MOL Conducts Tabletop Drill Centers on Collision Involving Container Vessel in Osaka Bay

TOKYO—Mitsui  O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (MOL; President: Koichi Muto) today announced the completion  of a tabletop drill done in cooperation with the 5^th Regional Coast  Guard Headquarters. The scenario entailed a containership operated by MOL Liner  Division (Hong Kong) and managed by an MOL Group ship management company (Hong  Kong) colliding with a coastal freighter in Osaka Bay,   Japan.

The drill was held  on Thursday, May 16, with aim to further strengthening MOL’s emergency response  structure, which is based on the MOL Group Corporate Principles – protecting the  environment by maintaining strict, safe operations, and navigation standards.  The exercise also was designed to ensure the smooth, precise communications that  are so critical in the event of a marine incident, involving an MOL-operated  containership in which containers and hazardous objects or materials go  overboard and a fire breaks out.

Scene of Tabletop Drill; the drill was held via videoconference among MOL Liner (HKG), the ship management company (HKG) and the Emergency Control Headquarters.

Main  participants included 5^th  Regional Coast Guard Headquarters,   MOL president, executives and  relevant divisions, which teamed up to organize an Emergency Control  Headquarters, MOL Liner Division (Hong Kong), the ship management company New  Asian Shipping Co., Ltd., and ship management headquarters MOL Ship Management  Co., Ltd.

The  drill scenario was that the containership, which was under way toward Port of Kobe, collided with a coastal freighter in OsakaBay, which was also under way in the bay.  The collision caused containers and hazardous objects on the vessel gone  overboard and a fire broken out on the deck.

mol managing executive officers, junichiro ikeda and takaaki inoue

The  scenario began with a report from the containership. MOL immediately reported  the incident to the 5^th Regional Coast Guard Headquarters. MOL then organized  an Emergency Control Headquarters within the company, took first-response tasks  and procedures that included information gathering, communications among the  concerned parties, and directions and instructions to the vessel, and held a  joint media response drill.

The  company continues to sharpen its group-wide emergency response readiness by  sharing know-how accumulated in these training sessions throughout the MOL Group  and its fleet.