NRC & WCMRC RECIPROCAL ARRANGEMENT AGREEMENT

The traffic separation lanes in the Strait of Juan de Fuca Strait require all ships en route to Canadian or U.S. ports to navigate inbound predominately within U.S. waters and predominantly within Canadian waters when exiting the U.S. thereby necessitating vessels to comply with Canadian law when outbound, and ships entering the Strait bound for Canada to with Washington State law when inbound. As a consequence, these vessels are subject to securing response coverage in both jurisdictions.

In order allow vessels to avoid having to pay for response coverage for the jurisdiction in which they are only transiting but not calling on, National Response Corporation (NRC) and Western Canada Marine Response Corporation (WCMRC) have entered into a Reciprocal Arrangement Agreement (Reciprocal Agreement) that provides an arrangement by which such vessels can comply the Canadian and Washington State response requirements, without having to pay fees in excess of those that would be payable to NRC (for vessels exiting from a Washington State call only), or to WCMRC (for vessels bound for a western Canadian destination only).

Under the Reciprocal Agreement, vessels that are both contracted with NRC for coverage under the NRC Covered Vessels Washington State Contingency Plan (NRC Plan) and enrolled with WCMRC which are transiting the Juan de Fuca Strait and calling on ports in either western Canada or the U.S., but not both, NRC and WCMRC each grant response coverage to these vessels, and to offer a modified form of arrangement (the “Juan de Fuca Arrangement”) to those ships satisfying the criteria for obtaining the Juan de Fuca Arrangement as follows:

The Reciprocal Arrangement is not applicable to vessels transiting the Juan de Fuca Strait and calling on both Canadian and U.S. ports.