Oulu hosts Int´l Arctic oil spill exercise today

An international Arctic oil recovery exercise will be held on Wednesday at the Bay of Bothnia off the coast of Oulu City in Northern Finland.

The exercise will involve an aircraft of the Finnish Border Guard, as well as several vessels equipped with mechanical brush skimmers that are suited for oil spill response in ice conditions, said an official press release.

Parallel to the exercise is an international conference which focuses on pollution response aspects in the Arctic.

“The environmental risks in Arctic regions have increased over the last few decades. International cooperation creates the conditions for protecting the marine environment from oil spills”, said the organizer of the event, Head of Unit Jorma Rytkönen from SYKE.

The imaginary situation is that the tanker Finter has driven to rocks 1st March at 05:30 am off the coast of Oulu City. The vessel has been towed to the harbor of Oulu but there has been an oil spill of 2000–3000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil. The SYKE Duty Officer has issued exercise alerts to the member countries of the Arctic Council and the Nordic countries. SYKE has also called several government owned pollution response vessels to the spot as well as asked international assistance from Sweden.