1

Oil Spill Symposium – Petroleum Association of Japan – Tokyo, 1-2 March 2001RESPONSE TO THE ERIKA INCIDENT
AND RESULTING EVOLUTION OF
THE FRENCH OIL SPILL RESPONSE SCHEME
Dr. Michel Girin
Centre for Documentation, Research and Experimentation on Ac cidental Oil Pollution (Cedre)rue Alain Colas, BP 20413, 29604 Brest Cedex, France

Abstract.
The 20 000 tonnes heavy fuel spill of the Erika,
on 12th December 1999, generated the mostdramatic black tide faced by France since the223 000 tons crude oil spill of the Amoco
Cadiz, 21 years before. Together with a shortpresentation of the French oil spill responseorganisation, this paper relates the key steps ofthe response to the spill and reviews thefollow-up actions undertaken by the Frenchauthorities at national, European andInternational levels.
Similarities with the Nakhodka incident inJapan are indicated, to show the common
interest of the two countries and of their oilcompanies for improved prevention andresponse against the pollution threat generated
by passing tankers.
Introduction : another Nakhodka ?
When our duty engineer called, on 12th
December morning, with the news that atanker laden with some 30 000 tonnes of heavy
fuel had broken in two some 80 miles off thesouthern coast of Brittany, I immediately
remembered the striking scene of the bow of
the Nakhodka being barged in Mikuni harbour,which I had the chance to see on 20th April
1997. Would the capsized bow of the Erika
drift toward the French shore, we would be as
unable to stop it as the Japanese had been.
Staff members of Cedre joined the office fromall around town, starting to gather informationon the ship, its cargo and the circumstances of
the incident, arranging with TotalFina theshipment to Brest of a sample of the fuelloaded aboard the ship. We were worried : thetechnical adviser of the French authorities incharge of response to accidental waterpollution, we all knew how limited any
national response means were in front of aheavy fuel spill, far offshore, in the cold waters,
short days and stormy weather of midDecember.
In the early afternoon we had no doubt that
there would be considerable trouble ahead.
Storm would follow storm for days. The fuelwas non dispersible, extremely viscous andonly very lightly buoyant. The media and the
public would candidly expect the response
authorities to stop the drifting vessel parts andthe oil slicks before they would reach theshoreline. The challenge was an impossible
one. The professionalism and preparedness of
the response authorities were to be criticisedand investigated, in the same way as they had
been in Japan.
Later in the afternoon, at the Polmar/Sea(marine pollution at sea) command centre of
the maritime prefecture, a short resume of the
Nakhodka incident strongly contributed to thedecision of the maritime prefect of the Atlantic
to immediately activate the Polmar/sea plan, adecision none of his predecessors had to makefor nearly 20 years. Full-scale response to the
Erika spill was underway, with the dramatic
lessons of the Nakhodka in our minds. They
would remain a permanent reference all along.

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Summary of the incident
The 25 years old Maltese tanker Erika, enroute from Dunkirk, France, to Livorno, Italy,
with 31 000 tonnes of heavy fuel for power
plant use (viscosity at 10°C : 20 000 centistokes) is faced with internal leaks in a storm, inthe afternoon of 11th December 1999. The
Master sends an alert message, which herapidly cancels, announcing that situation isunder control and that he is changing route toDonges, France, as a port of refuge.
Busy with the rescue of an impaired vessel the
French authorities have no reason to go
looking for a tanker under control ininternational waters.
At 6.05 AM, on 12th December, the Mastercalls for urgent rescue. The ship breaks at 8.15
AM, 80 miles off the Penmarch point, while
the captain and crew (26 men) are allhelicoptered. The bow sinks during the night,
at a depth of some 120 m. The stern is taken in
tow at 12.15 AM by the high seas tug Abeille
Flandres, to prevent it from drifting toward thecoasts of Belle Ile. It sinks the following
afternoon, little before 2.50 PM.
The spill is first estimated at 3 000 tonnes atleast. Slick drift previsions are undertaken by
Météo France, from Navy and Customs aerial
surveys exploited by Cedre. Initial previsions
foresee the first landings on the island of Yeu
by 23rd-24th December. In spite of daily
revisions, previsions fail to announce the first
actual landings, on 23rd December, in south
Finistère. But the main landings take place
where and when announced, around the river
Loire estuary, between 25th and 30th December.
Some 400 km of coastline are affected.
Wrecks exploration by remotely operated
vehicle increase the spill estimate to 7 00012 000 tonnes in January-February. Small
seeps from the wreck are spotted and sealed.
Further exploration in March-May increase theestimate to 12 000-20 000 tonnes and lead tofurther sealing of remaining seeps.
After a comparative study of all possible
options to neutralise the pollution threat, it isagreed between the French Goverment andTotalFina that the company will finance andimplement under control of the minister ofTransport and maritime prefect a pumping
operation of the trapped oil. An internationaltender is prepared, issued and awarded.
Operations at sea start on 5th June. They aresuccessfully completed on 6th September, withthe recovery of 11 240 tonnes of fuel.

