COSCO Shipping, OOCL, GSBN Try Blockchain for Secure Chemical Cargo – Ledger Insights
Today, the Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN) announced that it has completed a proof of concept using blockchain to help verify special cargo such as chemicals and lithium batteries. The trial involved the shipping companies COSCO Shipping and OOCL, the Shanghai Research Institute of Chemical Industry Testing (SICIT) and the appliance manufacturer Midea. COSCO and OOCL are shareholders in the non-profit GSBN.
Last year, a ship carrying 4,000 Porsches and Volkswagens from Germany to the US caught fire and eventually sank. It is suspected that the cause was lithium batteries in electric vehicles, but this has not been confirmed.
Usually cargo receives a safety certification from an organization such as SICIT so that the cargo can be handled safely to avoid accidents and protect the crew. However, the paper certificate is usually delivered to the sender of the goods. Therefore, there is a risk that paperwork may be altered as it passes through logistics companies to shipping companies and beyond, resulting in unknown security issues.
Using blockchain makes the security certificate data immutable and structured, ensuring that it can be verified by all parties and easily shared with approved parties. Going forward, the solution will also use the Internet of Things (IoT) to enable real-time traceability as the certificate is linked to specific cargo.
“Redefining the Safe Transportation certification process by leveraging GSBN’s blockchain infrastructure is a significant breakthrough in verification,” said Gaojun Wang, IT Director of SICIT. “Apart from improving transport safety, the streamlined digital process also increases overall efficiency, minimizing human errors caused during manual data entry.”
GSBN CEO Bertrand Chen mentioned that the shipping industry is undergoing a once-in-a-lifetime digital transformation. It got a huge boost last month when many of the world’s largest shipping lines committed to making all waybills electronic within ten years and half within five years. COSCO was one of the few that had not yet signed up. When electronic bills of lading (eBL) are widely adopted, the floodgates are opened for digitization of all the many documents related to shipping.
TradeLens, another blockchain network for freight shipping, shut down late last year after causing heavy losses for Maersk. At the time, GSBN CEO Bertrand Chen shared his thoughts on the shutdown with Ledger Insights, which he attributed to TradeLens being too for-profit, too big and choosing applications with too much competition.
