Chinese coal carrier Shen Neng One ran aground on Douglas Shoal.
Hope this does not become another Exxon Valdez oil spill of '89.
Posted on 04/04/2010 7:27:44 AM PDT by myknowledge
Authorities say a ship leaking oil that ran aground off central Queensland near the Great Barrier Reef should not have been in the area.
The Chinese coal carrier Shen Neng One ran aground on Douglas Shoal about 120 kilometres east of Rockhampton late yesterday.
The ship had departed from the Port of Gladstone and was bound for China.
Early this morning authorities found the hull had been breached and an attempt to refloat the ship was abandoned.
At first light planes flew over the area to assess the extent of the slick and found the oil as far as two nautical miles south-east of the grounding.
Maritime Safety Queensland (MSQ) general manager Patrick Quirk says the ship was off course.
"The vessel is a long way from where it should have been," he said.
Premier Anna Bligh says a relatively small amount of oil has been discharged.
"However, this is the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park I'm concerned about," she said.
Tank breached
The ship has more than 900 tonnes of heavy fuel oil on board, and MSQ says a fuel tank with 150 tonnes of heavy oil has been breached.
MSQ says it is not a major oil leak.
"There was indications of oil in the water from about 2:00am this morning," general manager Patrick Quirk said.
Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett says it is too early to say whether there will be any lasting effect on the Great Barrier Reef.
"We don't have advice at present as to whether the oil is going to threaten any part of the ecology of the reef," he said.
"That's why we want to use a dispersant quickly by trialing to assess its effectiveness. Once we've evaluated its effectiveness, then it might be available for further use."
Mr Garrett says the dispersants have been used safely before.
"This dispersant's been used in the past, it's been used without lasting impacts on the environment, and that's the whole of the environment," he said.
"My expectation is that we'll use it carefully in this instance. Obviously protecting the environment is the number one priority."
The spill is within the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef but it is not yet known whether it is large enough to impact the reef.
The Greens' lead Senate candidate in Queensland Larissa Waters say the ship's spill could cause a similar environmental impact to one in Moreton Bay last year.
"As we saw in the Moreton Bay spill, which was initially small, but mushroomed out to a massive catastrophe, it's looking more and more like we might have a repeat of this just off Great Keppel Island, which is a pristine area," she said.
"There's huge threats to wildlife here, oil is really bad news as everybody knows for marine life and for corals."
Chinese coal carrier Shen Neng One ran aground on Douglas Shoal.
Hope this does not become another Exxon Valdez oil spill of '89.
Never Drink and Supertanker
Yes, it is an oil leak - and, “no, it is not meaningless” - but there is more oil released (naturally) from undersea vents off the CA coast every day.
If we drilled off of CA to reduce the pressure, there’d even be less oil released.
900 tons = about 258,000 gallons.
Not where they’re supposed to be? Defecting, maybe, or perhaps electronic surveillance?
(I know it doesn't follow that it would be a cause of an oil spill.....but it feels good to say it.8-)
How would a coal carrier become another Exxon Valdez which was a tanker?
Maybe a cargo swap at sea?.what other ships were in the area at the time?.
The Valdez was an oil tanker, carrying oil. This ship is a coal carrier, with just a little oil for it's own engines. It could spill all of it, and while it wouldn't be pretty, it would not came with a couple of orders of magnitude of the Valdez spill. Plus the Valdiz spill was in sheltered waters, this one not.
Yeah, but Bush shook hands with Chinese Premier Li Peng at the UN in 1992. So Bush's complicity in this oil spill is more recent than Nixon.
I thought a mini Exxon Valdez, this time with coal.
I make 900 tons of heavy fuel oil out to be 248,000 gallons,
As you say, no Exxon Valdez but still one hell of a gookie mess. That's about 31 over-the-road tankers of oil!
Good answer.
258,300 gallons.
on purpose???
You guys read the article at all? It says the tank with the leak is 150 tons(tonnes). Far short of the whole 900 tons. Personally I couldn’t care less, more oil leaks into the ocean naturally from the sea bottom than has ever been spilled by ships. I guess we could go back to using coal for fuel or natural gas, a natural gas or coal spill would be just fine.
The residual oil on the ship is nothing at all like natural oil seeps.
You are right! Hurricane Ike didn’t cause any leakage from the drilling rigs in the gulf. But tankers do cause massive leakage!
SenJimDeMint
— July 14, 2008 —
FOX News reports that 63 percent of all oil in U.S. waters comes from natural seepage,
32 percent comes from consumers (boaters, jetskiers, etc.)
and only 1 percent comes from offshore drilling.
Yes but only one bunker with 150 tons capacity is actually leaking, and that apparently quite slowly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.