The Diplomat
An incident during a bunkering operation between two ships in waters around Gibraltar yesterday caused a new oil spill near the Bay of Algeciras. This is the second spill in just eleven months, since the sinking of the OS 35 ship after colliding with a methane tanker.
The incident occurred in the so-called Poniente anchorage, in the south of Gibraltar, after the tanks of the Gas Venus ship overflowed while receiving fuel from the Hercules 500 gas station ship, according to the Gibraltar authorities.
Following the incident, the Gibraltar Port Authority ordered the suspension of all operations and the Gibraltar Port Authority launched its contingency plan together with the Department of the Environment. The amounts of oil spilled into the sea have not yet been determined, but the stain has already reached the coast of the Rock and has affected two coves in the area, Little Bay and Camp Bay.
The Spanish authorities were immediately notified of the incident as part of the automatic procedure, but in the first instance they limited themselves to monitoring the situation after the Gibraltar Government assured them that it had everything “under control”, according to Spanish government sources. “We have offered means, but they have told us that they were not necessary,” sources from the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda told the newspaper El País. At the moment, no remains of the spill have been detected on Spanish beaches.
“Not a year has passed since the OS 35 shipwreck and we already have another spill in Gibraltar,” denounced the conservation group Verdemar Ecologistas en Acción yesterday through its Twitter account. “This happens because the ships bunker with few crews and without security measures,” it continued. “If the fuel tanker hadn’t cut off the supply, the situation would have been a real disaster,” it added.
On August 31 of last year, another oil spill occurred in the waters of Gibraltar as a result of a collision between the bulk carrier OS 35 and a gas tanker when it was preparing to leave the Bay of Algeciras, some 400 meters from the beaches of La Línea de la Concepción. The accident resulted in several oil spills that affected the coastline of La Línea de la Concepción and Algeciras, forcing the closure of the fishing grounds in the area and the removal, both from the ship and from the surrounding area, of more than 331,000 liters of fuel, fuels and oils. The ship’s captain was arrested for not initially complying with the instructions of the Gibraltar Port Authority. The final removal of the remains of the ship concluded a few days ago, on July 28, two months behind schedule.
The Strait of Gibraltar registers a movement of more than 110,000 ships a year and many of these ships take advantage of the passage to approach the Gibraltarian port to refuel, a maneuver that is legal and that is also carried out in the nearby ports of Algeciras or Tangier. According to Verdemar, “between five and seven million tons of fuel a year” are refueled in the area.
