• Log In
• Free Trial
• FREE Daily Bulletin
• Advertise
• Subscribe

Advanced Search

Follow us:  |  | 

Quicker action could have reduced Hebei Spirit spill costs

By Marcus Hand in Singapore - Monday 15 September 2008

EXPERTS say quicker, larger scale action to tackle the spill from the Hebei Spirit last December could have reduced costs now estimated at over $500m.

The 1993-built Hebei Spirit split 10,500 tonnes of three different grades of crude oil when it was holed by a crane barge in heavy seas off South Korea last December.

According to David Salt, operations manager of Oil Spill Response and East Asia Response Ltd (OSRA/EARL) told a Singapore Shipping Association seminar that in his view the use of dispersants was the most effective way to tackle such a spill.

“If you are going to use dispersants this has to be done very quickly. Now the authorities made that decision, and were doing it, it’s just a question of scale,” Mr Salt said.

OSRA/EARL volunteered to assist the Korean authorities in tackling the spill but were twice turned down, and only brought in a week after the accident took place.

“As it transpires it was a late response,” he said.

By this time the spill has spread and it is much harder to target with dispersants. The spill eventually affected 300km of coastline with clean-up and other costs to industry and tourism estimated to have exceeded the $500m level.

The scale of the spill was worsened as the ship was not allowed to unload its cargo as soon as possible after the incident according manager V.Ships. Satnam S Kumar, managing director for V.Ships (Asia) said that the tanker was in an area where ship-to-ship transfer was not allowed so the offloading of its 209,000 tonnes cargo did not start for 60 – 80 hours after the accident took place.

Capt Satnam said that if the offloading had been done within a few hours there would have been less damage.

Although the Master Jasprit Chawla and chief officer Syam Chetan were found not guilty of causing environmental pollution by a Korean district court on 23 June, they are still unable to leave the country with an appeal by crane barge owner Samsung Heavy Industries having started on September 2.