A surveyor opening a parcel chemical tanker for its renewal survey is not working from MARPOL Annex II’s survey checklist. The checklist is the IBC Code’s, the certificate at the end is the Certificate of Fitness, and Annex II’s own survey, certificate and validity rules, Regulations 8, 9 and 10, do not apply to that ship in their own terms at all. One short regulation makes that work without leaving a hole in the pollution-prevention regime: Regulation 7 of the revised Annex II, titled “Survey and certification of chemical tankers.” It sits at the head of Chapter 3, “Surveys and certification,” in the consolidated text adopted by Resolution MEPC.118(52) on 15 October 2004 and in force since 1 January 2007.
Regulation 7 is one sentence. It provides that, notwithstanding Regulations 8, 9 and 10 of the Annex, chemical tankers which have been surveyed and certified by States Parties in accordance with the IBC Code or the Bulk Chemical Code, as applicable, are deemed to have complied with those regulations, and the certificate issued under that Code has the same force and receives the same recognition as the certificate issued under Regulation 9. That single clause does three jobs. It deems the IBC or BCH Code survey-and-certification scheme to satisfy Annex II’s. It gives the International Certificate of Fitness the legal standing of the NLS Certificate. And it sorts the world’s noxious-liquid fleet into two certification routes, the Code route for chemical tankers and the standalone Annex II route for everything else that carries NLS in bulk.
This article works through the carve-out itself: which ships fall under Regulation 7 against the standalone Regulation 8 and Regulation 9 route, the IBC versus BCH split by date of construction, what the Certificate of Fitness is and what its attached record carries, the read-across that lets the Code scheme stand in for Regulations 8, 9 and 10, and the parallel result a gas carrier reaches under Regulation 5.3 and the IGC Code. The mechanics of the survey cycle, the NLS Certificate form, and the validity arithmetic live in the dedicated articles on Regulations 8, 9 and 10; this one is about the bridge between Annex II and the Codes.
What Regulation 7 says, word by word
The text rewards a close reading because every phrase carries weight. The opening, “notwithstanding the provisions of regulations 8, 9 and 10 of this Annex,” is the override. It tells the reader that the three rules that would otherwise govern surveys, certificate issue and certificate validity are set aside for the ships Regulation 7 names. Without that word, a chemical tanker would owe duties under both the Code and Annex II’s own Chapter 3, and the two schemes would run in parallel on the same ship. “Notwithstanding” cuts that to one scheme.
The subject is “chemical tankers which have been surveyed and certified by States Parties to the present Convention in accordance with the provisions of the International Bulk Chemical Code or the Bulk Chemical Code, as applicable.” Three conditions hide in that phrase. The ship must be a chemical tanker as Annex II defines the term. The surveying and certifying must be done by a State Party to MARPOL, which keeps the carve-out inside the Convention’s web of recognition. And the survey and certificate must follow the IBC Code or the BCH Code, “as applicable,” the two-word hinge that points to the date-of-construction split covered below.
The consequence is in two parts. First, those ships “shall be deemed to have complied with the provisions of the said regulations,” meaning Regulations 8, 9 and 10. The verb is “deemed,” a legal fiction: the ship has not actually been surveyed under Regulation 8 or issued a certificate under Regulation 9, but the law treats it as if it had. Second, “the certificate issued under that Code shall have the same force and receive the same recognition as the certificate issued under regulation 9 of this Annex.” The Certificate of Fitness is not merely accepted; it is given the identical legal standing of the NLS Certificate. A port State that must recognize an NLS Certificate must recognize the Certificate of Fitness on the same footing.
What the rule does not say is as telling as what it does. It does not require the chemical tanker to hold an NLS Certificate as well, and it does not create a second certificate. The deeming is complete: the Code scheme replaces the Annex II scheme for these ships rather than supplementing it. That is why a correctly certified IBC chemical tanker carries no NLS Certificate, and why looking for one is looking for a document the regime deliberately does not issue.
