Main Issues

The issues affecting the Straits of Malacca and Singapore are myriad and complex but of particular and immediate concerns for the maritime industry are safety of navigation and the protection of the marine environment from the threat of pollution due to operational discharges of ships and ports as well as and oil and chemical spills due to ship accidents.

Risk of Accidents and Marine Pollution Prevention

The maritime safety infrastructure and regulatory mechanisms in place in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore have tremendously improved the safety of navigation, flow of vessel traffic and the overall management of the Straits as an international sea lane. Activities undertaken by the three littoral States to improve navigational safety and enhance marine pollution prevention and response have been substantial with the majority of the funding for navigational safety borne by the littoral States.

Singapore's Vessel Traffic Information Service (VTIS) has been in operation since 1990.  This is a comprehensive radar and computer-based vessel traffic system covering the Singapore Strait and can show the positions of up to 1,000 vessels at a time.  Malaysia has a radar and vessel traffic monitoring system, commissioned in 1998 and covers the entire Malacca Strait.  Also in 1998, a DGPS station was installed by Singapore as well as released for commercial use, the official Singapore ENCs, which is fully compliant with international standards.  A DGPS station installed in 2001 by Malaysia in Lumut, Perak but later decommissioned.  However, DGPS Broadcasting Stations have been established by Malaysia in Kuantan, Bagan Datuk, Melaka and Kuala Besar.  Malaysia has also installed around 16 AIS Stations through the Straits’ coast parallel to the TSS.  Indonesia plans to install DGPS and AIS facilities on the Sumatra coast, which are currently in the pipeline for implementation.

The Mandatory Ship Reporting System, STRAITREP, which came into force on 1 December 1998, requires designated vessels to report via VHF voice radio communication, to the marine authorities of the littoral States when transiting the Malacca and Singapore Straits.  Vessels entering the operational area submit reports containing information such as the name of ship, its call sign, IMO identification number (if available), position, hazardous cargo and deficiencies of the ship that could affect normal navigation.  The Straits of Malacca and Singapore covered by the STRAITREP is divided into nine sectors, each with assigned VHF channel.  STRAITREP provides information to vessels about specific and critical situations on traffic movements that could potentially cause problems as well as other pertinent information on safety of navigation.

Although the current maritime safety infrastructures and regulatory mechanisms in place in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore have reduced the frequency of ship collisions, groundings and oil spills, occasional incidents have occurred in recent years, like the containership ANL INDONESIA collision with a Singapore Naval vessel in January 2003 and Panamanian-registered MV CALIFORNIA collision with a RO Korean vessel, MV SINOKOR SEOUL on 24 March 2006.  Some of these incidents caused significant oil spills, such as those involving the ‘NATUNA SEA’ (October 2000) and the ‘SINGAPURA TIMUR’ (May 2001).

While it is recognized that land-based activities such as agriculture, manufacturing industry and human settlements contribute about 70% of the total marine pollution load in the Straits, the environmental and economic impacts are not immediately apparent.  Ship-based sources of pollution, which contribute about 20% of the marine pollution in the Straits, have acute impact.  Most of the land-based pollutants are non-hydrocarbon types such as trace metals, sediments and waste but there are oily discharges from land-based operations such as in petroleum refineries.  Sources of pollutants from ships are oil, chemicals and noxious liquid substances, liquefied gases, sewage, garbage, bilge water, ballast water and antifouling paints.  The biggest concern is the occurrence of a catastrophic oil spill following a collision or grounding of a VLCC or any vessel carrying large quantities of bunker oil.  Unlike contaminants such as trace metals or certain chemicals, the damage caused by an oil spill can be considerable, covering a vast area including beaches.  Clean-up cost is always high and environmental impact on the living resources, particularly sea birds and near shore sessile organisms is significantly detrimental.  The 1997 ‘EVOIKOS’ oil spill incident had a clean-up cost of about US$7.5 million (Singapore) whilst the total compensation claims for the ‘NATUNA SEA’ accident were over US$127 million.

The establishment and maintenance of these safety measures have incurred high costs to the littoral States, notably Malaysia and Singapore but charging the use of the Straits is not possible due to restriction imposed by international law, especially the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982 (UNCLOS) and the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, 1974 (SOLAS).  Attempts at addressing this issue and to bring about the implementation of Article 43 of the UNCLOS have remained unresolved[1].

