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Philippines coast guard frustrated as sunken oil tanker remains at sea

“What has got up our goat is that we hear a lot of talk about what should be done but nothing has happened. That ship sank over a week ago and officials are still talking,” local coast guard commander Harold Harder told AFP.

Some 50,000 gallons of oil has already leaked from the Solar I, which sank in rough seas on August 11 off the central island of Guimaras with 500,000 gallons on bunker oil onboard.

The slick, which has already covered 200 kilometers (125 miles) of coastline in thick black sludge and is threatening marine reserves, extends 15 nautical miles from where the ship sank, Harder said.

His comments about the country’s worst-ever oil spill came as the owners of the Solar I said they were consulting with experts about raising the vessel.

Clemente Cancio, president of the Sunshine Maritime Development Corp, told AFP the company was in talks with “international maritime experts” to see if the 998-tonne tanker can be raised.

Two British maritime experts from the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation inspected the site on Friday, he said, without giving any further information.

According to the coast guard, the tanker is resting on the seabed in 3,000 feet (900 metres) of water and is still leaking oil from one of its 10 tanks that ruptured when it sank.

Greenpeace’s southeast Asian campaign director Von Hernandez warned that urgent efforts were needed to either bring the ship to the surface or to pump the remaining oil out of the stricken vessel’s tanks.

“The longer that tanker stays underwater, the greater the danger. What you are looking at is a ticking time bomb,” said Hernandez.

Harder, who conducted an air survey of the area early Saturday, said he had six vessels working in the zone.

“We are using booms to contain the oil and scooping it up for disposal. But we are trying to cut down on the use of dispersants,” he told AFP.

“At the moment the weather has been on our side but the real problem is still on the seabed.”

On Guimaras island, small groups of residents busily continued shovelling the sludge off the blackened beaches in and around Nueva Valencia, one of the worst-affected areas.

Petron Corp., which chartered the vessel, has placed booms along many of the beaches to hold the oil back.

“We are just collecting the oil and putting it in plastic bags and stacking them on the beach,” said local official Jeffrey Candecila.

Relief agencies have begun handing out food to many of the hundreds of poor fishermen whose livelihoods have been put at risk by the spill.

Cancio said he did not know why oil was still leaking out of the tanker.

“That is one of the things we have to find out,” he said.

“The oil has to be contained.”

He said although the tanker was launched in 1988 it had just come out of dry dock in February and was certified seaworthy by the Paris-based organisation Bureau Veritas.