National Contact Points for Safety and Pollution Prevention

The International Maritime Organization has issued a circular updating the National Contact Points for Safety and Pollution Prevention and Response.

This circular was published on January 31st, 2023.

1. This circular replaces all previously issued circulars under this title.

2. The annex to this circular includes the List of national operational contact points responsible for the receipt, transmission and processing of urgent reports on incidents involving harmful substances including oil from ships to coastal States.

3. The information, included in annex 1 of previous versions of this circular (prior to MSC-MEPC.6/Circ.15), may be accessed through GISIS at https://gisis.imo.org/Public/CP/Browse.aspx?List=SICI.

This includes contact point information for:

.1 national inspection services – head offices (originally MSC/Circ.630);
.2 national inspection services – local offices (originally MSC/Circ.630);
.3 inspection services acting as representatives of flag States for port State control matters and responsible authorities in charge of casualty investigation (originally MSC/Circ.542); and
.4 Secretariats of Memorandums of Understanding on Port State Control.

4. Member Governments are requested to:

.1 provide information on any changes or additions to the lists of contact points by directly updating the relevant information in the Contact Points module of GISIS;
.2 provide addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and electronic mail addresses of inspection services acting as representatives of flag States in case of por States interventions; and
.3 notwithstanding the provisions of the 1974 SOLAS Convention, as amended, with regard to communication of an intervention, port State authorities are requested, in order to expedite communications, to additionally convey information, related to port State control interventions, to those flag State inspection services (Head Offices) or to the inspection services acting as representatives of flag States, when available.

5. The list described in paragraph 2 is issued as the annex to the MSC-MEPC.6 circular posted annually on IMODOCS. However, the most up-to-date version of the list can be downloaded from the Contact Points module of the GISIS website at https://gisis.imo.org/Public/CP/Browse.aspx?List=URHS.

The entire circular, including its annex, as well as a stand-alone PDF version of the annex, are also available on the IMO website at http://www.imo.org and can be accessed through either the "National Contacts" or "Circulars" links on the bottom of the IMO homepage.

6. For ship inspection purposes, the only official version of the List of national operational contact points responsible for the receipt, transmission and processing of urgent reports on incidents involving harmful substances including oil from ships to coastal States – Annex is the updated version, which is issued electronically on a quarterly basis.

The quarterly date for this official version is specified at the top of each page of the above list.

Effective January 2018, the quarterly dates for the official version of the updated list will be as follows 31 January, 30 April, 31 July, and 31 October.

It will be available on the IMO website and can be downloaded as stated in paragraph 5.

In this connection, the next circular under this title (MSC-MEPC.6/Circ.22) will be issued on 31 January 2024.