If your cargo goes offshore, the container it travels in is not "just a box" — it is certified lifting equipment. DNV 2.7-1 is the standard that governs offshore Cargo Carrying Units (CCUs), and understanding it saves operators from the two expensive surprises: units refused at the quayside, and recertification lapses that ground a whole fleet.
What DNV 2.7-1 actually covers
The standard specifies design, materials, fabrication, testing and marking for containers lifted to and from offshore installations. That includes the frame and pad-eyes, the sling set, weld procedures, impact-tested steel grades, and the data plate. A compliant unit carries a stamped plate with its unique ID, tare and payload, test dates and the certifying body — the first thing a deck foreman checks before accepting a lift.
New-build certification
Certification starts at the drawing stage, not after fabrication. Design review, material traceability, welder and procedure qualifications, prototype load tests (typically 2.5R for the frame), NDE of critical welds, then plating and documentation. Buying a unit without this paper trail means owning steel you cannot legally lift offshore.
The 5-year clock
CCUs live on an inspection schedule: periodic visual inspections (commonly annual) and a thorough recertification cycle including NDE of lift points, typically every five years. Sling sets have their own inspection regime. A lapsed plate does not just risk refusal — it voids the assumptions your lift plan and insurance rest on.
Why independent inspection matters
The credibility of a certificate is the independence of whoever signed it. GML operates an ISO/IEC 17020:2012 Type-A accredited inspection body — the classification reserved for bodies fully independent of the parties they inspect. When we certify or recertify a CCU, MPI a pad-eye or witness a load test, the paperwork stands up to any operator's audit — BP, Shell, EOG or the T&T regulator.
Custom-built, inspected, delivered
GML supplies DNV 2.7-1 CCUs built to order — baskets, mud skips, half-heights, workshop units and generator frames — manufactured at our certified partner facilities and independently verified by our own inspection body before shipping, arriving plate-stamped with full documentation and a recertification schedule we can service locally for the unit's whole life.