The French oil spill response organisation
The French oil spill response organisation
activated through the Polmar plan is governedby a the Prime minister instruction last revisedin December 1997. The instruction rules that
response at sea is under the responsibility ofthe maritime prefect concerned, in thissituation the maritime prefect of the Atlantic(i.e. the admiral of the Navy responsible formilitary and civil action for the whole Atlantic
coastline). The maritime prefect has access forthat task to all suitable means of the public
services concerned, along procedures set by a
Polmar/Sea (= marine pollution at sea) plan,
periodically updated by his services. The task
includes not only response in high seas andfeasible from the sea in front of the coastline,
but also information of the land authorities,
media and public.
In a spill of exceptional importance, like the
Erika spill, response on the coastline and all
related operations until economic activities andenvironment are fully restored, is implemented
under the authority of the prefects of theaffected “departments” (= counties). In thesame way as the maritime prefect, thedepartment prefects are each responsible ofresponse on land, with access to all suitablemeans of the public services concerned. It
includes in particular the Polmar stockpiles,
managed by a specialised servic e of theministry of Equipment. Each prefectsupervises the periodical update of a
Polmar/Land (marine pollution on coast) plansetting the areas requiring prime protection andthe response procedures. Prefects of 5
departments, those of Finistère and Morbihan(Brittany region), Loire-Atlantique and Vendée(Pays-de-Loire region) and Charente maritime(Poitou-Charente region) activated their
Polmar/Land plans between December 22ndand 24th .
In a spill affecting several departments, coordination of required national means andpublic communication may be undertaken at
the level of the civil defence zone. Given to thePrefect of Charente maritime during the slick
drift period, co-ordination was shifted in late
December to the delegated prefect of theWestern civil defence zone, with headquarters
in Rennes (Brittany region), when it became
clear that most of the oil landings would

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definitely take place in Brittany and Pays deLoire.
Through the established procedure, public
manpower required by the department prefects
is provided by the Army and Navy (national
staff under the ministry of Defence), the civil
defence forces (national staff under theministry of the Interior) and firemen brigades(staff under department authority). Financial
means for exceptional expenses are provided
by the Polmar Fund, a budget line under theministry of the Environment.
Inter-ministerial co-ordination required at
central level is taken care of by the secretary
general of the Sea, an inter-ministerial coordination body under the Prime minister.
Furthermore, in this incident, the Prime
minister gave to the minister of the Equipment
the particular charge of decision making on thewreck threat, including arranging fullytransparent public information.
That organisation may look complex. It is infact the simplest and most efficient way tomake use in an exceptional emergency of allforces and capacities of interest, through their
specific organisations, under a single
command at sea and a unified one on land.
Homogeneity of technical approach is ensured
by common standards in all Polmar plans, joint
training and the provision by Cedre oftechnical advisers to the command centres.
12 th-23 rd December 1999 : response at sea
Right from the first days, the responseorganisation was severely challenged by anumber of adverse factors.
Journalists without experience of oil spills,
who had been sent to cover an urgent
hospitalisation in Brest of a famous French
actor, crowded within hours of the wreckage atthe doors of the maritime prefecture. There
was little to tell and show them beyond thefirst images of the rescue operations. Although
the communication team of the maritime
prefecture spared no effort, it was far too small
for the task and was submerged right from thefirst day by media pressure. Journalists turned
to Cedre, quickly submerged its small staff andlooked for expertise everywhere. In a few days,
for a number of them, the scene was set :insufficiently staffed to fulfil its information

