Korea signs up to the supplementary fund

The Hebei Spirit oil spill at the end of December 2007 shook Korea in a number of ways. In this incident the single hull VLCC, Hebei Spirit, was hit by a floating crane barge while at anchor. Around 11,000 tonnes of crude oil were released into the sea and polluted several provinces along the Korean west coast.

Among the key impacts were the environmental toll, the financial toll on fishing and other communities affected, and a clear exposure of the limitations of the coverage that Korea had in place to cover financially the clean-up and compensation costs which follow a major oil spill. While Korea had signed up to the 1992 Civil Liability and Fund Conventions, it had not ratified the more recent supplementary fund, which would have significantly enhanced the US$320 million payout immediately available.

At the most recent meeting of the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (IOPC), an international compensation scheme set up to pay compensation to those who have suffered an economic loss as a result of a tanker oil spill, Korea signed to the supplementary fund. The fund has approximately US$1.2 billion of assets.

In the wake of the Hebei Spirit spill, the fund has received claims for compensation totalling around US$1.5 billion. The secretariat of the fund deals with the claims on an ongoing basis and has started paying compensations.

Until now, approximately 13,000 claims for compensation have been received. However, it is expected that this figure will increase drastically and perhaps amount to around 125,000 claims. If so, this will be the greatest number of compensation claims ever in connection with one accident. This will make heavy demands on the IOPC fund, not least since the claims are very small ones made by local fishermen and others, who have difficulties documenting their loss.

Because of the number of claims, a special working group was convened in June to examine whether it is possible to find solutions to how to deal with so many claims. A key outcome was that compensation will continue to be paid at a rate of 35 per cent of the loss, since there are insufficient funds available to pay all of the claims in full.

The next meeting of the IOPC Fund is scheduled for October. The working group will have its next meeting in the spring of 2011.

Oil spill radar passes clean seas test

The largest and most comprehensive annual oil spill response exercise in Europe has been completed off the coast of Norway. Oil at Sea was a three day programme conducted by the Norwegian Clean Seas Association For Operating Companies (NOFO) and is designed to assess the emergency response capabilities of those who take part. Approximately 10 boats, helicopters and planes participating in the exercise were coordinated and supervised by the Norwegian Coastal Administration. There were also 50 observers.

In one exercise, the Consilium Selesmar Selux ST340 radar display and a 12kW 2.74m antenna radar sensor were temporarily installed on the coastguard ship, Bergen. The Selux ST radar display was equipped with an add-on special edition software package, providing the advanced hardware video processing function to enable the detection and tracking of oil slicks. In trials carried out both during both day and night, and in conditions up to sea state 4, oil slicks were detected and clearly recognised up to the maximum limit of the sea clutter map.

The data obtained during the trials has lead Consilium to develop a special interface that can now present the oil slicks directly onto the Consilium ecdis. Consilium also says it is the first company able to provide an oil detection feature built into in an IMO/Solas arpa navigational radar set. As a result, a navigation officer can use the radar display as a normal arpa radar and then easily switch over to the oil spill function whenever necessary.

A master/slave interswitch board is provided as an integral part of the Consilium radar set. This means that the oil spill display can easily be interfaced to all sensors of the navigational radar. TST