Yahoo News 23 Jul 10;
BEIJING (AFP) – Chinese authorities on Friday blamed a chemical used to remove sulphur from crude oil for a blast at a storage facility that caused a spill on the country's northeast coast.
An investigation has found that a desulphurising chemical was mistakenly pumped into pipelines after a tanker had stopped unloading crude at the port city of Dalian last Friday, triggering the explosion, the State Administration of Work Safety said.
About 1,500 tonnes of oil were spilled into the Yellow Sea off Liaoning province, officials said previously.
The government has mobilised hundreds of fishing boats and other vessels to clean up the spill, which an official estimate Monday said affected 435 square kilometres (around 170 square miles) of the Yellow Sea.
However, Chinese media reports later said the slick had spread to 946 square kilometres, and stretched as far as 90 kilometres along the coast.
The government has said about 40 special oil-skimming vessels were leading clean-up efforts and that 23 tonnes of oil-eating bacteria were being employed.
China National Petroleum Corp, the country's biggest oil company and owner of the pipelines that exploded, said in a statement on its website Thursday that at least 400 tonnes of the spilt oil had been cleaned up already.
