The owners of the two riverine tankers that split up and sank in bad weather in the Black Sea last December are facing multiple legal actions. With several Russian government agencies trying to recover the cost of cleanup from the resulting spills of mazut, a particularly “dirty” oil product, that was on both vessels.
The Russian summer resort town of Anapa is suing two shipping companies – Volgatransneft and Kama Shipping – for the equivalent of $2.4m (RUB211m) after its local beaches were badly affected, with 30 miles of beaches blackened and polluted. The companies owned and operated the Volgoneft-212 (MMSI 273333930) and Volgoneft-239, which had a combined 9,000 tonnes of low-grade fuel on board, more than half of which leaked into the Kerch Strait between Russia and the Russian occupied Crimean peninsula.
Testing the beaches for contamination, publishing footage of excavators and bulldozers cleaning up the seaside started on March 8th. The long-term environmental impact of the spill remains to be seen, and the size of the claim against the two shipping companies could increase. There will also be interest in whether the insurance system in Russia is still working.
The tankers Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 were built more than 50 years ago under the Soviet “river-sea” fleet program. It has been argued convincingly that even when new these ships were not really designed for open-sea sailing and transport in Black Sea winter weather. That was even less the case today, with the ravages of time weakening various parts of the vessels.
The Volgoneft-212 broke in half on December 15th and sank during a severe storm about five nautical miles outside of the Kerch Strait. The tanker was carrying about 4,300 tonnes of mazut, a Russian residual fuel oil produced from low-quality feedstocks. Shortly after the Volgoneft-239 broke up and grounded near Taman shortly after, spilling a similar load of mazut.
The cleanup effort for the wreck site of Volgoneft-239 (MMSI:273354600) took until the end of January, and it incurred significant costs. A response team led by Russian salvage agency Morspasluzhba (Morspas) built an earthen dike around the perimeter of the wreck, protecting it from wave action and creating a sheltered space for pollution abatement work to proceed. The oil was heated (it solidifies at a relatively high temperature), pumped out and driven off by the truckload.
Morspas has sued Volgatransneft – the owner of the Volgoneft-239 – to recover the full cost of the cleanup, and the case is proceeding at an arbitration court in Krasnodar. Volgatransneft petitioned to have the lawsuit transferred to a court in Moscow, but Morspas objected, and the court refused the request. The hearings will begin in early April. The amount of the claim has yet to be fully calculated.
The estimated environmental damage from the spills could reach $300m. The tankers are insured for a maximum of about $30m for pollution compensation, according to Alexei Kurinny, a Communist Party MP.
Russia’s Ministry of Transport has confirmed that the fuel oil aboard the tankers belonged to Rosneft, Russia’s state oil company.