Australia has one of the world’s largest mixed market economies and the largest continental landmass surrounded by water. Australia’s national livelihood depends on ensuring maritime trade to and from the country remains safe, efficient and compliant with all relevant international conventions. Australia relies on sea transport for the majority of its imports and exports by weight. Port State control (PSC) is an essential element in ensuring the safe operation of ships and protection of the marine environment.

This report summarises the PSC activities of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), detailing the performance of commercial shipping companies, flag States and Classification Societies for the 2020 calendar year.

AMSA is a statutory authority established under the Australian Maritime Safety Authority Act 1990 (the AMSA Act).

AMSA’s principal functions are:

• promoting maritime safety and protection of the marine environment.
• Protecting life at sea by enforcing the safe operation of ships.
• Preventing and combatting ship-sourced pollution in the marine environment.
• Providing infrastructure to support safety of navigation in Australian waters.
• Providing a national search and rescue service to the maritime and aviation sectors.

To meet government and community expectations, AMSA is empowered to perform compliance and enforcement functions, regulating maritime trade in Australia through the implementation of rigorous flag State control (FSC) and PSC regimes. Professional and consistent FSC and PSC regimes are essential in ensuring ships comply with minimum standards of maritime safety, seafarer welfare and protection of Australia’s 60,000 kilometre coastline (including approximately 12,000 islands) from environmental damage.

AMSA works in close cooperation with the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and PSC partner nations across the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions, sharing PSC information and actively participating in international policy development. These efforts are aimed at ensuring AMSA remains a transparent, trusted and consistent member of the international maritime community.

As the flag State for Australian ships, AMSA is responsible for maintaining the operational safety standards of Australian-registered ships, wherever in the world they may be operating.

Noting that information related to AMSA’s PSC activities is used by a diverse range of stakeholders on a regular basis, AMSA delivers current information to stakeholders via the AMSA website. This information includes monthly ship detentions, details of ongoing PSC activities, current shipping trends and emerging issues. We also detail and promulgate government regulation and important information through marine orders and marine notices respectively.

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Except as otherwise specified, all material presented in this publication is provided under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

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• the Commonwealth Coat of Arms
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The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence is a standard form licence agreement that allows you to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt this publication provided that you attribute the work.

The details of the version 4.0 of the licence are available on the Creative Commons website, as is the full legal code for that licence.

Attribution

AMSA’s preference is that you attribute this publication (and any material sourced from it) using the following wording:

Source: Australian Maritime Safety Authority
Port State Control Australia 2020 Report

More information

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This report and AMSA detention data available online.

Introduction

As with all industries, the COVID-19 pandemic presented risks to AMSA’s PSC regime throughout 2020. AMSA implemented procedures to protect both our inspectors and ships crews from possible transmission of COVID-19 during inspections. Despite COVID-19 restrictions, AMSA Inspectors undertook 3021 PSC inspections during 2020. While this is a reduction of 6.2 per cent from 2019, it is only a slight reduction of 201 inspections over the full year, or around 4 per week around the entire country. When compared against the number of arrivals, this outcome is a positive achievement as the 6.2 per cent drop-in inspections occurred in a period where the total port arrivals decreased by 8.4 per cent, or 2405 less arrivals.

The PSC inspection results for 2020 saw a slight increase in the detention rate of ships from 5.1 per cent in 2019 to 5.9 per cent (The peak in 2011 was 9.2 per cent).

The average deficiency rate also increased from 1.6 deficiencies per inspection in 2019 to 2.1 deficiencies per inspection in 2020. While an increase was observed, the deficiency rate has only been less than 2.1 twice in the last 10 years.

As noted in previous reports, from 2013 onwards, ships and operators with a record of poor performance can be refused access from entering or using Australian ports through a direction issued under section 246 of the Navigation Act 2012¹. In 2020, AMSA refused access to five ships for periods ranging from 3 to 12 months. Four of these directions were issued in response to significant breaches of the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC).

The annual PSC report previously contained a section dedicated to MLC. The information is now contained in a separate dedicated MLC report available on the AMSA website co-located with this report.

