Vetting Inspection
A Vetting Inspection is an assessment of a tanker safety, condition and operation carried out before a charterer will accept (vet) the ship for its cargo. Oil majors and traders vet ships using inspection reports from schemes such as SIRE (oil) and CDI (chemicals), together with the ship history, incident record and the operator management.
Vetting has become the effective gatekeeper of the tanker market: a ship must be vetted acceptable by a charterer to carry its cargo, and a rejection — from inspection deficiencies, detentions or a poor record — can keep a ship idle. Maintaining a clean vetting standing is therefore a core commercial responsibility of the operator.
In the tanker trades no cargo is fixed until the ship passes the charterer vetting, so vetting standing directly determines whether a ship can earn. A single bad inspection or an unresolved deficiency can lock a ship out of the best charterers, making vetting management one of the highest-value activities in tanker operation.
What does a vetting inspection look at?
The ship structural and equipment condition, the crew and operational practices, the management system, and the ship history — drawing on SIRE or CDI inspection reports and the ship deficiency and incident record.