All but two of the 18 fuel tank cells on breached products tanker Stena Immaculate (IMO 9693018) have remained intact, Stena Bulk CEO Erik Hanell said on Wednesday afternoon, boosting hopes that there would only be a small environmental impact of the event in the North Sea, which occurred during the morning of Monday March 10th, when container feeder ship Solong (IMO 9322554) sailed into the side of the Stena Immaculate at 16 knots. The Stena Immaculate was at anchor at the time, waiting for a berth to open up at its destination port in the Humber Estuary.
Analysis of the Solong’s path has highlighted that its Grangemouth-to-Rotterdam trip was a regular one for the crew, and that it tended to operate on a default efficient “point-to-point” route, with deviations when necessary. For whatever reason, no deviation took place on Monday morning, despite the Stena Immaculate being in its path. Data tracking shows the Solong continuing in a straight line and at a steady speed right up to the moment of collision and, indeed, the engines apparently continuing to run for some minutes afterwards.
The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) has urged all the jurisdictions involved to cooperate to understand how the incident happened. ITF general secretary Stephen Cotton said that “there are crucial questions that remain unanswered in the wake of this tragedy, and these must be addressed through a full and transparent internationally coordinated investigations”. These will include the relevant maritime boards from the US and Portugal, where the two vessels involved are flagged, as well as the UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch.
Erik Hanell said that the potentially leaked fuel accounted for about 10% of its total cargo. “The total volume of jet fuel onboard is around 50,000 cubic meters, so I estimate the maximum potential leakage at roughly that amount – hopefully less,” he said.
Gothenburg, Sweden-based Stena Bulk operates a fleet of around 18 crude oil tankers and 40 oil product and chemical tankers. The company manages two additional tankers (one of them the Stena Immaculate) under the US Tanker Security Programme (TSP), which provides fuel transport for the US Department of Defense. There are only 10 vessels in the TSP fleet, meaning that the loss of the Stena Immaculate from active service is likely to cause logistical challenges for the US military, shipping industry sources said.
Hanell said discussions on potential backup options for the TSP have not yet taken place, stating that “commercial challenges will be addressed in the next week or so”.
US-based vessel manager Crowley Govt Services, based in Jacksonville, Florida, has said that initial salvage activities were beginning. Crowley said that it was working closely with UK agencies to support the incident response, salvage and environmental impact mitigation operations resulting from the event. The fire onboard the Stena Immaculate had diminished greatly. There were now no visible flames, Crowley said. The company was continuing to assist response efforts led by the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA).
“The vessel is stationary at anchor and being monitored by Crowley representatives, partners and government authorities, and we are working alongside partners during initial salvage activities.
The situation aboard the Solong was also reported by the MCA to be “stabilized”. The MCA said that UK investigators were continuing to gather information while they wait for access to the data recorders aboard the two ships.
“The MCA is working with the salvage companies who are responding on behalf of the vessels’ owners and are working in full cooperation with all commercial and government partners. The overarching objective is to protect the public and the environment to the best of our ability, during this ongoing incident response,” HM Coastguard said in its update on Wednesday, adding that “there have been no further reports of pollution to the sea from either vessel beyond what was observed during the initial incident”.
Some media in the past couple of days have noted that the Solong was cited for a range of issues during Port State inspections in 2024. Operator Ernst Russ responded that the issues had been resolved at the time of the inspections, adding that, while deficiencies were identified during inspections in both the UK and Ireland last year, none of these was considered serious enough to merit detention.
2017-built, USA-flagged, 29,854 gt Stena Immaculate is owned by Stena Bulk Marine Services care of manager Stena Bulk AS of Hellerup, Denmark. ISM manager is Crowley Govt Services of Jacksonville, Florida, USA. It is entered with Steamship Mutual on behalf of Stena Bulk Marine Services LLC.
2005-built, Portugal-flagged, 7,852 gt Solong is owned by Solong Schiffahrtsgesellschaft care of manager Ernst Russ Maritime of Hamburg, Germany. ISM manager is Kopping Reederei GmbH of Schuelp, Germany. It is entered with Skuld (Skuld Hamburg) on behalf of Ernst Russ Maritime Management GmbH & Co. KG.