This report retains the basic MLC PSC statistics contained in previous reports for the purpose of comparison between deficiency and detention categories.

2020 summary of PSC activity

• During the calendar year there were:
  • 26,179 ship arrivals by 6081 foreign-flagged ships
  • 3021 PSC inspections
  • 178 ship detentions.
• Bulk carriers accounted for 54.8 per cent of ship arrivals and 60.9 per cent of PSC inspections.
• PSC inspections were carried out at 46 Australian ports.
• The average gross tonnage per visit was 54,318 GT compared to 52,775 GT in 2019.
• The average age of ships in 2020 was 11 years, compared to 10 years old in both 2019 and 2018.

10-year summary of inspection, detentions and deficiency rate

Snapshot comparison to previous year

Key points

• In 2020, the number of foreign-flagged ship arrivals decreased by 2405 (8.4 per cent) to 26,179. The number of arrivals by individual ships increased by 100 to 6081 (up 1.7 per cent).
• The number of initial PSC inspections conducted during 2020 decreased by 201 (6.2 per cent) to 3021.
• The overall number of deficiencies increased to 6387 in 2020, compared to 5281 in 2019.
• The average number of deficiencies per inspection increased to 2.1 in 2020, compared to 1.6 in 2019.
• The number of detainable deficiencies increased to 270 in 2020, compared to 218 in 2019. The largest contributor to this was ISM detainable deficiencies increasing to 76 in 2020, compared to 52 in 2019.
• The number of detained ships increased to 178 in 2020, compared to 163 in 2019. The detention per inspection rate also increased to 5.9 per cent in 2020, compared to 5.1 per cent in 2019.

The deficiencies per inspection remained relatively low in 2020, with only 2018 and 2019 having lower deficiency rates since AMSA first published its annual PSC reports in 1991. The quality of ships coming to Australia continues to be of a high standard. Australia’s port State control regime continues to deliver the desired outcome of improved safety and exerts a positive influence on the quality of ships arriving in Australia.

Top five initial PSC inspections by flag State 2020

Top five detention rates by flag State 2020

Note: this table only covers flag States with 10 or more inspections.

Trends for 2020

As observed in past PSC annual reports, the most frequent cause of detention since 2010 relates to ineffective implementation of the safety management system (SMS) as required by the International Safety Management (ISM) Code. In 2020 the number of ISM detainable deficiencies increased to 76 (occurring in 2.5% of PSC inspections) compared to 52 in 2019 (occurring in 1.6% of PSC inspections). The rate of structural and equipment deficiencies per inspection increased to 1.1 in 2020 from 0.9 in 2019. This highlights an increase in maintenance issues that are not being addressed by the ships SMS as implemented onboard. This is likely to be related to a combination of factors including:

• An increase in the average age of ships visiting Australia, which increased from 10 years in 2019, to 11 years in 2020.
• Difficulties, as reported by operators, with conducting shore-based maintenance due to COVID-19 restrictions. Operators also reported difficulty in superintendents being able to visit their ships due to COVID-19 restrictions, which affected their ability to conduct on-board audits of the SMS.
• A decrease in investment by Operators to effectively maintain ships due to an economic downturn in industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fire safety (13.7 per cent), life-saving appliances (13.7 per cent) and emergency systems (13.0 per cent) again appeared in the top five categories of detainable deficiencies. These three categories have been in the top five since 2014.

Pollution prevention related detainable deficiencies dropped out of the top five categories for detention, despite the introduction of the sulphur cap which came into effect through MARPOL ANNEX VI on 1 January 2020. To assist industry ahead of the introduction of the sulphur cap, AMSA issued two marine notices in 2019, MN2019/04 (Implementation of the 1 January 2020 low sulphur fuel requirement) and MN2019/05 (Requirements for the use of Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems in Australian Waters and reporting to AMSA) outlining AMSA’s expectations and approach to compliance in this space.

