The police have booked Samsung Heavy Industries and Hebei Ocean Shipping Company for the oil spill. Oddly enough:
. . . . The Hong Kong-registered shipping company, owner of the oil tanker, Hebei Spirit, failed to respond to an emergency call from a coastal control center, a violation of proper safety procedures, the police said.
This translation (Joongang Ilbo) and circumstances seem odd. Just how would the tanker owners — who would be in Hong Kong — “respond to an emergency call from a Korean coastal control center” early in the morning. I wonder if they communicated with the owners in Chinese or English as well since their Korean would be suspect. The police’s attempt to hold the owners of Hebei Spirit accountable seems more like a traffic accident than a maritime incident but then that is something the prosecutors will need to consider.
6 Comments
It looks like the investigation is a train wreck.
I just have to ask, Mr. Elgin, if you have any experience in the shipping industry to be able to make the call that “this is weird”. Seems pretty normal to me.
No, I do not have experience in shipping other than renting a container, Brendon. It is only that the wording in the article did not make much sense to me, thus I was wondering if this was just another translation gone berserk or some strange version of Korean traffic law.
Nothing about this incident seems weird to you Brendon? So it is against the law for the owner of a ship, not the captain, to not respond to an emergency call from the Korean Coastal Command Center?
Why would the Command Center contact the owner of the vessel instead of the captain? What could the owner have done in such a situation?
From what I understand, the Koreans did get in touch with the captain of the Hong Kong registered vessel, but he did not have time to take evasive action. He was anchored where he was told to anchor by Korean authorities.
I think the Korean government is unfairly trying to shift the blame for their part in the screw up to the foreign vessel owner. And, no, I do not know anything about shipping and very little about the law.
Brendon, is your law firm involved in this case in some way?
My understanding is that the article really meant the captain of the ship when it says “the owner of the ship”. I thought that was pretty obvious. I also read from another source that the ship was requested to move an hour and a half before the barge broke way, in which they gave no response back.
Refer to comments here, http://www.rjkoehler.com/2007/.....ncisco-bay
The shipping company is also the owner of the oil tanker. Shipping company and ship owner can be differnet ones.
The tanker is REGISTERED in HongKong, which means the flag(or nationality) of the ship is HongKong. It does not mean the ship was not at Tae-an. U know proxy, agent, deputy or alter ego, or etc.
No wonder.
But I wonder who’s the owner of the cargo.
Any article revealed who’s the owner of the oil spilt.