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INTTRA helps create verified gross mass number to get boxes aboard

INTTRA, the New Jersey based ocean shipping marketplace, has a way to get an export box aboard ship without having to secure a real Verified Gross Mass number as the UN's International Maritime Organisation will demand on July 1.

The Ocean Carrier Equipment (OCEM) Management Association, which represent carriers has said containers should not be loaded if shippers haven't submitted the verified weight information to carriers.

But INTTRA may well have found a way. As far as INTTRA's concerned, the verified container weight will be present on the INTTRA form aptly entitled "Create eVGM". This number is then passed on to one of its many carriers as the VGM - satisfying OCEM members it would appear.

Of course, these are early days and INTTRA sees a day not far off when more than a simple name and a VGM number will be required.

But today on the INTTRA web form, there is a box where shipper fills with his name and right beside it, another where he puts in the name of the party that verified the gross mass number and the number itself. No one verifies anything - yet a verified gross mass number is created.

To those attending a press briefing in Hong Kong, it seemed little different from the old style declaration, once it had been made clear that nothing had been actually verified in the INTTRA verification process.

Not so, says INTTRA president Inna Kuzenetsova. First, the old weight declaration came with the shipping instruction, which often arrived after the box had been loaded or just before - which meant it was too late.

The INTTRA 'verification" was submitted at the start of the process.

Ms Kuzenetsova also made much of the requirement that dunage and the weight of the container when empty had to be included, whereas these items need not have been included before.

Ms Kuzenetsova also cautioned that wrongfully declarations could be caught in spot checks or when insurance claims are made.

But with the US Coast Guard washing its hands of such a role and finding evidence of overweight containers aboard the MSC Napoli, the MV Rena or the MOL Comfort is impossible, shippers might well take the chance.

But other INTTRA speakers said there were other authorities - Singapore's global port operator PSA was mentioned - which would not allow an export box to board without a VGM .

Of course, only 20 per cent of what Singapore ships out would be weighed because the rest of its "exports" transshipments.

It seemed to others, that as the terminal operator who lifted the box, he could weigh it. But one INTTRA man said the terminal operator did not want to share in the liability of the official weight number if things went wrong.

INTTRA's simply sees its eVGM as providing shippers operational capabilities to "submit and access SOLAS-compliant verified gross mass measurement required by carriers for stowage planning purposes".

The solution enables access and electronic of required VGM data for container authorisation and loading at the terminal.

INTTRA, a web-based multi-carrier ocean shipping e-marketplace, works with 55 lines and NVOCCs as well as their customers, taking in 650,000 container orders a week, which represent 24 per cent of the world's ocean trade.