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)