The New Inspection Regime (NIR) of the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (PMoU)

1. The new target of full coverage

With the introduction of the NIR the PMoU will change its target of inspecting 25% of individual ships calling at each member State to a shared commitment for full coverage of inspecting all ships visiting ports and anchorages in the PMoU region as a whole. 

1.1. Ship Risk Profile

The Target Factor will be replaced by the Ship Risk Profile. The Ship Risk Profile classifies ships into Low Risk Ships (LRS) and High Risk Ships (HRS). If a ship is neither Low Risk or High Risk it is classified as Standard Risk Ship (SRS).

The Ship Risk Profile is based on the following criteria, using details of inspections in the PMoU area in the last 3 years: 

• type of ship;
• age of ship; 
• performance of the flag of the ship (including undertaking Voluntary IMO Member State Audit Scheme (VIMSAS)); 
• performance of the recognized organization(s); 
• performance of the company responsible for the ISM management; 
• number of deficiencies; 
• number of detentions.

1.2 Company performance

The company performance criteria for the calculation of the Ship Risk Profile is a new parameter in the PMoU. The PMoU has established a formula which takes into consideration the deficiencies and detentions in the last 36 months of the company’s fleet, based on the IMO company number and compares it to the average of all vessels inspected in the PMoU to determine the performance level. The companies will be ranked into very low, low, medium and high. Any Refusal of Access (Ban) will have a negative impact on the ranking of the company.

1.3 Inspection Categories, Time Window, Selection Scheme and Inspection Types

Recognising the rights of Port States to inspect foreign flagged ships in their ports at any time, the Paris MoU is introducing the following regime.