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Oil Record Books News

30 Jan 2023

From Paper to Pixels: Embracing the Digital Logbook

Pierre Domine, Quality Assurance & Investigation Specialist, Stolt Tankers. Image courtesy Stolt Tankers/Navtor

In an era of ever-smarter shipping, one key area of vessel and fleet administration appears stuck in the dark ages. Pierre Dominé explainswhy Stolt Tankers is rapidly transitioning to digital logbooks, unlocking a broad range of big data benefits.Although the switch from paper to digital logbooks is yet to be mandated, Pierre Dominé, Quality Assurance & Investigation Specialist, Stolt Tankers, sees no need to wait. “There’s so much data across a single vessel’s portfolio of record books…

12 Aug 2022

Bulk Carrier Operator and Chief Engineer Convicted for Dumping Offenses

Vessel operating company New Trade Ship Management S.A. and chief engineer Dennis Plasabas pleaded guilty in San Diego for maintaining false and incomplete records relating to the discharge of oily bilge water from the bulk carrier vessel Longshore.New Trade and Plasabas admitted that oily bilge water was illegally dumped from the Longshore directly into the ocean without being properly processed through required pollution prevention equipment. Oily bilge water typically contains oil contamination from the operation and cleaning of machinery on the vessel. The defendants also admitted that these illegal discharges were not recorded in the vessel’s oil record book as required by law.

04 Jan 2022

Navtor to Acquire Ingenium Marine

NAVTOR integrates Ingenium digital logbooks into its smart shipping ecosystem. Image courtesy Navtor.

Navtor has inked a deal to acquire Ingenium Marine, a transaction subject to execution of definitive agreements. Once completed, Ingenium will become a fully integrated Navtor company and continue to operate from Mumbai, India, and Navtor will integrate digital logbooks into its e-Navigation and performance product portfolio. According to Navtor CEO Tor Svanes, this latest move will “transform the way the industry views traditional log-keeping,” unlocking a spectrum of benefits…

18 May 2021

Reflections on the Trends That Have Shaped the Maritime Industry

© videotrinkets /AdobeStock

This will be my last monthly article for Maritime Reporter & Engineering News. I started writing these articles in early 2002, just over 19 years ago and during that time I have written over 228 articles, missing only one month when my grandson was hospitalized. (I have also written about 6,200 of my (almost) daily newsletters.) Early articles were focused on maritime security, which was still in evolution following the horrific terrorist incidents in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC.

06 Aug 2019

Oldendorff Chooses PAS ε-ORB Software

Logo: e-ORB

Cyprus-based maritime technology & marine risk prevention firm Prevention at Sea Ltd has been awarded a contract from Oldenorff Carriers for switching from the traditional paper Oil Record Book to ε-ORB (electronic Oil Record Book).Oldendorff Carriers’ decision was based on recognition of the burdens arising from the use of the traditional paper version of MARPOL Oil Record Books as well as the complexity and accuracy of recording proper operational entries relating to discharges…

20 Apr 2017

Princess Cruises Fined $40 Mln for Pollution

Caribbean Princess (Photo: Princess Cruise Lines Ltd.)

Princess Cruise Lines Ltd. was sentenced to pay a $40 million penalty – the largest-ever for crimes involving deliberate vessel pollution – related to illegal dumping overboard of oil contaminated waste and falsification of official logs in order to conceal the discharges. The sentence was announced by Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey H. Wood for the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, and Acting U.S. Attorney Benjamin G. Greenberg for the Southern District of Florida in Miami. The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge Patricia A.

07 Jun 2016

Liberia Registry Launches Electronic Oil Record Book

The Liberian Registry, in partnership with Prevention at Sea Ltd, a Cyprus-based maritime compliance technology company, has launched an innovative software product designed to replace traditional paper oil record books (ORBs) and to facilitate correct ORB entries into an efficient electronic format. Liberia’s Electronic Oil Record Book (ε-ORB) is the most recent in a long line of ground-breaking industry initiatives designed to make the Liberian-flag fleet the safest, greenest and most efficient afloat. It is intended to address a variety of issues, including oil record books being reported missing on board, failure to document entries in the ORB of internal transfer of oily mixture…

09 Dec 2014

Noble Pleads Guilty to Enviro Charges Surrounding Kulluk

Noble Drilling (U.S.) LLC was charged with environmental and maritime crimes for operating the drill ship Noble Discoverer and the drilling unit Kulluk in violation of federal law in Alaska in 2012, the Department of Justice announced. Under the terms of a plea agreement filed in federal court today, Noble will plead guilty to eight felony offenses, pay $12.2 million dollars in fines and community service payments, implement a comprehensive Environmental Compliance Plan, and will be placed on probation for four years. In addition, Noble’s parent corporation, Noble Corporation plc, headquartered in London, England, will implement an Environmental…

21 May 2014

Jordanian Shipping Company Pleads Guilty

Jordan-based Arab Ship Management Ltd. pleaded guilty today in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware, to one count of violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, the Justice Department and the U.S. Coast Guard announced. In accordance with the terms of the plea agreement, Arab Ship Management  Ltd. was sentenced to pay a criminal penalty totaling $500,000 and be placed on probation for two years, during which time ships operated by the company will be banned from calling on ports of the United States.

