Oman: Oil From Grounded Tanker Reaches Shore

Oil from the tanker that has lain grounded off Oman’s southern coast since the end of June has reached land for the first time. Oman’s Environment Authority said on Wednesday that beaches in the Ras Madrakah area, more than 200 kilometers from the grounding site, have been contaminated, and that oil is expected on the southern beaches of Masirah island within hours. Serbia has already felt this shipping corridor through price: we reported earlier on the tanker hit in the Strait of Hormuz and on oil above 84 dollars a barrel, and now the same stretch of water is producing an environmental bill that, given this ship’s ownership structure, nobody appears positioned to pick up.

Until now the spill had stayed out at sea, around the Halaniyat archipelago. The Omani state agency ONA carried a statement from the Authority saying “today’s monitoring results showed that some beaches in the Ras Madrakah area have been hit by oil contamination.” The Authority expects up to 40 kilometers of coastline to be affected there. On the southern beaches of Masirah, which lies about 15 kilometers off the Omani coast, a stretch of 10 to 20 kilometers is projected to be soiled.

The Authority also said “specialized teams continue to carry out surveillance, monitoring and response operations,” with measures to contain the spread of the contamination prioritizing the most ecologically sensitive zones.

A Reserve the Ship Sailed Into

According to the Omani Environment Authority’s latest analysis, reported by Muscat on Monday, the slick covers about 390 square kilometers and is concentrated around the Halaniyat archipelago. Greenpeace and other environmental groups say the real extent is considerably larger than the official estimate.

The archipelago was granted marine reserve status last year, on account of sea turtle habitats and other species, which means the grounded ship sits inside a protected zone. Greenpeace warned last week of the risk of an oil disaster unlike anything recorded in these waters before, unless the spill is brought under control urgently.

How the Ship Ended Up There

The timeline is short, and fits inside two months:

• June 8: the crew reported a suspected explosion while the ship was sailing along the coast of Yemen. The British maritime security firm Vanguard told AFP that the blast breached several sections of the vessel and let water in.
• June 30: the tanker ran aground near Al Qibliyah island in the Halaniyat archipelago, about 22 nautical miles, roughly 41 kilometers, from the Omani coastal town of Sharbithat.
• August 13: oil reaches the beaches of Ras Madrakah, on land for the first time.

Omani authorities have not yet established the cause of the incident. A spokesperson for the International Maritime Organization (IMO) said the agency is closely following the leak and that the seasonal monsoon has limited access to the ship and delayed salvage operations, while the oil from the grounding site keeps drifting northeast.

Whose Ship Is It, and Who Pays for the Damage?

Formally, the owner is Rentoor Shipmanagement and the operator is Villar Shipmanagement, both based in China, according to the OpenSanctions database. Caroline Bezengi was built in 2001 and last sailed under the flag of Cameroon. Western governments classify it as part of the so-called shadow fleet used to skirt the sanctions regime imposed on Russian oil exports after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The tanker is under sanctions from the European Union, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Canada and Ukraine.

How much oil is involved depends on whose estimate is used. Greenpeace and the organization PAX told AFP the ship was carrying about a million barrels of crude. Christopher D’Elia, professor emeritus at Louisiana State University and a spill expert, estimated for Al Jazeera that the vessel held about 800,000 barrels, which he called “a fairly large spill.”

D’Elia stopped there, because the legal side of the story is thinner than the technical one:

These illegal tankers do not follow the “polluter pays” principle that underpins how the United States and other developed countries regulate spills. A “responsible party” is required to fund the cleanup in the United States. In this case, there is no responsible party.

For a coastline that will take months to clean, that is the difference between a bill someone signs and a bill the state is left holding.

A Second Slick, on the Iranian Side

On the opposite side of the same waterway, the Iranian state agency IRNA reported on Wednesday that an oil slick in the Strait of Hormuz had reached Qeshm island, contaminating beaches and an ecologically sensitive mangrove forest, along with parts of neighboring Hengam island. TankerTrackers, a website that tracks ship movements, says the slick appears to trace back to Iran’s attack on the bulk carrier Minoan Pioneer, carried out in Omani waters on August 3.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Bakai told reporters that contamination had been observed at three locations, both on the sea surface, and that the source appeared to be a “foreign bulk carrier,” without specifying which one.

Any party that benefits from commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is legally and morally obligated to take measures to compensate for and remediate the environmental damage inflicted on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

Tehran raises the question of cost this way, without naming who should pay it. Muscat is in the same position with its own ship, except its oil has already reached the sand.

The next data points to watch are the state of Masirah’s southern beaches, from the Authority’s daily monitoring, and the first break in the monsoon long enough for rescue crews to actually reach the tanker.