NAKHODOKA oil spill in January, 1997 was the unprecedented serious disaster casused damages of around 36 billion yen as a result. Though many voluntiers worked on removing oil with enthusiastic at the time, it was deifficult for the people which are lack of skill and knowledge about oil spill response to cope with the various problem on the machineries and the materials effected negatively by heavy viscous oil which was emulsified and contains debris at the coast. Bcause of this, the national and local goverments were complained about the flaw of technical support and the oil-spill equipments.
　On these backgrounds, objective of this study is development and research of the oil skimming system which performs efficiently and has usable operation system even if people who do not have skill and knowledge enough about oil spill response operate it.
　The first chapter deals with the objective and the background of the study. The second chapter shows the current oil spill response preparation in Japan, and expresses necessity of the serious development and research of the oil skimming system. The third chapter discusses about engineering problem which should be overcome in order to make the operation of the oil skimming system to be easy to use. The forth chapter shows “Oil Recovery System at the Site of Coastal Shallow Water for High Viscous Oil”, the system was developed for people operating by only hand at the shallow water site where no heavy machineries and no work vessels are able to access. The fifth chapter shows “Development of an Oil Skimmer Operated by Crane Barges”, the system enable the crane barges which are working in most of all Japanese ports to be oil skimming boats in emergency. The sixth chapter reviews and frames, through the two developed oil skimming systems, a conclusion of the way of oil skimming system which enable the operation at the oil spill response site to be efficiently. It suggests that automated solution against the unique trouble of the oil recovery caused by the high viscous oil and debris should be prepared, and the system should be designed to make people understand the operation easily, and shows the technology, engineering, application of the system and future challenge.