Vessel Experience Factor

Vessel Experience Factory VEF defined as a ratio

Vessel weight
-------------------------------- = VEF
B/L weight established at shore

If VEF > 1, vsl is over-calibrated,
<1 , under calibrated

There is some elaborate and systematic calculation involved in establishing VEF, e.f last five voyage & some statistical method in rejecting outllayer

VEF has been used quite extensively in petroleum shipment but to applied to palm oil pose some problem, bec

1) Petroleum - normally involved the whole vessel involving all tanks and single product. In palm oil normally problem arise over cerain parcel occupied some of the tanks
2) It is still not an industrial practice for palm oil to demand for VEF - resistance from ship's Master/Owner in releasing the VEF. (Some vessel claimed there is no VEF which is rubbish - the raw data are there, just provide the last 5 cargo as per vessel Cargo Log Book and you can calculate the VEF)

When using VEF in applying Palm Oil shipment consider the following palm oil factor

1) loading mode - if loading at Indonesia off-port, likely is it by barge-to-ship transfer. The barge is non-heated and there will be cargo ROB (remained on board). Some ROB are intentionally created as obvious

2) Heated cargo like PFAD/Stearin - view the loading temperature. if it is too low, then check whether there is stripping of shore tank

3) Generally rule of thumb, normally Japanese/Korean Vessel has good vef, old vsl and/or Russian ship, god help you






First recheck all shore calculation and pipeline properly cleared.

Then look at the vessel experience

Check with Vsl Master the last 5 loading to established the usual ship-shore difference - generally known as Vessel Experience Factor

rule of thumb

a) Japanese vessl are generally calibrated and give good shore-ship figure
b) Old vessel like Russian has no calibration figure
c) preferably vef based on whole vsl

Take the 0.5% with a pinch of salt - for 6000mt vsl 0.5% is 30mt - if it happen to a Japanese Ship - you better watch it



but time has change - saw 20k vessel loading with 100mt short and there is no feeling at all