Watertight and weathertight deficiencies moved into the top five detainable deficiencies (8.1 percent) coinciding with the increase in SMS maintenance issues mentioned above.

Top five detainable deficiencies 2018-2020

In 2020, AMSA continued its work with flag States and ship owners to increase awareness of factors that may impact on PSC performance. AMSA is also working jointly with flag States to bring ships into compliance. This includes assisting flag States to access ships in Australian ports in order to conduct their flag State inspections. More information on this process is available at the flag State administration webpage.

Summary of shipping industry activity 2020

In 2020, iron ore and coal were again the largest bulk exports by value from Australia followed by gas².

The average gross tonnage of visiting ships increased again in 2020, though the number of port visits decreased.

The main trends in 2020 were:

• Foreign-flagged ship port visits totalled 26,179 in 2020, a decrease of 8.4 per cent from 2019. The number of individual ships that made these port calls increased slightly to 6081, an increase of 100 (1.7 per cent) compared to 5981 in 2019.
• Bulk carrier port arrivals (14,337) decreased by 0.6 per cent in 2020 compared to 2019 (14,418) and accounted for 54.8 per cent of foreign-flagged ship port arrivals. Arrivals decreased by 31.9 per cent for oil tankers, 16.7 per cent for vehicle carriers, 15.3% for container ships, 12.6% for general cargo ships and 11.1% for livestock carriers. Arrivals decreased by 35.5% for other ships types, a large proportion of this associated with a reduction in passenger ship arrivals due to COVID-19. Arrivals increased by 6.2 per cent for chemical tankers and 3.2 per cent for gas carriers.
• Foreign-flagged shipping activity remains geographically disparate between Australian ports. Port Hedland remains the busiest Australian port for foreign ship visits, accounting for 12.1 per cent of arrivals in Australia. The top five ports of Port Hedland, Newcastle, Brisbane, Gladstone and Melbourne accounted for 42.4 per cent of arrivals in Australia.
• The trend towards an increase in the size of visiting ships continued with the average gross tonnage increasing to 54,318 GT in 2020 compared to 52,775 GT in 2019. The average age of foreign ships arriving in Australian ports increased from 10 years in 2019, to 11 years in 2020.
• The number of ship visits across all inspection priorities decreased compared to 2019. 75.4 per cent of arrivals were in the lower priority groups of P3 and P4. This is a reflection of the average age of ships arriving in Australia being substantially lower than the world average³.

Table 1—Port visits by priority group

* See risk rating for more details on priority groups.

Footnotes:

^{1. In exercising this power it is important to note that AMSA only employs this mechanism where routine PSC intervention has not been effective in achieving a lasting change in behaviour. It is only used where a systemic failure has been identified. The intent of the process is to improve performance rather than simply remove problem ships from Australian ports.}

^{2. Based on ABS trade data - 5368.0 International Trade in Goods and Services, Australia, Table 12b}

^{3. Based on Statista Research Department data}

Arrivals

AMSA conducted PSC inspections in 46 ports across Australia. As shown in the table below, arrivals were not distributed evenly across the 70 ports visited by foreign ships in 2020, with 42 per cent of all arrivals occurring at the top five ports.

Ship arrivals in Australian ports for 2020

Port Hedland remained the busiest port for foreign-flagged ship arrivals, predominantly for the export of iron ore. In Newcastle and Gladstone, the majority of arrivals were also for the dry bulk export market, mainly coal. In Brisbane and Melbourne, the majority of arrivals were engaged in the container trade.

Port Hedland remained the busiest port for foreign-flagged ship arrivals, predominantly for the export of iron ore. In Newcastle and Gladstone, the majority of arrivals were also for the dry bulk export market, mainly coal. In Brisbane and Melbourne, the majority of arrivals were engaged in the container trade.

2020 Port arrivals by ship type

Table 2—Ship arrivals by ship type in 2020 compared to 2019

Inspections by ship type

In 2020, AMSA Inspectors carried out 3021 initial PSC inspections and 1501 PSC follow up inspections. AMSA Inspectors are now able to conduct remote follow up inspections in accordance with Tokyo Memorandum of Understanding guidelines, 35 of the follow up inspections in 2020 were conducted remotely.

