Paris MoU Names Best Performing Flags

The Paris MoU has published its new white, grey and black list with France maintaining top position and India moving up.

The White, Grey and Black (WGB) List presents the full spectrum, from quality flags to flags with a poor performance that are considered high or very high risk. It is based on the total number of inspections and detentions over a three-year rolling period for flags with at least 30 inspections in the period.

The list contains 72 flags: 43 on the White List, 19 on the Grey List and 10 on the Black list. 

The White List represents quality flags with a consistently low detention record. Compared with 2013, the number of flags on the White List has decreased by three flags to a total number of 43 flags. New on the White List is India, which was on the Grey List last year.

France has been placed highest on the list in terms of performance for the third year in a row. The next in line of the best performing flags in 2014 are Hong Kong, Bahamas, Norway and Sweden.

Flags with an average performance are shown on the Grey List. Their appearance on this list may act as an incentive to improve and move to the White List, says Paris MoU in a statement. At the same time flags at the lower end of the Grey List should be careful not to neglect control over their ships and risk ending up on the Black List next year.

There are 19 flags on this year’s Grey List. New on the list are Spain, Lithuania, Poland and Thailand, which last year were on the White List.

Belize has fallen from the Grey List to the Black List. The poorest performing flags are the United Republic of Tanzania, Republic of Moldova, Togo, Cook Islands and Dominica.

For several years the MoU Committee has closely monitored the performance of classification societies acting as recognized organizations (ROs) or flags. To calculate the performance of the RO, the same formula to calculate the excess factor of the flags is used. A minimum number of 60 inspections per RO are needed before the performance is taken into account for the list. 

In 2014, 37 ROs are recorded on the performance list. Among the best performing ROs were:

DNV GL 
Det Norske Veritas 
Lloyd’s Register 
American Bureau of Shipping 
China Classification Society 

The lowest performing ROs were:

INCLAMAR
International Register of Shipping 
Bulgarian Register of Shipping 

Compared with last year’s performance level, a small shift in RO performance in 2014 can be noticed. This year fewer organizations have been placed in the very low and low performing parts of the list and more organizations have been placed in the medium part of the list.

On July 1, 2015 the performance lists will be used for calculating the ship risk profile and flags on the Grey List and Black List are subject to the more stringent banning measures in force since 1 January 2011.

The full list is available here.