30 Years Ago

A LOOK BACK AT APRIL 1992

FOR THOSE INVOLVED in the transport of goods by sea in containers – and not just dangerous goods – there has been a lot of talk lately about the need to improve the standards of packing and stuffing. The CTU Code, developed by IMO, ILO and UN ECE, is designed to provide guidance to those involved in stuffing containers, recognising that these individuals may well be a long way from the sea and may not be aware of the stresses that containers and their contents are subjected to during a sea voyage. Getting that Code out to industry has proved a struggle and problems arise with depressing regularity, leading to damaged goods, damaged containers and delays to ship movements. But those efforts are nothing new. Back in April 1992 HCB reported on the publication by the UK Health & Safety Executive (HSE) and Department for Transport of new guidance – said to be the first of its kind in the world – on the packing of dangerous goods in freight containers and vehicles for transport by sea. As we said at the time: “During surveys of containers carrying dangerous goods, problems such as overweight containers, incompatible cargoes, improperly secured packages, undeclared cargoes and missing hazard warning placards have been discovered.” In the three decades since then, international trade in all manner of containerised cargo has mushroomed but, despite growing professionalism in the sector, those same problems keep on coming back time after time. As we report elsewhere in this issue, some container lines are now starting to take direct action against those shippers that are causing them. Elsewhere in the April 1992 issue we reported on regulatory changes that have, thankfully, bedded in and settled down now, with a marked improvement on safety in the transport of oils in tanker vessels. The first final rule under the ‘OPA 90’ legislation, the US authorities’ response to the release of crude oil in Alaska from Exxon Valdez, had landed, establishing a millions-strong army of potential responders to any future spill. Meanwhile in London, IMO had agreed two new regulations for Annex I of Marpol that would require all new tankers to be built with double hulls – or, at least, double bottoms together with additional protection on the sides of the hull. There had been a lot of concern, not least among naval architects and surveyors, that mandating such an arrangement would not only present more risk of explosive atmospheres developing in the space between the hull plates but also that it would make effective surveying almost impossible. However, as with many such regulatory efforts from IMO, in the event the new designs quickly became the accepted norm, with the support of classification societies and shipyards, so that those concerns feature hardly at all any longer. Concerns lingered in the tank container sector about the slow progress being made in developing the market in North America, despite our comment that the “practical and ideological” objections to the concept were starting to tumble. The structure of the transport(ation) industry in the US did not easily accommodate the tank container model that had worked so well in Europe and operators had taken to looking at different entry modes. In particular, that meant doing deals with the railroads – but there was at least some progress being made.