Which ships fall under Regulation 7
The dividing line is the definition of “chemical tanker” in Regulation 1.16.1 of the Annex: a ship “constructed or adapted for the carriage in bulk of any liquid product listed in chapter 17 of the International Bulk Chemical Code.” Chapter 17 of the IBC Code is the summary of minimum requirements, the long table that lists every product the Code controls and the ship type, tank type, and equipment each demands. If a ship is built or adapted to carry a Chapter 17 product in bulk, it is a chemical tanker, and Regulation 7 is its certification route. The cargo list defines the ship, not the other way round.
That captures the parcel-tanker fleet and the larger product and chemical carriers that lift Category X, Y or Z noxious liquids under Regulation 6 categorization. For those ships there is no choice to make: the IBC or BCH Code applies, the Certificate of Fitness is the certificate, and Annex II’s Chapter 3 is satisfied through Regulation 7. The chemical tanker is the central case the carve-out was written for, and it is the overwhelming majority of the NLS-carrying tonnage afloat.
The standalone route under Regulations 8 and 9 is for the ship that carries noxious liquid substances in bulk but is not a Chapter 17 chemical tanker. Annex II has a separate vessel definition for this, the “NLS tanker” in Regulation 1.16.2: a ship constructed or adapted to carry NLS in bulk, which includes an oil tanker under Annex I when certified to carry a part cargo of noxious liquids. An NLS tanker that is not built to the full IBC Code standard takes the NLS Certificate route. The clearest example is a dry-cargo or general-purpose ship granted an exemption under Regulation 4 of the Annex to carry a named cargo, for instance certain vegetable oils, where the Administration has decided the ship’s arrangements meet the carriage requirement without full chemical-tanker construction. That ship is surveyed under Regulation 8, certified under Regulation 9, and holds an NLS Certificate, not a Certificate of Fitness.
So the routing is read off the ship’s cargo and construction, not chosen by the owner. A Chapter 17 chemical tanker takes Regulation 7 and the Certificate of Fitness. A narrower NLS carrier that is not a Chapter 17 chemical tanker takes Regulation 9 and the NLS Certificate. The two routes are mutually exclusive for a given ship, which is why holding both certificates for the same NLS carriage is not how the regime works, and why a chemical tanker’s missing NLS Certificate is a non-finding.
The IBC and BCH split by date of construction
“As applicable” in Regulation 7 resolves to a single date: 1 July 1986. A chemical tanker constructed on or after 1 July 1986 is certified under the IBC Code. A chemical tanker constructed before that date is certified under the BCH Code, the predecessor instrument. Both produce a Certificate of Fitness, and Regulation 7 gives both the same standing for Annex II, so the date does not change the legal effect of the certificate; it changes which Code’s survey and construction standard the ship is held to.
The IBC Code is the International Code for the Construction and Equipment of Ships Carrying Dangerous Chemicals in Bulk. Its safety half was adopted by the Maritime Safety Committee as resolution MSC.4(48) on 17 June 1983 under SOLAS Chapter VII. Its pollution half, the part that matters for Annex II, was added by the Marine Environment Protection Committee through resolution MEPC.19(22) on 5 December 1985, which extended the Code to cover the pollution-hazard substances of Annex II. The Code became mandatory for chemical tankers constructed on or after 1 July 1986 under both SOLAS and MARPOL, and the Annex II definition of “International Bulk Chemical Code” points to the MEPC.19(22) text as amended. That is the date the whole modern chemical-tanker construction standard hangs from.
The BCH Code is the Code for the Construction and Equipment of Ships Carrying Dangerous Chemicals in Bulk, the recommendatory predecessor first issued through Assembly resolution A.212(VII) and given its MARPOL pollution form by MEPC.20(22), also on 5 December 1985. For ships built before 1 July 1986 the BCH Code stays the applicable instrument, and their Certificate of Fitness is issued under it. The BCH Code is less demanding than the IBC Code on several construction points because it was written for an older generation of ships and was, at origin, a recommendation rather than a treaty-mandatory Code. Regulation 7 does not erase that difference; it simply accepts the BCH Code Certificate of Fitness as satisfying Annex II for the ships entitled to use it.
