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How to make correct oil record

book (Cargo) entries ?
Written by Capt Rajeev Jassal on April 18, 2017

Ask any tanker mate what the #1 nightmare of sailing is. And
they’ll probably tell you it is to be in the center of oil pollution
inquiry.
That’s a nightmare: to be in that position, facing oil pollution
inquiry.
And yes, it makes sense as the consequences of such inquiry
can be severe.

But you know what !! If you are not at fault, chances are that
you will escape spot free.

But there is something you can never escape spot free.

And that is incorrect oil record book entries.

The severity of the consequences may vary. For example if

there is deliberate attempt to make a wrong entry in oil record
book, the consequence would be severe.
And if there are some typo or calculation errors, the
consequences could range to some monetory fines.

But wrong oil record book entries will never go spot free.

And there is a reason for that. If you made some wrong oil
record book entries, you alone are at fault. No one forced you
to make such entry.

Oil pollution can be an incident but not wrong oil record book
entries.

That makes it so much important to make absolute correct

entries in the oil record book.
 But to be able to do that, there are two things you must
possess.

 Seriousness in making these entries

 Knowledge of how to make these entries

More often than not, you can fathom the seriousness by merely
having a look at few pages of the oil record book.

If the handwriting is shabby and alphabets are flying around,

seriousness is not shown in making these entries.

And believe me when I say that poor handwriting has nothing

to do with it. I have seen mates with poor handwriting making
the entries in capital letters to compensate for their poor
handwriting.
But even if you are super serious about it, you still need
knowledge of “how to make oil record book entries correctly”.

There is Intertanko guide on this but there are many grey

areas left unanswered in this guide too.

First the guide is not comprehensive and second there isn’t

explanation of many doubts that seafarers usually have while
filling up the oil record book.
In this post, I will try to plug all these gaps by going through all
the practical situations we face during oil tanker cargo
operations.

So lets start.

1. Loading of cargo

Most common entry in oil record book is the Loading of cargo.

The columns that we have to fill are these

There should absolutely be no confusion for A-1: Place of

loading. But when writing the place of loading, not only write
the port but also the berth number or the accurate location
inside the port.

A-2: Type of oil loaded and identity of tank(s) is also not

confusing.
A-3: Total quantity of oil loaded (state quantity added in m3 at
15 C and total content of tank(s) in m3

This is where all the confusion and wrong entries exist.

First point to consider is that all the quantities in A-3 need to

be in m3 at 15 C.

While I personally do not agree with this. For example read

what MARPOL require for A-3 to be written as.

A3: Total quantity of oil loaded (State quantity added in

m3 at 15 C and total content of tanks in m3).
It does not ask the total content of tank to be in 15 C. But in
the Intertanko book, under example for “loading of cargo
entry” it gives the total content at 15 C.

To avoid any misunderstanding, I therefore recommend to

write both the quantities at 15 C.

Now let us consider few of the conditions.

Condition 1: Loading one grade at one port

Load port: Rastanura, Berth # 3
Cargo: Gasoline
Loaded in tanks: 1W, 2W, 3W, 4W, 5W, 6W
Quantity loaded: 52000 m3 at 15 C
The cargo entry should look like this

But there are few errors that we make frequently.

For example can you spot the error in this entry (actual entry
from a ship’s Cargo record book) !!
First only total quantity is mentioned and not the quantity
loaded and total quantity in the tank.

Second, the entry itself is ambiguous. No one can tell if the

“Total quantity” mentioned is the Quantity loaded” or “total
content of tank”.
 But there is another version that I see sometimes. Recording
the two quantities as “Gross volume” and “Net Volume”. See
below actual example.

Now there are multiple errors in recording the quantities and

thus many unanswered questions.

 Net volume at what temperature ?

 Net volume & Gross volumes: Cargo loaded or total cargo ?

