Marine Safety Group, Marine Safety Division Telephone 81-3-3587-7050

1-1, Toranomon 2-Chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-8688, Japan Facsimile 81-3-3587-7717

E-mail mrnmo@mail.mol.co.jp
Date: July 24, 2009
Ref.: MRN09/064

To: Master and Crew Members of All MOL Ships

Ship Managers Concerned
Ship Owners Concerned

Re: NEVER FORGET, 2006

3rd year reminder of “extreme listing accident” (July 24, 2006)
On the third anniversary of the extreme listing accident which took place on 24 July, 2006, we
would ask you to remember the lessons we learned from this event, and to remain focused on
attaining a high level of operational safety on our vessels.

<Outline of incident>
The vessel was under ballast water exchange operation. As she had no remote control
console, the Chief Officer set an arrangement where one deck crew was in the cargo hold
to check the sounding in the ballast tank and an engineer was in the engine room to
operate the valve and ballast pump. The Chief Officer conducted the ballast water
exchange operation without paying due care and attention to the vessel stability. The
vessel lost safe stability due to excessive discharging of ballast water and suddenly
listed critically to port side, and becoming unable to sail.

In addition to this incident, it is not an uncommon incident as seen from the photographs
below and there have been many other incidents caused by ballasting errors.

A container / roro ship, 216 metres A new built PCC, 6700 capacity,
in length, capsized in the port of capsized in a China dock on
Antwerp on March, 2007 March, 2009
Therefore, as well as basic knowledge, we must be reminded an error in ballast operation can
lead to a serious incident and it is vital to take the greatest possible care during ballast
operation, where large quantities of seawater are transferred in places not directly observable.

We would like to once again reiterate that safety in our operations always has top priority over
all other operational factors, so please continue to work with us in the spirit of our slogans
“Think Safety! Never Forget, 2006” and “Return to basics with zero tolerance for accidents”.

Yours faithfully,

(Ｓｉｇｎｅｄ)
Captain Soichi Hiratsuka
Managing Executive Officer,
Marine Safety & Ship Management,
Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd.