IMSBC Individual Cargo Schedule: Fields and Legal Status
How to read an IMSBC Code individual schedule: the full field list, which text is mandatory and which is informative under section 1.4.2, and how it reads against a declaration.
An individual schedule in Appendix 1 of the IMSBC Code is the operative document for carrying a named solid bulk cargo, and it has a fixed structure. The fields run from the Bulk Cargo Shipping Name through Description, Characteristics, Hazard, Stowage and segregation, Hold cleanliness, Weather precautions, Loading, Precautions, Ventilation, Carriage, Discharge and Clean-up, with an Emergency procedures block that appears only on Group B entries.
The full article will cover each field and what it obliges, and it will give proper weight to a distinction that is widely missed in practice. Section 1.4.2 lists the Description, the Characteristics text other than the Hazard classification block, the Hazard field and the Emergency procedures as recommendatory or informative rather than mandatory, and section 1.2.1 states that the schedule properties are given only for guidance. So the group and hazard classification of a cargo is mandatory while its printed bulk density and stowage factor are not.
It will also cover how a schedule is read against a shipper’s declaration, and what to do when the two disagree.