US requests emergency EU assistance in fighting oil spill disaster

Scofflaw

The EU Commission's Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) has received an emergency request for assistance from the United States Coast Guard to provide specific types of oil recovery equipment. Following an assessment the MIC has been able to offer equipment available from Spain, the Netherlands and the European Maritime Safety Agency.

The US Coast Guard has identified an urgent need for three complete sets of rigid sweeping arms. These are specific types of skimmers that can be attached directly to a ship to recover oil. These sweeping arms are to be used in the oil spill recovery operations on the deepwater horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico and should be lent to the US for a period of 1-3 months. All costs associated with the transport, handling and replacement of the arms and related equipment will be covered by a US contracted company.

The EU Commission's Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) received a request later yesterday and immediately forwarded the request to the participating Member States and to the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA). Within less than an hour, Spain made an offer of assistance. This was followed by offers from EMSA and the Netherlands. The MIC has consolidated the offers and is ready to coordinate a swift and urgent operation to gather all the necessary equipment and dispatch it to Houston and New Orleans.

The MIC together with the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) has been monitoring the situation over the last weeks and also stands ready to send a team of experts to facilitate coordination of the EU assets' deployment on the ground.

Interesting - I'm surprised not to see a response from the UK, who would also have oilfield equipment - but perhaps it's more a case of spill response. I can't remember when the last UK spill was.

cordially,
Scofflaw

BlitzKrieg

i'm curious to what the EU members track record with oil spills and similar now...

curse you.

turns out quite bad actually

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2491317.stm

dlofnep

They should send help ASAP. Sooner they can clean it up, the better.

BlitzKrieg

it seems you can wiki anything these days

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills


Looking through it, the worse belongs to the first gulf war and its pretty mad.

BP though get to continue to shine though as the largest in europe (Amoco Cadiz disaster) was by a company they bought...I wonder if someone on staff was involved with both disasters, they could be bad luck.

wes

The EU should send as much help as they can asap. The sooner this mess gets cleaned up, the better for everyone.

Then, I think a serious look needs to be taken at BP.

jacaranda

wes wrote: »

Then, I think a serious look needs to be taken at BP.

What does this mean?