Amendments to the SOLAS convention due into force in 2016 put the onus on to shippers to verify the loaded weight of containers, but many shippers will not have the facilities to weigh containers and will have to buy the service, potentially late in the chain at the terminal.
Bromma calculates that a 1m teu terminal with 20 RTGs could face E400,000 in RTG retrofit costs and other related investments. Assuming a 30% share of export containers as the potential market for weighing services, this translates to a baseline weighing cost of just 22c per box over a ten year period, leaving the potential to make a substantial profit on this service.
“For shippers that do not have weighing facilities, I would have thought that E10 per box would not be considered expensive,” said Lars Meurling, Bromma’s vice-president of marketing.
However, if ports leave it too late to make the necessary retrofits, they may find themselves caught up in a logjam in a race to install facilities before the 2016 deadline.
“In 18 months we have capability for retrofits, but it if’s six months before the deadline it will be a challenge for the industry,” said Mr Meurling.
Bromma is also looking to carve out a niche for itself providing calibration and certification of weighing equipment, as specified in the IMO’s amended SOLAS regulation.
“Our strategy is to start with common legislation, such as within the European Union, and target equipment type approval according to European laws.” The plan is that Bromma will then be able to apply this certification service outside of Europe. It hopes to be able to offer this service by March 2015.
