Eco-warriors fail to stop Estonia tanker departure
Date: 02-Dec-02
Country: UK
Author: Raj Rajendran
About 20 "eco-warriors" in dinghies had earlier surrounded the 26-year-old Byzantio, carrying 53,000 tonnes of fuel oil, but the ship still managed to set sail, Greenpeace said.
"She's leaving now. We told the ship captain that the tanker would endanger the people in the dinghy, but she still left. She's sailed out and the tug boats have now released their lines," Pernilla Svenberg, a Greenpeace activist at the protest site in Tallinn, told Reuters by telephone. Earlier this month, the tanker Prestige broke up and sank in the Atlantic, spewing some of its 77,000-tonne cargo of toxic fuel oil on Spanish beaches. Another monster oil slick was bearing down on the country's northwest coastline last week.
According to Lloyds Marine Intelligence Unit, the Byzantio is Greek-owned, flies a Maltese flag and was detained in Ireland for failing a port inspection earlier this year.
Like the Prestige, the Byzantio is chartered by Swiss-based Russian oil trader Crown Resources which said the vessel was heading for Rotterdam.
Greenpeace was hoping the protest would draw political attention to the use of single-hull tankers, instead of more modern double-hulled vessels that reduce the risk of spills. "Single hull ships should not be allowed to traverse the ocean as the Prestige has proved...the risk of these ships are too great," Svenberg said.
The International Maritime Organisation, the U.N. maritime agency, has a mandate which bans such ships on a staggered deadline to a complete ban in 2015, which Svenberg said was still too far away.
"We need some action now, we need the EU to ban these tankers right away," she said.
But the managers of the ship, Aegean Shipping Management, said the environmental group's protest was misplaced.
Gerry Ventouris, Aegean's shipping manager, said the company would invite interested parties including Greenpeace, the Spanish and French authorities as well the media to inspect the tanker when it arrives in Rotterdam to discharge the cargo.
He said the tanker had been certified by Det Norske Veritas as being CAP 1 (Condition Assessment Programme), the highest level of certification.
