The Swedish Coast Guard renews its investments in Surfcleaner

Spills of oil or other harmful substances pose a serious threat to the marine environment. The Coast Guard has primary responsibility for environmental rescue at sea and works to minimize damage from spills of oil or other hazardous substances so that nature can be protected as far as possible. We are constantly on standby with environmental protection vessels and aircraft for maritime urveillance.

Coast Guard capabilities

The Coast Guard has environmental rescue responsibility when oil or other harmful substances have spilled into the water or there is an imminent danger that it will occur. It is important to maintain environmental preparedness to initiate an environmental rescue operation and quickly reach the spill or situation.

Evaluating the Surfcleaner technology

For more than two decades, the Swedish Coast Guard has relied on Surfcleaner’s technology as part of its national environmental response capability. First delivered in 2003 and deployed across five emergency response stations from northern to southern Sweden, six surface separator systems became an integrated part of the Coast Guard’s operational readiness.

In 2025, the Coast Guard chose to renew its fleet with the upgraded SCO 1000 system. Designed to recover oil layers from 0.1 μm and above, the system efficiently collects challenging light fuels such as diesel and gasoline.

Its automated separation process, low power consumption, and portable configuration enable rapid deployment and efficient operation under demanding conditions.

Beyond recovery performance, the SCO 1000 also delivers measurable accountability. After each operation, collected volume data can be documented and used in post-incident reporting and insurance processes. This transparency strengthens operational credibility and supports structured environmental management.

Why Surfcleaner – and the results so far

The primary reason for choosing Surfcleaner was the easy use of the system and the efficiency of collecting diesel and gasoline that is a challenge for other technologies. The Coast Guard needs the system to be portable for easy deployment and automatic operation for collecting the oil, separating and discharging.

”A big advatage is that the system runs on electricity and that we can leave it to run by itselt during 24 hours – no other solution can do that” says Jacob Hansson, Service Technician.