The Regulation of the People’s Republic of China on the Emergency Prevention and Disposal of Marine Pollution from Ships (selected articles)

( For full version of the regulation, please click here )

Article 17: The oil spill response organizations are ranked into 4 grades in accordance with their response capabilities:

(1)   Class I organizations can provide response services for ships on oil spill and other liquid polluting hazardous cargos spill within Chinese territorial waters.

(2)   Class II organizations can provide response services for ships on oil spill and other liquid polluting hazardous cargos spill within 20 nautical miles from the shoreline.

(3)   Class II organizations can provide response services for ships on oil spill within port.

(4)   Class VI organizations can provide response services for ships on oil spill with one operation area of port or water near the dependent terminal.

Article 30: The pollution response contract should be kept onboard and be presented to the MSA when applying for operation permission.

Article 31: If the spill incident occurs, both ship and OSRO should initiate their response plan, report to the MSA and carry out clean-up operation in accordance with the contract. Before finishing the clean-up operation, the permission of MSA is necessary.

Article 38: The ship should assess the pollution response operation when it is finished and submit the assessment report to the MSA. The report consists of the following parts:

(1)   incident and clean-up operation

(2)   the using of equipments and clean-up workers

(3)   the type and amount of the pollutant collected and how it is disposed.

(4)   pollution damage

(5)   the problem of response plan and its amendments

The commander group will also carry out evaluation on the response operation and pollution damage.