duties, the whole Polmar organisation wasn’t
up to its overall task.
Actual pollution response was in fact quickly
underway. Beyond the towing attempt of thefirst day and night, operations at sea centred
until 23rd December on 3 main tasks :monitoring the spill, forecasting slick drift andcombating oil at sea.
Monitoring the spill was undertaken by Navy
vessels and patrol planes, with the support of
the two specialised oil spill surveillance planesof the French Customs, equipped with side
looking airborne radar, infra-red andmicrowave sensors. Satellites failed to provide
constructive contribution : in their few passes
covering the area, their sensors detected
nothing of interest. Weather remained most of
the time a succession of storms and the slicks
monitoring task proved extremely difficult. It
was only on the 30th of December, after muchoil had reached the coast, that a first reallycalm day enabled to undertake an actual fullsurvey of slicks situation.
Slick drift prevision was performed on a daily
basis by Météo France, the national
meteorological service, in the frame of a cooperation with Cedre for the improvement ofslick drift modelling. Results of the model runs,
using monitoring information of the morning
provided by the Navy and mapped for Météo
France by Cedre, were delivered each
afternoon. They were commented each
evening in the technical information message
of Cedre to the authorities in charge. As thatmessage wasn’t made public, media pressure
quickly grew for public slick drift prevision
information and, with the agreement of themaritime prefect, Météo France provided
forecast animations on its Internet site.
However, in the prevailing conditions,monitoring couldn’t detect small slicks drifting
far away from the main ones and drift
modelling failed to announce the first oil
landings, on the coast of Finistère, on 23rd
December. But it duly forecasted theprogressive 330 degrees turn of the main slicks
along 20-25th December, out of which the main
impacted area wasn’t the department ofCharente maritime, but Loire-Atlantique.
A constructive technical achievement, theforecasting proved far insufficient for the
public and local authorities. Threatened for 11

4full days by invisible slicks drifting in the open
sea, they had grown to expect the impossible
from forecasters : actual day, hour and volumeof the landings.
The first Polmar meeting of 12th December
clearly established that no effort to combat thespill offshore would be spared. Offshore
response could not prevent oil to reach thecoastline when and where nature would decide.
But, knowing from Cedre that the oil wasn’t
dispersible, the maritime prefect wasdetermined to recover as much as he could.
The Mancheplan (assistance plan between
United Kingdom and France) and the Biscaye
plan (assistance plan between Spain andFrance) were soon activated. Three specialised
oil recovery vessels, the British shield (UK),the Neuwerk (Germany) and the Arca (Dutch)
and two high seas tugs equipped with booms(but unfortunately not yet with recovery
equipment), the Alonzo de Chavez and the
Ibaizadal 2 (Spain) sailed to join in Brest thetwo French navy supply vesssels equipped foroil spill response in the Atlantic, the Ailetteand the Alcyon. A small tanker was mobilisedby TotalFina to receive the oil to be recovered.
On 15th December, a first recovery attempt by
the Ailette with a Transrec high capacity
recuperator failed : the fuel proved moreemulsified than the sample in the test tank of
Cedre and too viscous for the gear. The vessel
returned to Brest, to be equipped with asmaller capacity, high viscosity Foilex
recuperator. A second attempt in severe
meteorological conditions, on 16th December,
resulted in physical damage to equipment.
Improved sea conditions authorised therecuperation of 60 m3 of fuel on 20thDecember. The recovery was increased to 500
m3 on the 21st and 1000 m3 on the 22nd . In theevening of 23rd December, when a major storm
forced the response fleet to look for shelter, a
total of 1200 m3 of fuel had been recovered.
Although a success, considering the type of oil
and the sea conditions, the achievement was
little noticed in the turmoil created by oil
landing.
24 th December 1999 – end of January 2000 :the oil landing crisis
Black beaches had been forecasted for
Christmas and the symbolism of that image

