25th Jan 2008
Jack Loo
Singapore has joined a select group of ports for a trial project under the Secure Freight Initiative (SFI) with the US government that scans US-bound shipping containers for nuclear or radiological materials.
Created in December 2006, SFI’s International Container Security project is a joint effort of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, DHS), the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Department of State, together with cooperating overseas port authorities.
Singapore was selected because it has a large volume of US-bound containers and its status as a transshipment port, said a CBP spokesperson.
About 94 per cent of US-bound containers from Singapore are trans-shipments. Trans-shipment is the shipment of goods to an intermediate destination, and onto another destination.
Under SFI, ports use radiation detection, imaging and related equipment to scan maritime cargo containers to help detect and interdict illicit trafficking of special nuclear material and other radioactive material bound for the U.S.
In line with these requirements, PSA Singapore Terminals’ Brani Terminal will use radiation detection, optical character recognition and x-ray imaging equipment spanning six months of the trial.
Trucks carrying US-bound containers would be directed into a lane for scanning, and pending no alarm, the containers would then be loaded on-board a US bound vessel. If an alarm occurs, the container would undergo a secondary inspection or be moved to a location for the government agencies to take action.
The other ports participating in the pilot trial are Southampton, United Kingdom; Salalah, Oman; Qasim, Pakistan; Busan, Korea; Hong Kong and Puerto Cortes, Honduras.
Under the trial, data gathered from the container scanning are transmitted in near real-time to a National Targeting Centre in the United States, where officers will collect and analyse the data to determine if the shipping container contains any radioactive material.
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