The Black Sea MoU published its Annual Report on Port State Control in the Black Sea region, which covers the period between 1st January and 31st December 2021.

During the 2021 calendar year, 5,624 inspections, involving 4,064 individual ships, were carried out on ships registered by 80 Flag Administrations in the Black Sea region. Although the number of inspections in 2021 decreased compared with 2020 (5,721), it is still higher than the pre-Covid five-year average (5,285).

Since the total number of individual ships operating in the region was estimated at 5,561, the inspection rate in the region was approximately 73.08% in 2021. Regarding the number of individual ships inspected in 2021 (4,064) is nearly stable as compared with the number of individual ships inspected in 2020 (4,147).

Out of 5,624 inspections in 2021, there were 3,003 inspections in which ships were found with deficiencies. The percentage of the inspection with deficiencies in 2021 (53.40%) increased 3.92 compared with 2020 (49.48%).

In 2021, the number of ships detained for deficiencies clearly hazardous to safety, health or environmental amounted to 178 registered by 33 different Flag Administrations. The overall detention percentage in the region was 4.21 in 2020; in 2021, it radically decreased to 3.17 per cent of inspections, rather than the number of individual ships inspected to take into account that many ships are detained more than once during any one year.

The regional detention rate (percentage of the number of individual ships detained to the number of individual ships inspected) in 2021 is 3.96% which is significantly less than 5.43% in 2021.

Inspection Data by Flag
In 2021, 5,624 inspections were carried out on ships registered under 80 flags. The flag State with the largest number of ships inspected in the region was Panama with 986 (17.53%) inspections followed by the Marshall Islands with 682 (12.13%) and Liberia with 621 (11.04%) which constitute 2,289 (40.70%) of the total inspections.

In addition, in 2021, ships registered under 33 foreign flags were observed to have deficiencies sufficiently serious to impair the seaworthiness and warrant detention. A high detention percentage was observed for Cameroon (13.38%), followed by Tanzania (12.68%) flagged vessels.

Inspection Data by Ship Type
When considering the breakdown of ships inspected by ship type, the largest group of the ship inspected during 2021 were bulk carrier with 2,160 (38.41%) inspections, general cargo/multipurpose 1,833 (32.59%) and oil tanker 584 (10.38%), which represent 81.38 per cent of inspections.

The majority of detained ships were type of general cargo/multi purpose ships with 70 (39.33%) detentions, bulk carriers with 60 (33.71%) detentions and followed by Livestock carrier with 15 (8.43%) detentions, which were accounted for 81.47 per cent of the total detentions.

Inspection Data by Deficiency
A total of 15,442 deficiencies were recorded during the port State control inspections in 2020. The majority of the deficiencies found upon inspection in 2020 were related to safety of navigation (15.1%), life saving appliances (12.9%), health protection, medical care, social security (12.0%) and fire safety measures (8.9%). These four categories make up 48.9% of the total deficiencies found 2020.

The number of ISM related deficiencies was 272 which accounted for 1.78 per cent of the deficiencies, while ISM related detainable deficiencies were 54 and 8.39% of the detainable deficiencies. A total of 472 MARPOL related deficiencies were observed in 2021, accounting for 3.08 per cent of the total deficiencies.

644 detainable deficiencies and 6 RO related detainable deficiencies were recorded during the port State control inspections. 4.20 per cent of total deficiencies in 2021 were detainable deficiencies, and 0.93 per cent of detainable deficiencies in 2021 were RO related.

The majority of the detainable deficiencies found upon inspections in 2021 were related to emergency systems (15.1%), fire safety (12.9%), life-saving appliance (12.6%) safety of navigation (12.1%), and structural conditions (8.5%). These five categories make up 61.2% of the total detainable deficiencies found in 2021.

The majority of the RO related detainable deficiencies found upon inspection in 2021 were related to structural conditions (50.0%) and the others with the same percentage are ISM, radio communication and safety of navigation.

To read the full report, click Here.

Source: Safety4sea

Read Here
	Issue 79 of Robban Assafina   (May./June 2022)