Condition 2: Loading two or more grades at one port

The guidelines for filling up individual rows like A-1, A-2, A-3
remains same. But even when all the data is available, there is
still one error that I see too frequently.
But before I come to that, let us take this example

Load port: Rastanura, Berth # 3

Cargo: Gasoline
Loaded in tanks: 1W, 3W, 5W, 6W
Quantity loaded: 35000 m3 at 15 C
Cargo: Diesel Oil
Loaded in tanks: 2W, 4W
Quantity loaded: 10000 m3 at 15 C
The ideal entry in cargo record book will look like this.
The idea is to make different entries for each grade even if the
cargo was loaded at the same berth of the same port.

I have seen sometimes we try to make a common entry for all

the grades loaded at same port. The result is not so nice
looking.

For instance see below actual entry for loading two grades.
It has information about total quantity loaded but not the total
content of the tanks.

It is really a bad idea to try to merge both the entries in one.

A big confusion in these type of entries is the “total content of

the tanks”. Is it total content of the tanks being loaded for this
cargo or total content of all the tanks of the ship ?

You may not find this clarification from any of the reliable
sources. But if we go by the logical thinking, it need to be the
“total content of tanks loaded in cargo tanks of that particular
entry”.
Condition 3: Loading at more than one ports
The entry for loading at more than one port is no different than
what we already discussed in condition 2.

Let us take an example

Load port: Rastanura, Berth # 3

Loading Date: 16 March 2017
Cargo: Gasoline
Loaded in tanks: 1W, 3W, 5W, 6W
Quantity loaded: 35000 m3 at 15 C
Load port: Jubail, Berth # 42
Loading Date: 18 March 2017
Cargo: Diesel Oil
Loaded in tanks: 2W, 4W
Quantity loaded: 10000 m3 at 15 C
The cargo record book entry should look like this.
As I clarified earlier, the total content of the tanks need to be
the total quantity in the tanks mentioned in that particular
entry.

Other conditions on Loading of cargo

Once we are clear on the first three conditions that we
discussed, we are good to go for any other combination.
For example once we are clear, it is not difficult to understand
and make correct entries for “loading multiple grades in
multiple ports.

2. Unloading of Cargo

This is most easy entry in the oil record book. The columns that
need to be entered are

Let us see how we actually need to fill this data.

Condition 4: Unloading full cargo at one discharge port

Here is an example

Unloading port: Mumbai, Berth # 9

Unloaded from tanks: 1W, 2W, 3W, 4W, 5W, 6W
Quantity loaded: Full cargo
The ideal entry would look like this.
Sweet and simple, right ?

For row C-8, I see sometimes we write it as “Yes, all tanks

Emptied”.

Nothing wrong in this but why add extra words ? I recommend

to keep it simple. Just “Yes” is perfect.

Condition 5: Unloading at Multiple discharge ports

Let us take up an example for this situation too

Unloading port: Mumbai, Berth # 6

Unloaded from tanks: 1W, 4W, 6W
Quantity loaded: Full cargo from these tanks
And

Unloading port: Kochi, Berth # 12

Unloaded from tanks: 2W, 3W, 5W
Quantity loaded: Full cargo from these tanks
This again is not that complicated. By this time you already
know how this entry would be ?

Condition 6: Unloading part cargo at Multiple ports

This is little bit trickier than unloading of cargo by emptying the
tanks.

Loaded tanks: 1W, 2W, 3W, 5W

First Unloading port: Mumbai, Berth # 6
Tanks unloaded from: 1W, 3W, 5W
After unloading: 1W, 5W were emptied and 3W was part
discharged. Total of 4000 m3 was the balance in 3W after
unloading.
The entry for this operation will be this one

Now after Mumbai, vessel went to Kochi to discharge balance

cargo

Second unloading port: Kochi

Tanks unloaded from: 3W, 2W
After unloading: 2W, 3W were emptied
For the second discharge port the entry will look like this.
3. Cleaning of Cargo tank

This is another common operation specially on product tankers.

For change of grades, we sometimes need to clean the cargo
tanks.

