Russia puts cost of Black Sea oil spill at almost $1bn

By AFP

Russia on Friday put the cost of a massive Black Sea oil spill in December from two tankers at almost $1 billion, which it is attempting to claim back from the ships' owners.

The head of Russia's environmental watchdog, Rosprirodnadzor, Svetlana Radionova, told a government meeting on the clean-up that the "total sum presented to the polluting companies is 84.9 billion rubles ($998 million)".

The ships' owners have a month to pay up voluntarily or face court action, she said, according to a statement released by the government.

The two ageing ships -- the Volgoneft-212 and the Volgoneft-239 carrying around 9,000 tonnes of mazut, a type of heavy fuel oil -- were hit by a storm on December 15 in the Kerch Strait between Moscow-annexed Crimea and the southern Russian Krasnodar region.

One of the tankers broke up and partially sank, with one sailor drowning, while the other ran aground. The spill amounted to over 2,000 tonnes of oil products.

One of the tankers then spilled out more fuel in January but the ships are no longer leaking, according to the emergencies ministry.

Under Western sanctions, Russia has resorted to using a so-called "shadow fleet" of mostly old tankers to export its fuels around the world.

An investigation by Russia's transport watchdog concluded Friday that the main reason for the spill was that the vessels were not certified to sail in this area of sea at that time of year.

In addition, they did not have the required numbers of qualified navigators on board, the transport ministry said in a statement.

The owners of the tankers face criminal charges for safety violations.

Oil from the spill is still emerging in an area of beach resorts. Mazut sinks to the bottom of the sea instead of floating on top, making it hard to clean up.