The insurer for the bunker tanker involved in the oil spill in Singapore has a limit of S$8 million (US$5.9 million) for the resulting claims.
This was disclosed by Singapore’s Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat at a joint ministerial press conference on 24 June.
Some oil slicks floated into neighbouring Malaysia and its government said that affected fishermen should file claims with the insurer, British Marine. Malaysian media estimated that as many as 200 fishermen in Johor state, the nearest Malaysian state to Singapore, were unable to fish or had their equipment damaged by the oil.
The incident happened on 14 June, when the Van Oord dredger Vox Maxima, went out of control and hit a bunker tanker, Marine Honour, which is owned by Singapore-based physical fuel supplier Straits Bunkering. At the time, Marine Honour was fuelling an Evergreen ship, Ever Blink, at Pasir Panjang Terminal. The impact damaged the cargo tank of Marine Honour, sending 400 tonnes of fuel oil into the sea.
Should the claims exceed British Marine’s cap, affected parties can make claims from the International Oil Pollution Compensation (IOPC) Fund, which has a higher cap of S$362 million (US$268 million). The IOPC Fund said on its LinkedIn page that it is aware of the oil spill in Singapore, adding that the city-state is a member state of the fund, which will work with the local authorities to respond.
Chee said, “The amount has been set based on what they (the IOPC) assess will be necessary to deal with oil spill incidents. And you can imagine in the past, there have been many of these… at a much more massive scale, than what we are experiencing, in other parts of the world.”
Speaking at the same conference, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu said that over 700 cleaning personnel have removed 550 tonnes of oil-soaked sand from several beaches.
Fu said, “This effort would not have been possible without the tireless and coordinated efforts of our cleaning personnel from agencies and their service providers.”
She said that the next phase of clean-ups will be more complex and concentrate on rock bunds, breakwaters and oil trapped deep in sand, which are more challenging to clean due to their uneven surfaces.
Fu said this next phase of clean-ups would take three months.
The last cleaning phase will involve using rakes and sieves to remove hardened oil from sand on the beaches, said the minister.
Chee said that while the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore acted to spray dispersants on the oil and place oil booms around Marine Honour, these measures could not fully prevent the oil from spreading.
He said, “There’s some misperception that these oil booms could have prevented the spilled oil from floating elsewhere. (The booms) aren’t 100% foolproof, because the tidal currents and waves can carry the oil to go below or above the booms.”
Chee added that the salvage company, T&T, needed a few hours to load the heavy equipment and another few hours to sail to the spillage site. The Singapore government will also seek to recover the clean-up costs from British Marine.
Martina Li
Asia Correspondent
