Barge with Nearly 500,000 Gallons of Oil Sinks in northern Brazil; Risk of Leakage Called Small

Belem, Brazil 2/4/2000

The 70-meter barge (230-foot), operating under contract for Texaco, Inc., sank on Friday while its crew was loading 14,000 barrels of heavy fuel oil.

The barge sank and was sitting upright about 10 meters (30 feet) below the surface in waters of the Para River near the city of Belem, 2,350 kilometers (1,460 miles) north of Sao Paulo.

"There are no signs of oil leaking from the barrels," said laury Ramos, a Belem Port Authority official.

The barge sank with a cargo of 1.8 million liters (470,000 gallons) of oil.

Authorities were investigating the cause of the incident.

Texaco and local authorities were studying ways to salvage the oil without polluting the river, said Texaco's worldwide emergency response director, Harry Rich.

He said salvage teams may either refloat the barge or extract the oil with tubes and transfer it to another vessel. A decision as to which method will be used is expected to be made later this week.

(NOTE: Investigating incidents involving water on oil is the responsibility of the U.S. Coast Guard. The Chemical Safety Board's statutory authority specifically excludes investigating such incidents. Information about this incident is presented for the reader's information only.)

http://chemsafety.gov/circ/post.cfm?incident_id=4655

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 08, 2000