ILOILO PROVINCE (Mindanao Examiner / Dec. 8, 2013) – A private contractor has begun drawing off an estimated 1.5 million liters of oil from the fuel tanks of Power Barge 103 that run aground at the height of super typhoon Haiyan in the town of Estancia in Iloilo province in central Philippines.
“We already took some 117,000 liters of oil out of the fuel tanks of the stricken power barge since December 7. The oil siphoned off PB 103 is being conveyed to the MT Obama, which has a capacity of 850,000 liters,” Sonny Sarmiento, incident commander of Kuan Yu Global Technologies Inc., said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
The state-run Power Sector Asset and Liabilities Management Corp., owner of the stranded barge, designated Kuan Yu to perform the cleanup of the Estancia oil spill and to eventually salvage the vessel.
“We are working 24/7 to quickly remove all the fuel, but we can’t tell when we’ll finish the job because we don’t have confirmed data on the actual volume of oil left in the barge,” Sarmiento said. “We can pump out and transfer up to 150,000 liters per hour, but we are now proceeding at a cautious rate of 50,000 per hour to avoid potential complications.”
When PB 103 was detached from its moorings and marooned during the typhoon in November, the floating power station was believed to be carrying 600,000 liters of industrial fuel oil on top of some 1.3 million liters of automotive diesel oil, of which some 386,000 liters had been accidentally discharged into the environment.
Besides the MT Obama, Sarmiento said Kuan Yu has five other vessels on site performing various cleanup and support roles – the MT Don Jose 2, the LCT Valentina 1, the LCM Divine Glory, the MT Doodsky, and the Crane Barge Gwenneth.
“As to the spilled oil, it is now contained in boom perimeters, and we’ve already collected 105,000 liters of fuel from the waters, plus another 47 tons of oil spill debris, as of December 7,” Sarmiento said.
He said Kuan Yu has more than 300 locally hired personnel helping in the cleanup, particularly of affected shorelines in Estancia and elsewhere.
“They have been properly briefed and equipped. They have been divided into sectors and are performing work on rotation,” he said. “Rest assured no effort is being spared to accelerate the cleanup. Cost is not even a factor because the insurer is covering all expenses,” Sarmiento said.
He also stressed that the people behind Kuan Yu have more than 50 years of combined experience responding to and cleaning up oil spills. Through First Response Marine Services Inc., Sarmiento said the people behind Kuan Yu were involved in a big way in the cleanup of the Semirara oil spill in December 2005 as well as the Guimaras oil spill in August 2006.
“We at Kuan Yu are all absolutely committed to expediting the cleanup of the Estancia spill in order to protect marine life and coastal communities, especially local fishermen and their families,” Sarmiento said.
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