Napoli clean-up lessons put spotlight on cargo manifests

Insufficient information provided under present system, writes Janet Porter, Portland Tuesday 8 May 2007

PRESSURE is growing for ship manifests to contain more detailed cargo infor- mation following lessons learnt from the MSC Napoliclean-up.

Salvors and contractors involved in the huge operation to remove, inspect and process containers from the beached ship say their work would have been easier if there was better understanding of cargo characteristics.

“Our biggest problem is not enough information on the manifest,” says David Duffield of marine consultants BMT Murray Fenton, the on-site representative for MSC Napoli’s P&I insurer, the London Club.

Each container has to be opened and its contents checked, a dangerous task at any time.

When the cargo may have been damaged, contaminated or mixed with salt water the risks are even greater.

Despite earlier suspicions there appears to be little evidence so far of wrongly declared or overweight cargo.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which is overseeing the salvage effort, has also praised the ship’s charterer, Mediterranean Ship-ping Co, for producing the manifest and bay play so quickly.

“The charterers did a fantastic job,” says Robin Middleton, the Secretary of State’s Representative who is in overall charge of the whole operation to remove fuel and cargo from the ship and then clear the wreck.

The manifest was produced in record time and within five days the salvors knew exactly what was on board.

That included the usual cross-section of cargo found on any containership, including hazardous chemicals, medicines, consumer goods, refrigerated produce, car parts and personal effects.

The ship was heading from Europe to South Africa when it started to break up in the English Channel during a storm in January and was towed to safety in Lyme Bay where it was deliberately grounded.

Slot charterers Hapag-Lloyd, Italia Marittima and H Stinnes had cargo on board as well as MSC.

In total, the ship was loaded with 2,318 20 ft and 40 ft containers at the time of the accident, of which 853 were subsequently lifted off the deck and taken to Portland.

Around 1,200 have so far been extracted from the holds.

A further 76 fell overboard when the ship was beached and washed ashore, 19 were submerged and another 19 are still unlocated, although some could be trapped under the vessel.

Fewer than 200 are still on the vessel in the hold closest to the fracture, with salvors Smit hoping to lift them out within three weeks or so.

Viking Barge 5, with heavy lifting equipment, is arriving at Portland about every 36 hours with an average of 30 containers from MSC Napoli. Many are waterlogged, oily, crushed and dented.

MSC’s feedership MSC Graceis calling from time to time at Portland, where around 200 containers have been cleared for onward shipments and are ready for collection, It is scheduled to arrive in the middle of this week to load another block.

Cargo that was too badly damaged or spoiled is being taken to recycling plants or landfill sites across the country.

A consignment of 20,000 litres of milk, for example, can only be processed by one facility in Sheffield where the cartons are separated from the liquid, which must be solidified before disposal.

Apart from insufficient detail about cargo characteristics on manifests, the accident has also thrown up another problem.

In many instances there are no contact details for the cargo owner, says Mr Duffield. In the case of MSC Napoli,for example, some packages were just due to be delivered to a PO box.

A large amount of freight on MSC Napoli had insufficient delivery instructions or consignee information, slowing the whole process of clearing the backlog that, at times, has threatened to hold up the whole salvage programme.