Modest change to tanker spill regimes

Only modest changes are to be made to two tanker pollution agreements designed to make compensation following an oil spill fairer.

The Small Tanker Oil Pollution Indemnification Agreement (Stopia) and Tanker Oil Pollution Indemnification Agreement (Topia), two voluntary regimes agreed by the protection-and-indemnity (P&I) clubs a decade ago, have come up for review.

Stopia, covering more than 6,000 tankers of up to nearly 30,000 gross tons, provides for the relatively modest tonnage-related compensation limits, under the 1992 Civil Liability Convention, to be raised to SDR 20m ($28m).

Topia