Italy: EMSA Vessel to Assist SMIT Salvage with Bunker Oil Removal from Costa Concordia

The EMSA-contracted Stand by Oil Spill Response Vessel Salina Bay arrived this weekend on site of the Costa Concordia to assist SMIT Salvage, who is in charge of the bunker removal and pollution response operations.

Preparations are on-going for the removal of the bunker oil from the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia. The Salina Bay will be -as a precautionary measure- on stand-by during this operation over the next weeks. The Salina Bay is equipped with several oil recovery systems, as booms, skimmer, sweeping arms and a dedicated radar slick detection system. In the worst case of pollution, she will offer directly response capabilities. Until now no bunker related pollution has occurred.

“We are actively supporting all efforts to avoid environmental damage” said Leendert Bal, EMSA’s Acting Executive Director, “which is a modest contribution after a very serious and tragic accident.”

Salina Bay: technical specifications

The Salina Bay is an oil tanker built in 1981 and measuring 75m in length which covers the Central Mediterranean Sea. Bunkering is its main commercial activity. The tanker has a storage capacity of 2 800m³ and a heating capacity of 2 800kW. Its response equipment includes two rigid 12m sweeping arms, two booms (250mt each), one remotely controlled skimmer and a slick detection radar. Additional equipment includes: a gas detector, mini-lab and flashpoint tester. The ship was contracted to the Maltese company Tankship Management, a subsidiary of the Malta-based Virtu Holding Ltd which operates passenger transport, bunkering and ship repair.

Background

One of EMSA’s key tasks is to make available additional at-sea oil recovery resources to assist Member States responding to large scale incidents. A network of Stand-by Oil Spill Response Vessels has been built up in order to ‘top-up’ the pollution response capacities of EU Member States. EMSA’s stand-by vessels are commercial vessels which can be rapidly converted to undertake oil pollution response activities. The contracted vessels have large recovered oil storage capacities and a choice of oil recovery systems (sweeping arms or boom & skimmer system).