CAIRO, Aug 17 (Reuters) – Weather conditions and operational challenges were hampering salvage efforts for a grounded tanker that was leaking Russian crude oil in a protected marine area off Oman’s coast, the sultanate’s state news agency reported on Monday.
Oman has been coordinating the salvage operation with risk-management company Ambrey as part of efforts to contain environmental damage from a spill that some estimates put at 2,000 sq km. The government’s environment agency gave an official estimate of 400 sq km on August 10 but has yet to issue an update.
The spill from the Caroline Bezengi tanker — apparently the result of an unexplained attack on the vessel in June — has spread around a nature reserve and hit Oman’s coastline on Wednesday.
Mohammed bin Abdullah al-Rawahi, director general of maritime affairs at Oman’s Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology, said that difficulties emerged from the monsoon in the area and the shallow and rocky nature of the site where the vessel ran aground, the news agency reported.
The conditions put salvage vessels and equipment under “operational and navigational risks”, he was quoted as saying.
The operation is further complicated by the damage to the vessel, with a large area flooded on one side, he added.
The vessel, which was carrying an estimated 800,000 barrels of Russian oil and was under international sanctions, ran aground on June 30 near an Omani marine nature reserve that is home to wildlife including humpback whales and Socotra cormorants.
The Caroline Bezengi loaded at Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in April and passed through the Suez Canal at the end of May, ship-tracking data shows.
Built in 2001, it is part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of older oil tankers, which lack Western insurance cover and sail under the flags of various nations to obscure their true ownership.
The ship is subject to sanctions imposed by the European Union, Ukraine, the UK, Canada and Switzerland.
(Reporting by Menna Alaa El-DinEditing by David Goodman)
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