19 Oct 2012

Signed Confessions

Convictions have been obtained for false entries in garbage record books and ballast water management records. What’s Next? Some years ago, I wrote an article lamenting the fraudulent entries made in many oil record books and the increasing use of those entries as signed confessions in the prosecution of ship owners and operators and senior shipboard personnel (particularly chief engineers) for making false statements to the US Coast Guard. Oil record books are required records on commercial vessels and must be presented to Coast Guard boarding officers on demand.

12 May 2011

Prem Kumar Added to EPA Fugitive List

WASHINGTON – Prem Kumar, also known as Premakumaran Krishnan, a citizen of India, has been added to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) fugitive list for failing to surrender to federal law enforcement authorities after he was indicted for his role in an illegal ocean-going vessel wastewater discharge case. Illegally discharging wastewater into the ocean threatens aquatic life and can lead to fish kills, contamination of fish and shellfish, and may have long-term ecological effects.

04 Sep 2009

Liberian Ocean Shipping Co. Admits Wrongdoing

A Liberian-incorporated shipping company pleaded guilty in federal court in Trenton, N.J., to failing to keep accurate oily water discharge records and using falsified records to conceal the discharge at sea of untreated bilge from one of its cargo ships, the Justice Department announced. Dalnave Navigation Inc., a Liberian company with offices in Athens, Greece, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Peter G. Sheridan immediately after the guilty plea to pay a fine of $1m, the maximum fine allowable for the two counts to which the company pleaded guilty. Additionally, the company agreed to pay a $350,000 community service payment to the congressionally-established National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to be used specifically for the protection…

23 Aug 2009

Georgios M Engineers Indicted

A federal grand jury in Houston has returned an indictment charging two crewmembers of the oil tanker Georgios M with making false statements, violating federal law designed to prevent pollution from ships and obstruction of justice, the Justice Department announced. According to the indictment, Ioannis Mylonakis and Argyrios Argyropoulos, served as Chief Engineers aboard the oil tanker Georgios M and each have been charged with violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS), making material false statements to the U.S. Coast Guard and obstruction of justice. Both are accused of maintaining false oil record books aboard the oil tanker that concealed deliberate discharges of oil-contaminated waste directly into the ocean.

18 Dec 2007

Tanker Company Fined $4.9M

Repeat offender, Ionia Management, a Greek company that manages a fleet of tanker vessels, was sentenced in New Haven, Conn., for its role in falsifying records to conceal the overboard dumping of waste oil from the M/T Kriton into international waters and its efforts to impede the investigation of the U.S. Coast Guard, announced Ronald J. Tenpas, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, Kevin J. O’Connor, U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and Rear Admiral Tim Sullivan, Commander of the First Coast Guard District, U.S. Coast Guard. U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton for the District of Connecticut fined Ionia Management $4.9 million and appointed a Special Master to oversee the company’s record keeping.

19 Dec 2003

Cruise Ship Engineers Indicted

Tom Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and Marcos Daniel Jiménez, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, announced that three senior cruise ship engineers were indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami, Florida, for their role in concealing the overboard dumping of waste oil from the SS Norway cruise ship in false log books designed to deceive the United States Coast Guard. The defendants, Chief Engineers Knut Sorboe and Peter Solemdal, Senior First Engineer Aage Lokkebraten are Norwegian nationals who were employed by Norwegian Cruise Line Limited (NCL) at the time of the offenses.

14 Jan 2004

News: Cruise Ship Engineers Indicted

Tom Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division and Marcos Daniel Jiménez, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, announced that three senior cruise ship engineers were indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami, Fla., for their role in concealing the overboard dumping of waste oil from the SS Norway cruise ship in false log books designed to deceive the U.S. Coast Guard. The defendants, Chief Engineers Knut Sorboe and Peter Solemdal, Senior First Engineer Aage Lokkebraten are Norwegian nationals who were employed by Norwegian Cruise Line Limited (NCL) at the time of the offenses.

