The shipboard oil spills commonly cause quite serious financial losses for a wide variety of different organizations as well as individuals. Despite all efforts of the people concerned, the outcome of the clean-up operations are usually costly and protracted. The spilt oil may eventually arrive on a shoreline and this will cause damage to the property and also lead to economic losses, especially affect tourism and fishing industries.

The persons and companies placed at any financial disadvantages are eligible for compensation. The present document was released to provide industry with the guidance on the info that shall be recorded as well as any other sort of evidence supporting claims. It also outlines the process of preparing and submitting claims. The content should be primarily applicable to the marine oil spills, but some of the points will be equally relevant to other spills.

The payment of such compensations will depend on the legal regime within particular country. The country may be signatory to one or more compensation regimes; these international compensation regimes are normally designed to facilitate payment. If the country is not signatory then the compensation will be determined by the national law.

The amount of chemical cargoes transported across oceans increases every year and results in the constantly growing awareness of the demands for developing safe and effective spill response arrangements. However, noting the significantly varying physical properties of chemicals and their behavior once they are spilt, and taking into account the potential effects of the chemical spills to the human health and environment, these preparedness and response arrangements are normally more complex in comparison to the arrangements in case of oil spills.

The present publication will provide all interested parties with brief introduction to the major issues concerned with the response to the chemical spills from ships; it is also intended to address the wide range of the common hazards associated with this type of spills. The authors of the booklet have paid particular attention to the behavior of the spilt chemicals in the sea water and reviewed possible response options.

In fact not all chemicals must be treated as hazardous - this term refers only to the so-called HNS, standing for the hazardous and noxious substances. When introduced into the marine environments, e.g. as a result of a spill, they are likely to create significant hazard to human health, marine environment, living resources, damage amenities etc.

An effective and proper response to the marine oil spills mainly depends on the preparedness of the individuals and organizations involved. This, in turn, can be enhanced through the development and maintenance of the plan addressing all possible contingencies.

The development and production of the contingency plan will provide the opportunity for the identification of the roles and responsibilities and will also play an important role in defining the associated response strategies and relevant operational procedures with no intense pressures that commonly arise every time a spill occurs.

The present document was released by ITOPF to outline the format and general content of the contingency plans for response to marine spills; it will also highlight the critical steps that are required for the effective planning. The effective response to the ship-source oil spills will normally required numerous decisions to be made quickly.

This is only possible if all parties involved are duly prepared to appreciate the situation and are able to make necessary crucial decisions. They shall also be able to mobilize appropriate resources with no delay and hesitation. A correct and properly developed contingency plan definitely helps in achieving the goal - it is not just another written document - it lists all requirements that are considered necessary for the effective and immediate response...

The present paper is one of the documents looked at in the course of the International Oil Spill Conference held some years ago. The content will be interesting to the people willing to be kept informed with all happenings in the world of the spill cleaning methods and associated costs. The document examines the ongoing trends in the subject costs commonly associated with the different low-tech methods of the shoreline cleanup.

The discussions took place following the Sea Empress incidents and the results of those discussions have been reflected in the pages of this compact booklet. The vessel run aground in South Wales, right at the entrance to Milford Haven in 1996. More that two thousand crude oil was spilt at that time. In fact the crude oil started to strand along the whole shore line the very same evening the vessel grounded.

When making the preparations to the cleanup, every efforts was made to avoid involvement of the heavy machinery and any intrusive methods wherever possible in order to minimize the risks of the environmental damage to the shorelines. Have a look in this document and you will see what lessons were learned after this incident and what shall be done to avoid serious impacts to the shorelines, performing all associated activities in the effective manner.

The practical experience collected through the years shows us that the it is very difficult to combat spills of the HFO, i.e. heavy fuel oils. It relates to both oils carried on board tankers and fuel oils normally used on board ships in general. Taking into account viscous nature of these oils leading to the extended persistence in the environment, they are considered to have serious potential to be causing contamination of economic and environmental resources, particularly sensitive ones.

This would normally be true when applied to the heavy crude oils since they form viscous emulsions. Many of the observations that are contained in this compact booklet apply to heavy crude oils, as well. The present publication was released by the ITOPF organization to highlight several specific problems experienced by the members of ITOPF in the course of their participation in over hundred and fifty oil spills that occurred in the last twenty-five years.

The careful review of the practical lessons that shall be learned from all past events is actually intended to provide industry with the basis to be used when selecting the most effective response equipment and techniques as well as when developing significantly improved contingency planning and oil spill response management.

This document is providing a review of the chemical spills and lessons learnt from such spills. it is intended to serve as a technical supplement to the white paper "Are HNS Spills More Dangerous than Oil Spills?" presented in the course of the INTERSPILL 2009 Conference. The content has been prepared on the basis of the information obtained from the Helcom reports, Bonn Agreement and other sources.

The document was written with a view to giving some additional information related to the international technical experience on the HNS spill response; it also covers all relevant techniques and tools. The opening chapter concentrates on the information on HNS incidents available today with the table of the forty-seven recorded incidents together with their causes.

In the second chapter, a review of all those incidents is provided. supplemented with analysis of the associated risks and response measures that were taken - this chapter also gives a brief summary of the risks to human life and health as well as the environment. Third chapter is focusing on the twenty-four case studies identified by the pollutant type. The closing chapter of the document is dealing with the general lessons that have been learnt by the industry related to the dangers, risks, consequences of the spills and responses.

Over the past half-century the technical staff of ITOPF organization have already responded to almost seven hundred spills from the ships in nearly hundred countries in order to provide participants of the shipping industry with the objective advice on the measures of clean-ups, associated economic and environmental effects, and, finally, the compensation.

The most part of the above mentioned spills involved crude oil carriers, however in some of them chemicals, bunker fuel oils and bulk cargoes were spilled from all types of vessels. Though this handbook was published nearly five years ago, the experience and cases contained in its pages are still actual and valuable.

Among the topics covered within this booklet there are technical and various information services, statistics of the oil spills occurred, fate of the spills, oil classification table and clean-up techniques, proper organization and planning of the spill response, description of the potential negative effects caused by such spills, status of the relevant international conventions, associated publications, marine spill compensation, including liability and wreck removal matters, national laws, acts, conventions and other recognized documents.