MARINA alerts tanker operators on double hull conversion

February 15th, 2008 by Site Administrator

THE MARITIME Industry Authority (MARINA) has warned that it would cancel the licenses of oil tankers or even remove them from the Philippine registry if they fail to comply with the requirement of using double hulls by April 30.

MARINA issued the warning as part of the Philippines’ commitment under the International Maritime Organization (IMO) International Convention for the Prevention of Marine Pollution (MARPOL 73/78), and also to prevent further oil spills that damage the Philippine coastal areas.

The MARPOL convention mandated the phase-out of single hull vessels by 2008 for fuel tankers and by 2010 for refined petroleum tankers. MARINA meanwhile also issued a Flag State Administration Advisory (FSAA) informing all oil companies worldwide that effective end of April 2008, no single-hulled very large crude carriers (VLCC) shall be allowed to enter Philippine waters to deliver oil to their depots.The advisory was issued by MARINA to avoid a similar incident that happened last December in Korea wherein a 270,000-deadweight single-hulled tanker was involved in an accident that caused a massive oil spill causing tremendous damage to the environment.

On 11 August 2006, an oil tanker, the MT Solar I, sank off the coast of Guimaras island in the Visayas, causing an oil spill that polluted the island’s coastal areas and extensively damaged marine life and the environment.

To avoid repetition of such incidents, MARINA announced its decision under Memorandum Circular 2007-001 to strictly enforce the requirement for use of double-hulled vessels in oil sea transports.

However, maritime industry sources said that some tanker operators have been waiting for the last minute to convert their ships to double hulls thinking that the implementation of the MARINA memorandum circular might be moved to a later date.

Most of the local tanker operators nevertheless have already complied with the double-hull rule and are on schedule to meet the April 30 deadline. Major oil companies, like Petron, Shell and Caltex, are requiring their tanker contractors to use only double-hull vessels.

Double-hull vessels are less likely to cause oil spills in case of accidents, experts said. The bottoms and the sides of double hull tankers have two complete watertight layers. The outer layer is the usual hull; the second layer serves as backup, another barrier to seawater if the outer hull fails.

Some operators however are complaining that conversion to a double hull vessel is costly. Conversion of a 5,000-ton single-hulled tanker to double hull would cost from $6 million to $8 million, while a brand new double-hulled tanker would cost about $12 million to $18 million, depending on the size.

Due to the old age of local in-country single-hull tankers, it may no longer be economically viable to convert them to double hull, operators said.

However, since major oil companies allocate about 75 percent of their transport needs on tankers, funding should not be a problem for operators, industry sources said.

With the deadline for compliance with MARPOL requirements less than three months away and with tanker operators sensing that the deadline may not be postponed, there is scrambling now among tanker operators to get slots in shipyards locally and abroad for conversion works. But the shipyards are full because of global compliance with the MARPOL order.

Petron, Shell and Caltex have reportedly aired their concern over the non-compliance with MARPOL by some of their contracted tanker operators. The oil companies said that they cannot afford delays in the transport of their products.

INQUIRER.net