NIMASA Ready to Execute Offshore Reception Facilities

Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) says it’s ready to execute offshore waste reception facilities later this month.

Following the declaration made during a meeting between NIMASA and oil companies operating in Nigerian waters, it is expected that the Sea Protection Levy would be introduced and must be paid by oil companies with loading receiving buoys, oil rigs and pipe lines.

According to the Agency, the rate payable per annum for offshore installations by oil companies at N15 million, saying oil wells for exploration would attract N10 million per annum from first day of April every year.

It added that pipelines would attract N1, 500 per cubic metre of pipe line volume from high water mark to termination point offshore.

This effort, according to NIMASA, was in line with the International Maritime Organisation's (IMO) Marine Environment Management Regulations 52 and 53 on Sea Protection Levy and Offshore Waste Reception Facilities.

Mr. Patrick Akpobolokemi, NIMASA’s director-general, said that the objective of the regulation was to improve and sustain the marine environment by developing a maritime environmental management system through self-funding.

Already, Akpobolokemi who was represented by Mr Callistus Nwabueze Obiwuzie, executive director, Maritime Labour and Cabotage Services, noted that implementation of the Sea Protection Levy had commenced.

He added that the Federal Government in its commitment to ensure the protection of the marine environment and its resources ratified the Marine Pollution (MARPOL) convention, the major instrument of IMO on the prevention of pollution of the marine environment.

The NIMASA Director-General noted that the convention was domesticated in 2012 to prevent degradation and of land and destruction of the ecosystem with attendant economic implications which oil pollution has caused the nation.

Mrs Abiodun Gunwa, head, Maritime Environment Management, explained that the agency introduced the Marine Environment Sea Protection Levy through a marine notice last August.

Gunwa said that the levy must be paid by all commercial operating vessels of 100 gross tonnage and above operating on Nigerian waters, adding that the same was applicable to potential oil polluters, installations and pipelines.

Gunwa stressed that Nigerian-flagged vessels between 100 and 1,000 gross tonnage would pay N500 per tonnage; vessels between 1,001 and 10,000 gross tonnage, N350 per gross tonnage; vessels between 10,001and 100,000 gross tonnage, N300 per gross tonnage; and vessels from 100,000 and above, N250 per gross tonnage.

Also foreign-flagged vessels that are between 100 and 1,000 gross tonnage are to pay $0.1per tonnage; vessels between 1,001 and 10,000 gross tonnage, $0.15per gross tonnage; vessels between 10,001and 100,000 gross tonnage, $0.3 per gross tonnage; and vessels from 100,000 and above, $0.3 per gross tonnage.