Gulf Oil Spill Fears Grow as Blasts Hit Ship

A series of explosions rocked the already crippled and burning tanker Mega Borg in the Gulf of Mexico Sunday afternoon, raising fears of an environmental disaster if the ship sinks with its cargo of 38 million gallons of crude oil.

The explosions damaged tanks holding some of the oil, sending a torrent of burning crude toward the stern of the ship and into the water. The five explosions occurred over a 10-minute period shortly after noon.

Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Todd Nelson said the blasts were in the aft portion of the ship near the area of the engine room, a part of the tanker that has been burning out of control since the first explosions at 1 a.m. Saturday.

In that first set of explosions, two men were killed, and two others are still missing. Seventeen other crewmen were injured, none of them seriously.

Until the explosions Sunday afternoon, the Coast Guard had been relatively confident that the tanker would not sink. But the ship, which is anchored 57 miles southeast of Galveston, Tex., listed by several degrees at the stern after the latest blasts, and Coast Guard Capt. Tom Greene upgraded the chance of a catastrophic incident from slight to moderate.

Nelson said that the tanker was “squatting quite a bit and listing to port” and that the burning oil was “spilling out the back of the tanker, like water would if you tip a glass.”

He called it fortunate that the oil was burning after it hit the water.

“It’s good that it’s burning because (that) removes it quickly” from the water, he said. “We intend to let it burn.”

The first of the explosions occurred early Saturday when the 853-foot-long Norwegian tanker was transferring crude oil to a smaller tanker so that the petroleum could be brought into the port of Houston. Flames shot high into the air, and the Mega Borg has been burning since.

At a news conference before the latest round of explosions, Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Frank Whipple said that salvage crews plan to keep the tanker’s hull cool by spraying it with water and that an all-out assault on the fires will begin Monday. The bodies of the two dead crewmen were removed from the deck Sunday afternoon.

Smit America, the Galveston salvage operator hired by the tanker owners, is assembling a team of firefighters, who are expected to begin their work Monday morning. The plan is to circle the tanker with six fireboats and send teams to the forward decks in a blitz against the fire.

Earlier Sunday, several members of the Smit America salvage team went aboard the vessel and were able to shut several valves to the ship’s tanks.

Nelson said that, although much of the firefighting equipment was in place by Sunday afternoon, it would have been useless to begin the operation then because the most optimistic estimate of the time needed to douse the flames is a full day. The firefighting efforts would have had to stop Sunday when darkness set in.

“They’re going to put foam on it and try to beat it back,” Nelson said, explaining the plans for the Monday operation.

Meanwhile, the Coast Guard’s Atlantic Strike Team from Mobile, Ala., has also been sent in, as have other emergency groups. They have brought in, among other things, a 600-foot barrier boom for use if the ship sinks and the millions of gallons of crude oil have to be contained.

Four Coast Guard cutters were around the tanker Sunday while two ships from Smit America sprayed the hull. The Mega Borg’s owners have also contracted to have a plane spread dispersants over the estimated 7,000 gallons of crude oil that has been spilled so far. Nelson said that a Coast Guard plane in Houston is loaded with dispersants to be used in the event of a major oil spill.

Whipple said that no cause has been found for the original explosion, and Nelson said the dead and missing men are the ones who would know what happened.

The tanker was loaded with oil at Palanca, Angola. It was scheduled to travel to the Caribbean island of Aruba after unloading the oil in Houston. The captain and crew were said to be either from India or the Philippines.

OIL TANKER CONFERENCE--Oil company executives gathered in Monterey for a conference on tanker shipping. D1