Cosco Busan operators to plead guilty on environmental counts

The move would formalise its admission that it was partly to blame for the casualty in November 2007 which spilt about 200,000 litres of oil into San Francisco Bay.

Fleet Management’s announcement has taken observers by surprise but is understood to be a culmination of detailed negotiations underway with US prosecutors.

The company’s offer to the US Government did not mention the separate felony charges it faces for allegedly falsifying documents connected with the casualty.

Its offer to plead guilty covers two environmental crimes involving oil pollution and the death of migratory birds, where it states that negligence by the Cosco Busan master was one of several causes of the casualty.

Fleet Management’s offer follows its offer last autumn to plead “no contest” on all eight charges filed against it, including six felonies for alleged falsification and fabrication of documents.

A trial is set for September.

The 2001-built, 68,086 dwt containership collided with the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in heavy fog on the morning of November 7, 2007, after leaving the Port of Oakland for South Korea.

According to the NTSB, the damage totalled US$70m for the ecological clean-up, US$2m for the ship, and US$1.5m for the bridge.

A 42 km patch of shoreline was affected by the oil spill and more than 2500 birds were said to have died.