A definitional subtlety in Regulation 1.14.1 keeps the date honest. “Ship constructed” means a ship whose keel is laid or which is at a similar stage of construction, and a ship converted to a chemical tanker is treated as constructed on the date the conversion began, “irrespective of the date of construction” of the original hull. So a 1980-built dry-cargo ship converted to a chemical tanker in 2000 is, for this purpose, a chemical tanker constructed in 2000, and it falls on the IBC Code side of the line. There is one narrow exclusion: this conversion rule does not apply to a modification of a ship that was constructed before 1 July 1986 and is certified under the BCH Code to carry only products the Code identifies as having pollution hazards only. That exception keeps genuinely old, pollution-only BCH ships from being pulled forward onto the IBC standard by a later modification.
The “similar stage of construction” test in Regulation 1.14.2 fixes the keel-laying date precisely: construction identifiable with a specific ship has begun, and assembly has reached at least 50 tonnes or one percent of the estimated mass of all structural material, whichever is less. That matters at the 1 July 1986 boundary because a ship whose assembly crossed that 50-tonne threshold a few weeks either side of the date falls under one Code or the other, with different construction requirements, on the strength of a steel-weight milestone in a yard. For the operating fleet today the BCH side is small and shrinking; chemical tankers built before mid-1986 are now forty years old and beyond, and most have been scrapped. But the split is still live text, and a surveyor handed a Certificate of Fitness has to know which Code issued it to read it correctly.
The International Certificate of Fitness
The certificate Regulation 7 elevates is the International Certificate of Fitness for the Carriage of Dangerous Chemicals in Bulk. It is issued under the IBC or BCH Code, not under Annex II, after an initial or periodical survey of the chemical tanker, and it attests two findings: that the ship has been surveyed in accordance with the Code, and that the survey showed the ship’s construction and equipment, and their condition, comply with the relevant provisions of the Code. Because the IBC Code is mandatory under SOLAS Chapter VII as well as MARPOL Annex II, the Certificate of Fitness is at once a SOLAS safety certificate and the Annex II pollution-prevention certificate for that ship. One document, two conventions.
The certificate has the same two-part shape as the NLS Certificate. The face certifies the ship as fit and carries the issue date, the expiry date, and the endorsement grid for the periodical surveys. The substance, though, is in the attached list of cargoes the ship is approved to carry, the equivalent of the NLS Certificate’s Record of Construction and Equipment. That product list is the Certificate of Fitness’s real content. A vetting inspector or port-State control officer reading the certificate to find out which chemicals the ship may load reads the attached list, because the face says only that the ship is fit, while the list says fit for what, and ties each approved product to the ship type and tank arrangement the Code requires for it.
The Certificate of Fitness is wider than the NLS Certificate in scope, which is the reason Regulation 7 runs in the direction it does rather than the reverse. The Certificate of Fitness covers the chemical tanker’s construction, ship type, tank materials, cargo containment, fire protection, venting, electrical arrangements, and pollution prevention, the whole IBC Code package, in one instrument. The NLS Certificate covers only the Annex II pollution-prevention fit. Issuing a pollution-only NLS Certificate on top of a Certificate of Fitness that already subsumes it would add a narrower document to a ship that already holds the broader one. Regulation 7 removes the redundancy by making the broader certificate count for the narrower one, not the other way round.
The read-across to Regulations 8, 9 and 10
Regulation 7 names Regulations 8, 9 and 10 specifically, and it helps to see what each of those does and how the Code scheme stands in for it. Regulation 8 is the survey rule: it sets the five survey types, initial, renewal, intermediate, annual and additional, for a ship carrying NLS in bulk, ties them to the certificate’s anniversary date through a three-month window, and names who may survey. Regulation 9 is the issuing rule: it produces the NLS Certificate after an initial or renewal survey, in the Appendix 3 form with its supplement, and fixes the issuing authority and the language floor. Regulation 10 is the validity rule: it caps the certificate at five years, sets the renewal-survey windows and the short extensions, and lists the events that end validity, including a change of flag.
