Indonesia and Norway to set up an oil spill response unit
Indonesia and Norway to set up an oil spill response unit
JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries,
in cooperation with the Ministry of International Development of
the Kingdom of Norway, signed on Friday an agreement to set up an
oil spill response unit in Indonesia.
"Indonesia is being used as a dump site of oil residue from
all kinds of foreign and domestic ships and the condition of our
seas is deteriorating," Minister Sarwono Kusumaatmadja said after
the signing of the memorandum with Norway's Minister Anne Kristin
Sydnes here.
"And last year there were two big oil spills, in Cilacap
(Central Java) and in the waters off Riau islands, known as the
Natuna Sea case.
"This year, a similar incident took place in the waters off
Tegal (Central Java) and the sad part is that all incidents have
ruined our sea habitat but we have no emergency handling system
for oil spills," Sarwono explained.
Under the pact, both the Indonesian and Norway governments
agree to "establish a highly efficient, non-profit response
organization to prevent and control oil spill incidents
efficiently and rapidly in Indonesia".
The Norway government is planning to provide a grant of NOK 1
million (US$112,322) to be exclusively used to assist the
project.
The Indonesian government will finance some Rp 374 million for
the provision of the costs of manpower, facilities and related
services.
A Project Management Office (PMO) will also be established in
cooperation with the ministries, Directorate General of Sea
Communication, the Environmental Impact Management Agency,
Directorate General of Oil and Gas and the National Maritime
Council's technical steering committee for oil spills.
"Basically we are setting up this alert-emergency system
including the structure, details of handling, funding and law
enforcement in the case of oil spills," Sarwono said.
Among the proposed avenues to generate funds is through oil
spill insurance which is obligatory for every vessel.
"Indonesia faces the problem of lack of adequate rules and law
enforcement on oil spill incidents such as impounding vessels,
detaining the parties responsible and estimates on how much
compensation they have to pay," he added.
Therefore the maritime council is planning to review the
status of the maritime supreme council which previously only
dealt with legal sanctions regarding procedures for shipment and
crews, he said.
"The maritime supreme council must be empowered and have its
status upgraded, either it becomes a special maritime supreme
court or an independent maritime court which has strong legal
clout," the minister added.
Many oil spill incidents have occurred in Indonesia and most
of the cases have been left unsolved.
In one of the worst recorded cases, a Panama-registered tanker
Natuna Sea ran aground between Indonesia and Singapore at dawn on
Oct. 3, 2000 spilling at least 7,000 metric tons (about 2 million
gallons) of crude oil into the sea.
An oil patch about one mile long (1.6 kilometers) and half a
mile wide was drifting toward Indonesia's Riau islands, which lie
20 kilometers south of Singapore.
In the latest incident, a Singapore tanker carrying 1,200
metric tons of waste oil, struck a shallow reef during a storm in
February this year off Tegal in Central Java, polluting miles of
coastline. (edt)