INTERCARGO has launched the thirteenth edition of its Benchmarking Report, providing a unique and real time insight into safety standards in the dry bulk sector.

A highlight of the Report was the finding that INTERCARGO members demonstrated improved performance compared with the industry both in terms of deficiencies and detentions, with non-members reporting more than a third more detentions as a percentage of the fleet.

The Report provides information on detention rates and deficiencies per inspection across Flag States, Class, insurers, and Port State Control, in addition to owners’ benchmarking and a review of the negative performance indicators that are currently affecting the sector.

Paul Markides, Marine Quality Manager at INTERCARGO says: “We were delighted to see, once again, INTERCARGO-registered vessels outperforming the industry. As an Association we represent quality dry bulk operators, and these findings validate the work that we do to raise standards within the dry bulk industry.

“The value of the Benchmarking Report lies not only in the way that it enables operators to compare themselves with their peers, but also in the opportunity it provides for an operator to compare their own fleet performance against the profile of Classification Societies, Ship Registries, and P&I clubs, enabling them to seek out quality partners.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Report notes that members of the International Group of P&I Clubs continue to record significantly less deficiencies than the industry, with a Deficiency per Inspection ratio (DPI) of 1.46 versus 2.34. However, with some clubs reporting nearly double the number of deficiencies per inspection than others (1.21 vs 2.17) it certainly pays owners to take a closer look.

The Report also makes interesting reading for the quality operator when considering choosing a Registry, with detention rates providing a valuable insight into the quality of vessels within a Flag State’s fleet.

The picture with Port State Control too, is noteworthy, with a wide variation across regions. For example, vessels calling at Australian Ports (AMSA) report a DPI of 3.44 versus the average across all authorities of 1.26. In terms of detentions, AMSA is again top of the list with a detention rate of 7.4% versus the average of 2.08%. When comparing bulk carrier detention rates versus average performance of all types of ships, detention rates of bulk carriers in the Black Sea and Paris MoU regions were amongst the highest, with the worst performance being in the US where detention rates of bulk carriers were 43% higher than the overall average (0.90% vs 0.63%).