Free Flow: Plugging up potential for oil spills in Europe
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/08/business/transcol9.php
Free Flow: Plugging up potential for oil spills in Europe
By Ivar Ekman International Herald Tribune
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2006STOCKHOLM Around the Gulf of Finland, and to an increasing extent around the whole of the Baltic Sea, oil is on everyone's mind. But it's not the prospect of striking it rich that's making people excited. Rather, it's the fear of a major oil spill.
The amount of oil flowing through the Gulf of Finland has increased by some 200 percent in less than 10 years, according to a recent report commissioned by the Finnish government. This is the route that an increasing portion of Russian oil is taking to reach the important Western European market as a result of the rapid rise in Russian oil output and the construction of new shipping terminals on the Russian side of the gulf, at Primorsk and Vysotsk.
A greater number of tankers, which are now bigger than ever, are plying the icy waters between the rocky shores of southern Finland and the sandy beaches of northern Estonia, and then on to the Baltic Sea itself, before they leave this ecologically sensitive, shallow sea through the narrow Oresund Strait that separates Denmark and Sweden.
A reminder of the risks came in late January, when a comparatively small oil spill off the Estonian coast caused a slick that extended 35 kilometers, or 20 miles, and killed at least 5,000 birds in Estonian and Finnish waters.
And it's not only oil that's flowing. In the past decade, all kinds of shipping activity there has picked up, making it "among the most crowded shipping regions in the world," according to the Helsinki Commission, an intergovernmental body set up by all the Baltic states and the European Union to protect the sea.
Even before the increased use of shipping lanes, the Baltic Sea was difficult to navigate because of ice and islands. The overall congestion and more frequent use of the sea by large oil tankers should spell a recipe for an environmental disaster waiting to happen. "The scenario of a severe oil accident in the Baltic Sea," the World Wildlife Fund wrote in a 2003 report, "is omnipresent."
But the picture, which a few years ago would have looked as black as an oil slick, is not, in fact, as bleak as before.
The shipping companies and tanker owners seem to have done their share to lower risks.
One main reason for change can be dated to Dec. 12, 1999, when the tanker Erika foundered, spilling some 20,000 tons of heavy fuel oil off the coast of Brittany, France.
This accident is seen by observers as a turning point for the oil industry. The European Union responded by drawing up new safety regulations, including tougher inspection standards at ports and the creation of a European maritime safety agency.
According to Erik Ranheim at the International Association for Independent Tanker Owners, or Intertanko, in Oslo, the incident also caused a market shift in attitude among the major oil companies.
"The oil companies have realized that they are vulnerable in case of a major accident," Ranheim said. "This means that they today are more careful about which ship owners they're dealing with, and which kinds of ships they use. They are also prepared to pay more for better-quality ships."
This shift can be seen in the kinds of ships that now carry oil through the Baltic Sea. Among the biggest ships, the single-hull type, generally regarded as the most accident-prone, has all but disappeared.
The average age of the ships has also fallen drastically. At Primorsk, for example, the average age of ships using the port in 2004 was four years. The Erika, by contrast, was 25 when it sank.
At the same time, there has been meaningful cooperation between the countries around the Baltic. In 2004, a mandatory ship reporting system for the Gulf of Finland came into being, operated jointly by the Finnish, Russian and Estonian governments. This has reduced the risk of accidents by as much as 80 percent, according to the Finnish government. The commission has adopted measures to make navigation safer: special sea lanes, enhanced use of pilots and an improved capacity to respond to emergencies.
In the past few years, no major oil spills have occurred in the Baltic Sea. The last major spill was the Baltic Carrier, which spilled 2,700 tons of heavy fuel oil between Denmark and Germany after a collision in March 2001.
E-mail: freeflow@iht.com
