Company: DLNG
Filing Date: 2025-04-10
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001104659-25-033744
Chunk: 234

Company: Dynagas LNG Partners LP
Filing Date: 2025-04-10
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 4
Chunk 234
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”) established an extensive regulatory and liability regime for the protection and clean-up of the environment from oil spills. OPA affects all “owners and operators” whose vessels trade or operate within the U.S., its territories and possessions or whose vessels operate in U.S. waters, which includes the U.S.’s territorial sea and its 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone around the U.S. The U.S. has also enacted the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (“CERCLA”), which applies to the discharge of hazardous substances other than oil, except in limited circumstances, whether on land or at sea. OPA and CERCLA both define “owner and operator” in the case of a vessel as any person owning, operating or chartering by demise, the vessel. OPA and CERCLA may affect us because we carry oil as fuel and lubricants for our engines, and the discharge of these could cause environmental hazards. Both OPA and CERCLA impact our operations.
Under OPA, vessel owners and operators are “responsible parties” and are jointly, severally and strictly liable (unless the spill results solely from the act or omission of a third-party, an act of God or an act of war) for all containment and clean-up costs and other damages arising from discharges or threatened discharges of oil from their vessels, including bunkers (fuel). OPA defines these other damages broadly to include:

i.   injury to, destruction or loss of, or loss of use of natural resources and related assessment costs;
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ii.   injury to, or economic losses resulting from, the destruction of real and personal property;
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iii.   loss of subsistence use of natural resources that are injured, destroyed or lost;
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iv.   net loss of taxes, royalties, rents, fees or net profit revenues resulting from injury, destruction or loss of real or personal property, or natural resources;
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v.   lost profits or impairment of earning capacity due to injury, destruction or loss of real or personal property or natural resources; and
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vi.   net cost of increased or additional public services necessitated by removal activities following a discharge of oil, such as protection from fire, safety or health hazards, and loss of subsistence use of natural resources.
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OPA contains statutory caps on liability and damages; such caps do not apply to direct clean-up costs. Effective March, 2023, the USCG adjusted the limits of OPA liability