had been exploited at large by the Press. Whenthe exceptional south-western storm of the24th -25th December scattered the real thing non
only on beaches, but high on dunes and cliffs,
the French public was deeply shocked by anugly reality it thought had been banned forever from our coastline. Mobilisation of thePolmar/Land forces and means was underway.
Booms had already been installed in predetermined highly sensitive areas. Others were
urgently added. But little cleaning could bemade in the prevailing meteorologicalconditions.
Thousands of volunteers rushed to the beaches,asking for equipment and guidance. Somerisked their lives in the heavy surf to collectoiled birds. The command centres ofPolmar/Land were submerged by a flow ofeager to do something and unprepared
manpower, which they were not organised tomake use of.
Over weeks, with improving weather
conditions and less volunteers after the end of
the New year holidays, the operationalsituation improved. By mid-January thePolmar forces were everywhere in full scaleaction. A constructive contribution was the
opening by TotalFina of the Elf refinery atDonges, to store the oily waste collected on the
coastline, a perfect solution to an essential
problem.
During the same period, the marit ime
prefecture did its best to implement a secondline of response in front of the coastline, with
its smaller vessels and chartered fishing boats.
But slicks had become too small, or too
difficult to track, available recovery equipment
was little adapted to the needs and only some
20 tonnes of fuel were recovered that way.
In the same time, exploration of the wrecks
was undertaken, first with the searchequipment of a mine chaser, then with two
remotely operated vehicles, one of which waslost in operation and later washed ashore.
Small seeps were observed and sealed.
Bird protection associations actively took careof an aspect little catered by the Polmar plans :saving oiled birds. They made efficient use of
a consistent part of the flow of volunteers,organising oiled bird collection on the5coastline and manning a network of bird
clinics. Some adamantly rejected any relation
with TotalFina. Others seeked and accepted its
support. In a way or another, oiled seabirds
were actively cleaned, fed and, for those whichsurvived, later released. However, the toll wasvery high : the final record of live and dead
oiled birds reached the impressive number of
63 600 at the end of June. Saved, released ones
would only total 2 240.
While responders were doing their best on all
fronts, controversies roared over their heads
about the responsibilities in the incident, thepreparedness and efficiency of the Polmar
organisation, the “we are not legally
responsible, we have no reason to undertake
response or finance it” original attitude of
TotalFina. No party was spared, Cedre
included : a national daily viciously accused usof having understated the importance of thepollution because there was a representative ofTotalFina in our board. As many others, theaccusation was shown to be wrong, but thedamage was done.
The greatest controversy of all grew on theInternet. The manager of a small chemicallaboratory claimed on the Web that the cargoof the Erika was not fuel oil n° 6, but an illegal,
highly carcinogenic industrial waste. He
accused the Polmar organisation of having
knowingly let volunteers risk their lives
collecting it on the beaches, without proper
information and protection. Over a few weeks,most of the volunteers deserted the beaches.
And over the subsequent months, considerable
time and effort had to be spent on thedemonstration that the controversy had no
substance. It would take a public hearing of all
experts concerned, by the Erika investigationcommission of the parliament, to convince amajority of the journalists that the accusations
had no scientific basis.
February – June 2000 : saving the summer
seasonWhile the controversies roared, and in spite of
the time Polmar management had to spend onthem, active pollution response proceeded on
all fronts.
A major asset to the success of that response
was a new attitude of TotalFina. On 30th

December 1999, the company announced forthe first time that it would not exclude somevoluntary contribution to pollution response on
the coastline. After a interview of the company
chairman with the Prime minister, thecontribution was scaled in mid-January at FF
640 million (close to US $ 100 million). The
company would in particular manage andfinance the neutralisation of the wreck. And
another good news was that it would build an
oil waste processing plant at the Donges
refinery, to take care of waste elimination
under the control of the ministries of Industry
and of the Environment.
With those two key tasks in the hands ofengineers of the largest French industrial
company, the Polmar organisation could
concentrate over the whole February-June
period on fully cleaning the beaches and all
easily accessible rocky shores for the summer
visitors to come. It was not an easy task. Thick,sticky oil had been spread by the waves andwind all over, including in the least accessible
places. Many small slicks, some up to half ameter thick, had been buried by the surf in a
number of sand beaches, by and below the low
tide level, under a few centimetres to a fullmeter of sand. Waves action on coastal sites
still to be cleaned, seeps from the wreck andballast washing by passing ships, allcontributed to make so that each new storm
brought new patches of oil on the cleaned
beaches.
But determined hand labour, some bulldozin g
and a mobilisation of all solid waste beachcleaning machines available on the European
market did the work. More than 90% of thebeaches in the affected area were opened to
public use by mid-June. All were by mid-July.
However, frightened by the dramatic images
shown by the media, a number of the usual
summer visitors had most unfortunately
cancelled their bookings. But those who came
were happy they did, finding beaches cleaner
that the years before.
July – September 2000 : summer slowdown
and wreck pumping
While beach users enjoyed their holidays, thePolmar organisation slowed down activity,
keeping only small teams in action to recoveroil occasionally washed ashore and to continue

