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1. The Shanghai Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) of the People’s Republic of China has announced new controls to reduce machinery failure onboard ships with effect from 01 July 2022 and are applicable for two years.

2. A notice published on 2 June 2022 by the Shanghai MSA (in local language) emphasizes that shipowners, managers and operators are responsible for ensuring the sea worthiness of their ships. They must implement ship safety management systems and test ship’s main and auxiliary machinery before calling at Shanghai Port.

3. Ships with two or more machinery failures within 12 months in Shanghai waters will be listed as high risk and will be subject to additional measures, which may include detention, suspension, or removal from port.

4. Listed ships will be required to report their precautionary actions to test machinery to Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) and the Shanghai MSA, with video of the test and Captain’s declaration. Alternatively, a listed ship can employ an additional tug for the voyage through the Yangtze River.

5. Further, owner, manager or operator of ships with three or more machinery failures and total times over 10% of the vessel numbers they own or operating, will also be listed and will face action from the Shanghai MSA, which includes downgrading governmental service and vessel traffic priority as well as informing their banking and insurance provider.

6. The notice provides following in case of machinery failure;

a. The ship’s master should take emergency measures to ensure safety and avoid accidents, report to VTS and follow instructions.

b. When the vessel is stable, a written report should be submitted to the local MSA with details of the incident, emergency measures and corrective and correct actions, as well as ship information on the owner, management, agent and classification.

c. Vessels holding Safety Management Certificate should also carry out safety management system review and report to MSA.

d. Any machinery failure in Shanghai’s territorial waterway, incident causing risk of traffic safety or repair requiring more than two hours will require an onboard incident root cause investigation and safety inspection by the Port State Control.

7. Owners/ operators and masters of ships intending to call Shanghai port are advised to be guided by above and accordingly ensure that safety management system is implemented on their ships and that ship’s machinery, propulsion, steering and navigational systems are pre-checked and tested before entering Shanghai’s territorial waterway. 

Enclosure:

• Nil.

Disclaimer:

This Technical Circular and the material contained in it is provided only for the purpose of supplying current information to the reader and not as an advice to be relied upon by any person. While we have taken utmost care to be as factual as possible, readers/ users are advised to verify the exact text and content of the Regulation from the original source/ issuing Authority. 

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