Analytics, Energy, EU – Baltic States, Transport

The annual report compiled by the HELCOM Secretariat is based on the national reports of the 2012 shipping accidents by all HELCOM member countries, including all the Baltic Sea coastal states: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russian Federation and Sweden.

According to the reports from the HELCOM members, 149 ship accidents occurred in the Baltic Sea area in 2012 (see Figure below[1]). The total number of accidents in the Baltic Sea has been slightly increasing in the last three years.

Based on the ship movement statistics provided by the regional HELCOM Automated Identification Network (AIS) network, the overall ship traffic in 2012 stayed approximately at the same level as in 2011, an increase from the lower traffic levels in 2009 and 2010. Other findings of the report state that in 2012 there were no reported collisions in the Gulf of Finland and the human element was the main cause of all accidents in the region.

The columns to the right of the vertical dotted red line in this graph include data from a new Danish accident database, that is not fully comparable with the data represented for 2009 and earlier years. However, based on HELCOM Secretariat comparisons between regional datasets including either old or new Danish data for the years 2010-2012, the effect on the regional trend can be considered minor.

Annual reports on shipping accidents in the whole Baltic Sea area have been compiled by HELCOM since 2000. According to the agreed procedure all accidents are reported irrespectively if there was pollution or not.

The compiled information includes accidents which involved tankers over 150 gross tonnage and/or other ships over 400 GT, both in territorial seas or EEZ of the HELCOM Contracting Party. Accident types cover i.a. groundings, collisions (striking or being struck by another ship), contacts with fixed or floating objects, pollution accidents (e.g. during fuel transfer) and other types of accidents like fires and explosions, machinery damage and capsizing.