Purchase contract for multi-purpose vessel signed on Friday
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© ILS Oy/Håkan Sjöström
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The purchase contract for a multi-purpose vessel for oil and chemical spill abatement was today signed at the Finnish Environment Institute. The multipurpose vessel will enhance Finland?s oil and chemical spill response capacity especially in ice conditions and in bad weather conditions. The new vessel will be built by Uudenkaupungin Työvene Oy. It will be used by the Navy for normal purposes and, if needed, for oil and chemical spill response measures. The vessel will be ready for use in 2011. The purchase price is 47 million euro.
According to a previous decision, the appropriation for the vessel was 35 million euro. However, this limit was exceeded by all bids given at the competitive bidding last spring. Last week, in connection with the supplementary budget, the government decided to allow an increase of the appropriation by 13 million euro.
The new multi-purpose vessel can cope with abatement and rescue tasks that are too difficult for the present oil spill response vessels, especially in winter conditions. It can tow an unmanageable ship in order to prevent a grounding or a collision, it can extinguish a fire in and thereby prevent a release of oil or chemicals, it can remove oil or dangerous cargo from a vessel and thereby prevent a spill, it can collect oil from the sea even in bad weather conditions and in winter among ice blocks.
The Finnish state owns at present 14 oil spill response vessels. Two of them are operated by the Navy, three by the Frontier Guard, and nine by Finstaship. Moreover, the autonomous region Åland has one oil spill response vessel. In most cases, when oil spill response measures have been needed, the vessels of the Navy have been used. Of these vessels, Halli is stationed in Turku at the Archipelago Sea and Hylje in Upinniemi at the Gulf of Finland.
The Finnish Environment Institute SYKE is responsible for the overall organization and development of oil and chemical spill response in open sea areas. SYKE leads the spill response measures in open sea areas and, when needed, even in other areas.
More information:
Mr Kari Lampela, chief engineer, Finnish Environment Institute, phone 040 508 5541
Mr Kalervo Jolma, chief engineer, Finnish Environment Institute, phone 0400 444 686
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