05 Apr 2004

Legal Beat: Criminal Enforcement in the Marine Industry: The Latest Trends

By Jeanne M. Grasso and Allison L. In the past several years, federal prosecutors increasingly have devoted time and resources to pursuing vessel owners, operators, crewmembers, and shoreside employees who are involved in illegal discharges at sea. Discharges at sea have long been recognized as a serious threat to the marine environment and, as a result, there is a plethora of laws in the United States regulating discharges into waters of the United States. These statutes include the Clean Water Act, the Refuse Act, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS) (implementing the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships or MARPOL), and the Ocean Dumping Act, among others.

16 Apr 2004

Shipping Company Pleads Guilty

MARMARAS NAVIGATION LTD, a Greek operator of a fleet of ocean going vessels transporting products around the world, recently plead guilty to a felony violation of the "Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships" for improperly documenting the handling of oily waste aboard the marine vessel ("M/V") Agia Eirini. MARMARAS pleaded guilty to a felony violation for failing to maintain proper records associated with the ship's handling of its waste oil. If approved by the court, the plea agreement requires that MARMARAS pay a criminal fine of $200,000, develop and implement a comprehensive environmental compliance plan for its fleet of twenty-eight (28) ships that call on United States ports, and serve three (3) years on probation.

13 Aug 2004

Sabine Transportation Sentenced for Illegal Ocean Dump

Thomas L. Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, and Charles W. Larson, Sr., U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa, announced that an Iowa-based shipping company that transported grain cargoes and petroleum products in the United States and abroad was sentenced to pay $2 million for illegally dumping thousands of gallons of waste oil, hundreds of tons of diesel-contaminated grain, and plastic wastes at sea. Sabine Transportation Company of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, admitted it deliberately dumped waste oil, sludge, and oily mixtures from the S/S Trinity, the S/S Juneau, the S/S Sea Princess, and the S/S Colorado without the use of required pollution prevention equipment.

11 Mar 2002

Tanker Company Sentenced

Thomas M. DiBiagio, U.S. Attorney for Maryland and Thomas L. Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department Environment and Natural Resources Division, today announced the sentencing of a Danish shipping company, D/S Progress, to pay a $250,000 criminal fine for conspiring to conceal a hazardous leak in the hull of an oil tanker that visited Baltimore, for failing to report emergency discharges to save the ship and for presenting false log books to the U.S. Coast Guard in order to disguise the leak, emergency discharges and other deliberate acts of dumping oil. D/S Progress, a ship management company based in Copenhagen, Denmark, was responsible for the "Freja Jutlandic," an oil tanker which first arrived in Baltimore on March 22, 2000.

15 Mar 2002

Master and Chief Engineers Arrested

A Ship Captain and Chief Engineers of two foreign flag vessels have been arrested and charged with keeping false log books to conceal the dumping of waste oil and sludge from two ships, obstructing a Coast Guard investigation, and obstruction of justice for allegedly telling crew members to lie to a federal grand jury. The arrests, supported by criminal complaints, were announced by Timothy M. Burgess, United States Attorney for Alaska and Thomas L. Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General for the Environment Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The defendants are Doo Hyon Kim, the Captain of the M/V Khana, In Ho Kim, the Chief Engineer of the Khana, and Min Gwen Go, the Chief Engineer of the M/V Sohoh. A preliminary hearing was held today in U.S.

25 Apr 2002

Carnival to Pay $18M for Oil Pollution

Carnival Corp. of Miami, Fla., which operates 40 cruise ships including those of the Carnival Cruise Lines, pleaded guilty on April 19 to falsification of oil record books on several of its ships. The company will pay $18 million in fines, $9 million of which will be used for a variety of environmental community service projects. Carnival was also ordered to implement and enforce a new corporation-wide environmental compliance program. The falsifications occurred on numerous occasions between 1996 and 2001, during which period employees ran fresh water past the sensors in the oil water separators of Carnival ships, generating false oil concentration readings. As a result, the sensors failed to activate a diversion valve which would have otherwise kept the contaminated water on board.

19 Jun 2002

Chief Engineer Admits Dumping Waste Oil, Sludge at Sea

The chief engineer of an oil tanker that transports petroleum products to and from various ports in the United States and abroad pleaded guilty today to submitting false documents to the U.S. Coast Guard in an effort to cover up the illegal dumping of thousands of gallons of waste oil and sludge at sea, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie announced. The captain of the vessel also pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Katharine S. Hayden to conspiracy in connection with his effort to conceal evidence and solicit false statements from a lower-level engineer during the Coast Guard boarding of the ship in the Port of Carteret on Sept. 10, Christie said.