Ensuring Safety and Environmental Protection During International Sea Transportation of Hydrocarbons

The subject of the study is the norms of international law regulating the activities to ensure safety during the transportation of oil and petroleum products. Special attention is paid to the protection of the marine environment from pollution. The author analyzes the international legal documents regulating the protection of the marine environment during the transportation of oil and petroleum products by sea, the existing mechanisms to prevent the occurrence of possible accidents. Recommendations are given to improve the level of marine environment protection during the extraction and transportation of hydrocarbons. It is shown that liquefied natural gas has a number of environmental, commercial and energy advantages over other types of fossil fuels.   Since a common cause of accidents that entail oil and petroleum product spills is the wear and tear of the equipment used in various cycles of production and transportation of both oil and LNG, it is concluded that proper monitoring of the technical condition of the equipment in operation, improvement of the legal framework in this area, as well as compliance with the requirements of legislation in order to identification of objects whose condition poses a threat to the environment. It is noted that a special role in preventing the negative impact on the state of the environment during the transportation of petroleum products belongs to regional agreements on the protection of the marine environment, since in this case the issue has a more substantive character for each region. The article discusses various directions of using artificial intelligence to increase the level of safety of international sea transportation of hydrocarbons.