Offshore drilling and Jones Act

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U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is proposing to modify and revoke previous Headquarter ruling letters relating  to the exception to the Jones Act for the carriage between two U.S. points of “vessel equipment,” which has not been considered “merchandise”.

 

The modifications will affect the use of foreign flagged vessels in offshore drilling under the Jones Act (46 U.S.C. 55102), through  revocation of prior rulings that:

transport of pipe for repair of offshore sites was not considered engagement in coastwise trade;  the installation of anodes on a subsea pipeline did not constitute an engagement in coastwise trade because the activity was in the nature of the repair;

a foreign flagged vessel may engage in laying and repairing of pipe in territorial waters and installing pipeline connectors to offshore drilling platforms and subsea wellheads;

if the sole use of a vessel is underwater repairs to offshore or subsea structures, then it is not considered a use in coastwise trade;

if the sole use of a vessel is in the installation or servicing of a wellhead assembly at a location within U.S. waters, then it is not considered a use in the coastwise trade.

 

CBP has extended the time for comments on these proposals  to April 18, 2017

 

 

 

Published by

Professor Simon Baughen

Professor Simon Baughen was appointed as Professor of Shipping Law in September 2013 (previously Reader at the University of Bristol Law School). Simon Baughen studied law at Oxford and practised in maritime law for several years before joining academia. His research interests lie mainly in the field of shipping law, but also include the law of trusts and the environmental law implications of the activities of multinational corporations in the developing world. Simon's book on Shipping Law, has run to seven editions (soon to be eight) and is already well-known to academics and students alike as by far the most learned and approachable work on the subject. Furthermore, he is now the author of the very well-established practitioner's work Summerskill on Laytime. He has an extensive list of publications to his name, including International Trade and the Protection of the Environment, and Human Rights and Corporate Wrongs - Closing the Governance Gap. He has also written and taught extensively on commercial law, trusts and environmental law. Simon is a member of the Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law, a University Research Centre within the School of Law, and he currently teaches at Swansea on the LLM in:Carriage of Goods by Sea, Land and Air; Charterparties Law and Practice; International Corporate Governance.

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