After the 1989 oil spill, escort practices improved and have helped protect Alaska from further disasters, but are the lessons being adopted worldwide?
After the 1989 oil spill, escort practices improved and have helped protect Alaska from further disasters, but are the lessons being adopted worldwide?
30 years ago, a major tanker and oil spill disaster led to fundamental improvements in tug design, performance and emergency response in Alaska. In March 1989, Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh’s Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, releasing 37,000 tonnes of crude oil and unleashing an environmental disaster.
It led to the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90), which empowered the US Coast Guard to set up new regulations for tanker escorts, specifically in the waters of Prince William and Puget Sound, and the hard-learned lessons prompted necessary changes in the capabilities of escort tugs, tanker routeing and contingency response planning in Alaska.
Escort tug capabilities in Alaska were further enhanced in 2018 with the addition of Edison Chouest Offshore’s fleet of powerful tugs with improved winches delivering 150 tonnes of bollard pull. These are more like towage capabilities for the most powerful oceangoing ALP tugs and significantly more than typical escort tugboats.
Changes to tanker escort policies have worked so far in Alaska, but could they work elsewhere?
There are isolated examples of tugs being built and deployed for ship escort and contingency planning in vital shipping lanes. As Tug Technology & Business reported, the introduction of two new escort and emergency response tugs in the Bosporus Strait in the last month is testament to that. However, there are no globally-recognised rules governing escort tug requirements and contingency planning that I am aware of.
Of course, there have been no shortage of close calls in the 30 years since the Exxon Valdez disaster, including seven incidents involving tankers in March 2019, alone.
Adopting tanker escorting rules (and icebreaking rules when called for) could have prevented product tanker Jana Desgagnes from suffering rudder damage in heavy ice in the Cabot Strait of eastern Canada on 21 March.
If escort tugs were deployed in the shipping lanes to Antwerp, Belgium, tanker Chemical Marketer most likely would have avoided a collision with passenger vessel Viking Idun on 1 April.
And perhaps LNG tanker Aseem would not have struck VLCC tanker Sninyo Ocean on 24 March at Fujairah Anchorage, UAE.
Making tanker escorts compulsory is becoming even more important in an age of increasing regulation and focus on shipping’s environmental credentials.
Much has changed in the 30 years since the Exxon Valdez disaster. Major accidents have become a rarity, but preventing minor incidents remains a shipping industry challenge.
The industry in Alaska radically changed its tanker escort tug capabilities and emergency preparedness procedures. What they did in mandating more powerful and capable escort tugs offers a best practice guide to other similar regions. It is there for the taking, so when will the industry move?
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