The United Kalavryta is too large for the Houston Ship Channel, so it anchored in an area where such vessels transfer their cargo to smaller ones in a process called lightering.
A maritime tracking system had picked up a signal confirming its position every few hours since then until Monday night, when the signal ceased after a judge’s ruling left the door open to continuing litigation.
The tracking system is in place in many ports, but does not cover most open ocean.
Ah, lightering, a process that takes place every day and hardly anyone knows about it. When we first tried to test wells offshore to barges or tankers or to do FPSO with tanker transport and pointed out that what we planned was no more risky than lightering.. we were told “its different” but nobody could explain how it was different.
Ignorance is bliss isn’t it?
Remember the Mega Borg? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_Borg_Oil_Spill
The only thing that kept that from becoming horrible was a big fire and the big fire was because of light oil.
And transport of crude by train is so much safer than pipelines too.