Electronic Oil Record Book

The last amendment to MARPOL Annex I was discussed at MEPC 74 and adopted on 17th May 2019 for the use of electrionc record book onboard.

Past amendments concerned a re-numbering of MARPOL Annex I and significant changes in the Oil Record Book entries for deck and machinery space operations.

Oil Record Book is composed of 2 parts. Part I contains items of machinery space operations and Part II concerned cargo and ballast operations specific to Oil tankers.

Ballast operations have to be registered in the Oil Record Book if your vessel is an Oil tankers.
Ballasting of cargo tanks, clean ballast tanks and discharge of clean or dirty ballast are concerned.

Cargo residues disposal have to be registered in the Garbage Record Book only.

Before being used on board, an Electronic Record Book must be approved by a Classification Society according to the relevant regulations.

Then the shipping companies can ask the Maritime authority of their vessels to validate the use of the certified electronic record book.

Depending on the Flag State, validation can be fee-based.

Failure to comply with the MARPOL regulation during a Port State Control (PSC) and provide the associated documents can result in the ship detention by the State.

The vessel owner or operator may be fined and placed on probation. Crew members involved can also be imprisoned and/or fined.

The Officer in charge or supervising the operation must be the one who validate the entry in the electronic record book which act as the signature of the entry.

This has to be done without delay when the operation is completed.

At the end of the period, the Captain must verify all the entries recorded and sign with a dual authentication the electronic oil record book.

In that case, you and your crew should :

1- Stop the flow of oil or effluent overboard.
2- Record the failure of the equipment in the right section of the Oil Record Book with the different information required.
3- Keep all oily water onboard until you can either repair the equipment or dispose the oily water to a reception facility.

In order to be certified, an Electronic Record book, also called ERB, must follow MEPC.312(74) - Guidelines on the use of electronic record books under MAPROL, which defines the requirements for ERBS.

ERBS shall be as much or more reliable than paper record books.

Electronic record books enables fast and safe access to MARPOL recorded data.

Streamlog Garbage Record Book keeps the history available, it allows an easy data backup for port state control or flag state control