SOPEP — Shipboard Oil Pollution Emergency Plan

MARPOL Annex I, Regulation 37. Ships of 150 gross tonnage and above carrying noxious liquid substances in bulk keep the SMPEP required by Annex II Regulation 17. The two plans may be combined into a single document, as IMO itself suggests: most of their contents coincide, and in an emergency one plan is more practical than two.

The plan is one thing; the duty to report is another, and it is not in the Annex. It is in Article 8 of the Convention — “A report of an incident shall be made without delay to the fullest extent possible in accordance with the provisions of Protocol I to the present Convention” — and in Protocol I, which sets out the regime in five articles: Duty to report (I), When to make reports (II), Contents of report (III), Supplementary report (IV), Reporting procedures (V). The SOPEP tells the ship how to respond; Protocol I establishes when and to whom she must speak, and that is the part most often missing when an incident ends up in an investigation.

Who reports. Article I places the duty on the “master or other person having charge of any ship”. And it provides for the worst case: if the ship is abandoned, or if a report from her is incomplete or unobtainable, the duty passes “to the owner, charterer, manager or operator of the ship, or their agent”. There is no scenario in which nobody has to report.

When. Article II lists four triggers, and the third is the one underestimated on board because it has nothing to do with pollution. A report is due on: a discharge above the permitted level or probable discharge of oil or noxious liquid substances, “for whatever reason including those for the purpose of securing the safety of the ship or for saving life at sea” (a); a discharge or probable discharge of harmful substances in packaged form, freight containers, portable tanks, road and rail vehicles and shipborne barges (b); damage, failure or breakdown of a ship of 15 metres in length or above which “affects the safety of the ship; including but not limited to collision, grounding, fire, explosion, structural failure, flooding, and cargo shifting”, or which “results to impairment of the safety of navigation; including but not limited to, failure or breakdown of steering gear, propulsion plant, electrical generating system, and essential shipborne navigational aids” (c); and an operational discharge in excess of the quantity or instantaneous rate permitted (d). Sub-paragraph (c) therefore requires a report of a steering gear failure or a blackout with not one drop in the water: the trigger is the risk, not the event.

What, how, and then again. The minimum content (Article III) is the identity of the ships involved, the time, type and location of the incident, the quantity and type of harmful substance, and assistance and salvage measures. The procedure (Article V): “by the fastest telecommunications channels available with the highest possible priority to the nearest coastal State” — to the nearest coastal State, not to the flag, and not to the owner first. And Article IV requires the initial report to be supplemented with further developments and requests from affected States to be answered as fully as possible: reporting is a flow, not a duty discharged by pressing send. Formats and operational procedures are in resolution A.851(20), whose §3.2 expressly invokes Article V(1) of Protocol I.