PSC inspections by ship type

Table 3—Total ships inspected by ship type

Inspection by location

Of the 46 ports where inspections were conducted, the top five ports accounted for 51% per cent of the 3021 initial PSC inspections undertaken as shown in Table 4.

Table 4—PSC inspections 2020 top 15 locations

As in previous years, in 2020 the greatest numbers of PSC initial inspections were undertaken in Western Australia followed by Queensland then New South Wales. Inspections by state are shown in Table 5 and Figure 2.

Table 5—PSC inspections in 2020 by state/territory

PSC inspections in 2020 by state/territory

Inspections by flag State

In 2020, Panama remained the flag State with the largest number of ships inspected by AMSA, with 703 Panamanian ships (23 per cent of the total) being subject to an initial PSC inspection.

The top five flag States remains unchanged since 2015 and inspections of ships from Panama, Liberia, Marshall Islands, Hong Kong China and Singapore accounted for 70 per cent of all PSC inspections in 2020. The top 12 flags, as listed in Table 6, accounted for 2684 inspections, or 89 per cent of all inspections.

A five-year breakdown of the number of ships inspected by flag State is provided in Table 7. The table does not show any significant change in the proportional inspection rates by flag States over the last five years.

Table 6—PSC inspections by top 12 flag States in 2020

Note: figures in bold are not in the top 12 in those years.

Table 7—Total ships inspected by flag State

The list below represents inspections by flag State where 25 or more ships have been subjected to inspection during 2020. Flag States that have less than 25 inspections in a year are not considered to be statistically significant in this context.

Distribution of PSC inspections by flag State

About deficiencies

The IMO defines a deficiency as ‘a condition found not to be in compliance with the requirements of the relevant convention’. Serious deficiencies contribute to the ship being substandard or unseaworthy. AMSA will issue a ship with a deficiency if it is determined, or reasonably suspected, that the condition of a ship, its equipment, or performance of its crew does not comply with the requirements of relevant international conventions.

There was an increase in the number of deficiencies issued in 2020 (6387) compared to 2019 (5281), despite a decrease in the number of PSC inspections from 3222 to 3021. The corresponding deficiency rate increased from 1.6 in 2019 to 2.1 in 2020.

As shown later in Table 10, the rate of deficiencies per inspection by category increased for structure/equipment, human factors and MLC. The deficiency rate for the categories of operational and ISM remained unchanged.

Deficiencies by category and ship type

For reporting purposes, deficiencies have been categorised into groups that identify key areas of non-compliance, being structural/equipment, operational, human factors, ISM and MLC. Table 8 identifies the number of deficiencies by category along with a comparison of the deficiency rates to those in 2019.

If the number of deficiencies is considered in isolation, as depicted in Table 8, the majority of deficiencies were issued to bulk carriers. However, this is not surprising given bulk carriers accounted for 55 per cent of ship arrivals and 61 per cent of all inspections. In order to assess the performance of ship types, it is necessary to compare the deficiencies per inspection for each category as provided in table 9.

Top five deficiencies per inspection by ship type 2020

Note: only ship types that had 10 or more inspections are included.

Table 8—Deficiencies by category and ship type

Note: as the category deficiency rates are rounded to one decimal place their sum may differ slightly from the overall deficiency rate.

Table 9—Rate of deficiencies per inspection by category and ship type

Note: please use the scroll bar below the table to see the full table.

Figures in bold are the top five in each category; Figures in italics are above average.

Note: as the category deficiency rates are rounded to one decimal place their sum may differ slightly from the overall deficiency rate.

Table 10—Change in deficiency rate per inspection by category only

The IMO defines a detention as: ‘intervention action taken by the port State when the condition of the ship or its crew does not correspond substantially with the applicable conventions to ensure that the ship will not sail until it can proceed to sea without presenting a danger to the ship or persons on board, or without presenting an unreasonable threat of harm to the marine environment, whether or not such action will affect the scheduled departure of the ship’.

