Cleanup of Wrecked Russian Tanker Completed

 

The cleanup of the lost Russian tanker Volgoneft-239 is largely complete, Russian state marine rescue service Morspas announced Monday. 

In December, the aging river-sea tanker Volgoneft-212 sank in a severe storm about five nautical miles outside of the Kerch Strait. Sister ship Volgoneft-239 broke up shortly after, and her stern section drifted aground on a rocky shore off Taman. The battered hull began leaking large quantities of fuel oil. 

Like other vessels in Russia's "river-sea" fleet, the two small tankers were more than 50 years old, and they were not designed for winter storm conditions in the Baltic. Both were carrying about 4,000 of tonnes of mazut, a Russian heavy fuel oil grade that solidifies at room temperature. An estimated 3,700 tonnes of this cargo spilled into the marine environment, fouling beaches from Taman to Anapa. 

Morspas responded to the Volgoneft-239 with a mission to reduce the risk of further oil leaks. Using earthmoving equipment, the salvors built a berm around the entire stern section, enclosing any further petroleum releases. The berm was reinforced with jacks to protect the wreck from wintertime wave action. 

Courtesy Morspas

Before pumping off the tank contents, the salvors had to restore the ship's cargo heating systems, which are necessary to move the sludge-like material; mazut only begins to liquefy at about 110 degrees Fahrenheit. 

From January 19-25, 1,500 tons of fuel oil were pumped out of the tanker into bitumen carriers, then transferred onto 20 railway tank cars, according to cleanup commission chairman Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Savelyev.

A truck platform reinforced with concrete slabs was installed on the berm next to the tanker. This supported the trucks receiving fuel oil from the vessel. Eight vehicles were involved in the round-the-clock pumping operations, and over the entire period, 87 truckloads were removed from the tanker. Morspas said that the remaining fuel oil that could not be unloaded by the ship's equipment was pumped out using hand pumps.

Meanwhile, cleanup teams boomed off the surrounding area and used mechanical and hand removal to abate the oil. Morspas' Azov-Black Sea branch has deployed small boat teams daily to rocky, inaccessible shorelines, and reports that it has manually collected nearly two tonnes of oil-contaminated soil from hard-to-reach places.

"No new sources of pollution were identified. We are collecting small local areas. There is very little left," said Ivan Panchenko, deputy head of Morspas' Caspian branch. "We are also finishing work in the area of ????Cape Panagia on cleaning the coastal strip, collecting and delivering the spent soil for disposal."
 
Volgoneft-212 and the remains of her cargo are still on the bottom, though vents have been plugged to prevent leakage. The fuel oil that was released into the marine environment could take up to 10 years to degrade, according to Russian marine scientists. 

Now that the fuel oil has been removed from the wreck, the salvage operation turns to wreck removal. The plan is to cut up the Volgoneft-239 in place and haul it away in sections. Taman's port captain has requested that the wreckage be removed by the end of March.