MEXICAN shipmanager Gremex Shipping was fined $1.8m by US authorities for violating US pollution laws, the Department of Justice said in a statement on Wednesday.

The violations occurred on board a Panama-flagged, 13,180 dwt bulk carrier Athena Cement (IMO: 8509399), then named Suhar, which was used to transport cement from Tampico, Mexico to Pensacola, Florida. The vessel was inspected by the US Coast Guard upon arriving there in Pensacola in August 2023, upon which the violations were uncovered.

“After boarding the ship to determine compliance with all applicable laws, coastguard personnel determined that the vessel’s crew had regularly discharged untreated oily bilge water into sea in a manner that bypassed onboard pollution control equipment, and then falsified the ship’s oil record book to conceal these discharges,” the DoJ said.

The Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS) — the US’s implementation of the Marpol treaty — requires that ships maintain an accurate oil record book.

Gremex pleaded guilty to a felony violation of the APPS for providing false records in its attempt to conceal the illicit discharges. In addition to the fine, the court sentenced Gremex to serve a four-year probation period and “commit to developing and implementing an environmental compliance plan” that will be in place during those four years.

Suhar appears to have been sold earlier this year, and is no longer managed by Gremex, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence data.