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Norway has submitted a proposal to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for the Sulphur Emission Control Area (SECA) around its territorial waters to be redefined, according to market sources.

The Scandinavian country has asked for the existing SECA to be extended to also include the Barents and Norwegian Seas in order to protect its coastline from any future oil spill incidents.

The move comes in the wake of two well-documented oil spill incidents in Norwegian waters over the last few months. At the end of July, the Panama-registered Chinese vessel Full City ran aground during stormy weather near the southern town of Langesund, Telemark, causing a leak of around 200 tonnes of marine fuel.

In May the Russian freezer ship Petrozavodsk ran aground by the coast of the Bear Island in the Barents Sea.

Earlier this month, the Governor of Svalbard indicated that he was in favour of a ban on the use and carriage of heavy fuel oil on ships around the islands.

According to Per Sefland, Governor of Svalbard since October 2005, Svalbard - an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of mainland Europe and located about midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole - does not have the necessary equipment to handle a large-scale oil spill.

He said that as it would be difficult to increase Svalbard's current stand-by capabilities for an ecological disaster, it was therefore important to focus on preventing one from happening in the first place. As a result, Sefland suggested imposing a ban on the use and carriage of heavy oil in the entire Svalbard archipelago.