Russia Expands Response to Biggest Black Sea Fuel Spill in Decades

Russia has formed a new government commission to coordinate clean up of the biggest spill of oil products in the Black Sea in recent history as the Kremlin continues to assess the full scale of the catastrophe.

Two tankers carrying a combined 9,200 metric tons of heavy fuel oil sank during a storm in the middle of December in the Kerch Strait, which separates mainland Russia from occupied Crimea. According to initial government estimates, at least 2,400 tons were spilled into the sea. Oil products are continuing to leak.

“This is one of the most serious environmental challenges we have faced in recent years,” said President Vladimir Putin last week as he criticized members of his government for not doing enough to mitigate the damage.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin created a federal command center on Monday to help streamline efforts to tackle the crisis. “Due to bureaucratic confusion, the authorities took a very long time to make decisions on the coordinated liquidation of the accident,” said ecologist Vladimir Chuprov, executive director of the project “Earth Touches Everyone,” located in Moscow.

While authorities are still analyzing the impacts from the spill, environmentalists say it’s already clear that the consequences will be felt for years.

Chuprov said his group estimates the economic damage to the Black Sea and connected Sea of Azov at 33 billion rubles ($320 million), but this does not include any destruction to soil and wildlife or the costs of rescue operations.

The catastrophe is having a devastating effect on wildlife. Dozens of dolphins have died, according to estimates from local ecological organizations. The disaster is also harming the health and habitat of tens of thousands of birds in the area.

Sergey Vakulenko, who spent a decade as an executive at a Russian oil producer and is now a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the volume of oil products leaked is less than other globally infamous disasters such as the Prestige vessel, which leaked 77,000 tons of oil near Galiсia, Spain in 2002, or the 37,000 tons that spilled out of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989. “But according to global classification, it’s still a major spill that is considered a rare and extraordinary event,” he said.

The situation has been aggravated by the specific type of oil product being spilled. Russia’s Transport Ministry said this is “the world’s first accident involving ‘heavy’ M100 grade fuel oil.” The product reacts differently than other petroleum substances in the vertical expanse of sea depths known as the water column.

“Such fuel oil solidifies at a temperature of +25 °C, is almost as dense as water and heavier, and, unlike other petroleum products, does not float to the surface, but sinks to the bottom or floats in the water column,” the ministry said on its Telegram channel. “There are no proven technologies in the world for removing it from the water column. Therefore, the main method is collection from the coastline, when fuel oil is discharged into the coastal zone.”

Russian authorities both in Crimea and the Krasnodar region have reported oil products washing up on the coastline. More will come as water temperatures start to rise over the coming months. Chuprov said there are also risks the spill could reach waters as far as Romania and Bulgaria.

In the meantime, as Russian authorities plan to raise the sunken vessels from the water, the accident has brought up concerns about ship safety. The age of the tankers involved in the December accident could have contributed to the disaster, according to Chuprov. “Volgoneft-212 was built in 1969, Volgoneft-239 in 1973,” he said. “In fact, this accident occurred precisely because of the overuse of tankers. River-sea tankers are not prepared for such storms.”

Photograph: Oil washed up on the shoreline on a beach. Photo credit: Bloomberg Creative Photos/Bloomberg Creative Collection.