vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn  

HCM CITY — A private enterprise, the Dai Minh Company, has been established to clean up oil spills off the country’s southern coast.

According to Dai Minh director Hoang Van Loc, his is the first private company in the country to become involved in clearing oil spills.

"To ensure the service is of high quality, we have had to import special-purpose equipment, mainly from Switzerland, while also spending a considerable amount on training oil clean-up workers," Loc said.

"The company can provide around-the-clock services which are capable of mopping up some hundred tonnes of spilled oil on the seas and the rivers surrounding HCM City and the provinces of Dong Nai and Ba Ria-Vung Tau."

To date, the Dai Minh Company has signed contracts with three partners specialising in trading and transporting petroleum products, Loc said.

Waterways and bays in HCM City and its surrounding areas have a woeful track record with oil spills, with several major spills occurring since 1994.

In one instance in 1994, nearly 130 tonnes of FO oil poured into a river in the coastal district of Can Gio after a collision between two ships.

Less than half a year later, almost 2,000 tonnes of DO oil was spilled from the Singaporean ship Neptune Aires after it crashed into the Cai Lai oil refinery’s wharf.

The catalogue of disasters continued in 1996 when 70 tonnes of DO oil gushed into the river at Cat Lai Port in Thu Duc District.

In March 2000, a boat illegally drained oil on the Long Tau River in Can Gio District, leaving a 5km long trail of oil on the river and in nearby canals.

The most recent major oil spill happened off the coast of Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province after a collision between a Vietnamese tanker and a Taiwanese ship in early September 2001.

Consequently, some 900cu.m of DO oil from the Vitaco Company’s 30,000 DWT oil tanker Petrolimex 01 poured into the Ba Ria-Vung Tau Sea, causing extensive environmental damage at nearby tourist beaches, shrimp farms and mangrove forests.

Total financial losses caused by the disaster were estimated at VND250 billion (US$16 million) while costs for cleaning up polluted waters and beaches reached VND60 billion ($4 million).

Transport officials claim the main reason for the spills is the carelessness of those employed in the industry.

Human error has been judged to be the cause of 80 per cent of all waterway accidents in south Viet Nam.

Meanwhile, environmentalists have complained that in spite of the increased number of oil spills in domestic waters, the mop-up operations have often been slow and inefficient, with localities and relevant agencies being unprepared for such disasters.

Experts say the authorities lack proper equipment, qualified oil spillage personnel and adequate co-ordination. — VNS

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