EU – Baltic States, Forum, Lithuania, Transport

LNF ship "Sakiai".

This year the training event is organized and conducted by the Lithuanian Naval Force's (LNF) Maritime Rescue and Coordination Centre. It will be attended by 10 pollution response ships from 8 HELCOM member states: Denmark, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Sweden. Lithuania will be represented by LNF ship "Sakiai", ship of European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and Mi-8 of the Lithuanian Air Force. BALTIC DELTA 2010 will be assessed by a board of Lithuanian, Latvian and Danish representatives. 30 observers sent by organizations for pollution observation, elimination and maritime safety of various countries of Europe will also attend. International pollution incident response exercise BALEX DELTA 2010 held in the Baltic Sea

BALEX DELTA 2010 is arranged to test readiness of the Baltic personnel to respond to massive oil spill at sea incidents, efficiency of system of HELCOM countries' pollution incident alert, systems of communication, and to assess ability of pollution response ships to cooperate, their scope of operation and capabilities.

Scenario of BALEX DELTA 2010 simulate an oil tanker accident resulting in a spill of around 9 thousand tons of oil. Forces of other states are invoked to prevent the spilt oil from reaching coast. A big amount of harmless popcorns will be used to imitate pollution.

Lithuanian Naval Force will organize rowing match of shipcrews and observers at sea and a reception by invitation of the Commander-in-Chief of the Lithuanian Naval Force to facilitate cooperation between representatives of various countries. BALEX DELTA is organized on a regular basis since 1989. According to HELCOM data, countries situated along the Baltic coastline posses over 40 pollution elimination ships ready to react to a request for assistance and reach the incident location within 6-48 hours. Around 60 thousand ships navigate the Baltic Sea each year. Over 251m tons of oil were transported over the Baltic Sea in 2009. From 105 hip accidents registered last year, 38 resulted from a ship hitting shoal, 34 – from two ships colliding in a n open sea. Nearly 7% of all naval accidents registered in 2000-2009 resulted in oil spill.