September 3 – The three day communications exercise that involved the first test of the new IMO International Offers of Assistance (IOA) Guidelines was completed on 3rd September. The North Pacific Coast Guard Forum (NPCGF) members are the Coast Guards of Korea, China, Russia, USA, Canada and Japan.

The exercise, which was led by the coast guard of Korea, was based on a scenario in which an oil tanker collided with a fully laden container vessel off the coast of Korea, resulting in a major spill of crude oil and loss of containers into the sea. The imaginary incident required a response effort that exceeded local and regional capabilities and the objective of the IOA aspect of the exercise was to ascertain the immediate availability of required response resources from international sources.

The participants in the exercise included relevant agencies of the governments of the NPCGF member countries, ITOPF, ISCO and OSRL. Through ISCO, private sector response contractors and equipment manufacturers in USA, Canada, UK, UAE, Singapore, India and Finland responded with advice on the resources they could mobilize.