Emergency situation declared in Crimea after Black Sea oil spill

An emergency situation has been declared in the Black Sea port city of Sevastopol, Crimea, as oil spills from a Dec. 15 tanker collision have stretched to coastlines along both sides of the Kerch Strait.

On Jan. 4, Russian authorities formally announced an emergency in Sevastopol, as leaking fuel oil washed up along the Crimean coastline more than 250 km from where the collision occurred.

The Russian river-sea tankers Volgoneft 212 and Volgoneft 239 were carrying more than 4,000 mt of fuel oil when storm conditions triggered a crash in the Kerch Strait, which runs between Crimea's Kerch Peninsula and Russia's Krasnodar region, connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

The ships are estimated to have spilled around 2,400 mt of the heavy oil product, according to Rosmorrechflot, Russia's Federal Agency for Sea and Inland Water Transport.

In a Telegram statement, Mikhail Razvozhaev, the Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol, said that 84.5 mt of contaminated soil were removed from the areas Jan. 5 as clean-up efforts on the Crimean side of the passage have been stepped up to respond to the expanding oil leak.

According to S&P Global Commodities at Sea data and market sources, shipping activity through the passage has continued mostly uninterrupted as cleanup efforts have focused mostly along coastal beach areas, allowing oil and chemical exports to continue uninterrupted from Black Sea ports including Ukraine's Kerch port, Russia's Temryuk and Novorossiisk.

CAS data shows that Russian Black Sea oil exports, including crude and refined products, totaled 2.2 million b/d in Dec. 2024, down slightly from 2.6 million b/d in 2023, however oil product flows alone were higher year-on year.

Cleanup activity

Although regional authorities initially assured that the incident would only trigger a partial oil spill, Krasnodar authorities declared an emergency on Dec. 16 and continued to mobilize more than 8,000 volunteers and local authorities to clear up the spillage.

On Jan. 5, new oil spills were detected off Vityazevo and nearby Anapa, one of the worst-hit areas on the Krasnodar, Russia's Tass news reported, citing the Ministry of Emergency situations.

In a Telegram statement Jan. 6, Krasnodar governor Veniamin Kordratiev said that more than 118,000 mt of oil-contaminated sand has already been collected and removed from the coast of Anapa and the Temryuk district, with work still underway "around the clock" across the region.

Clean-up efforts have largely focused around coastal areas due to difficulties capturing the waterborne M100 fuel oil, which freezes at lower temperatures due to its high density and begins to solidify at temperatures of around 25 degrees, according to Rosmorrechflot and experts.

Experts are currently pressurizing leakage points on the tankers, while plans are underway to offload fuel oil from the stern of Volgoneft 239, which ran aground after the incident, Rosmorrechflot has said.