Tanker, bulk carrier collide off Singapore
An oil tanker and a bulk carrier collided in waters between Malaysia and Singapore yesterday morning, spilling an estimated 2,500 tonnes of oil, but traffic in Asia's busiest shipping lane was not affected.
The Malaysian flagged MT Bunga Kelana 3 was carrying about 62,000 tonnes of light crude oil, the country's coast guard said.
Singapore port authorities said the spill measured about four kilometres by one kilometre and was located six kilometres south of Singapore's southeastern tip at 2.20pm local time.
Singapore and Malaysia activated oil-spill response companies and a clean-up operation involving 20 craft was under way. There were no reports of injuries among the 50 crew members.
The incident happened in the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) of the Singapore Strait, 13km from the tip of the island nation, said the city-state's Maritime and Port Authority (MPA).
The spill, equivalent to about 18,000 barrels, is dwarfed by the approximately 175,000 barrels of oil that has poured into the Gulf of Mexico since the deadly April 20 offshore explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon rig.
In terms of the impact of Singapore's spill on the environment, Shum said: "I think certainly the concerns are there. Even if it is contained, it will take some time to clean up." The 1997 Evoikos spill took three weeks to clean up.
Singapore and Malaysia were applying oil dispersants and containment booms for the clean up, the MPA said. About 40 percent of global trade passes through the Malacca Strait between Malaysia and Indonesia's Sumatra. Singapore, the world's largest bunkering port and Asia's top oil-trading hub, lies at the southeastern end of the waterway.
The collision was between the tanker and the MV Waily, a bulk carrier registered in St Vincent and the Grenadines, which suffered minor damage, the Malaysian coast guard said. Both vessels are anchored away from the incident's site.
The collision caused a 10-metre gash on the left side of the tanker, the coast guard said. The vessel was carrying Bintulu condensate and light crude, said Paul Lovell, head of corporate communications at AET Tanker Holdings.
AET, which owns and manages the vessel, is a wholly owned subsidiary of transport and energy company MISC, a unit of Malaysian national oil firm Petronas. "She was carrying two types of cargo, some condensate and some very light crude, it was about 40 per cent condensate and about 60 per cent light crude on the vessel at the time of the incident," Lovell said.