TANKER collisions and the consequent marine pollution and far-reaching environmental damage are the stuff of nightmares. The Kingdom is particularly exposed to the danger because of the heavy movement of laden and unladen shipping off its coasts, particularly along the Gulf.
The authorities in China are currently battling to contain the potentially devastating environmental consequences of a blazing Iranian tanker, the Sanchi, that was carrying a million barrel oil from Iran to China. The Hong Kong registered CF Crystal loaded with a cargo of US grain was the other vessel involved in the collision. Both vessels were bringing their cargoes to satisfy the voracious raw material demands of China’s still surging economy.
The two ships impacted some 260 kilometers off the coast of Shanghai. The 21 Chinese crew of the grain ship were all reportedly rescued but the fate of the 33 crew of the tanker, 30 of whom are Iranian, is unknown. One body has been picked up from the sea. Some media have said that the location of the incident means that the Chinese coast is unlikely to be hit with pollution. However clouds of toxic smoke from the blaze on the Sanchi could pose serious health risks if they come ashore. Experts are also predicting that considerable damage will be caused to the marine environment as the tanker’s cargo, of both condensate and heavy oil, disperses into the surrounding waters.
The methods of cleaning up and mitigating the damage caused by major oil spills have improved considerably in the last 60 years. When a tanker, the Torrey Canyon, hit a reef off the UK in 1967 and spilled 36 million gallons of crude, the cleanup operation along some 200 miles of coastline involved the use of emulsifying agents, which were hardly less environmentally damaging than the oil itself.
Now containment booms and the scooping up of the oil from the surface can stop oil from coming ashore. If the crude does make landfall, the clean up operation can depend very much of the nature of the coastline and also the water temperature. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off the Canadian coast was widely predicted to prove a disaster of enduring impact. The immediate consequences were indeed horrific. Up to half a million seabirds perished, along with a thousand sea otters and considerable numbers of fish. A major coastal clean up operation was launched but environmentalists warned that there were sections of shoreline where the removal of the crude was not possible. Yet the dire predictions of decades of poisonous impact turned out to be wrong. Nature itself dealt with some of the damage.
However, none of this should in anyway diminish the seriousness of this latest tanker disaster.
Perhaps the best lesson to emerge from the Sanchi-CF Crystal smash in the need for the maritime industry to up its technology game. A higher range of auto-pilotage on the bridges of all vessels should reduce the human factor in steering ships safely through crowded seas. If automobiles and aircraft can now be equipped with systems that, in theory at least, avoid collisions without any human intervention, then it is high time such technology made its way onto vessels, most particularly those carrying volatile and dangerous cargoes that present a high risk of pollution and environmental disaster.
