BE PREPARED, runs the advice. The Norwegian Coastal Administration honed its spill preparation in September, with a comprehensive exercise that brought together several coast guard, emergency service, and response organisations from the Baltic Sea region and further afield.

The exercise had been given the banner SCOPE 2017 – an abbreviation of Skagerrak Chemical Oilspill Pollution Exercise – and this collaboration marked just a couple of very busy days in a two-year project.

The premise was that a product tanker running westbound out of Skagerrak waters had collided with an LPG tanker, which was heading for the Norwegian port of Herøya. The gas carrier was loaded with ammonia.

Observers were informed that, as a result of the collision, the two hulls were partly crumpled and stuck together, and about 40 cubic metres of heavy fuel oil had flowed into the sea. Because there was potential for a large leakage of ammonia from the gas carrier, the ships’ masters decide the two vessels should be separated.

Once separated, the product tanker, with a cargo system damaged even further by that operation, had to be allocated a place of refuge at a nearby port. It was towed to a secure berth at Larvik. The damaged gas carrier dropped anchor but the crew was unable to stop the leakage of ammonia. They called for assistance.

As the observation began, the scale of the exercise began to be seen. There were 120 people from more than 40 countries in attendance, watching some 150 people, 25 vessels, aircraft, spill response experts, media and other organisations to train, test, and experience the challenges of co-operation in a worst-case scenario.

Project manager Stig Wahlstrøm commented that collaboration is all about people working together. “To improve this interaction, we need to meet each other, understand each other, exchange knowledge and build networks for later use," he said.

The European Commission contributed financially to the exercise. Arya Honarmand, who oversees the collaborative exercises funded by the Commission, takes a pragmatic view of exercises.“Lessons are never fully learned, but rather lessons are identified,” he said. “Risk, vulnerability, gas analyses and trends are the basis [for developing these exercises].

“Large and complex exercises, such as SCOPE 2017, help to test procedures that are well developed to ensure their continued validity,” he continued. “Some other elements of this exercise focus on developing and exploring a new form of collaboration in order to find out how it would connect and co-ordinate with already-established response procedures.”

Mr Honarmand praised the commitment and good collaboration between the Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish authorities, both from the maritime and civil protection sectors.

There were contributions also from Iceland and Germany, from maritime responders in Oslo and Bergen, from the European Maritime Safety Agency in Lisbon, from class, insurance, and local government.

“Personally, I think you can’t have a collaborative exercise where you only learn new things… I see a willingness and desire to improve; and there is room for open discussions,” said Mr Honarmand.

It is no coincidence that the SCOPE 2017 accident was played out along the south Norway coast. The grounding of the bulk carrier Full City at the end of July 2009, and the subsequent oil spill, are still raw in the memory.

Further, forecasts of maritime traffic in the area suggest an increase of 40% or more is anticipated in the period to 2040. This might result in more frequent and more oil spills, warned the project’s emergency response director Johan Magnus Ly.

“With the possible new sea routes in the Arctic, and the introduction of new types of fuel, we expect new challenges for our emergency preparedness and oil recovery operations,” he said.

Observers were taken to see an area of pristine coastline that had been covered in oil from the Full City grounding.

Large emissions of oil and other chemicals can lead to major – and, in the worst cases, irreparable – damage to species and even to whole eco-systems. Even after the oil has been painstakingly removed from every rock, additional measures must be implemented to restore the environment to its pre-spill condition.

However, as the SCOPE organisers advised: “In general, restoration measures in themselves should not be so drastic as to cause as great or greater damage to the environment than the actual pollution that is being contained.”

Norway’s Pollution Act is robust, and sets out that the primary responsibility to implement measures to stop pollution and reduce pollution damage lies with the party responsible for the pollution.

Smaller incidents should be handled by the responsible private party in full or, if that party lacks sufficient resources, by the municipal authorities local to the incident.

“In the case of major incidents of acute pollution or danger of acute pollution, the state [in the form of the Norwegian Coastal Administration] may fully, or partly, take command of the response operation,” said the SCOPE organisers.

The administration may make use of available public and private resources, in addition to its own. This gives Norway a high level of preparedness for spill response, and also underpins the principle that the responsible private party should pay for the costs or damage related to the pollution.

Norway is unusual in orchestrating such a detailed and co-ordinated approach. However, when the incident exhausts even this level of preparation, there are many agreements in place relating to assistance from other nations and the European Union.

Among these are the Copenhagen and Bonn agreements, the first of which has linked the governments of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden since 1971. Contracting parties undertake to co-operate in protecting the marine environment regardless of which country is threatened.

Similarly, the Bonn agreement links the nations around the North Sea to combat pollution from marine disasters and from ships and offshore installations, and to carry out surveillance work.

Back in Skagerrak, the Norwegian Coastal Administration, as the national competent authority, had been monitoring developments and made plans for the chemical handling and oil spill operation. Relevant parties were notified, municipal and NCA resources mobilised.

Given the size of the incident, international spill response resources were brought in, including Swedish Coast Guard vessels that were in the area for a prearranged training event.

Projects of this scale require excellent management from the outset. Having worked alongside many similar exercises, Mr Honarmand said he was satisfied with the mixture of structure and flexibility for the participants.

“In the past, some clarity was needed between participants but this is no longer the case,” he concluded. “There is now more awareness of what is needed to improve.”

Observers were impressed by the co-ordination of the event, by the enthusiasm of all parties to learn from each other, and by the encouragement shown to representatives from outside the Baltic Sea and North Sea areas.

Pollution prevention is close to the Norwegian heart. This exercise helps to explain why, and emphasises that Norway’s experience should be replicated. Pollution prevention involves the collaboration of private, municipal, state, and international levels. And vessel operators should be quite clear that the polluter eventually pays.