Page 8 - INTERCARGO - Bulk Carrier Casualty Report 2022

Introduction

Between the years 2012 to 2021, 27 bulk carriers over 10,000 dwt have
been identified as total losses and 92 crew members have lost their
lives. The average age of bulk carriers lost was 19.6 years and in total

2.3 million dwt have been lost which equates to an average 230,000
dwt per year. Cargo liquefaction remains the greatest contributor to
loss of life and grounding remains the greatest cause of ship losses.

Liquefaction 1
Of the five bulk carrier casualties which occurred as a consequence of cargo liq-
uefaction, four vessels carried nickel ore and one carried bauxite. They represented
18.5% of the total casualties in the past ten years. Those casualties led to the loss
of 70 seafarer lives, or 76.1% of the total loss of life.

The investigation reports for the five cargo liquefaction casualties are available for
download from the IMO at: https://gisis.imo.org/.

Preliminary review of the reports highlighted the following concerns:

• IMSBC Code requirements not being followed, especially in relation to testing
and certification of cargo condition. This should be the most important safety defence
and prevents the loading of non-compliant cargoes on ships.

• Lack of adequate assessment and monitoring of the condition of cargoes
being loaded in the cargo holds by representatives of all interests.

• Safe carriage of dry bulk cargoes and moisture related failure mechanisms
such as liquefaction and dynamic separation remain a major concern and high on the
dry bulk shipping agenda. Moisture related cargo failure (widely known as liquefac-
tion) continues to result in losses of ships and the lives of seafarers.

The lack of consolidated effort and commitment from all stakehold-
ers to resolve the problem is evident. These include shippers, re-
ceivers and port state authorities at loading and discharging ports.
Cargo liquefaction remains
the greatest contributor to This makes it imperative that the minimum obligations under the

loss of life and concern of IMSBC Code are properly fulfilled.
the bulk carrier industry. 1 Liquefaction in this report is used to describe moisture related cargo failure
mechanisms such as liquefaction and dynamic separation. In previous editions of the
report these mechanisms were referred to as Cargo Shift/ Liquefaction however Car-
go Shift is now included as a separate category to cover incidents such as stowage
failure of unitised cargo and grain cargoes shifting.