A STUDY ON THE ESTABILESHMENT OF MARINE ELECTRONIC HIGHWAY BETWEEN SOUTH OF KHARG ISLAND AND THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ IN THE PERSIAN GULF FOR MARINE SAFETY, SECURITYAND MARINE PROTECTION

There are heavy marine traffics at central to the north-west part of the Persian Gulf (here after called PASSAGE ). This area is considered to be one of dangerous area due to existence of numerous oil and gas fields and terminals in the region. At recent years accidents happened that would be catastrophic in national and regional (PMO report 2015).However the proposed area between south of Kharg Island and the Hormuz Strait in the Persian Gulf is approximately 800 kilometers long, 30 kilometers wide at their north-west entrance, and 12 kilometers wide at south-east entrance, at Hormuz Straits. Annual marine traffic is around 30,000 of different kind of ships which are entering and departing from different ports, oil terminals, petrochemical ports etc. The type of ships differs from Ultra Large Crude Carriers (ULCC) to General cargoes and Container carriers. Their destination/departure to ports in Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar. This huge traffic with respect to the nature of resource and existence of dangerous oil and gas fields makes the Passage very high risk area with many oil and gas platforms and hence is hazardous to navigation especially for larger ships. Figure (1) shows a view of the proposed area for establishing of a Marine Electronic Highway (MEH).