Muscat: The ‘silent oil spill’ could prove to be a major threat to the Arabian Sea and every country must contribute to counter this problem, according to the commanding officer of the visiting pollution control vessel from the Indian Coast Guard.

“I saw brown sea outside Oman and I assume that could be because of ships washing and dumping oil before entering the port here,” said Donny Michael, Deputy Inspector General of Indian Coast Guards and Commanding Officer of ICGS Samudra Prahari, which arrived at Port Qaboos on Thursday for a four-day visit to Muscat.

He agreed that Oman had strict procedures to control environment pollution on land and around ports. “It is time the coast guard in Oman included the task of monitoring marine pollution in their charter,” said the Indian coast guard officer.

“So far so good,” he said, in reply to a question about the marine environment around Oman. However, he added that it was also necessary to control ships dumping oil outside Omani waters.

“The silent oil spill, as we say, can pose a threat to the marine environment of the country in the long run,” he said. He pointed out that there’s always a huge hue and cry over oil spills of around 100-200 tonnes due to accidents and disasters. “Rightly so, he pointed out, adding: “Think of thousands of ships over a period of time dumping a small quantity of oil that can add up to 1,000 tonnes.”

He was optimistic about the Oman Coast Guard developing over the years and tackling risks to the marine environment. “We have three pollution control vessels with the Indian Coast Guards and we are willing to share expertise with our Omani counterparts,” he added.

The 95-metre-long ICGS Samudra Prahari ship, the first of its kind in the region, has been indigenously built by ABG shipyard, Surat in the west Indian state of Gujarat and was commissioned in October 2010. It is equipped with state of the art pollution response and control equipment that include containment equipment like Hi sprint booms and river booms, recovery devices like skimmers and side sweeping arms and storage devices like Oil Recovery Operation (ORO) tanks and inflatable barges. The ship is capable of unhindered oil recovery operations with storage capability of 502 KL.