Oil Pollution of the Sea (Amendment) Act, 1965

Discharge of oil anywhere at sea.

3.—(1) The owner and also the master of any ship registered in the State (being a ship of twenty thousand tons gross tonnage or more for which the building contract was entered into after the commencement of this section) which discharges oil or oily mixture anywhere at sea shall be guilty of an offence under the Principal Act.

(2) Subsection (1) of this section shall not apply in relation to—

(a) the discharge of oil or oily mixture from a ship outside the prohibited zones where special circumstances exist that, in the opinion of the master of the ship, make it neither reasonable nor practicable to retain the oil or oily mixture in the ship,

(b) the discharge of oil or oily mixture from a ship for the purpose of securing the safety of any ship, preventing damage to any ship or cargo, or saving life, if such discharge was necessary and reasonable in the circumstances, or

(c) the escape of oil or oily mixture from a ship, resulting from damage to the vessel or from any leakage, not due to any want of reasonable care, if all reasonable precautions have been taken after the occurrence of the damage or discovery of the leakage for the purpose of preventing or minimising the escape.

(3) For the purpose of giving effect to any variation of the Convention of 1954 or to any subsequent convention, the Minister may by order apply the foregoing provisions of this section to ships of such classes as may be specified in the order.

(4) Subsection (5) of section 10 of the Principal Act shall apply in relation to subsection (1) of this section.

(5) In this section—

“oil” means oil to which section 10 of the Principal Act applies;

“oily mixture” means any mixture containing not less than one hundred parts of oil to which the said section 10 applies in a million parts of the mixture.