[181013.EN.SEA] PEMA Paper Deals With Technical. Aspects Container Weigh-in Technology

THE Port Equipment Manufacturers Association (PEMA) has come up with an information paper on container weighing technologies to assist ports in the face of the UN's International Maritime Organisation's (IMO) proposals for mandatory box weight verification.

"Container weighing is an increasingly hot topic in the global shipping industry and recent legislation passed by the IMO indicates that ports worldwide will have an increasingly critical role to play in checking and verifying container weights," said PEMA president Ottonel Popesco, in expectation that the IMO proposal will become once accepted by member states.

After international debate, which European and Asian shippers say was one-sided - on the best approach to reduce mis-declared and overweight containers, the IMO finally approved on a compromise proposal before loading.

The "compromise" consisted of an option to weigh them one way or another rather that whether the expense of weighing them outran the costs involved not weighing them, a point of objection raised by the European Shippers Council and the Asian Shippers Council whose argument were not considered.

Supposedly representing shippers at the IMO talks was the Global Shippers Forum (GSF) from which European Shippers Council broke away. The GSF website said the group incorporated itself in 2012 to participate with UN bodies like the IMO, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and International Labour Organisation (ILO) and is said not to represent shippers interests.

PEMA's new report, entitled Weighing Containers in Ports and Terminals, provides ports, terminal operators and other interested parties with information about the port-based container weighing technologies and systems that are currently available and their relative capabilities to accurately verify container weights.

The report, the fifth information paper to be published by PEMA, covers both weighbridges and weighing systems for use on various container handling equipment, including ship-to-shore container cranes, mobile harbour cranes, RTGs, RMGs, straddle carriers, reach stackers and container handling forklift trucks. The document includes a table summarizing the various technologies and their accuracy.

Source : HKSG.