For an IBC or BCH chemical tanker, the Code’s own survey-and-certification scheme does each of those jobs. The Codes adopt the same Harmonized System of Survey and Certification that Annex II uses, so the IBC Code survey cycle mirrors the Regulation 8 pattern almost exactly: an initial survey before the ship enters service, an annual survey, an intermediate survey around the second or third anniversary, a renewal survey at intervals not exceeding five years, and an additional survey after important repairs. The Certificate of Fitness is issued on the initial or renewal survey and endorsed on the annual and intermediate surveys, the same rhythm as the NLS Certificate. Its validity is capped at five years on the same renewal-survey logic. So the deeming in Regulation 7 is not a fiction stretched over a gap; it is an acknowledgement that the Code scheme already does, in its own terms, what Regulations 8, 9 and 10 require, and that running both would duplicate the work.
The harmonization is the practical reason the carve-out is clean rather than approximate. Because the IBC Code survey timing, certificate validity and endorsement pattern were aligned with Annex II under the same HSSC framework, a surveyor attending a chemical tanker checks the Code’s construction and equipment standards and the Annex II pollution-prevention standard in one visit, against one certificate, on one calendar. The Certificate of Fitness and the ship’s other harmonized certificates, the SOLAS safety certificates, the Annex I IOPP Certificate where the ship also carries oil, the Annex VI air-pollution certificate, share the five-year cycle and the anniversary windows, so they are surveyed and renewed together. Regulation 7 is what lets the Annex II piece of that single attendance live inside the Certificate of Fitness instead of demanding its own separate NLS Certificate and its own separate survey.
The maintenance-of-condition duty travels with the deeming. A chemical tanker on a Certificate of Fitness is still bound to keep its surveyed condition between surveys, to report accidents and defects that affect its Annex-covered equipment, and to take an additional survey after a repair, because the IBC Code carries the same continuing duties the Annex II Regulation 8.3 provisions impose. The deeming does not weaken the obligation; it routes it through the Code. An unauthorized modification to a chemical tanker’s cargo system breaks the chain of surveyed condition behind the Certificate of Fitness exactly as it would behind an NLS Certificate, and is the same serious finding either way.
Gas carriers and the IGC Code: a parallel by a different route
A liquefied-gas carrier that also lifts a small slate of noxious liquids reaches an equivalent outcome, but through Regulation 5.3, not Regulation 7. The distinction matters because the legal mechanism and the resulting paperwork differ. Regulation 7 deems compliance and replaces the NLS Certificate with the Certificate of Fitness, so the chemical tanker holds one certificate. Regulation 5.3 grants an equivalence and requires the gas carrier to hold both certificates. They are not the same construction, and treating the gas carrier as if Regulation 7 applied to it is a common error.
Regulation 5, “Equivalents,” lets an Administration accept an alternative fitting, material or arrangement that is at least as effective as what the Annex requires. Paragraph 5.3 applies that principle to gas carriers. It provides that the construction and equipment of liquefied-gas carriers certified to carry the noxious liquid substances listed in the applicable Gas Carrier Code are deemed equivalent to the construction and equipment requirements of Regulation 11 and Regulation 12 of the Annex, provided the gas carrier meets five conditions. Note the scope: it is an equivalence for Regulations 11 and 12, the cargo-tank arrangement and the pumping, piping and unloading rules, not the wholesale deeming of the survey-and-certificate chain that Regulation 7 grants a chemical tanker.
The five conditions in Regulation 5.3 are exact and worth stating. The gas carrier must hold a Certificate of Fitness under the appropriate Gas Carrier Code for ships certified to carry liquefied gases in bulk. It must hold an International Pollution Prevention Certificate for the Carriage of Noxious Liquid Substances in Bulk, the NLS Certificate, certifying that it may carry only those noxious liquid substances identified and listed in the appropriate Gas Carrier Code. It must have segregated ballast arrangements. It must have pumping and piping arrangements that, to the Administration’s satisfaction, leave a cargo residue in the tank and its associated piping no greater than the quantity Regulation 12.1, 12.2 and 12.3 allow. And it must carry a Manual, approved by the Administration, that prevents operational mixing of cargo residues with water and ensures no residue remains after the Manual’s ventilation procedures. The second condition is the one that produces two certificates: the gas carrier holds the IGC Certificate of Fitness for its gas cargoes and a separate NLS Certificate, restricted to the listed noxious liquids, for the NLS side.
