Cleaning up Black Sea after fuel spill could take decade, Russian officials say

Cleaning the Black Sea and its coastline from fuel oil spilled as a result of the recent accident involving Russian tankers in the area of the Kerch Strait could take up to 10 years.

This was reported by the Voice of Crimea, referring to the head of the Russian Union of Energy and Environmental Safety, Natalia Sokolova.

"In my opinion, nothing will be cleaned up by summer. The work will take at least three full seasons. This is an optimistic scenario. In reality, it could take up to five years, and in the event of negative developments, up to 10 years," she said.

Sokolova noted that the environmental disaster is staggering in its scale: the damaged tankers were transporting not only fuel oil, but also other petroleum products of different densities. As a result, some of them have already settled on the seabed, which will be the most difficult to clean.

“In addition to fuel oil, there was gasoline, diesel fuel, and the remains of rags soaked in oils. This mixture is of different densities. The oil film on the surface was collected with boom barriers and sorbents. Heavy fractions sank to the bottom. There they are very hard to collect. They combine with bottom sediments, phytoplankton, and algae. Unfortunately, this fuel oil will resurface during high tides,” she noted.

As Ukrinform reported, on December 15, two Russian oil tankers, Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239, started sinking in the Kerch Strait. The accident was caused by a strong storm. Waves almost broke one of the vessels in half. More than 4,000 tons of fuel oil spilled into the Black Sea.