Asia/Pacific News
Singapore: Comparing Response Times to Recent Bunker Spills Not Useful, Says Minister
Comparing the response times to three recent bunker and oil spills in Singapore is not a useful exercise as the circumstances surrounding them were all different, says the country’s Minister of State for Transport, Murali Pillai.
The comments were made Monday as Pillai was responding to questions by Members of Parliament, local media reports.
As previously reported by Ship & Bunker, on June 14 of this year dredger Vox Maxima ran into the stationary bunker vessel Marine Honour at the Pasir Panjang Terminal.
Then in October about 5 mt of fuel was spilled during the bunkering of the Bahamas-flagged bulker Ines Corrado, and in a separate incident that month as much as 40 mt of slop was leaked from a pipeline.
"Given the very different natures, scales and locations of the three incidents, the time and resources required to monitor, clean up and mitigate the spread of oil from these three incidents were different,” said Murali.
"It is therefore not as useful to compare the response times for these incidents.
"It is important for us to recognise that every oil spill incident is different as there are a variety of external factors, such as tidal and current conditions, the location of the incident and the time of the incident. Some tailoring of our response to each incident will be needed.”
