Ukraine left the “black list” of the Paris Memorandum Committee

The Paris MoU Committee approved the results of the 2020 inspections at its 54th meeting. In early July, a new ranking of flag states and Recognized Organizations (ROs) was published on the organization’s website based on the results of their activities in the past year. These lists came into force on July 1, 2021.

It’s nice that at the end of 2020, Ukraine left the Black List, moving from 65th place (last year it was in 8th place in the Black List) to 61st place in the updated rating, which was just enough for our flag to get in the Gray List, albeit in last place.

The White, Gray and Black (WGB) List is a group of flags ranging from the ones under which vessels have demonstrated the highest performance and safety indicators to the flags under which vessels are most frequently detained, whose activities are associated with the highest or very high risk.

The fact that the flag is on the White List indicates a consistently low number of detentions. The flags under which vessels have demonstrated average efficiency and safety indicators are displayed in the Gray List. This should serve as a warning: listing them in this list can serve as an incentive to improve performance and, therefore, move to the White List. At the same time, flags at the bottom of the Gray List should be careful not to neglect the careful control of the safety of their vessels, thereby avoiding the risk of being Blacklisted next year.

As a reminder, the WGB is based on the total number of inspections and detentions over a three-year period, based on the results of at least 30 inspections during that period.

Regarding the current Paris MoU ranking, there are 70 flags in total: 39 in the White List, 22 in Gray and 9 in the Black List. In 2019, the total number of flag states in the WGB was also 70, of which 41 are in the White List, 16 in Gray and 13 in Black.

Rank	Flag	Inspections in 2018-2020	Detentions in 2018-2020	Black to gray limit	Gray to white limit	Excess Factor
White List
one	Denmark	1199	12	99	69	-1.80
2	Norway	1559	eighteen	126	92	-1.77
3	Marshall Islands	4280	65	328	272	-1.72
four	Bermuda (UK)	169	0	eighteen	6	-1.69
five	Netherlands	2729	42	213	169	-1.68
6	Bahamas	1851	27	148	111	-1.67
7	Greece	736	nine	63	40	-1.63
eight	Singapore	1808	thirty	145	108	-1.59
nine	Cayman Islands (UK)	410	four	38	twenty	-1.59
10	Japan	138	0	fifteen	four	-1.54
eleven	Hong Kong (China)	1741	31	140	104	-1.54
12	Liberia	4017	89	308	254	-1.46
13	United Kingdom	922	17	78	51	-1.42
fourteen	Malta	4117	98	316	261	-1.46
fifteen	Germany	570	10	fifty	29	-1.35
sixteen	Turkey	732	fourteen	63	39	-1.34
17	Italy	927	nineteen	78	52	-1.34
eighteen	Isle of Man (UK)	516	nine	46	26	-1.32
nineteen	Belgium	208	2	21	eight	-1.30
twenty	Sweden	288	four	28	13	-1.26
21	Cyprus	2018	53	161	122	-1.24
22	Barbados	399	7	37	nineteen	-1.23
23	France	266	four	26	eleven	-1.16
24	Portugal	1152	thirty	95	66	-1.16
25	Russian Federation	1159	31	96	66	-1.13
26	Croatia	92	0	eleven	2	-1.07
27	Latvia	90	0	eleven	2	-1.04
28	Antigua and barbuda	2084	67	166	126	-1.02
29	Luxembourg	201	3	21	eight	-0.99
thirty	Gibraltar (UK)	599	sixteen	53	31	-0.97
31	Faroe islands	245	five	24	10	-0.87
32	Ireland	144	2	sixteen	five	-0.81
33	United States	194	four	twenty	7	-0.72
34	Lithuania	101	one	12	2	-0.66
35	Finland	404	13	37	nineteen	-0.62
36	Spain	153	3	sixteen	five	-0.60
37	Panama	5754	275	435	370	-0.58
38	China	128	3	fourteen	four	-0.26
39	Morocco	54	0	7	0	-0.22
Gray list
40	Estonia	71	one	nine	one	0.01
41	Saudi arabia	54	one	7	0	0.11
42	Republic of Korea	68	2	nine	one	0.15
43	India	44	one	6	0	0.18
44	Philippines	133	6	fifteen	four	0.19
45	Kazakhstan	34	one	five	0	0.27
46	Poland	68	3	nine	one	0.28
47	Curacao	46	2	7	0	0.32
48	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	392	25	36	nineteen	0.36
49	Azerbaijan	57	3	eight	0	0.37
fifty	Iran	87	five	eleven	2	0.38
51	Vanuatu	236	fifteen	23	10	0.39
52	Saint kitts and nevis	121	eight	fourteen	3	0.45
53	Algeria	74	6	nine	one	0.60
54	Lebanon	58	five	eight	0	0.63
55	Mongolia	44	four	6	0	0.64
56	Egypt	41	four	6	0	0.68
57	Switzerland	57	6	eight	0	0.77
58	Cook Islands	297	26	29	13	0.84
59	Tunisia	thirty	four	five	0	0.84
60	Palau	187	eighteen	nineteen	7	0.89
61	Ukraine	83	10	10	one	0.98
Black list
Rank	Flag	Inspections in 2018-2020	Detentions in 2018-2020	Black to gray limit	Risk	Excess Factor
62	Tuvalu	39	6	6	Medium	1.09
63	Sierra leone	312	33	thirty		1.30
64	Tanzania	276	thirty	27		1.34
65	Belize	283	31	27		1.37
66	Moldova	350	41	33		1.69
67	Comoros	336	45	32	Medium to High	2.17
68	Togo	430	60	39		2.44
69	Cameroon	45	10	6		2.97
70	Albania	74	17	nine	High risk	3.80

