Effective on July 1, 2016, container shippers must verify and provide a container’s gross verified weight to the ocean carrier and port terminal representative prior to being loaded on a ship.
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopted mandatory amendments to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) (
Chapter VI, Part A, Regulation 2 –cargo information)
. The SOLAS convention is applicable international law. The rules will be enforced by maritime authorities of individual nations and such regulations may vary. In the U.S., the Coast Guard implements and enforces such regulations.
Those regulations are not yet in place.
There are two methods of determining gross weight allowed:
Method No. 1: Upon the conclusion of packing and sealing a container, the shipper may weigh, or have arranged that a third party weighs, the packed container.
Method No.2: The shipper (or, by arrangement of the shipper, a third party), may weigh all packages and cargo items, including the mass of pallets, dunnage, and other packing and securing material to be packed in the container, and add the tare mass of the container to the sum of the single masses using a certified method.
Shippers shall ensure the verified gross mass in the shipping document that is: (1) signed by a person duly authorized by the shipper; and, (2) submitted to the carrier and the terminal representative, in advance and as required by the carrier. Shippers will likely be able to submit the verified gross mass electronically to carriers in order to avoid potential bottlenecks at the ports come July 2016. ISRI has reached out to the U.S. Coast Guard for further consultation and to offer compliance assistance.
For further information on SOLAS, please contact Eric Harris at (202) 662-8514) or Billy Johnson at (202) 662-8548.