1 REGULATIONS OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (PRC) ON THE PREVENTION AND CONTROL OF MARINE POLLUTION FROM SHIPS China SPRO FAQs Compliance date – 1 January 2012 The above Regulations require owners/operators of (a) any ship carrying polluting and hazardous cargoes in bulk or (b) any other vessel above 10,000 gt enter into a pollution clean up contract with a Maritime Safety Agency (MSA) approved Ship Pollution Response Organisation before the vessel enters a PRC port. The requirements do not apply to Hong Kong or Macau. These FAQs reflect guidance given by the MSA and are believed to be correct as at 23 December 2011, but further updates may be necessary as the situation develops. Ship Pollution Response Organisations (SPROs) Approval of SPROs 1. Has the China MSA postponed the 1 January 2012 compliance date of the contract requirements? Only in those ports where the MSA has not approved any SPROs and alternate measures have not been taken. Where this is the case the requirements have been postponed until 1 March 2012. Otherwise, where a ship cannot conclude a contract before entry into a Chinese port after 1 January 2012, then they must explain the reasons why to the relevant local MSA, who may permit the ship entry into port. In such cases, a contract will still need to be concluded before the ship leaves port. From 1 March 2012, there will be full enforcement of the contract requirements. 2. What is an approved SPRO? It is the clean up organisation approved by the MSA and found to meet the requirements listed in the guidelines for Capacity Evaluations of SPROs. This means that such SPROs are approved to contract with the owner/operator for pollution response for either Level 1, level 2, level 3 or level 4. (For an explanation of “levels” see section on “levels for SPROs” below) 3. Will a “certificate” be issued by the MSA showing evidence that a SPRO has been approved? A SPRO will receive a certificate showing that it has been approved by the MSA for clean up response. This is called a Ship Pollution Response Unit Qualification Certificate (Article 10 of the Detailed Rules of the MSA of the PRC on the implementation of the Administration Regime of Agreement for Ship Pollution Response). Such certificate is normally valid for 3 years. 4. Will a “certificate” be issued by MSA to owners/operators that the owners/operators have satisfied the requirement to contract with a SPRO? No. 5. How will we as the owner/operator know that a SPRO has been approved? A list of MSA approved SPROs is published on the following websites in Chinese: 2 http://msa.gov.cn/Notice/NotList/00000000-0000-0000-0300-040000000008 http://www.osp.cn/new/Index_news_disp.asp?nid=1097&Title=国内动态 It is anticipated that in due course the list will also be published in English on the website. The SPRO must be domiciled in mainland China. 6. We, as the overseas owner/operator already contract with an approved contractor for sludge removal. Do we need to enter into another contract for clean up response? Yes. The requirements for sludge removal are completely separate from clean up response. There is a separate approval procedure for sludge contractors and for clean up contractors. Signatories to the Clean Up Agreement Who should sign the clean up agreement between the owner/operator and the SPRO? 7. We, as the owner/operator are based in China, can we sign the contract directly with SPROs? Who in our company can sign such a contract? If you are domiciled in China then you must contract directly with a SPRO. The Legal Representative in that office must sign the clean up Agreement. 8. We, as the overseas owner/operator have a branch office in China, can we sign the contract directly with SPROs? Who in our company can sign such a contract? If you have a branch company or office or representative in China then you can either contract directly with a SPRO or through an agent. Where the contract is signed directly, without an agent, then the Legal Representative in t