Singapore oil spill: Minister refutes claim that contractor was slow in preventing further spillage
- Published
by Admin
Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat on Tuesday (2 July) defended the response time of contractor T&T Salvage Asia (T&T) to the oil spill incident on 14 June, following an allision between two vessels in Singapore.
T&T was engaged by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) after Singapore-flagged bunker vessel Marine Honour was hit by Netherlands-flagged dredger Vox Maxima at Pasir Panjang Terminal, which resulted in an oil spill in Singapore waters.
Chee was responding to Workers’ Party MP Dennis Tan who raised several supplementary questions following Chee’s ministerial statement in Parliament.
Tan, who is a a practising shipping lawyer at a maritime law firm, highlighted that it has been reported that T&T was mobilised on the same day of the collision at about 2.55pm and it took them just over 14 hours before they were mobilised and finished laying the 200-metre containment booms.
He then questioned Chee why the Oil Spill Response Limited (ORL), the largest international industry funded cooperative providing oil spill response services, was not mobilised concurrently with T&T Salvage Asia, “especially with the view to reduce the deployment time and to reduce the subsequent spread of the oil spill.”
Responding to Tan, Chee said: “There’s a certain underlying assumption, which is that T&T Salvage had been slow and had not been doing its work properly. If I understood him (Tan) correctly, I think that’s not the case.”
“Mr Tan is a maritime lawyer. I’m sure he understands these are not lightweight equipment. These are heavy equipment that will require time to load up onto the vessel.”
Chee also highlighted Captain Anuj Sahai, managing director of T&T Salvage Asia, said in a media interview that the crew was working at night and under bad weather conditions and so “they did their best to deploy heavy containment booms as quickly as they could”.
“And I would say, given the weather conditions, nightfall and the amount of work that is required to lay out the booms, I think TNT did their best and the response time was in line with the industry practices internationally,” Chee added.
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Photo credit: Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore
Published: 4 July, 2024
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