Australia, Newcastle NSW - Vessel Arrival System

The Newcastle Port Corporation (NPC) proposes to introduce a “Vessel Arrival System” (VAS) for coal vessels in an endeavor to reduce the congestion of vessels off the port. In essence the VAS works as follows:

1. Vessel must give 14 days notice of arrival at the port together with consents enabling NPC to track the vessel's transit to the port.
2. Based on the vessel's ETA and NPC's calculations, the NPC will inform the vessel of a Notified Arrival Time (NAT) - 10 nm from the port and for the purpose of the vessel being placed in the queue. This is in significant variance to the current internationally accepted "Turn of Arrival" (TOA) operating procedures.
3. At about the same time, the vessel is advised of its Estimated Time of Loading (ETL)
4. The vessel has to proceed to the port to arrive 48 hours prior to the ETL
5. The vessel is not permitted to anchor off the port more than 48 hours before the ETL, otherwise the vessel may lose priority and may be demoted in the queue
6. NPC had previously ruled that anchoring to elsewhere in the territorial sea of Australia (over which NPC has no jurisdiction) without reasonable justification may be considered to have contravened the port rules, and the vessel could lose priority and may be demoted in the queue; this has now been changed to “Vessels should use reasonable endeavors not to anchor elsewhere in the territorial sea of Australia”.
   Vessel are expected to reduce speed and drift.
7. In NPC's view, the Notice of Readiness (NOR) should be issued at the NAT and, in their opinion, this NOR must be accepted by the shipper.
8. NPC has issued new rules which are to be trialed commencing 1 February 2010.