Siphoning of oil from ship ends today

CEBU, Philippines - Siphoning of oil from the ill-fated M/V St. Thomas Aquinas is set to finish today, a Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) official said.

It was initially projected that siphoning and egress of the salvage ship would be completed on the 28th yet.

“Malayan has finished siphoning trapped oil from compartments 1 and 3. They are currently finishing compartments 2 and 4, which is expected to be done by tomorrow,” PCG Station Cebu Commander Weniel Azcuna told reporters yesterday.

Ship owner 2GO shipping has tapped Malayan Towage to remove the oil from M/V St. Thomas Aquinas’ hold that has caused a spill that adversely affected mangroves in nearby Cordova town.

The ship sank last Aug. 16 following a collision with cargo vessel M/V Sulpicio Express Siete off Lauis Ledge in Talisay. The mishap left 116 dead and 21 still missing.

“Siphoning temporarily stopped Thursday due to weather condition. (That time,) they have so far removed a total of 4,480 liters of bunker fuel from the (ship’s) 11 tanks plus two compartments identified to have trapped oil,” he said.

Azcuna said that of the total siphoned oil, 2,180 liters were removed from the 11 tanks while the remaining 2,300 liters were from two of four identified compartments.

He said that while the volume of recovered oil showed more were in the ship’s compartments than inside the tanks, this could have been caused by the impact of collision.

“(It is) expected na nga mas daghan ang sa (that more oil is in the) compartments because of the collision and its impact. This is also why apart from siphoning the tanks, Malayan Towage also identified and removed trapped oil from the four compartments,” Azcuna said.

Once siphoning is completed, Malayan Towage would still need two more days to pull out tugboat Trabajador I from Lauis Ledge as well as for the demobilization of equipment.

Meanwhile, the Cebu City Government, 2GO’s management, and Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes are almost done preparing for the mass burial for 47 unidentified fatalities scheduled in the morning of  Sept. 25.

As to the retrieval operations, Azcuna said it is currently halted due to the ongoing siphoning but stressed that technical divers are still on standby should diving operations continue after the siphoning.

“We will further evaluate the situation after the siphoning operations if the retrieval diving to search for the 21 missing bodies is necessary or  not,” Azcuna said.

A month and a week after the sinking, technical divers have so far searched 85 percent of the vessel, which is lying on its left.

Moreover, authorities still could not decide whether or not to salvage the sunken ship pending the joint assessment of a multi-agency body composed of the PCG, Cebu Port Authority, and Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Azcuna said that until further assessment is made, the regulation that vessels plying Lauis Ledge reduce speed to just five to eight knots is still in effect. (FREEMAN)