Numerous naval and coast guard assets participated in Helcom Balex Delta 2018, a major Baltic operational exercise in oil spill response.
Coordinated by the Swedish Coast Guard and backed by the EU, the exercise took place in the waters of Karlskrona from August 27 to 31, 2018.
Balex Delta is an annual oil response exercise with participants from all Baltic Sea nations. It covered several different elements such as combating/handling both chemical and oil at sea as well as onshore response. An alarm exercise, including pre-exercise, was also conducted within the project.
Around 550 people from 32 countries and 20 ships, airplanes and helicopters were involved in the exercise, inventing, combating and limiting oil spills and emissions of toxic chemicals both at sea and on land.
During the exercise with chemical release, Swedish Coast Guard salvage/rescue vessel KBV 003 Amfitrite was in focus, together with Finnish Border Guard’s offshore patrol vessel Turva and Swedish Navy’s submarine rescue ship HMS Belos.
Balex Delta has been taking place since the 1980’s. The exercise is part of the cooperation within the framework of the Baltic Sea Action Plan and is arranged and hosted annually by the Baltic Sea coastal nations following a rotation schedule.