The oil spill accident in the Black Sea demonstrates what environmental damage old tankers with Russian oil can cause around Europe
On Tuesday night, heavy fuel oil (mazut) from the tankers that sank on Sunday has begun washing up on the shores of the Black Sea coast. It is reported that more than 3,000 tonnes might have leaked into the sea. Locals are already posting dozens of videos of mazut stains and birds trapped in it along the seashore near Anapa.
At the moment, the length of the contamination is at least 60 kilometers from the Crimean bridge to Anapa in the Krasnodar region. Several towns have declared an emergency situation. The death of birds contaminated with mazut has been recorded.
Natalia Gozak, Office Director of Greenpeace Ukraine: “The accidents involving the two tankers in the Kerch Strait, both over 50 years old according to various reports, are serious and the leaking fuel oil is now jeopardising the local ecosystem. The accident is a warning sign of a much bigger problem: the Russian shadow fleet. Russia uses this fleet of obsolete tankers to export crude oil and sponsor the war in Ukraine. These must be urgently added to the EU sanctions list.”
Greenpeace Germany published a report with a list of the 192 most dangerous shadow fleet tankers. The 192 tankers are outdated, insufficiently insured and some have attracted attention in the past due to technical defects and dangerous ship-to-ship transfers of crude oil. Earlier the environmental organisation investigated the possible consequences of an accident with shadow fleet tankers off the German coast and an oil spill using GPS buoys. The environmentalists deployed buoys fitted with transmitters along the tanker route. The documented movements of the buoys show how an oil slick would spread off the German coast.
On Sunday, two tankers, Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239, sank in the Kerch Strait (connecting Black Sea and Azov Sea). Both tankers, each over 50 years old, according to various reports, together carried between 8,000 – 9,000 tonnes of petroleum products. Today the third tanker Volgoneft-109 gave a mayday signal due to oil product leakage.