Clean-up off Qingdao Continues After Oil Spill from Ship Collision

Clean-up work continued on Wednesday near the Chinese port city of Qingdao, a day after a yet-to-be determined quantity of oil spilled into the Yellow Sea after a tanker carrying around a million barrels of bitumen mix collided with a bulk vessel in thick fog.

“There are oil spill experts on the scene that have started clean-up operations,” said a spokesman for Goodwood Ship Management, manager of the Liberia-flagged tanker, A Symphony, that was at anchor when involved in the collision with bulk shipping vessel Sea Justice.

China’s Shandong Maritime Safety Administration on Tuesday instructed ships to stay at least 10 nautical miles from A Symphony, but didn’t provide details on how much oil has leaked.

Hong Kong-based fuel trading company Run Cheng International Resource (HK) Co has said it was the owner of the 150,000-tonne cargo of bitumen blend on board A Symphony.

Bitumen mix, a blend of heavy crude oils and residues, is used by China’s independent refiners as an alternative refining feedstock as it often incurs lower import tax than crude oil and can be used for road surfacing and roofing.

(Reuters - Reporting by Beijing and Singapore energy team; Writing by Shivani Singh; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)