Iranian Firm Set to Confront Caspian Oil Pollution
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – An Iranian oil company, Naft Khazar, has purchased the required facilities for dealing with and clearing up oil slicks and other forms of marine pollution in the Caspian Sea.
The purchased facilities for the purpose have been tested and proved to be properly functioning and the oil company officials are about to put them to service in the near future.
The facilities which can be mounted on the firm's vessels will be put to practical tests soon.
Naft Khazar (Caspian Oil) Company is in charge for discovery, drilling, production, and development of oil and gas resources in Iranian coastal regions of the Caspian Sea. It also oversees the environmental consequences of off-shore energy-related projects.
The Caspian Sea is under a constant threat of pollution from different sources. Pollution from rivers, onshore industrial and municipal waste water, offshore and onshore energy projects are the largest has made the water body one of the worst polluted in the world.
There are also natural pollution sources in the sea like mud volcanoes. Mud volcanoes erupt frequently on the coast, on islands and on banks of the southern Caspian.
On November 4, 2003, the Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea was signed in Tehran by the littoral states of the Caspian Sea.
The main objective of this convention is the protection of the Caspian environment from all sources of pollution including the protection, preservation, restoration and sustainable and rational use of the biological resources of the Caspian Sea.
The Caspian Sea, which has has about a third the salinity of seawater, is the largest inland body of water on Earth.
