Contenedores con sobrepeso han arruinado el sector marítimo durante décadas, lo que lleva transportistas y operadores de terminales a adoptar medidas para reducir el número de contenedores con sobrepeso que manejan, el 1 de Julio de 2016 empezara a regir la nueva normativa de verificación de pesaje.

<<Overweight containers have blighted the maritime sector for decades, leading carriers and terminal operators to take steps to reduce the number of overweight containers they handle, to say nothing of the looming verified gross mass mandate that takes effect in the summer of 2016.

With more carriers and terminal operators likely to turn away boxes as a result of the new VGM regulation, insurers have warned them to ensure they have their facts right when refusing to handle certain boxes.

In recent weeks, Hapag-Lloyd and port operator APM Terminals went public on the problem. Hapag-Lloyd said it will leave misdeclared and overweight containers off its vessels, while APMT is looking to offer a weighing service to ensure that containers passing through its ports and loaded onto vessels are properly declared.

For many years insurers have warned about the danger caused by overweight containers and their role in a series of major losses that have been a driving force behind the new VGM rules.

Perhaps the most high-profile loss in the last decade was that of the MSC Napoli, which ran aground in the English Channel in 2007.

Investigators found that of the 660 containers stowed on deck that remained dry, 137 were overweight by more than 3 tonnes (3.3 tons) each. The biggest difference was 20 tonnes and the total weight of those containers was 312 tonnes heavier than declared on the cargo manifest.

The Deneb capsized in the port of Algeciras in Spain in June 2011 and of the 168 containers onboard, 16 weighed more than had been declared and their combined total was four times that of their declared weights.

However, while welcoming the moves by the maritime sector to reduce the number of misdeclared containers loaded, insurers have warned that there needs to be clear evidence that a container breaches the rules for carriage in order for it to be refused.

Recently, courts and insurers, via subrogation (the right of an insurer to pursue a third party that caused an insurance loss), have recognized that shippers and their agents bear the traditional responsibility of properly declaring and describing cargoes.

Keith Alderman, associate director of Lloyd’s insurance broker NDI (London market), said the liability for any loss fundamentally lies with the company that filled the container.

“In the case of a vessel loss, the insurance cover goes to general average; but if the cause can be placed at misdeclared container weights then the liability comes back to the shippers that overfilled the container(s),” he said.

However, operators are at risk when they lack evidence for their refusal to carry a container, according to David Mahoney, head of P&I business at broker Aon.

“If there is a genuine reason for the ship operator to refuse to carry a container then there is no cause for concern,” Mahoney said. “However, it becomes a problem for the ship operator if there is no evidence of the reason for refusal and the cargo owner has a bill of loading that says the container was due to be loaded on a particular vessel and delivered to a port at a particular time.”

Insurers have had an influence on how container vessel loading has changed and the fact much of it is now computerized, Mahoney said.

“There has been an effort by insurers to engage with shipowners to ensure that they do take steps to ensure they are aware of the weight and contents of the containers they are transporting, and that will continue,” he said.

Calling the misdeclaration of contents “a perennial problem,” Neil Roberts, manager for marine and aviation at Lloyd’s Market Association in London, said the practice “is usually done to avoid tax or paperwork but can be devastating.”

Estimates vary on what proportion of the global container trade gets wrongly declared, but the proportion of containers that were overweight on the the MSC Napoli was estimated at 20 percent.>>

Fuente: JOC.com, http://www.joc.com/node/3261126