Inspections on Board Oil Tankers : Present Situation and Suggestion for Improvement

Oil tanker inspections have an important role in enhancing safety and minimizing the risk of oil pollution. However, research has indicated that inspection items are overlapping among inspection regimes observed in a given time span on board oil tankers, thus making negative impact on ship safety, unnecessarily consuming shipboard human resources and having adverse economic effects. In this paper, current inspections performed on board oil tankers have been presented, including duration, intensity and average costs, directly or indirectly paid by shipowners. Our analysis of surveyed components by all regimes has showed that it is possible to reduce critical inspection parameters without compromising safety by introducing a unified inspection method. A content of such inspection, consisting of 529 components, has been presented. Performing the proposed inspection method and sharing its results among interested parties of oil tanker safety regime has been suggested as a measure that could improve oil tanker safety and pollution prevention.


Introduction
A huge potential to pollute the marine environment as a result of accidents has been a cause of continuous concern for oil tanker safety and pollution prevention.A series of oil tanker accidents set in motion the chain of events that led to the adoption of relevant requirements included in national and international regulations [1].However, due to a wide range of willingness and capacities to enforce safety standards by different flag states, a certain percent of the world fleet is regarded substandard and pose a significant risk to humans and environment [2].Therefore the Port state control emerged, to eliminate substandard shipping and increase safety [3].In addition to flag and port state control, there are also industry inspections.
The goal of all inspections is to increase environmental performance and safety.However, various stakeholders do not recognize inspections performed by others, which leaves the vessels with a high number of inspections [4].For example, even inspections performed by PSC officers from port states belonging to another Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) are not considered as sufficient and vessels are inspected repeatedly.Such over-inspection of oil tankers can have negative effects [5].
The aim of this study is to present the current safety regime for oil tankers and propose the content of unified inspection regime, which could contribute to the improvement of safety and pollution prevention.
The paper is organised as follows.Section 2 provides a review of current inspections performed on board oil tankers.In Section 3 a proposal of the content of unified inspection is presented.Concluding comments are gathered in the final section.

Analyses of Inspection Regimes
Oil tankers are exposed to numerous mandatory or non-mandatory inspections, surveys and audits by different external and internal sources: port and flag states, recognised organisations, insurance companies, cargo owners and shipowners.In this paper, 13 inspections by Port state control (PSC), Flag state control (FSC), Annual class sur-vey, Insurance survey, Vetting inspections, International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS) external and internal audits, International Safety Management Code (ISM) external and internal audits, Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) external and internal audits, and Green Award survey have been described briefly.A panel of 10 experts (inspectors, seafarers and oil majors´ representatives) has been consulted regarding estimated inspection durations and costs that are not publicly available.
Port state control visit on board an oil tanker usually lasts about 5 hours.The review has been performed according to the PSC manual, issued by Paris MoU [6] and accepted by all other MoUs.It has been used on board all ship types and contains 246 items related to oil tankers.Depending on the ship risk category, it is the most commonly one performed twice a year.Flag state control system is set up by each flag state and therefore there is no universal handbook.In this paper, the content of St. Kitts & Nevis International Ship Registry form [7] has been analysed.The handbook comprises 181 items related to oil tankers, some in the first part, valid for all ship types and some in the second part, related to oil tankers only.This mandatory inspection is usually performed once a year and lasts on an average of 8 hours.
Annual class surveys are performed by the recognized organizations, according to relevant rules.In this paper, we have analysed items applicable for the fleet in service.As an example, the Rules for technical supervision of seagoing ships used by the Croatian Register of Shipping have been analysed [8].They contain 101 items relevant to oil tankers.Non-mandatory inspections are carried out once a year.They require more than 10 hours, and, therefore, inspectors have to spend 2 days on board.
A mandatory ISM Code audit is performed according to the rules prescribed by the flag state.Most flag states authorise classification societies, whose inspectors carry out examinations in accordance with handbooks.The Rules issued by the Croatian Register of Ships for ships flying the flag of the Republic of Croatia have been used for comparison [9].The handbooks are universal for all ship types.They contain 30 items thematically related to the ISM Code.Oil tankers are inspected once every 2.5 year, usually for 6 hours.
Internal ISM audit is performed by company´s representatives or external experts.A tool for audits is created by the company.Problems related to an efficient implementation of safety management systems are usually in focus.For the purpose of this research, a checklist worked out by Tankerska plovidba [10] has been used.Inspectors examine 60 items, usually once a year, during 4 hours on average.The reported deficiencies are analysed and measures for improvement are subsequently proposed.
The Ship Security audit is conducted in accordance with the rules prescribed by the flag states.Mandatory inspections could also be performed by inspectors appointed by recognised organisations.A handbook issued by the Croatian Register of Ships for ships flying the flag of the Republic of Croatia [11] has been analysed.The handbook is universal for all ship types.It consists of 13 items thematically related to the ISPS Code.Oil tankers are inspected once every 2.5 year, usually for 6 hours.
Internal ISPS audit is designed and planned by the company and emphasis is put on problematic areas related to the system implementation.It is executed by the company´s representatives or external experts.A handbook used in this research, worked out by Tankerska plovidba [10], lists 18 items.Audits take place once a year usually and take on average of 4 hours.Similarly to ISM audit, reports are used as a starting point for designing improvement measures.
Insurance surveys are performed by inspectors appointed by Protecting and Indemnity Clubs (P&I).They use their own instructions and report templates which contain parts applicable to all ship types and ship typespecific parts.The London P&I forms have been analysed [12].They contain 292 items relevant to oil tankers.Yearly frequency for this inspection is one and it usually lasts 8 hours.The results of the inspection affect the annual insurance premium, not only for the inspected tanker, but also for all other ships owned by the same shipowner.
Vessel inspection questionnaire worked out by the Oil Companies International Marine Forum (OCIMF) as a part of the Ship Inspection Report (SIRE) Programme [13] has been analysed in this paper to assess vetting inspections for oil tankers.The relevant part of the 2015 Vessel inspection questionnaire comprises 282 items.The inspectors appointed by OCIMF spend about 10 hours on board, usually twice a year.
An internal audit performed by technical inspectors as a part of the safety management system is usually performed once a year and lasts on an average of 8 hours.Inspectors appointed by the shipowners (in our research it is Tankerska plovidba [10]) check 78 items categorised in three sections: navigation and bridge procedures, deck department and engine department.An inspection report is a starting point for corrective and preventive actions plan.
Another industry inspection originates from Green Award Foundation [14].As a part of certification procedure, a survey of the oil tanker takes place once a year.The Ship Certification Regulations and Requirements relevant for oil tankers contain 159 items and it usually takes 8 hours for inspectors to check them.
MLC audit is carried out in accordance with rules the prescribed by the flag states.The mandatory on board inspections could also be performed by inspectors appointed by recognised organisations.A handbook issued by the Croatian Register of Ships for ships flying the flag of the Republic of Croatia [11] has been analysed.The handbook is universal for all ship types.It contains 25 items thematically related to requirements of the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006.MLC audit takes place once every 2.5 year, and lasts usually 6 hours.
Internal MLC audit is performed by inspectors appointed by shipowners.A handbook for auditors is designed by ship companies.Audit focuses on those requirements of the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 which are assessed as inadequately implemented.In this research, a tool for carrying out internal audits designed by Pacific Marine Services has been used [15].It takes 4 hours, usually once a year, to check the proposed 20 items.