The oil record book entries required for this operation are
Let us see an example of how each row need to be filled in
cargo record book.
There are few things that I must clarify in this entry.

Date of entry is the date when tank cleaning operation of the

mentioned cargo tanks was completed and not the start date of
tank cleaning operation.

Ship’s position entered in G-28 is the position where tank

cleaning operation was started.

Few mates while making this entry write both Commenced tank
cleaning position and completed tank cleaning position. Nothing
wrong in that but it is again an extra undesired information.
The reason no one is interest so much in positions and start
stop time is that all the washing are required to be on board.

Another thing is the duration entered in G-29 which is the total

duration of cleaning of the mentioned tanks.

It is good practice to make different entry if the tank cleaning

was stopped for considerable period.

For example let us say that on one day tanks no 1W, 2W, 3W
were washed and then on the next day morning 4W and 5W
were washed.

In this case we should make entry of washing 1W, 2W, 3W for

one day and then next day for 4W and 5W.

If you still wish to make one entry only then the duration of
cleaning should be calculated as the total duration for which
tank cleaning machines were running.

The accuracy of this information should be supported by the

port log record.

4. Discharge of water from slop tank into the

sea
When we have done the tank cleaning of the tanks, we
can discharge the tank washings collected in the slop tanks
through ODME.
To be able to do that certain condition of Marpol Annex I need
to be fulfilled.

But when these washings are discharged to see through the

ODME, we need to make an entry in oil record book of this fact.

The items to record under this entry are

Let us see how we need to make the entry for discharge of
water to the sea.
Let us see how we need to make the entry for discharge of
water to the sea.

In this most of the sections are quite straight forward and do

not need any explanation. But few sections may be confusing
so here comes the clarification.
First thing need less to say that during the time between I-44
and I-49, vessel must be complying with the discharge criteria
as per MARPOL annex I.

For the entries, the times mentioned in I-44 and I-49 should be
the ship’s local time. This is simply because we are writing the
date as per ship’s time, so time should also be corresponding
to that.

If you are wondering what if there is a date change between

the time as per I-44 and I-49. This can never happen because
we are not supposed to discharge water to the sea during dark
hours.

There is sometime a huge confusion about I-47 and I-48.

I-47: Bulk quantity discharged in m3 and rate of discharge in

M3/Hr

I-48: Final quantity discharged in M3 and rate of discharge in

M3/Hr

This concept assumes that the discharge of water to the sea

will be in two stages.

In first stage the water is pumped out through ODME with

higher discharge rate.
As the oil/water interface aprroaches, discharge rate is lowered
to avoid the churning of the oil/water interface.

Under I-47, we need to record the quantity discharged and rate

achieved during first stage.

Under I-48, we need to record the quantity discharged and rate

achieved during second stage.

There can be instance when we would stop ODME and thus

discharge of water manually without reducing the discharge
rate.

In this case we can write “NA” under item I-48.

5. Missed Entry

What if you have missed an entry ? Let us say you missed to

make an entry for cargo discharged at Kochi on 16th March
2017.

In this case you can use code O to make that entry.

So how do we do that ? Have a look at this entry.

In this entry, the date corresponding to Code “O” is the date
when the operation was carried out. The date corresponding to
the missed entry (in this case code C) is the date when the
entry is now being made in the oil record book.

You would have noticed that there are two signatures at end of
this entry.

The first signature is for the person making “O” entry. And the
second signature is for the person making the missing entry (C
in this case).
The person making the “O” entry could be the master. It could
also be the relieving chief officer who detected the missed
entry.

The same chief officer should not be making both these entries,
simply to have a check on such entries which are exceptional in
nature.

Having a way to record a missed entry does not give the

license to frequently miss the entry.

Conclusion

Oil record book is one of the most important document that

chief officer has to maintain.

False, missed or incorrect entries are considered a serious

offense worldwide. This makes it so much important to have
the knowledge of making the correct oil record book entries.