The Ocean Carrier Equipment Management Association (OCEMA) is to work with six major US ports to develop a solution that would enable exporters to comply with the container weighing rule, which will come into effect on July 1, 2016, according to The Wall Street Journal.
OCEMA is due to start discussions with the Federal Maritime Commission to allow ports and terminals to create a plan for implementing weighing services.
Stacey Normington, Administrator for OCEMA, said: “We’ll try and come to some sort of common way of doing it to make it more streamlined for those ports that are participating,” but it will “be up to each individual port and terminal location to determine how it will work.
“The idea is to make this process as seamless as possible, and work to make it easier for the shippers to comply.”
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PTI recently reported on the results of an ongoing opinion poll, which found that the majority of voters were still either not ready or confused about the container weighing regulations.
Despite this, a number of port and terminal operators have announced that they are prepared for the new rule, after announcing plans to introduce container weighing services.
Currently, there are two ways in which ports and terminals can weigh containers. Method one involves weighing the container and its contents separately, with second method used to weigh everything together.
The onus is on the shipper to ensure that the verified gross mass of a container is declared before being loaded onto a ship.
Watch our latest container weighing video on regulations of the new rule:
