A federal grand jury in Wilmington, Delaware on Tuesday (April 23), returned a six-count indictment charging Chartworld Shipping Corporation, Nederland Shipping Corporation, and Chief Engineer Vasileios Mazarakis with failing to keep accurate pollution control records, falsifying records, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering.
According to the Justice Departmen, the charges stem from the falsification of records and other acts designed to cover up from the Coast Guard the overboard discharges of oily mixtures and machinery space bilge water from the Bahamian-flagged cargo vessel, M/V Nederland Reefer.
The indictment indicated M/V Nederland Reefer entering the Port of Delaware Bay on 21 February, 2019 with a false and misleading Oil Record Book available for inspection by the U.S. Coast Guard. The Oil Record Book failed to accurately record transfers and discharges of oily wastewater on the vessel.
The vessel’s management company, Chartworld Shipping Corporation, the vessel’s owner, Nederland Shipping Corporation, and the Chief Engineer of the vessel, Greek national Vasileios Mazarakis, are all charged with failing to maintain an accurate oil record book as required by the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, a U.S. law which implements the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, commonly known as MARPOL.
The defendants were also charged with falsification of records, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering for destroying evidence of the illegal discharges and directing lower level crew members to withhold evidence from the Coast Guard.
Finally, the corporate defendants are charged with the failure to report a hazardous condition to the Coast Guard, namely a breach in the hull of the vessel and resulting incursion of seawater into tanks on board the vessel that occurred before the vessel came to port in Delaware.
An indictment is merely an accusation and defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.
Photo credit: MarineTraffic / Hannes van Rijn
Published: 25 April, 2019
IBIA Asia, ABIS, sources from Singapore’s bunkering and surveying companies, and an industry veteran share with Manifold Times the issues expected from MPA’s latest Covid-19 measures.
The top three positive movers in the 2020 bunker supplier list are Hong Lam Fuels Pte Ltd (+13); Chevron Singapore Pte Ltd (+12); and SK Energy International (+8), according to MPA list.
‘We will operate in the Singapore bunkering market from the Tokyo, with support from local staff at Sumitomo Corporation Singapore,’ source tells Manifold Times.
Changes include abolishing advance declaration of bunkers as dangerous cargo, reducing pilotage fees on vessels receiving bunkers, and a ‘whitelist’ system for bunker tankers.
Claim relates to deliveries of MGO to the vessels Pacific Diligence, Pacific Valkyrie, Pacific Defiance, Crest Alpha 1, and Pacific Warlock between March 2020 to April 2020.
3,490 mt of LSFO from Itochu Enex was lifted at Universal Terminal; the same bunker stem was bought by Global Marine Logistics and delivered by bunker tanker Juma to receiving vessel Kirana Nawa.