Oil Tanker Collides With Tanker Off Chinese Coast, Spilling Contents Into Yellow Sea

An oil tanker collided with a bulk carrier earlier Tuesday off the Chinese port of Qingdao and spilled its contents into the Yellow Sea, with a potential for a million barrels of fuel released into the water.

Accident At Sea: Qingdao is a major port in China’s Shandong province, a base for many of the country’s independent oil refineries. The Suezmax tanker, a Goodwood Ship Management vessel named A Symphony, suffered a double hull breach when the bulk carrier Sea Justice collided with it.

Suezmax Daily shared two photographers of the damage on its Twitter TWTR page:

“The force of the impact on the forward port side caused a breach in way of No. 2 Port ballast tank, with a quantity of oil lost into the ocean,” said Goodwood in an emailed statement to Reuters. “All of the crew have since been accounted for, and there are no injuries.”

According to a Bloomberg report, the leak has been listed as being at an emergency response stage, which is at a level below pollution-evaluation, and an alert from China’s Maritime Safety Administration instructed vessels to remain at least 11.5 miles away from the site of the collision.

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An Earlier Mishap: The collision marks the second time this month that Pacific Rim waters were home to a collision between a tanker and cargo ship.

According to a Xinhua report, the Philippine Coast Guard reported a collision on April 7 between the Thailand-registered tanker Rich Rainbow, which was en route from the Philippines to China, and the Marshall Islands-registered Ivy Alliance off the coast of Cavite City. Although the collision caused holes in both ships, no oil was spilled into the sea.