The Gas Carrier Code in current use is the IGC Code, the International Code for the Construction and Equipment of Ships Carrying Liquefied Gases in Bulk. Like the IBC Code it became mandatory for gas carriers constructed on or after 1 July 1986, and its current text was extensively revised by resolution MSC.370(93), in force from 1 January 2016. Older gas carriers fall under the predecessor Gas Carrier Codes by the same date logic as chemical tankers: the Gas Carrier Code applies to ships built from 31 October 1976 to 30 June 1986, and the still earlier Code for Existing Ships, Assembly resolution A.329(IX), to ships built before 31 October 1976. The Certificate of Fitness for a gas carrier is the International Certificate of Fitness for the Carriage of Liquefied Gases in Bulk, the gas analogue of the chemical tanker’s certificate.
So the gas-carrier case is the one regular situation where an NLS Certificate sits beside a Certificate of Fitness rather than being replaced by it. A chemical tanker under Regulation 7 holds the Certificate of Fitness alone; a gas carrier under Regulation 5.3 holds its gas Certificate of Fitness and an NLS Certificate limited to the listed substances. The “never both” rule that holds for IBC chemical tankers does not carry across to gas carriers, and a PSC officer or vetting inspector who applies the chemical-tanker logic to a gas carrier will misread the paperwork in both directions: expecting a single certificate where there are two, and treating the NLS Certificate as a redundant find where it is a required one.
Reading the certificate at inspection
For a port-State control officer or a charterer’s vetting inspector, Regulation 7 turns into a short operational rule once the mechanism is clear. On a parcel chemical tanker, ask for the International Certificate of Fitness and read its attached product list. There is no NLS Certificate to find, and its absence is not a deficiency. The Certificate of Fitness is the Annex II certificate for that ship, carrying the same force as the NLS Certificate under Regulation 7, and the product list is where the approved cargoes are named. Recording “no NLS Certificate” against a chemical tanker is a false deficiency that flows directly from missing Regulation 7.
On a ship presented as an NLS carrier that is not an IBC or BCH chemical tanker, the document to ask for is the NLS Certificate, with its Record of Construction and Equipment. On a gas carrier that also lifts noxious liquids, both documents should be on board: the gas Certificate of Fitness and an NLS Certificate restricted to the listed substances, the Regulation 5.3 pair. On a ship carrying only products listed as Other Substances under IBC Code Chapter 18, neither Annex II certificate is required, because OS cargoes fall outside the noxious-liquid restriction. So the certificate a ship holds is read off its cargo and its construction date, and the inspector’s first task is to match the document to the route rather than to expect a single uniform certificate across all NLS carriage.
The check does not stop at the certificate’s name. A valid Certificate of Fitness tells the inspector the ship’s construction, equipment and Annex II fit were in order on the survey date; it says nothing about whether the crew prewashed the last Category X tank or logged the discharge correctly. Those operational matters run through the Cargo Record Book and the approved Procedures and Arrangements Manual under Regulation 14, and the at-sea discharge conditions live in Regulation 13. The certificate is the gate at the front of the regime; the operational rules are what the ship does once through it. Regulation 7 governs only which certificate stands at that gate.
The exemption and equivalent provisions around Regulation 7
Regulation 7 is read alongside the exemption and equivalent rules at the front of the Annex, because those rules sometimes write directly onto the Certificate of Fitness. Regulation 4, “Exemptions,” lets an Administration modify or delay the application of a carriage-requirement amendment to ships constructed before the amendment’s entry into force, where immediate application would be unreasonable or impracticable, determined product by product. When it does, Regulation 4.2.3 requires the relaxation to be reflected on “the Certificate as referred to in regulation 7 or 9 of this Annex.” That phrase, “regulation 7 or 9,” is the Annex’s own acknowledgement of the two-certificate split: a chemical tanker’s exemption is endorsed on the Certificate of Fitness recognized under Regulation 7, an NLS carrier’s on the NLS Certificate under Regulation 9.
