Tanker Management and Self Assessment (TMSA)
The OCIMF programme under which tanker operators self-assess management systems against staged best-practice elements.
Tanker Management and Self Assessment (TMSA) is the OCIMF programme under which tanker operators assess their own management systems against a set of elements, each described at staged levels of maturity. It is a company-level instrument, in contrast to the ship-level inspection that SIRE provides, and the two are read together in a vetting decision.
Each element covers a management area, from safety leadership and recruitment through navigational safety and cargo operations to environmental management, with best-practice guidance at each stage. Operators publish their self-assessment to prospective charterers, who use the profile alongside inspection reports and the ship’s operational record.
The programme’s structure has influenced vetting instruments outside the tanker trades: RightShip states its RISQ 3.0 questionnaire follows the structure of TMSA and SIRE 2.0. The full article will cover the elements and stages, the self-assessment and verification cycle, how charterers read a TMSA profile, and the relationship with the ISM Code .