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has clearly impacted the work of the Paris MoU. To cope with the constraints of the pandemic and its aftermath, the organization has developed a Guide, partly based on the recommendations of the IMO and the ILO, which has been amended in response to ever-changing circumstances.

Be that as it may, the organization partially curtailed its activities, which led to fewer checks, fewer flaws and, therefore, fewer arrests.

In 2020, seven orders were issued to deny ship calls. This shows a decrease compared to 2019, when there were 27 such orders. In total, over the past three years, 55 vessels have been denied access to berths due to repeated detentions, five vessels for “failure to appear at the specified repair yard” and two vessels – For trying to avoid lawful detention. During the same period, 12 courts were denied access twice (13 between 2017 and 2019). Over the three-year period, ships flying the flags of the Comoros, the Republic of Moldova, the United Republic of Tanzania and Togo were most often denied entry permits.

In total, 13,148 inspections were carried out last year, which is much less than in 2019, when ships were inspected 17,913 times. The percentage of detentions has slightly decreased – to 2.81% (from 2.96% in 2019). The number of identified deficiencies that could potentially lead to the detention of a vessel decreased to 1942 (from 2964 in 2019).

If you look at the performance of flag states in this difficult year, reflected in the WGB list, then, as mentioned above, the White List has become shorter by two positions (39 against 41 in 2019), the Gray List contains 22 flags (16 in 2019) and the Blacklist has 9 flags (13 in 2019).

It should be noted that during 545 inspections, ships flying flags from the Black List were detained 41 times (9.36%). In 2019, arrests amounted to 12%. Gray-listed vessels were delayed 4.6% of the time (7% in 2019). White-listed flagged ships had a detention rate of 2.4% (2.2% in 2019 and 2.3% in 2018).

ROs are authorized by flag states to conduct mandatory checks on their behalf. For this reason, it is important to monitor their own performance; naturally, the list of the most effective ROs is also presented in the annual report. The condition for getting into the rating is at least 60 inspections over a 3-year period. Noteworthy is the fact that according to the results of 2020, the performance of none of the ROs is mentioned in the rating as “very low”. The list below summarizes the top 10 most effective ROs as judged by the Paris MoU Committee:

1. American Bureau of Shipping
2. DNVGLAS
3. Lloyd’s Register
4. Nippon kaiji kyokai
5. Bureau veritas
6. Russian Maritime Register of Shipping
7. RINA Services SpA
8. Korean Register
9. China Classification Society
10. Turkish lloyd

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