Spain, Portugal order oil tanker out to sea
Date: 04-Dec-02
Country: BELGIUM
Author: Robin Pomeroy
The 17-year-old Moskoviskiy Festival, carrying 25,000 tonnes of fuel oil, was intercepted on Saturday by the Spanish Navy and on Sunday by its Portuguese equivalent and ordered away from their respective coastlines and into international waters, said a spokesman for London-based Novoship UK, which manages the vessel.
The action came days after Spain and France vowed to expel ships they consider a major oil slick risk, as a reaction to the sinking of the a 26-year-old tanker Prestige, whose leaked cargo of heavy oil has devastated stretches of Spain's Atlantic coast.
Portugal and Italy also adopted the policy, which means they may perform spot checks on single-hull heavy fuel transporters older than 15-years and expel dangerous ships from their exclusive economic zones, which stretch 200 miles out to sea.
Eyes are now on another, the Byzantio, which like the Moskoviskiy Festival flies the Maltese flag, and is carrying 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil from the Estonian port of Muuga.
Although its destination is unclear, France has positioned a navy patroller near Dunkirk to look out for the ship which, like the ill-fated Prestige, was charted by Swiss-based Russian oil trader Crown Resources.
Novoship declined to disclose the identity of the charterer of the Moskoviskiy Festival, but oil brokers said the cargo was owned by Russian oil major LUKoil (LKOH.RTS).
The tanker loaded in Estonia's Tallinn on the 22 November and followed exactly the same route as the doomed Prestige.
EU SPLIT
European Union transport ministers will discuss maritime safety when they meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.
Spain, France, Italy and Portugal will press their colleagues to take a hard line, but other countries such as Britain, Greece and Germany are cautious, EU diplomats said.
Documents obtained by Reuters show that ministers will consider whether to accelerate a phase-out of older single hull tankers and only allow the heaviest grades of fuels to be carried by double hull vessels.
The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, will put forward a bundle of proposals yesterday which include a call on the maritime industry to avoid using single hull ships for heavy fuel oil even before any new rules are in place.
The diplomatic talks mirror similar discussions following a comparable oil spill in December 1999 when the tanker Erika polluted the coast of northwest France.
Then the EU successfully pushed for a global phase out of single hull tankers by 2015, but most of its internal policies, tightening up port inspections and rules on agencies that certify vessels' seaworthiness, have yet to come into force.
Industry sources say low-value highly-polluting heavy fuel oil, which is burned in some power generators and used as marine fuel, is usually transported in older, cheaper vessels which are more vulnerable to accidents than newer double-hull ships.
A crackdown on the traffic of cheap oil in cheap ships would please environmentalists like Greenpeace whose campaigners are trying to disrupt the progress of the Byzantio.
"It is inconceivable that with the scars of the Prestige still raw in people's memory, the Byzantio is being allowed to navigate," said Pernilla Svenberg of Greenpeace.
"European governments must make tougher legislation for all transport vessels through European waters."
(Additional reporting by Stefano Ambrogi in London).
