Americas News
Norwegian Player Lands $2.5 Million Fine, Jail Time Over Oil Pollution Offences
The U.S. Department of Justice Friday announced that Norwegian shipping company DSD Shipping AS (DSD Shipping) has been ordered to pay a penalty of $2.5 million for convictions in Mobile, Alabama in relation to the illegal operation of, and pollution from, the 56,000 gross tonne crude oil tanker M/T Stavanger Blossom.
DSD Shipping is said to have operated the vessel from 2010 to 2014 without a functioning oily-water separator, with an internal memo dated January 29 of 2010 by a vessel engineer said to have warned DSD that the vessel's pollution prevention equipment did not work.
In failing to repair or replace the oily-water separator, DSD Shipping is said to have continued to operate the vessel illegally for the next 57 months before the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) inspectors identified the illegal operation in November 2014.
DSD Shipping was said to have illegally discharged an estimated 20,000 gallons of oil-contaminated waste water and plastic bags containing 270 gallons of sludge into the water during the last two-and-a-half months of the vessel’s operation.
The court established that evidence showed DSD Shipping maintained fictitious record book and falsely claimed that the pollution prevention equipment had been used.
Senior ship officers are also said to have lied to USCG inspectors about the discharges, ordering their subordinates to do the same.
DSD Shipping's senior engineering officers Bo Gao, chief engineer of the vessel, and Xiaobing Chen, second engineer of the vessel, have both been sentenced of six months imprisonment for their participation in the vessel's pollution, while Xin Zhong, fourth engineer of the vessel, was sentenced to two months imprisonment - all three also face the loss of their marine engineering licence, as well as exclusion from employment in the merchant marine.
Daniel Paul Dancu, a fourth DSD Shipping employee, who plead guilty in October 2015, will be sentenced on April 11, 2016.
"We will continue to aggressively prosecute and hold accountable those shipping companies who flout the laws that protect our oceans and coastal waterways from harmful vessel pollution and waste," said Assistant Attorney General John C. Cruden of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.
$500,000 of the $2.5 million fine is said to have been ordered to be paid to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Foundation to support marine research and coastal habitat protection in the Gulf of Mexico and Mobile Bay.
In addition to the fine, DSD Shipping has also been placed on a three year probation term and been ordered to implement an environmental compliance plan to ensure compliance with domestic and international environmental regulations.
On Monday, Ship & Bunker reported that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Hawaii has announced that South Korean bunker tanker owner Doorae Shipping Co., LTD (Doorae Shipping) has been fined $750,000, as well as a community service payment of $200,000, and been given a term of two years of probation.
