A fairly recent amendment to Annex 1 of MARPOL 73/78 added a new chapter 8 containing regulations 40, 41 and 42. This amendment will require oil tankers involved in ship to ship transfer operations to have an approved (by Class) SHIP TO SHIP (STS) TRANSFER OPERATION PLAN onboard by the date of the 1st annual intermediate or renewal survey under MARPOL Annex 1 carried out after January 1st, 2011 but in any case no later than April 1st, 2012.

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Adoption of Amendments to the International Management Code for the Safe Operation of Ships and for Pollution Prevention (International Safety Management (ISM) Code) with Resolution MSC.273(85)

The resolution MSC.273(85) adopted on December 2008 introduces modifications to the ISM Code.

The ISM Code requires vessel operators to implement a safety management system that will help them to achieve incident-free operations.  Read more »