Neptune Atlas

Pollution

The MARPOL annexes

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Say “MARPOL” on a broking desk today and most people hear Annex VI, because Annex VI is the one with a price attached to it. It is one of six, and the other five are where the deficiencies, the record books and the criminal prosecutions come from. They control different substances, they came into force decades apart, and a flag state can be bound by some of them and not others.

One convention, six separate regimes

The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships was adopted on 2 November 1973 and never entered into force in that form. It was absorbed into a 1978 Protocol, and the combined instrument, universally called MARPOL 73/78, came into force on 2 October 1983. Annex VI arrived much later, through a 1997 Protocol.

The structure matters. Annexes I and II are mandatory for every party to the convention. Annexes III, IV, V and VI are optional, so a state can be party to MARPOL without being party to all of it. In practice the major flags have accepted the lot, but it is why the correct question about a specific obligation is never “is she MARPOL compliant” and always “what does her flag require, and what will the port state enforce”.

AnnexWhat it controlsIn forceWhat it produces on board
IOil2 October 1983IOPP certificate, Oil Record Book, oily water separator and the 15 ppm limit
IINoxious liquid substances carried in bulk2 October 1983 Cargo Record Book, procedures and arrangements manual. Chemical tankers
IIIHarmful substances in packaged form1 July 1992 Marine pollutant marking and documentation, alongside the IMDG Code
IVSewage27 September 2003Sewage treatment plant or holding tank, ISPP certificate
VGarbage31 December 1988Garbage management plan, Garbage Record Book, placards
VIAir pollution19 May 2005IAPP certificate, bunker delivery notes, fuel samples, the sulphur limit

Annex I is where the criminal cases are

Annex I governs oil, both the cargo of a tanker and the machinery space bilge and sludge of every ship afloat. Oily water may only be discharged through equipment that gets the oil content below 15 parts per million, and every transfer, discharge and disposal is written into the Oil Record Book.

That book is the reason Annex I produces prosecutions rather than merely deficiencies. Fitting a bypass around the separator, the practice known in the trade as a magic pipe, is not detected by watching the sea. It is detected by comparing the record book against the tank soundings and the equipment, and the offence that gets charged is usually the false entry rather than the discharge itself. Enforcement of that kind is a matter for the port state, and it lands on the master and the chief engineer personally as well as on the company.

For a chartering desk this is background rather than exposure, with one exception: a ship detained over an Annex I finding is a ship not sailing, and the detention lands on the same record a charterer reads when deciding whether to take her again.

Annex V changed direction in 2013

Garbage used to work as a list of things you may not throw overboard. The revised Annex V, in force from 1 January 2013, reversed the presumption: discharge of garbage into the sea is prohibited except in the specific cases the annex allows, principally food waste, certain cargo residues and a short list of others, each under conditions of distance from land and ship’s speed.

The commercial edge of this is cargo residues, and it is the part a dry cargo desk should know exists. What may be washed or swept out of a hold, where, and whether the residue counts as harmful to the marine environment is an Annex V question, and the answer sometimes is that it must go ashore to a reception facility at the discharge port. Reception facilities cost money and take time, and whether the charterer or the owner carries that is a charterparty question that the convention does not answer.

Annex VI is the one with a freight number attached

Annex VI controls emissions to air. It is the newest, it moves fastest, and it is the only one that routinely changes what a voyage costs.

Its best-known provision is the sulphur limit: 0.50% by mass worldwide, and 0.10% inside a designated emission control area. It also carries the nitrogen oxide tiers, which are a fact about when an engine was built rather than about the voyage, and the ozone-depleting substance and volatile organic compound rules.

Since 2023 it carries the carbon regime as well. Amendments that entered into force on 1 November 2022 made it mandatory from 1 January 2023 for ships to calculate an attained Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index and to collect data for an annual operational carbon intensity indicator and rating. Those are the letters that appear in charterparty negotiations as EEXI and CII, and their commercial significance is straightforward even where the regulation is not: a rating depends on how the ship is operated, operation under a time charter is the charterer’s decision, and the certificate belongs to the owner. Every CII clause in circulation is an attempt to allocate that mismatch.

Special areas, which are not emission control areas

Several annexes designate special areas where discharge rules are stricter than the general regime: the Mediterranean, the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Red Sea, the Gulfs area, Antarctic waters and others, each listed annex by annex and each with its own effective date.

These are not the same thing as the emission control areas under Annex VI, and conflating the two is the standard error. A special area under Annex I or Annex V restricts what may go into the water. An emission control area under Annex VI restricts what may come out of the funnel and therefore what grade is in the tank. The Mediterranean happens to be both, which is precisely why the confusion survives.

What a broker actually needs from this

Three things, and they are narrower than the convention.

Which annex is being invoked. “A MARPOL issue at the discharge port” could be a sludge disposal argument, a hold washing residue that has to go ashore, or a bunker sample that came back off specification. The remedy, the delay and the party who pays are different in each.

Whether it is a cost or a condition. Annex VI puts a number on the estimate. The rest mostly put an obligation on the ship, and they reach the fixture only when something goes wrong or when a reception facility charge appears on the disbursement account.

Whether the record book is clean. The books are what an inspector reads first, and an inspection finding recorded against pollution prevention is the category most likely to suggest a systemic problem rather than a bad day.

References

Emission control areasTen areas where the fuel a ship may burn is capped tighter than the global limit. Which lines are exact, which are traced, and which do not bite yet. Bunkers and fuel gradesTwo grades and sometimes three, priced apart. The largest number on a voyage estimate is also the one nobody warrants. Ballast water managementEvery ship carries water she did not intend to move. Two regimes now govern it, and the second one is not satisfied by complying with the first. Port state control and detentionsA detained ship cannot perform. What an inspection actually records, and how to read a hull's record without over-reading one bad day.

Neptune Atlas

Pollution prevention is one of the deficiency categories in the inspection history Neptune Atlas holds on the vessel record, so a hull with repeated findings in that area shows up before you fix her rather than after. Every paid plan starts with 7 free days. A card is needed to start them, and cancelling before they end costs nothing.

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