A new oil terminal has opened recently at Primorsk near St Petersburg in Russia and there are predictions that some 2,000 million tons of oil per year could soon be transiting the Gulf of Finland. With heavy ferry traffic running between Tallinn in Estonia and Helsinki in Finland across the narrow passage, there is growing concern that a vessel collision could result in a major oil pollution incident.

The Summeri Project involves the Admiral Makarov Training Centre at St Petersburg, the Estonian Maritime Academy in Tallinn, and the Maritime Training Institute at Kotka in Finland, which are establishing a three party oil spill preparedness unit. The project unites three national Crisis Management Simulator Centres as one network capable of simultaneously training contingency, response and clean-up personnel in all three countries. The project will not only harmonise oil spill related training courses but also share training scenarios, databases and expertise.

All three participating centres will run Crisis Management Systems (CMS) supplied by Transas Ltd. These consist of the PISCES2 oil spill simulator, the latest version of the Navi-Trainer Professional 4000 navigational simulator and added helicopter simulation function. The simulators will function both separately or jointly as a result of the integrated configuration.

The CMS centre at the Admiral Makarov Training Centre was already in operation before the agreement. The Summeri Project has seen orders placed for similar systems in Estonia and Finland which are expected to be operational before the end of this year.

Video conferencing will enable all three centres to run and simulate the same accident or oil pollution incident simultaneously, including the use of software capable of calculating where any oil spilled in the Gulf of Finland was likely to come ashore so that pollution prevention resources could be mobilised there.

MJ Information No: 21333