ESC GIVES MIXED VIEWS ON EC VESSEL SAFETY PROPOSAL

ESC GIVES MIXED VIEWS ON EC VESSEL SAFETY PROPOSAL    The European Shippers' Council has conditionally welcomed the European Communication on the Safety of the Seaborne Oil Trade.
   The EC document aims to tighten regulations on bulk shipping and, particularly, seaborne oil transport by tankers , following last December's spilling of 10,000 tons of heavy fuel oil near the French Atlantic coast by the tanker “Erika.”
   “Much of this discussion document is very welcome and warranted, however there are elements which are of concern to us,” said Nicolette van der Jagt, policy manager of the ESC.
   The ESC welcomed the following proposals from the EC:
   * Greater enforcement, particularly with regard to improving and tightening of inspections carried on vessels visiting European Union ports, with greater targeting of vessels and shipowners with a bad record of detention of substandard ships;
   * Measures designed to improve the inspections carried out by classification societies by providing for stricter checks on the classifications societies and their performances and more stringent criteria governing their recognition.
   * The proposed phasing out of single-hulled tankers and their replacement with double-hulled ships.
   The EC and European governments plan to adopt a timetable to ban single-hulled tankers from European waters that it similar to the timetable under the U.S. OPA of 1990.
   But shipowners said that they want international regulations, not regional regulations.
   The ESC criticized the EC's proposals to make the cargo owners (the oil companies) largely be liable for the damage caused by pollution. Shipper groups believe that shipowners should bear the responsibility for ship accidents.
   The ESC urged the shipowning industry to do more to promote higher standards which would go above the existing international regulations.
   The EC and ESC have backed proposals to make data on defective ships more widely available to all users, charterers and other parties involved in the shipping chain through a new ship database called Equasis.
   In oil shipping, the ESC also called for a revision of the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution and of the Oil Pollution Compensation Fund.
   AUTF, the French shippers' council, said that it has developed a “code of good conduct” for bulk shippers to encourage the use of safe vessels. Referring to the risk of pollution, the council called for a “proper balance of the level of financial liabilities” between cargo owner and shipowner. But the French council said that the International Maritime Organization has “no political will” to revise the current liability regime which, it says, penalizes cargo owners and largely exonerates shipowners.
   The French council also rejected the EC proposal to create a European compensation fund to cover oil pollution damages of up to 1 billion euro (about $900 million), financed by oil importers.