6cleaning sites of key economic or
environmental importance. Specialised oilcleaning companies financed by TotalFina
worked on rocky sites of uneasy access.
After 4 months of careful planning andpreparation, the consortium contracted by
TotalFina to pump the oil trapped in the wreck
started actual operations at the end of June. A
total of 11 245 tonnes of heavy fuel wererecovered in little more than 2 months of hard
work, setting an unprecedented standard forsuch an operation. It demonstrated the value ofa technique never used before in suchcircumstances : fuel fluidification with 4000
m3 of diester, a green diesel oil. On 6th
September, the threat of any new, major oil
pollution coming from the wreck was
eliminated.
After careful consideration of experts reports,
the minister of the Equipment determined thatthe emptied and sealed wrecks presented no
more danger. They would stay were they were.
September 2000 – May 2001 : final cleaning
Once vacationers left the beaches, thePolmar/Land forces resumed work with far
less military hands than before and more
contracted workers. The whole coastline wascarefully surveyed, looking for areas still oiled
or newly oiled by fuel re-suspended after theAutumn storms. The last patches of oil still
stuck on rocks below low tide level or buried
within and in front of sandy beaches were
mapped and specific tenders were issued fortheir recovery.
On 12th December, for the first anniversary of
the spill, the Press unanimously recognisedthat a tremendous work had been performed
and that very little remained of what had
seemed to many as a pollution due to last for
years. At the end of December, a total work
time of some 500 000 man.days had been usedin coastline response and the recovered waste
reached 200 000 tonnes.
A last set of budgetary allocations, both in thePolmar Fund and in the Atlantic mission of
TotalFina (now officially TotalFinaElf) will
enable to continue final cleaning operations
until no consistent trace of the pollution
remains, including at provisional waste storage

areas. That goal should be reached hopefully in
May and not later than June.
In the same time, the waste processing plant at
the Donges refinery was being built, to start
operation in late February 2001.
After May 2001 : healing the last wounds
Once the coastline is fully cleaned, two lasttasks will have to be completed : waste
processing at Donges and restoration of alteredflora on cliffs, dunes and around coastal paths
used to transport oiled material. Both should
be fully finalised by the end of 2002.
Pollution compensation will last longer. This is
no part of the responsibilities of the Polmar
decision makers. A member of theInternational Oil Pollution Compensation Fundin its 1992 version, France didn’t imagine it
would have to face an oil spill theconsequences of which would exceed the limitof the 92 Fund. In the particular circumstances,it quickly became clear that the compensation
ceiling (sum of the maximum amounts payable
by the P&I Club of the shipowner and the
IOPC Fund 92), amounting to some FF 1.4
billion, would be exceeded. As a response, theGovernment first decided that it would not
claim its Polmar expenses, now expected toreach some FF 1.5 billion, field manpowerincluded, until the last of the individual victims
had been paid. TotalFina soon followed with asimilar decision for its own expenses, now
expected to reach some FF 1 billion, fieldmanpower included.
Those decisions led the board of the 92 Fundto applying a relatively high 50% pro-rata on
payments made in 2001, and to increase it to
60% in January 2001. But, in the same time,they postponed for long the easy to make,usually fast repayment of pollution response
expenses. And this situation gave to the Fund ahighly negative image of slow and bad payer :at the end of 2000, it had paid only FF 32
million on 901 claims , out of FF 412 million in
3535 claims received from economic operators,
environmental
associations
and
local
authorities.
Improvement measures at national level
The image of the Polmar response, as it
appears from the Press, is highly negative. An

7evident illustration of that situation was therecent nomination by journalists of the Bretonof the year 2000. Their choice could have been
the maritime prefect, or any of thePolmar/Land civil servants, who spared noeffort to fulfil their task. They chose instead anemblematic figure of the volunteer bird
rescuers, symbolising the individuals who
fulfilled a task the State didn’t.

advisory committees were at work as soon asneeded.
More remains of course to be made and otherchanges are already being prepared, among
which a detailed revision of the Polmar rule tocater for the sound management of volunteers
and the efficient monitoring of pollutionconsequences.
Improvement measure s at European level

The reality is far less negative than the image
propagated by the Press. Enquiry commissions
praisedmuchofPolmarresponse,
acknowledging that the situation faced was anunprecedented one. No minister or Polmar
decision maker was removed in or after theurgency. The chairman of TotalFina, his staff
and the equity of the company were unaffected.
But the difficulties faced clearly demonstrated
that there was room for improvement in theprevention of accidental pollution by passing
ships and in the Polmar organisation. Less than
2 months after the incident, the French tanker
charterers and the minister of Transport signed
a charter of good practice practically banningthe use of tankers over 20 years by the national
oil industry. Within an additional month, aninter-ministerial committee announced a first
package or major decisions. On the prevention
front, they included the recruitment of morestate port control officers and a strengtheningof the powers of the maritime prefect in frontof a potential polluter. On the response front,
they included an international tender for thelease of a high seas pollution response vesselcomparable in performance to the Dutch Arca,a full renewal of the Polmar-land stockpiles,
technical adjustments in the lines of commandof the Polmar organisation, an improved
organisationofthePolmarpubliccommunication, a procedure for themobilisation of scientific expertise, an increasein the public budget of Cedre.
Those changes were challenged for the firsttime on 30th October 2000, when a chemical
tanker broke in two off the British isles,
generating a bunker fuel and styrene monomer
cargo
pollution
threat. The Polmar
communication was taken over right from thefirst days by the national communication officeof the Navy, information of the Public throughthe Internet was fast and efficient, scientific

