Portuguese manager Portline Bulk International (PBI) has said certain engineers on a bulker went against its express training in a US pollution case.

The company agreed to pay $1.5m after it admitted in a plea deal that engineers on the 51,000-dwt Achilleus (built 2001) had falsified entries in a record book used to track the disposal of bilge water.

Portline told TradeWinds that the US Coast Guard investigated the practices of bilge waste management by certain engineers aboard the ship in Charleston, South Carolina, last August.