'Samudra Manthan' to combat oil spills

Some majors oil companies and and ports have joined hands with the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) to test their skills in controlling any future oil spills in the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) off the Gulf of Kutch (GOK), that is likely to see huge increase in traffic of oil tankers in coming years.

The recently concluded two-day exercise called "Samudra Manthan IV," in which the oil companies participated in a major way, is part of the national oil spill disaster contingency plan outlined by the ICG, to prevent an ecological catastrophe in the Indian seas, particularly in the EEZs, which have a sensitive eco-system.

Reliance Industries Ltd, Indian Oil Corporation, Essar Oil Ltd, Mundra Adani Port and Bedi Port participated in the exercise.

The high profile exercise, done in the mid-sea off the Jamnagar-Salaya industrial hub, saw advanced offshore and inshore patrol vessels, helicopters, interceptor boats, air cushion vessels, Chetak and Dornier light helicopters in action.

The ICG had also deployed sophisticated gadgets to monitor pollution levels during the exercises. The ICG sources said although similar exercise were done in the past too, the scale and magnitude of this one shadowed all of them.

The mock drills were held off the Sikka Port today to assess the individual capabilities. Coast guard Inspector General G A Rajashekhar was present throughout the exercises.

According to the ICG, the Gulf of Kutch, which includes the national marine park and the national marine sanctuary, has a tide variation of nearly six metres, which makes it more difficult to handle any spills.

The GOK, which handles about 78 MMT of crude oil at present, is poised to cater crude transactions to the tune of 195 MMT by 2012. The region is expected to have a heavy traffic of very large crude carrier and ultra large crude carrier.