What is Ship Oil Pollution Emergency Plan (SOPEP)?

If you are a maritime professional working on ships, the SOPEP locker (room) is one of the important places you are asked to familiarise yourself with within the first few days of joining a ship. Let’s understand the importance of knowing the SOPEP—Ship Oil Pollution Emergency Plan for a maritime professional.

When an oil spill occurs at sea, it spreads over the surface of the seawater, leaving a deadly impact on marine mammals, birds, the shoreline, and most importantly, the ocean and the environment.

The cost to clean up an oil spill depends on the quantity and quality of oil discharged in the sea and is calculated based on factors such as legal claims, money paid as penalties, loss of oil, repairs and cleanups, and—most importantly—loss of marine life and the effects on human health, which cannot be measured against any amount.

Related reading: How to avoid oil pollution at sea from ships?

As prevention is better than cure, almost all cruise and cargo vessels carry a prevention plan to avoid the above losses, primarily marine pollution and damage to marine species. This plan is known as SOPEP, or ship oil pollution emergency plan.

Understanding SOPEP 

As mentioned earlier, Sopep stands for Ship Oil Pollution Emergency Plan. As per the MARPOL 73/78 requirement under Annex I, all ships with 400 GT and above must carry an oil prevention plan, as per the norms and guidelines laid down by the International Maritime Organization under the MEPC (Marine Environmental Protection Committee) Act.

The gross tonnage requirement for an oil tanker, according to SOPEP, is reduced to 150 GT as oil itself is a kind of cargo that doubles the risk of oil pollution.

Related Reading: Solas And Marpol Convention: A General Overview

The master of the ship is in charge of the SOPEP overall, along with the chief officer, who is subordinate to the master and in charge of implementing SOPEP on board. SOPEP also describes the plan for the master, officer, and crew of the ship regarding ways to tackle various oil spill scenarios that can occur on a ship. For oil tankers, the action plan differs according to the cargo handling and cargo tanks containing huge quantities of oil.

The essential SOPEP requirements for a ship are

1. The Ship Oil Pollution Emergency Plan must be written following the provisions of regulation 37 of Annex I of MARPOL

2. The approved plan guides the Master and officers on board the ship concerning the steps to be taken when an oil pollution incident occurs or a ship is at risk of one.

3. It is a requirement that the SOPEP contains all the information and operational instructions related to the emergency procedure and SOPEP equipment provided in the SOPEP kit.

Related Reading: 10 Methods For Oil Spill Clean-up At Sea

4. The plan must contain important telephone, telex numbers, names, etc., of all the important contacts to be contacted in the event of an oil pollution

5. A recognised authority has approved the SOPEP, and there are no changes or revisions made without the prior approval of the Administration.

6. If there are any changes in the plan which is non-mandatory, it generally does not require approval from the administration. The owner and ship manager must update the appendices about the non-mandatory changes done in the plan

Contents of SOPEP – Equipment List

SOPEP contains the following things:

• The action plan contains the duty of each crew member at the time of the spill, including emergency muster and actions.
• SOPEP contains general information about the ship and the owner of the ship, etc.
• Steps and procedure to contain the discharge of oil into the sea using SOPEP equipment
• It contains the inventory of the SOPEP material provided for pollution prevention such as oil absorbent pads, sawdust bags, booms etc.
• Onboard reporting procedure and requirements in case of an oil spill is described
• Authorities to contact and reporting requirements in case of an oil spill are listed in SOPEP. Authorities like port state control, oil clean up team etc are to be notified
• Authorities to contact and reporting requirements in case of an oil spill are listed in SOPEP. Authorities like port state control, oil clean up team etc. are to be notified.
• SOPEP includes drawing various fuel lines, along with other oil lines on board the vessel, with the positioning of vents, saving all trays, etc.
• The general arrangement of the ship is also listed in SOPEP, which includes the location of all the oil tanks with capacity, content etc.
• The location of the SOPEP locker and contents of the locker with a list of inventory
• Guidance to keep the records of the pollution incident (for liability, compensation and insurance purpose)
• Material for Reference from essential organisations (guidelines issued by ICS, OCIMF, SIGTTO, INTERTANKO, etc.)
• Procedures for testing various plans described in the SOPEP
• Procedure to maintain the record as required by the authorities
• Details of when and how to review the plan

General duties of ship’s crew under SOPEP

MASTER: He/she is overall in charge of any incident related to the oil spill and should inform the authorities about it. He/she needs to ensure all crew members are complying with the plan and records are maintained for the incident.

Chief Engineer: He/she will be the in charge of the bunkering operation and will instruct the subordinates to prepare SOPEP KIT prior to any oil related operation (Sludge transfer, lube oil bunkering, fuel oil bunkering etc.)

The chief engineer should keep the Master informed and updated on the situation and the results of action taken to limit oil outflow.

Related reading: Responsibility of chief engineer under SOLAS

Chief Officer: He/she will be in charge of complete deck operation to prevent any oil spill, or in the event of a spill, the Chief officer must keep the master in the loop at all times and update the situation and action taken to stop or reduce an oil outflow.

Related Reading: How to become an effective chief officer on board ships?

Deck Duty Officer: To Assist the chief officer in deck watch and

Alert and inform Chief Officer/ Chief Engineer on any potential oil spill situation.

Related reading: 23 important points for vetting checklist for ships third officer

Duty Engineer: To assist Chief Engineer for any oil transfer operation which includes preparation of SOPEP material and readiness of firefighting equipment.

Duty Rating(s): To assist and alert the duty officer and engineer to detect potential oil leakage and to immediately assist by all possible means to restrict and clean an ongoing spill. He/she should bring the additional SOPEP material to the location to prevent oil from reaching the ship’s railing.

SOPEP provides details for preventing and fighting an oil spill. It also acts similarly to any other regulation of SOLAS, as it has the details to save the ship and crew in the event of mishaps such as fire, collision, listing, etc., and other related incidents related to oil.

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About Author

Raunek Kantharia is a marine engineer turned maritime writer and entrepreneur. After a brief stint at the sea, he founded Marine Insight in 2010. Apart from managing Marine Insight, he also writes for a number of maritime magazines and websites.

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