Suggestion for Improvement
From the analysis presented in this paper and the results obtained in the previous research [16], it can be concluded that there is a need and possibility to improve safety regime for oil tankers.Apart from the extensive annual inspection duration, the intensity and time of execution, usually in ports during intensive activity analysed in our previous research [16], there is another aspect that should be taken into account.Costs of numerous inspections are paid by shipowners and contribute to a significant level of expenditures to comply with maritime regulations [17].Costs of these inspections, obtained from experts or found on websites are given in Table 1.Furthermore, a detailed analysis of the surveyed components of all regimes has shown that a significant number of components (69%) are examined by all regimes [16].Moreover, results of the previous research indicated that such overlapping and inspection durations and intensity can cause unnecessary psychophysical strain of the crew [16].Therefore, a unified tanker survey is proposed, which has a potential to reduce costs, duration and intensity of inspections without compromising safety.
Components of a unified method are given in Appendix 1.This components should be checked by inspectors appointed by recognised organisations, based on similar criteria and after standardized training.Therefore, one of the main problem observed regarding inspection, the lack of harmonisation [18] could be also diminished.
Unfortunately, this goal may be hard to achieve.However, as suggested previously [2,4], sharing of information between inspection sources could enhance effectiveness of inspections and contribute to safety.A need to increase transparency by providing safety related information on board ships has been recognised by the European Commission and the French Maritime Administration, which worked out an information system which collates the existing safety-related information on board ships, Equasis [19].Data providers have been PSC regimes, classification societies, P&I clubs and insurance companies, intergovernmental organisations, federations and national/EU agencies and private companies or associations from the maritime industry [19].However, only data for inspections performed by participating MoU are available.We believe that expanding the existing data with the results of all inspections for the proposed 529 components could contribute to the efficiency of inspections.In that case, results from the previous inspections could be used at least as a starting point, and particular inspection by certain stakeholder could check only the remaining component or those evaluated as extremely important for their purposes.

Conclusion
Oil tankers are exposed to a wide range of inspections by various stakeholders.Although inspections are performed with the same goal, ensuring ship and seafarers' safety and environmentally friendly oil tanker operations, they are not recognised by other subjects in industry.This research has clearly shown that many inspection items are surveyed more than once in an observed time span by different inspection regimes, therefore making no sense, safety/economically/human-resource-wise.Therefore, they can defeat the purpose of executing them.
Our research has shown that it is possible to work out a unified inspection method with 529 components to be examined during inspection.A suggestion has been made that the results of such inspection should be made available to all the interested parties.This could be done by providing them through publicly available databases such as Equasis.

Table 1
Annual Cost of Inspections