Detainable deficiencies by category

Table 11 shows the proportion of detainable deficiencies in different categories over a three- year period. As indicated in the table, the detainable deficiencies relating to the category of ISM increased in 2020, while the categories of fire safety, emergency systems, lifesaving appliances and water/weather-tight conditions round out the top five categories of detainable deficiencies. The proportion of MLC related detentions dropped to seventh place (previously in sixth place since 2014) but remains significant. AMSA exercised flexibility and worked with industry in its dealings with MLC related deficiencies during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Flexibility and proactive work with industry, specifically around seafarer repatriation prevented a significant surge in detainable deficiencies relating to MLC.

The relatively high proportion of detainable deficiencies attributed to the ISM category suggests that safety management systems (SMS) are not properly and effectively implemented onboard as was intended. While the proportion may be considered to be a cause of concern history provides context. In 2013, the number of ISM detainable deficiencies peaked at 120 (31.2 per cent share of detainable deficiencies), this number was 76 (28.1 per cent share of detainable deficiencies) in 2020.

Shipboard operations and maintenance were again the highest contributors to ISM detentions, followed by emergency preparedness. The implementation of SMS procedures relating to safety of navigation continued to make a relatively high contribution to shipboard operations ISM detentions in 2020.

Table 11—Detainable deficiencies by category

Detentions by ship type

In 2020 AMSA detained 178 ships with an average detention rate of 5.9 per cent compared to 163 ships detained in 2019 with an average detention rate of 5.1 per cent.

Table 12—Top five detention rates by ship type in 2019 and 2020

Note: only ship types with 10 or more inspections are included.

The poorest performing ship type was general cargo ships, followed by heavy load carriers and livestock carriers. General cargo ships have been in the top five poorest performing ship types for the past seven years while container ships have been in the top five for the past three years.

Bulk carriers represented the largest number of PSC detentions, as shown in Table 13. This is expected given the significant proportion of bulk carrier arrivals and the number of ships eligible to be inspected⁴. The bulk carrier detention rate increased to 6.6 per cent, above the 5.9 per cent average for all ships in 2020. This is a continuing trend as bulk carriers have exceeded the average detention rate for the last five years and are the fourth worst performing ship type in 2020.

Table 13—Detentions by ship type

* As there are less than 10 inspections of this ship type these are not counted in the performance assessment.

The following is notable with regard to detention by ship type in 2020:

• 1840 bulk carriers were inspected with 4105 deficiencies issued resulting in 121 detentions. The detention rate for bulk carriers increased to 6.6 per cent from 5.9 per cent in 2019.
• Offshore service vessels had zero detentions from 15 inspections compared to two detentions from 12 inspections in 2019.
• Tugboats had zero detentions from 26 inspections.
• General cargo ships had the highest detention rate at 10.4 per cent, a 2.6 per cent increase compared to 2019.
• Oil tankers had a detention rate of 3.2 per cent, a 2.6 per cent increase compared to 2019, but still well below the 2020 average of 5.9 per cent.
• Heavy load carriers had the second highest detention rate at 8.3 per cent, a 1.7 per cent decrease compared to 2019.
• General cargo ships and heavy load carriers had the top two highest detention rates in both 2019 and 2020.

Detentions by flag State

Individual flag State performance can be determined by comparing the percentage share of the number of inspections against the percentage share of the number of detentions for each flag State. Where the percentage share of detentions is higher than the percentage share of inspections, this is an indication that the ships of that flag State are performing below average. This is represented in Figure 4.

Top five detention rates by flag State 2020

Note: this table only covers ship types with 10 or more inspections.

Figure 4 – Share of detentions compared to share of inspections

Note: a detailed breakdown of this graph can be found in the Appendix.

Where a flag State is subject to a small number of inspections, a single detention can result in the flag State exceeding the average detention rate, as shown in Table 15. This may not be an accurate measure of performance. A more accurate assessment of performance of individual flag States can be drawn by comparing detention rates over three years, as shown in Table 14. This table shows that Antigua and Barbuda, Liberia and Panama have all exceeded the overall average detention rate over the three years from 2018 to 2020.