The same Regulation 4 carries a narrower exemption power for ships restricted to certain voyages or trades, again to be reflected on whichever certificate the ship holds. These exemptions do not change the routing under Regulation 7; they ride on top of it. A chemical tanker with a Regulation 4 relaxation still holds a Certificate of Fitness recognized through Regulation 7, with the relaxation noted on it. The point to carry away is that the Annex consistently treats the Regulation 7 Certificate of Fitness and the Regulation 9 NLS Certificate as the two faces of one certification duty, naming them together wherever it needs to point at “the certificate” without prejudging which route the ship took.
Regulation 5’s equivalents power, beyond the gas-carrier paragraph 5.3 covered above, lets an Administration accept an alternative fitting that is at least as effective as the Annex requires, with the limit that this authority does not extend to substituting operational methods for the design and construction features the Annex prescribes. For a chemical tanker the practical effect of an equivalent is usually folded into the IBC Code certification and so into the Certificate of Fitness, because the Code has its own equivalents and alternative-design provisions that the survey works through. The Annex II equivalents power is more often used for the NLS-tanker route, where the ship is certified under Annex II directly rather than through the Code.
Why the carve-out exists: avoiding a double scheme
The reason for Regulation 7 is structural, not cosmetic. Annex II and the IBC Code grew up together in the mid-1980s as two halves of the same regulatory project: the Annex set the pollution-prevention regime for noxious liquids, and the IBC Code set the construction and equipment standard for the ships that carry them, with the Code’s pollution half added by MEPC.19(22) precisely to implement Annex II. Both are mandatory for chemical tankers built on or after 1 July 1986. Without a carve-out, a chemical tanker would owe a full survey-and-certificate duty under each: an IBC Code survey producing a Certificate of Fitness, and an Annex II survey producing an NLS Certificate, covering overlapping ground on the same ship, on potentially different calendars, signed by potentially different parties.
Regulation 7 collapses that to one. It accepts that the IBC Code survey, which is broader and stricter than the Annex II survey, has already verified everything the Annex II survey would, and it gives the Certificate of Fitness the standing to serve as the Annex II certificate. The result is one survey attendance, one certificate, one validity period, and one product list for a chemical tanker, instead of two parallel schemes producing two certificates that would have to be kept in step. The carve-out is the reason the chemical-tanker fleet runs on a single, coherent statutory cycle rather than a duplicated one, and it is why the harmonization of survey timing between the Code and the Annex was worth building in the first place.
The design also keeps the regime current as the Code is amended. The substantive construction and equipment standard for chemical tankers lives in the IBC Code, which the MEPC and MSC amend on their own cycle. Because Regulation 7 ties Annex II compliance to the Code “as amended,” a chemical tanker built to a later edition of the IBC Code is, through Regulation 7, deemed to satisfy Annex II’s survey-and-certificate chain without Annex II having to re-state the construction standard itself. The Annex carries the pollution-prevention regime, the Code carries the ship standard, and Regulation 7 is the joint that keeps them aligned without forcing a chemical tanker to satisfy both separately.
The numbering trap
A specific hazard surrounds the regulation number, and it matters to anyone reading older documentation or secondary summaries. In the consolidated Annex II in force since 1 January 2007, Regulation 7 is “Survey and certification of chemical tankers.” That numbering comes from the 2004 revision under MEPC.118(52), which renumbered the entire Annex. In the original Annex II that applied from 6 April 1987 to 31 December 2006, the layout was different, and a citation to “Annex II Regulation 7” written before the revision points to a different rule. Always confirm which version of the Annex a source is quoting before relying on a bare regulation number.
