CPC: Waters, shore of Black Sea clear after Novorossiysk oil spill

YUZHNAYA OZEREYEVKA, Krasnodar Region, Aug 13 (PRIME) – The waters and the shore of the Black Sea are clear after the oil spill from a terminal of Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) near the city of Novorossiysk, no contamination has been found, CPC General Director Nikolai Gorban told reporters on Friday.

“As of today, the waters and the shore are clear. It was registered by the Federal Service for Natural Resources Oversight and the Federal Service for Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare Oversight. All test samples show the lack of any excess of the maximum allowable content. We are constantly monitoring the shore line. A helicopter did a fly-over today, and it saw nothing,” he said.

New data about the oil spill and the test samples of the waters will be disclosed next week, he said.

The company has inspected its equipment, including equipment similar to the single-point buoy mooring that caused the oil spill, and no defects were discovered. In spite of a breakdown of one of the single-point buoy moorings, the company will fulfill the annual plan for pumping to tankers, Gorban said.

CPC is working together with all authorities, it is providing all the necessary documents and databases, its technical process is transparent. CPC will not deny any demands, and will not file appeals against any results of the investigation of the oil spill to a court, he said.

The spill happened on August 7 while oil was pumped to Greek oil tanker Minerva Symphony by the first single-point buoy mooring unit of Caspian Pipeline Consortium. The company said then that only 12 cubic meters of oil were spilled, and that the spill area is only 200 square meters.

The Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences said in a Wednesday statement that the area of the spill was almost 80 square kilometers. Following the statement, Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov met with CPC General Director Nikolai Gorban and stressed out the necessity of checking information about the spill’s area.

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