VLCC Metula oil spill

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  • Tula

Nippon Kaiji Kyokai

The Metula was a crude oil tanker of Shell tanker shipping company. Built in 1968 she ran aground on August 9, 1974, the Satellite bank of the Strait of Magellan on the basis, suffered severe damage to the soil and caused approximately 53,000 tons of oil spilled the biggest oil spill in the Strait of Magellan. It was at that time the second largest oil spill after the stranding of the Torrey Canyon and the first serious oil spill an oil tanker, the VLCC - size world.

History

The ship

The ship was from the Shell Group in shipyard Ishikawajima - Harima Japanese Heavy Industries ( IHI ) ordered in 1966 as a tanker with 175,000 deadweight tons. The order has been changed out to a blank as VLCC ( Very Large Crude Carrier ) vessel with a capacity of 210,000 tons in the same year. 1968 Metula was delivered as yard number 2019 and put into service. It was owned by the N.V. Curaçao Scheepvaart Mij. in Willemstad and was operated by the Shell Group.

The stranding

The Metula 1974 by ENAP (National Chilean oil company ) chartered to 195 673 tons of crude oil of type Arabian Light crude from Ras Tanura on the Persian Gulf to transport for further processing in Quintero Bay, Chile. Furthermore, around 2,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil Bunker C of the variety in the bunker tanks were located. On August 9, 1974 to 22:20 local time clock, the ship ran aground in the east-west passage of the Strait of Magellan at a speed of around 15 knots on the Satellite bench near the west end of the headland First Narrows. On the second day after the stranding of the ship turned to starboard, whereby the engine room got aground and was flooded by flowing seawater. Around 51,500 tonnes of crude oil and another 1500 tonnes of heavy fuel oil bunkered flowed out.

Relief

After Swinging around the ship on 11 August, the Chilean government sent a request for technical assistance to the U.S. Coast Guard. This sent air transportable ADAPTS pump systems to Chile to support the implementation and pumping of oil cargo and the salvage operations with the Lenzen of the intruded seawater. Further measures were not undertaken due to the geographical remoteness of the affected area, and because of the harsh climatic conditions.

More history of the ship

The ship was diverted on 25 September 1974 placed towed to Isla Grande in Rio de Janeiro, where on September 29 at Angra dos Reis at anchor. The following year, the insurer declared the ship a total loss (Constructive total loss ), after which it was sold to German terminators and renamed Tula. After it had reached on 18 April 1976 tow Brunsbuttel, was a resale of a Spanish shipyard demolition. On 13 June 1976, the Tula finally arrived for scrapping in Santander one. It was the first ever scrapped VLCC and the hitherto largest ever scrapped ship

The effects of the oil entry

Although the leaked from the Metula amount of oil was the second largest after the beaches of the Torrey Canyon quantity released, due to the local conditions, such as near the ship to the surrounding coastal area, and the wind and Tidenverhältnisse in Metula reached the hitherto largest amount of oil to a coast, including the island of Tierra del Fuego, which defines the eastern part of the Strait of Magellan to the South. Since the result of the accident almost no cleaning work on the Chilean coast were carried out, the affected area in the years after the accident to the research field to study the consequences and the degradation of oil entries in nature was. In particular, the comparison with the later Exxon Valdez accident was always drawn back, held their oil entry in a climatically similar area, in contrast to Metula accident but moved consuming cleaning up after themselves.

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