The trap also runs sideways into national transpositions. UK and other domestic statutory instruments that implement Annex II use their own regulation numbers, and a domestic “regulation 7” or “regulation 9” need not match the Annex II number. Some secondary summaries, including older internal cross-references, attach the chemical-tanker carve-out or the certificate-issuing rule to the wrong number, calling the issuing rule “Regulation 11,” for instance. That is wrong for the consolidated Annex: Regulation 11 of the revised Annex II is the cargo-tank arrangement and design provision, Regulation 9 is the NLS Certificate issuing rule, and the IBC and BCH Code carve-out for chemical tankers is Regulation 7. Reading the four Chapter 3 rules in their own sequence, Regulation 7 (chemical-tanker carve-out), Regulation 8 (surveys), Regulation 9 (issue of certificate), Regulation 10 (validity), keeps the numbering straight.
The same care applies to the Code resolutions. The IBC Code’s pollution form is MEPC.19(22) of 5 December 1985, with the safety form MSC.4(48) of 17 June 1983; the BCH Code’s MARPOL form is MEPC.20(22), with origins in Assembly resolution A.212(VII). Mixing these up, or citing the safety resolution where the pollution one is meant, produces a citation that points at the wrong half of the Code. When a source quotes the IBC Code for an Annex II purpose, the resolution to cite is MEPC.19(22) as amended, the text the Annex II definition of “International Bulk Chemical Code” actually points to.
A worked routing example
Take three ships side by side to see Regulation 7 sort them. The first is a 25,000-deadweight stainless-steel parcel tanker built in 2012, certified to carry a slate of Category X, Y and Z chemicals listed in IBC Code Chapter 17. It is a chemical tanker constructed after 1 July 1986, so it is certified under the IBC Code, holds an International Certificate of Fitness with an attached product list, and that certificate serves for Annex II through Regulation 7. It carries no NLS Certificate. Its surveys run on the IBC Code’s harmonized cycle, and its Annex II compliance is verified in the same attendance that verifies its SOLAS construction.
The second is a small coastal ship built in 1984 and certified under the BCH Code to carry a short list of noxious liquids with pollution hazards only. It is a chemical tanker constructed before 1 July 1986, so the BCH Code applies, and it holds a BCH Code Certificate of Fitness. Regulation 7 gives that BCH certificate the same standing as the IBC certificate for Annex II, so it too holds no separate NLS Certificate. If that ship were modified rather than converted, the Regulation 1.14.1 exception keeps it on the BCH side, provided it stays a pre-1986 ship certified for pollution-hazard-only products; if it were converted to a chemical tanker, the conversion date would pull it onto the IBC standard.
The third is a 40,000-cubic-meter LPG carrier built in 2010 that is also certified to carry a handful of noxious liquids identified in the IGC Code. It is a gas carrier, not a chemical tanker, so Regulation 7 does not apply to it. It reaches Annex II compliance through Regulation 5.3 instead: it holds the IGC Certificate of Fitness for its gas cargoes and a separate NLS Certificate restricted to the listed noxious liquids, and it must have segregated ballast, compliant residue limits, and an approved Manual. This is the one ship of the three that holds both certificates. An inspector who expected a single certificate, having learned the chemical-tanker rule, would misjudge the gas carrier’s paperwork.
The three cases show the carve-out doing its sorting work. The same fact, “this ship carries noxious liquids in bulk,” produces three different certificate situations depending on whether the ship is a Chapter 17 chemical tanker, when it was built, and whether it is in truth a gas carrier reaching the result by equivalence. Regulation 7 governs the first two; Regulation 5.3 governs the third; the standalone Regulation 9 route governs the NLS tanker that is none of these.
How Regulation 7 fits the wider Annex II regime
Regulation 7 is the front door to Chapter 3 of the Annex, and it shapes how the rest of the chapter reads. Regulation 6 categorizes a noxious liquid from its GESAMP hazard profile into Category X, Y or Z, which sets the IBC Code ship type and so the construction the ship must have. Regulation 8 defines the survey events, Regulation 9 issues the NLS Certificate, and Regulation 10 bounds its validity. Regulation 7 sits in front of those three and says, for a chemical tanker, read this chapter through the Code and the Certificate of Fitness instead. The cargo side then runs into the design and operational rules: Regulation 11 on cargo-tank arrangement and protective location, Regulation 12 on pumping and stripping, Regulation 13 on discharge and prewash, and the Cargo Record Book on operational logging.
