Emergency teams battle to contain oil spill off Kuwait

Kuwait City - Kuwaiti media on Sunday quoted local oil experts as saying the spill originated from an old 50-kilometre pipeline from Al Khafji.

Emergency workers are battling to contain an oil spill near a joint Kuwaiti-Saudi oilfield in the Gulf, an official said on Sunday.
"Emergency oil teams are still struggling to put an oil spill near Kuwait's southern Ras Al Zour area under control," said Kuwait Petroleum Corporation spokesman Talal Al Khaled in a statement carried by the official Kuna news agency.
Kuwaiti media on Sunday quoted local oil experts as saying the spill originated from an old 50-kilometre pipeline from Al Khafji.
The experts estimated that as many as 35,000 barrels of crude oil may have leaked into the waters off Al Zour, where Kuwait is building a massive $30 billion oil complex that includes a 615,000-barrel-per-day refinery.
Emergency teams have sealed off two power and water desalination plants in the area to prevent the contamination of drinking water. Kuwait depends largely on desalination for its fresh water supplies.
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, located south of Kuwait along the Gulf coast, said the spill had not reached their waters.
Saudi Arabia said that it had put into action a "crisis management plan" and was conducting an aerial survey of its oil plants along the coast in a statement published by the official SPA news agency.
The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said teams from Saudi Arabian Chevron and the Oil Spill Response Limited (OSRL) had joined the teams cleaning the coastal waters.
Bahrain's National Disaster Management Committee said that Bahrain's waters are not affected by Kuwait's oil spill.
The Bahrain News Agency quoted the General Director of Civil Defence and panel secretary, Brigadier Abdulaziz Rashid Al Amer, as saying that officials had looked into the matter to take necessary steps, but it turned out that Bahrain is far from the oil spill. 

• Kuwait