Chinese blast unleashed oil spill as big as Exxon Valdez

WHILE the eyes of the world were fixed on the unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, China was battling a huge oil slick of its own and, in keeping with Beijing's customary secrecy, they didn't tell anyone.

•Picture: Getty

Official estimates for the size of the crude oil leak which gushed into the Yellow Sea on 16 July after a pipeline explosion at the north-eastern industrial hub of Dalian still stand at 1,500 tons.

Yet yesterday an American expert put the size of the leak at anything up to 90,000 tons - something around the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster that devastated a large part of Alaska's shoreline in 1989.

The Chinese government has said the pipeline exploded after workers continued to inject an agent to strip sulphur from oil after a tanker had finished unloading its cargo at Dalian's Xingang port, causing a raging fire which saw 100ft flames threaten one of the country's key strategic oil reserves.

Rick Steiner, a former University of Alaska marine conservation specialist, was asked by Greenpeace China to make an estimate of the size of the spill. Over the course of a ten-day survey, he estimated 60,000 tons to 90,000 tons of oil actually spilled into the Yellow Sea.

The size of the offshore area affected by the spill is likely more than 400 square miles, Mr Steiner added.

His estimates, though approximate, could complicate China's efforts to move on from its latest environmental disaster: Dalian's mayor has already declared a "decisive victory" in the oil spill clean-up, state media reported this week.

The spill has caused at least one death when a clean-up worker drowned in the thick crude, and thousands of Dalian residents have used everything from their hands to chopsticks to pick the tarry oil from the sea.

"It's enormous. That's at least as large as the official estimate of the Exxon Valdez disaster" in Alaska, Mr Steiner said yesterday. "It's habitual for governments to understate oil spills," he added. "But the severity of the discrepancy is unusual here."

An official with Dalian's information department said he was not aware of Mr Steiner's estimates and had no comment. "I think we should follow the figures released by the city government," said the official who did not give his full name.

The oil terminal is owned by China National Petroleum Corporation. Firefighters at the scene of the explosion told Greenpeace China that workers had let oil escape from nearby tanks to reduce the risk a tank containing dimethylbenzene would explode as well.

Mr Steiner said his estimates came from the fact an oil storage tank destroyed in the explosion had a capacity of about 90,000 tons and reportedly had just been filled by the tanker.

He said his lower estimate of 60,000 tons came from the rate of oil recovery by thousands of fishing boats used in the clean-up. "They've already collected more oil than the official estimate of the spill size," he said. He praised the makeshift clean-up efforts: "Very low-tech. The thing is that it worked."

Mr Steiner said an explosion of dimethylbenzene would have caused a toxic cloud and forced an evacuation of everyone within at least two miles.

Yang Ailun, Greenpeace's climate campaign manager, said the valves on the oil storage facilities at Dalian's Xingang port were not sealed until 22 July.

As many as 4,000 fishing boats were recruited in a "low-tech" ten-day clean-up mission off Dalian's coast, using buckets to scoop the oil out of the water.

But the residual oil in Dalian's coastal waters could still cause untold damage to nearby fisheries and shrimp farms as it disperses, and the full impact on local marine life could last more than a decade, Mr Steiner said.

"There is still quite a bit of oil in the water. There are many miles of beaches heavily oiled and this clean-up has to continue certainly throughout August and possibly through the autumn."

The residual oil in Dalian's coastal waters could still cause untold damage to fisheries and shrimp farms as it disperses, and the full impact on local marine life could last more than a decade, Mr Steiner said.

Some Chinese environmental experts have said the spill's effects around Dalian?will be felt for years.

Both Mr Steiner and Greenpeace China warned their oil spill estimates could be 50 per cent off because of the lack of information. They put "information transparency" at the top of their list of demands.

"(The oil] could have spread to North Korea by now. As far as we know, nobody knows," Mr Steiner said.