EMSA Oil Recovery Vessel Contracts Signed

The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) has finalized contracts to strengthen its pollution response coverage in the Atlantic and Mediterranean areas.

UK ship owner James Fisher Everard will provide a pollution response arrangement based on a pool of three vessels normally trading between the UK and Ireland. Spanish company Mureloil will provide a pool of two vessels which operate in southern Spain. Maltese ship owner Tankship Management will add a vessel to the already established arrangement in the central Mediterranean Sea and Greek company Environmental Protection Engineering (EPE) will provide a vessel based in southern Greece. All vessels will be equipped during the first half of 2008 and will become operational as pollution response vessels by mid-2008.

“Now that we have this third set of vessels contracted, EMSA is in a much improved position to provide ’top-up’ response vessels relatively quickly should pollution disasters occur in the future,” said EMSA Executive Director Willem de Ruiter. “We now have a number of vessels, including back-ups, throughout the Baltic, Atlantic and Mediterranean areas. This means that the network is nearing completion. Next year, we will have to close any remaining loopholes, including the Black Sea. We are looking into the best way of doing this at the present time.”