Pollution Response and the Marine Environment

The tanker collision involving the ‘ORAPIN GLOBAL’ and ‘EVOIKOS’ occurred in October 1997 resulting in the worst oil spill in the Straits of about 28,500 tons of heavy marine fuel oil.  Oil spill can also occur when ships run aground such as the ‘NATUNA SEA’ off the island of Batam, Indonesia on 3 October 2000, resulting in the spillage of 7,000 tons of Nile blend crude.  Incident such as these as well as the increasing volume of marine traffic underscore the need for more improved navigational safety facilities and rigorous compliance of safety regulations and procedures.  Such development can also enhance emergency response, particularly for search and rescue operations.

Although the three littoral States have oil spill response capabilities such as oil spill contingency plan and response facilities including cooperative response agreement, the ‘EVOIKOS’ incident highlighted the need for a traffic management system, which would prevent maritime accidents and is able to cope with the future increase in ships carrying hazardous materials.  Among the lessons learned cited by Singapore from this incident is the need for quick response in the deployment of spill response equipment and immediate mobilization of manpower, other resources and existing institutional arrangements.  In addition to the response operation, immediate access to information on the resources at risk, location of the spill as well as the locations of stockpiled response equipment can contribute to the effectiveness and efficiency of the operation.  Certainly, better and efficient communication is the key to achieving a successful response in the event of an oil spill but effective monitoring system is also important to prevent such incident as well as to serve as early warning.

Improvement and augmentation of navigational aids and facilities in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore will not necessarily minimize the risk of ship collision and grounding as well as the incidence of chemical and oil spills.  Although risk assessment of tankers in the Straits based on tanker accidents in the period from 1982 to 1993 showed a relative constant and low risk at 0.029% (± 0.03=95%CL)[2], vessel accidents still occurred.  In recent years for example, a number of vessel groundings and collisions did occur with spillage of oil as mentioned earlier.  In the case of the ‘NATUNA SEA’, the total compensation claims from the 3 littoral States was US$127,003,226 but only 8.48% was paid back due to unsubstantiated and disallowed claims, especially on environmental and fishery-related damages.  This illustrates the need for reliable information on the natural resources, particularly its economic value, which is certainly important and urgently needed in order to better quantify the economic losses incurred in the event of a chemical or oil spill in the Straits.

Prospects for Maritime Safety and Marine Environment Protection

The three littoral States of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore have, and continue to show, a strong commitment to navigational safety and environmental management of the Straits.  Each country has ratified the 1982 UNCLOS and the International Convention of the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, 1973, as modified by the Protocol of 1978 relating thereto (MARPOL Convention), in addition to other international instruments developed and implemented by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) dealing with navigational safety and pollution prevention and control.  Also, the three countries are signatories to the Tokyo Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control, involving inspection of vessels for validation of International Oil Pollution Prevention Certificates.  This means that environmental threat from pollution, particularly oil, could be minimized if safety of navigation is enhanced.  Clearly, there is synergism in this respect.

With the increasing volume of maritime traffic and port development in the Straits as well as the increasing mix of other uses (e.g., marine recreation, fisheries, coastal development), the capacity and condition of the Straits to handle such growth and diverse uses safely and efficiently will be significantly taxed.  From the maritime safety standpoint, this could lead to congestion and will require intensive monitoring, especially along critical areas of the TSS and the Straits in general.  Such congestion could be exacerbated by weather-related conditions including tidal regime and for the shipping industry, these situations could lead to delays or diversions, more conservative loading and higher risk of collision, allision and grounding.  The environmental consequences of the aforementioned situations would be increased risk in the number and magnitude of oil spills, discharges of bilge waters, chemical spills and emission of greenhouse gases from ships.  Since there is hardly any financial contribution from the shipping industry for environmental protection in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, the littoral States will have to cover most of the costs of preventing and mitigating any adverse environmental impacts.  Clearly, an innovative approach to improving the management of maritime traffic and marine environment protection in the Straits could ameliorate these impacts and enhance the carrying capacity of the Straits for various uses and activities.

[1] Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore.  1999.  Implementing article 43 of UNCLOS in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore.  Sing. J. Int’l Law 3(2).  See also the recent symposium on the Malacca Strait organized by the Nippon Foundation and held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (24 November 2008).

[2] Malacca Straits: refined risk assessment, GEF/UNDP/IMO Regional Programme, 1999.