Following the trend that led to the US Oil
Pollution Act as a measure to protect theUnited State citizen against an oil spill,
without
consideration
tointernational
Conventions, many voices in France pressed
the Government to promote an European Oil
Pollution Act during its Presidency of theEuropean Union, along the second half of 2000.
Resisting an option that would have strongly
damaged the International Conventions, theGovernment chose an intermediate option : thepromotion at European level of initiatives thatwould
complement
theInternational
Conventions.
As the incident had put in full light the
problems related with deballasting at sea off
the European coasts, an European directive
under preparation on port reception facilit ies
for ship exploitation and cargo waste wasaccelerated and published on 27th November
2000. Among other points, it authorises State
port control to prevent a ship from sailing out
of a European harbour with onboard waste it
could be tempted to discard at sea.
A community action framework for cooperation in front of accidental or intentional
pollution, also under preparation at the time of
the incident, was similarly accelerated andpublished on 20th December 2000. It provides
an organisation and financ ial means toimprove co-operation between European
countries in such aspects as mutual
information, training, improvement ofresponse
techniques,disseminationofexperience, mutual assistance in emergency
situations.
Other European decisions and directives havebeen formulated and are now at different
stages of their finalisation process throughwhat has been named the Erika 1 and Erika 2
packages. The Erika 1 package includes rules

8

on State port control (application ofinternational norms on maritime safety,
pollution prevention and life conditions tovessels calling at European ports or entering
European waters), on common norms
concerning organisms habilitated to inspect
vessels calling at European ports, on theaccelerated phasing out of single hull tankers
from European waters (2005 for Marpol size
tankers without partial protection, 2010 forsame tankers with partial protection, 2005 forall tankers above 600 tonnes). The Erika 2
package includes the creation of a Community
system for monitoring, control and information
on maritime traffic, the creation of an
European compensation Fund for oil spill
damage in European waters (complementing
the International Oil Pollution Compensation
Fund), the creation of an European agency formaritime safety.
Improvement measures at Internationallevel
French Government initiatives at international
level concentrated up to now mostly on
supporting the European moves within themeetings of the Marine Environment
Protection Committee (MEPC) of theInternational Marit ime Organisation (IMO). It
also included general promotion of stronger
international action on all fronts of maritime
safety and pollution compensation, in the same
way as Japan did after the Nakhodka incident.
Those initiatives clearly contributed to the
October 2000 decisions of the IMO Legal andMaritime Safety Committees to adopt :• an amendment to raise by 50% the limitsof the compensation payable to victims ofpollution by oil from tankers, to enter into
force hopefully on 1st November 2003,
with an increase of the compensation limitof the IOPC Fund 92 from the present
SDR 135 million to 203 million (US $ 173
million to 260 million) ;• a new mandatory ship reporting systemapplicable in the central English channel,
making it easier to track and communicate
with ships in the area ;• a set of measures on the elimination of
sub-standard tankers, including accelerated
phasing out of single hull tankers (latest 1st
January 2007 for tankers of 20 000 tonnes
deadweight or above without partial

protection, 1st January 2017 for sametankers with partial protection and alltankers down to 5 000 tonnes deadweight.
Improvement measures at industry level
Last but not least, not only TotalFinaElf
contributed to the response as indicated above,
not only the French oil industry committed tothe charter of safer procedures mentioned
above, but it is expected that the oil industry
will soon take some regional or international
initiatives to contribute to safer seas, improved
pollution response and better damage
compensation. TotalFinaElf will clearly be
now among the companies convinced that
initiatives are needed to improve the relation ofoil industry with the public in a dramatic
pollution event. This symposium is an evident
demonstration that the question is also on theagenda of far East oil industry decision makers.
And future meetings of the International
Petroleum
Industry
Environ-mental
Conservation Association (IPIECA) and Oil
Companies International Maritime Forum(OCIMF) will no doubt be places of active
discussion on the matter.