8Prohibition of discharge of oil or oily mixtures into State waters

8 Prohibition of discharge of oil or oily mixtures into State waters

S. 8(1) substituted by No. 46/1991
s. 5.

(1) Subject to subsections (2) and (4), if any discharge of oil or an oily mixture occurs from a ship into State waters, the master and the owner of the ship are each guilty of an indictable offence punishable, upon conviction—

(a) if the offender is a natural person, by a fine not exceeding 2000 penalty units, or imprisonment for two years, or both;

(2) Subsection (1) does not apply to the discharge of oil or of an oily mixture from a ship—

(a) for the purpose of securing the safety of a ship or saving life at sea; or

(b) if the oil or oily mixture, as the case may be, escaped from the ship in consequence of damage, other than intentional damage, to the ship or its equipment, and all reasonable precautions were taken after the occurrence of the damage or the discovery of the discharge for the purpose of preventing or minimizing the escape of oil or oily mixture, as the case may be; or

(c) in the case of an oily mixture, if the discharge was for the purpose of combating specific pollution incidents in order to minimize the damage from pollution and was approved by a prescribed officer.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (2), damage to a ship or to its equipment shall be taken to be intentional damage if, and only if, the damage arose in circumstances in which the master or owner of the ship—

(a) acted with intent to cause the damage; or

(b) acted recklessly and with knowledge that damage would probably result.

(4) Without limiting the generality of subsection (2) but subject to subsection (5), subsection (1) does not apply to—

(a) the discharge from an oil tanker of oil or an oily mixture, not being oil or an oily mixture of the kind referred to in paragraph (c), if the following conditions are satisfied—

(i) the oil tanker is not within a special area and is more than 50 nautical miles from the nearest land;

(ii) the oil tanker is proceeding en route;

(iii) the instantaneous rate of discharge of oil content does not exceed 60 litres per nautical mile;

(iv) the total quantity of oil discharged into the sea does not exceed—

(A) in the case of an oil tanker that is an existing tanker—one part in 15 000 parts of the total quantity of the cargo of oil of which oil discharged formed a part; or

(B) in the case of an oil tanker that is a new tanker—one part in 30 000 parts of the total quantity of the cargo of oil of which oil discharged formed a part;

(v) the oil tanker has in operation an oil discharge monitoring and control system and a slop tank arrangement as required by regulations made by virtue of section 36 or made by virtue of section 267A of the Navigation Act;