Table 14—Flag States that exceeded the average in 2018, 2019 and 2020 (note this only covers flag States with 10 or more inspections each year)

Bold text=Exceeded the average detention rate in two years out of three

Italics=Exceeded the average detention rate in three years out of three

Table 15—Inspections and detentions by flag State

Note: flag States above the average detention rate with more than 10 inspections are provided in bold.

Footnote: 

^{4.  All foreign flag ships are eligible for inspection six months from a previous inspection by AMSA or on their first arrival at an Australian port.}

Flag State control (FSC)

AMSA Inspectors conduct inspections on Australian-flagged ships subject to the Navigation Act 2012 using the same targeting arrangements applied to foreign-flagged ships.

AMSA conducted 87 initial FSC inspections on 77 Australian-flagged ships during 2020, resulting in 210 deficiencies being recorded, five of which were detainable deficiencies resulting in the detention of one ship. The average number of deficiencies per inspection in 2020 remained unchanged from 2019 at 2.4, which was slightly above the average recorded for foreign-flagged ships during the same period (2.1).

The number of FSC detentions decreased to one in 2020, from three in 2019. This equated to a detention rate of 1.1 per cent, which is well below the average recorded for foreign-flagged ships during the same period (5.9 per cent).

Port State control – Australian-flagged ships (overseas)

Australian-flagged ships calling at foreign ports were subject to a total of 11 PSC inspections by foreign maritime authorities, resulting in eight deficiencies and no detentions.

Focused inspection campaign

From 1 August 2020 to 31 October 2020, AMSA conducted a focused inspection campaign (FIC) on containerised cargo securing arrangements. This was to verify that containerised cargo was stowed and secured in accordance with Chapter VI of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). Over this three-month period, AMSA conducted a total of 208 FIC inspections. Two ships were detained as a direct result of the FIC.

Find more information on the FIC results.

Refusal of a ship’s access and condition of entry

Australia is a signatory to various International Maritime Organization (IMO) and International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions which aim to ensure ships are safe.

Ships that are not operated and managed to meet applicable minimum standards and relevant Australian laws pose an increased risk to seafarers, ships and the environment. The Navigation Act 2012 gives AMSA the power to direct that a ship be refused access to Australian ports. AMSA exercises that power on occasions where a ship is repeatedly detained, has a poor PSC record, or there are concerns about the performance of the ship operator.

We provide access to our policy on refusing access on our website.  

AMSA can issue a ship with a direction not to enter or use an Australian port (or ports) for a set period of time, as deemed necessary. When considering ship performance, AMSA also looks at the performance of the entire company responsible for the operations of the ship. Where the company’s performance is also deemed unacceptable, the periods for which the ship is not permitted to enter an Australian port may be extended. A direction resulting from a detention will generally take effect as soon as the ship leaves the Australian port or anchorage following rectification of the detainable deficiency.

We publish a list of ships that are refused access to Australian ports on our website. 

Table 20 lists the ships issued with directions not to enter or use an Australian port in 2020.

Table 20—Ships issued with directions⁷

High performing operators

When considering ship performance AMSA also considers the performance of the operator in respect of the detention and deficiency rates of the ships they operate. In this report AMSA has  identified operators that are considered high performing.

This is assessed on the following basis:

• At least 10 inspections during the year (less than 10 is not statistically significant)
• No detentions during the year
• A deficiency rate at no more than 70 per cent of the average deficiency rate for the year.

Applying these criteria to data for 2020 AMSA identified 25 high performing operators as listed in Table 21 below.

Table 21—High performing operators 2020

Footnote:

^7. The full list of ships which have been refused access to Australian ports, or issued letters of warning.

Share of detentions compared to share of inspections

In 2020, detentions occurred in 5.9 per cent of all inspections, and the rate of deficiencies per inspection was 2.1.

Note: this table only covers flag States with 10 or more inspections.