993 inspections. Out of these inspections, 2197 had deficiencies and the total numbers of deficiencies were 9131.

Tokyo MOU published its Annual Report for 2021, indicating that it achieved a nearly 20% increase of inspections in 2021, with 22,730 inspections, involving 14,951 individual ships.