Maritime Administration table top exercise - November 2017

Port of Refuge – National Contingency Plan – Table Top Exercise in Varna – November 2017

Kalimbassieris Maritime Varna were invited to partake at the table top exercise, testing the National Contingency Plan in relation to accidents with focus on Port of Refuge requests, and talk financial guarantees. The mock scenario for the 2 day event was a collision between a fully laden crude oil tanker and a laden container ship, resulting in a spill not far from resorts and heavily populated areas, and two ships in need of port of refuge with possibility of explosion stemming from damages to containers with dangerous cargo.

Yaroslav Mladenov, Country Manager for Bulgaria as well as claims handler Lucy Pavlova-Fickling, participated the event along with the officials from the HQ of Maritime Administration in Sofia, the Harbour Masters and chief inspectors of the ports of Varna and Bourgas, the relevant Search and Rescue departments, Navy, Pollution experts, tug operators etc etc.

We were pleased to be able to join and use the opportunity of the forum and audience not only to shed more light on the P&I Letter of Undertaking, but also talk overall experience and knowledge which the P&I clubs have amassed and could provide in the common interest of minimizing the consequences of serious casualties.

The speeches and participants were indeed focused to find areas that could benefit from improvement, build bridges between the parties to develop further cooperation and concluded with the common wish that we never have to tackle this mock scenario in real life!