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Emergency Preparedness and Response

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Contingency Planning

  • MARPOL Annex I – Prevention of Pollution by Oil:

    Regulation 15) Control of Oil Discharge

    2) Any discharge of oil or oily mixtures into the sea from ships of 400 gross tonnage or more is prohibited, except when all the following conditions are met:

    • The ship is en route.
    • The oily mixture is processed through an oil filtering equipment that meets the requirements of Regulation 14 of this Annex (special areas apply Regulation 14.7).
    • The oil content of the effluent without dilution does not exceed 15 parts per million.
    • The oily mixture does not originate from the bilge of cargo pump rooms on oil tankers. 5. In the case of oil tankers, the oily mixture is not mixed with oil cargo residues.

    4) For the Antarctic area, any discharge of oil or oily mixtures from all ships into the sea is prohibited.

    Regulation 37) Shipboard Oil Pollution Emergency Plan (SOPEP)

    All oil tankers of 150 gross tonnage or more, and all ships of 400 gross tonnage or more that are not oil tankers, must have on board a Shipboard Oil Pollution Emergency Plan (SOPEP) approved by the administration.

    This plan must be developed based on the guidelines* provided by the organization and must be written in the working language of the ship’s master and officers. The plan must at a minimum include:

    Reference is made to the “Guidelines for the development of shipboard oil pollution emergency plans,” adopted by the organization by resolution MEPC.54(32), as amended by resolution MEPC.86(44).

     

  • Shipboard Oil Pollution Emergency Plan (SOPEP)-Summary Flowchart (ref:https://www.omao.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/documents/SOPEP%20Example%20-%20MANTA%20-%202017%200702.pdf)

Guidelines for the development of shipboard oil pollution emergency plans

  • The Plan shall consist at least of:
    • the procedure to be followed by the master or other persons having charge of the ship to report an oil pollution incident
    • the list of authorities or persons to be contacted in the event of an oil pollution incident
    • a detailed description of the action to be taken immediately by persons on board to reduce or control the discharge of oil following the incident; and
    • the procedures and point of contact on the ship for co-ordinating shipboard activities with national and local authorities in combating the pollution.

Response Equipment

  • Ensuring the availability and proper maintenance of pollution response equipment, such as oil spill containment and recovery tools.
  • The equipment used to respond to a spill includes a wide range of booms, pumps, oil skimmers and dispersant chemicals.
  • Oil recovery vessels: 
  • collect and retrieve oil with the assistance of a skimmer
  • apply dispersant
  • position other oil spill equipment
  • store the recovered oil in on-board storage tanks
  • pump the recovered oil to another vessel or tank.
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