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, vessels in transit through Western Alaska waters en-route to or from a US port are required to follow Alternative Planning Criteria (APC) in order to fulfil US federal requirements.

Members may recall that approved APCs for Western Alaska were:

• Network
• 1-Call
• Alaska Response Corp (ARC)

All three APC schemes were to expire on June 30, 2018.

We learned that the US Coast Guard have extended both the Network's and the 1-Call's non-tank vessels' APCs until 2021. The Network's tanker APC approval (the only entity providing approved APC for tank vessels transiting W-AK) was only extended through 31 December 2018.

Members should be aware that the US Coast Guard has not approved the renewal of Alaska Response Corp (ARC) APC, which will expire on June 30, 2018.

Therefore Members naming ARC in their NTVRP will experience a gap in coverage and will not be in compliance if transiting Western Alaska. Members are invited to submit amendments to their VRPs with proposed APCs accepted for the Western Alaska Captain of the Port Zone as soon as possible. Meanwhile the Western Alaska Captain of the Port is prepared to issue one-time waivers to avoid delays in transits and arrivals, but the waivers may only be used once.

We thank GMS for the source of the information.