Singapore Oil Spill Clean-Up Resumes; Tanker Unloads (Update1)
Yee Kai Pin Bloomberg Businessweek 26 May 10;
May 26 (Bloomberg) -- An oil tanker that spilled 2,500 metric tons of crude into the Singapore Strait yesterday is being unloaded as efforts to clean up a slick near the world’s busiest container port resumed.
AET Tanker Holdings Sdn., the owner of the MT Bunga Kelana 3 that collided with the bulk carrier MV Waily, is undertaking an “internal transfer” of Bintulu grade oil, the company said today in an e-mailed statement. The vessel, struck on its port side as it sailed east to west, will be moved after the underwater damage is assessed.
The spill, equivalent to 18,325 barrels, is enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool and is about three days of leakage from BP Plc’s damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico. More than 100 people have been deployed along the coastline in case the spill reaches shore, according to AET, a unit of MISC Bhd., the world’s biggest owner of liquefied natural gas tankers.
The spill hasn’t increased in size or reached shore, Serene Tan, a spokeswoman at the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, said today. Yesterday’s collision occurred 13 kilometers (8 miles) southeast of Changi East.
MISC shares fell for a fifth day, the longest losing streak in five years. They declined 2 percent to 8.25 ringgit at 10.56 a.m. in Kuala Lumpur, against a 0.3 percent gain in the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index.
“The incident caused significant damage to the vessel’s hull,” AET said. “AET is also cooperating fully with Malaysian authorities in readiness of possible clean-up operations along the southeastern coast of Peninsular Malaysia.”
Worst Oil Spill
Singapore’s worst oil spill was in October 1997 when the Cyprus-flagged Evoikos collided with the Thai-registered Orapin Global, a Very Large Crude Carrier. More than 25,000 tons of oil were spilled.
Efforts to contain and clean up the spill resumed today, according to AET. Yesterday’s operations involved 15 emergency response craft, 50 tons of dispersant and 4 kilometers of boom.
“If you have an oil spill in a harbor, a populated area, it’s going to cause some concern,” Stuart Traver, a downstream adviser at energy consultants Gaffney, Cline & Associates Ltd. in Singapore, said yesterday. The spill “is not small -- most environmental organizations get upset about even smaller slicks.”
BP estimated its Gulf of Mexico oil well has been leaking 5,000 barrels a day since an April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which killed 11. Independent scientists have told the U.S. Congress crude was coming out at more than 10 times that rate.
Double Hull
The Malaysia-flagged Bunga Kelana 3, classed as an Aframax tanker, was built in 1998 with 12 cargo tanks, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It has a double hull, a design meant to prevent oil leaks or flooding beyond the outer compartment.
“Double hull does not guarantee there will never be a spill,” said John Vautrain, senior vice-president at consultants Purvin & Gertz Inc. in Singapore. “Double hull means it takes a bigger collision to create a spill. I shouldn’t think it’ll take too long to clean this up.”
The vessel had a loaded draft of 11.4 meters (37.4 feet) yesterday, compared with its maximum of 14.9 meters, based on transmissions captured by AISLive on Bloomberg. This indicates it was almost fully laden when it departed Bintulu, off Malaysia’s Sarawak state, on May 23.
Treasure Marine Ltd. is the beneficial owner of the Waily, Bloomberg data showed. The 25,449-deadweight-ton vessel, flying a St. Vincent & The Grenadines flag, was built in 1983. It sailed from the east Indian port of Paradip about two weeks ago.
--With assistance from Jane Lee in Kuala Lumpur. Editors: Ang Bee Lin, Jane Lee.
Oil from stricken tanker off Singapore being moved
Reuters 26 May 10;
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Crude from the tanker MT Bunga Kelana 3 is being transferred out of the vessel on Wednesday after a collision with a bulk carrier in the Singapore Strait a day ago, spilling some 2,500 tonnes of oil, the shipowner said.
The incident caused significant damage to the vessel's hull and resulted in a spill of Bintulu light crude oil that is now being cleaned up by specialists, AET Tanker Holdings said.
Clean-up operations led by Singapore's Marine and Port Authority (MPA) and involving AET continued well into the night, with a total of 15 emergency response craft deployed, equipped with 50 tonnes of dispersant and 4,000 meters of boom, said the firm, a unit of Malaysian transport company MISC Bhd.
MPA said that traffic along the strait, Asia's busiest shipping lane, remained unaffected.
"Efforts resumed early this morning, with the addition of more than 100 personnel deployed along the shoreline in case the spill reaches the coast," AET said in a statement.
"AET is also cooperating fully with Malaysian authorities in readiness of possible clean-up operations along the south eastern coast of Peninsular Malaysia."
The Malaysian flagged aframax was carrying about 62,000 tonnes of light crude when it was involved in the collision with the MV Waily, a bulk carrier registered in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
The spill, equivalent to about 18,000 barrels, is dwarfed by the 175,000 barrels of oil that has poured into the Gulf of Mexico since the April 20 offshore explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon rig.
Singapore's environment agency said that the public had complained of an oil smell but it had not detected toxic chemicals in the air.
(Writing by Ramthan Hussain, additional reporting by Seng Li Peng in SINGAPORE and Kuala Lumpur Bureau; Editing by Ed Lane)