The wider frame is the MARPOL Convention itself, with Annex II as the noxious-liquid-substance annex beside Annex I for oil and Annex VI for air. The certificate’s harmonized five-year cycle, its annual and intermediate endorsement pattern, and its three-language floor are shared across those annexes and the SOLAS Convention certificates under the Harmonized System of Survey and Certification, which is the reason a chemical tanker’s statutory certificates are surveyed and renewed together, the Certificate of Fitness among them. Regulation 7 is what lets the Annex II piece of that harmonized set live inside the Certificate of Fitness rather than demand a separate NLS Certificate and a separate survey calendar.
The recognized-organization architecture sits under all of it. A flag-State Administration rarely surveys its own chemical tankers; it delegates the survey and the certificate to a recognized organization, almost always a classification society acting under the RO Code, which surveys to the IBC or BCH Code and issues the Certificate of Fitness on the flag State’s behalf while the flag State keeps the legal responsibility. So the Certificate of Fitness that Regulation 7 elevates is, in practice, signed by a class surveyor on the flag State’s authority, and the carve-out lets that one signature satisfy both the Code and Annex II.
Limitations
This article describes the carve-out in Regulation 7 and the routing it produces, not the full mechanics of the survey, certificate or validity rules it points to. The survey cycle, the anniversary windows and the additional-survey triggers are the subject of Regulation 8; the NLS Certificate form, supplement and language floor are the subject of Regulation 9; the five-year ceiling, the renewal-survey windows and the extensions are the subject of Regulation 10. This article references those rules to show how the Certificate of Fitness stands in for them, not to restate them. The detailed construction and equipment standard a Certificate of Fitness attests is in the IBC Code and its predecessor the BCH Code, not in Annex II.
The certificate a specific ship holds, and the Code under which it was issued, must be confirmed against the ship and its flag-State arrangements, not inferred from a general description here. A Chapter 17 chemical tanker built on or after 1 July 1986 holds an IBC Code Certificate of Fitness; one built before that date holds a BCH Code Certificate of Fitness; a gas carrier carrying listed noxious liquids holds an IGC Certificate of Fitness and a restricted NLS Certificate under Regulation 5.3; a narrower NLS carrier holds an NLS Certificate under Regulation 9; an OS-only carrier holds neither. The dividing lines turn on the ship’s cargo list, its date of construction, and whether it is a chemical tanker or a gas carrier, and the controlling document is the ship’s actual certificate with its attached record.
The regulation numbers and Code provisions stated here are those of the consolidated revised Annex II adopted by MEPC.118(52), in force since 1 January 2007, as amended, read with the IBC Code as extended by MEPC.19(22), the BCH Code, and the IGC Code as revised by MSC.370(93). The Annex and the Codes are amended periodically through the MEPC and MSC, and the specific paragraph numbers, certificate models and Code editions have all been revised since 2007. Treat the paragraph numbers and the build-date split here as a guide to the structure of the rule, and verify the current text against the consolidated Annex II, the current IBC, BCH and IGC Codes, and the flag State’s instructions to its recognized organizations before relying on any detail operationally. Nothing here replaces the ship’s approved documents or the responsible officer’s check against the current instruments.
See also
- MARPOL Annex II: control of pollution by noxious liquid substances
- MARPOL Annex II Regulation 6: NLS categorization (X/Y/Z/OS)
- MARPOL Annex II Regulation 8: surveys of NLS ships
- MARPOL Annex II Regulation 9: NLS Certificate issue and endorsement
- MARPOL Annex II Regulation 10: certificate duration and validity
- MARPOL Annex II Regulation 11: cargo-tank arrangement
- MARPOL Annex II Regulation 12: pumping, piping and unloading
- IBC Code: construction and equipment of chemical tankers
- IGC Code: construction and equipment of gas carriers
- Chemical tanker: types and carriage requirements
- Classification society and recognized organizations
- Port-State control
- MARPOL Convention: the pollution-prevention treaty