INTERTANKO Guide to Port State Control

Port State Control (PSC) is the inspection of foreign ships in national ports to verify that the condition of the ship and its equipment complies with the requirements of international regulations, and that the ship is manned and operated in compliance with these rules. Many of the IMO’s most important technical conventions contain provisions for ships to be inspected when they visit foreign ports to ensure that they meet IMO requirements. The responsibility for ships’ standards rests with owners, Class Societies and the Flag State – but Port State Control (PSC) provides a "safety net" to identify substandard ships which experience has shown to be extremely effective. The first PSC agreement to identify and exclude substandard ships was drafted after the Amoco Cadiz incident in March 1978 and resulted in the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which came into effect in Europe in 1982. There are now nine regional agreements on Port State Control in effect, which cover Europe and the north Atlantic (Paris MoU); Asia and the Pacific (Tokyo MoU); Latin America (Acuerdo de Viña del Mar); the Caribbean (Caribbean MoU); West and Central Africa (Abuja MoU); the Black Sea region (Black Sea MoU); the Mediterranean (Mediterranean MoU); the Indian Ocean (Indian Ocean MoU); and the Persian Gulf (Riyadh MoU). The United States Coast Guard maintain the tenth PSC regime. The shipping industry has made considerable progress and continues to do so, but incidents show that there are still ships that slip through the net. It is these ships that PSC targets through sharing of data and improved training of inspectors to strengthen their abilities and better direct their efforts. INTERTANKO’s Membership has long recognised the value of well-operated and maintained tankers and has developed criteria to ensure its own quality standards. Alongside the Membership criteria, the Association and its Vetting Committee have supported owners through the production of a Guide to the Vetting Process which includes advice on both the PSC and commercial vetting processes for tankers.