BY JIM GREEN
The fracture, and subsequent sinking, of the oil tanker Prestige off the Spanish coast has created a major environmental disaster, brought the region's fishing industry to a standstill and put the spotlight on the controversial oil-shipping industry.
On November 13, a mayday alert was sent from the 26-year-old Prestige, which was located about 40 kilometres from the Spanish coast. The ship was listing at a 45-degree angle and being buffeted by gale-force winds and large waves. Its steel hull had cracked and heavy fuel oil was already leaking.
The salvage company, SMIT Salvage NV, wanted to tow the ship to the relative calm of La Coruna Bay, where the remaining oil would be removed. However, the company's request to the Spanish government was refused — a decision that attracted widespread criticism.
Salvage companies typically receive far greater profits if they are able to recover oil from stricken ships, so the director general of Spain's merchant marine service, Jose Luis Lopez Sors, was able to retort: "The salvage company wants me to risk my coast and my people in a highly touristic area and for what? For their profits."
A request from SMIT to tow the ship through Spanish waters to a port in Gibraltar was also rejected by Madrid. The Spanish government insisted that the ship be towed further from the coast, leaving an oil slick in its wake. Portugal also would not allow the tanker within its territorial waters. Both Spain and Portugal dispatched warships to enforce their decisions.
SMIT decided to head toward the Cape Verde islands off the African coast, west of Senegal — more than 3000 kilometres away — in the hope of finding water calm enough to allow transfer of the oil to another vessel. On November 17, the Portuguese warship Joao Coutinho ordered the Prestige not to come within 320 kilometres of Portugal's coast. Consequently, the Prestige was towed further west, into rougher seas.
By the morning of November 19, the ship was breaking apart. That afternoon, it sank about 200 kilometres west of Spain and Portugal, in an area rich in marine and bird life known as the Galicia Bank. The Prestige joined over 200 other tankers on the bottom of the world's oceans.
Environmental impacts
About 60,000 tonnes of oil, out of the original cargo of 70,000 tonnes, remains in the sunken Prestige. It may have solidified because of the pressure and low temperatures. However, the risk of further pollution remains if rust or the effects of high water pressure rupture the oil storage tanks.
"The oil cannot stay there, it will come out eventually", said Eco Matsers of Greenpeace in Amsterdam. Ominous oil slicks have been identified in the area where the ship sank, although they may be the ship's fuel rather than the cargo.
Much of the 10,000 tonnes of oil which escaped has washed up on more than 100 beaches along several hundred kilometres of the Spanish coast. The thousands of oil-drenched birds are just one facet of an ecosystem and a complex food chain adversely affected by the spill.
About 7000 people involved in the Spanish fishing industry have been banned from fishing along more than 550 kilometres of coast — almost the entire north-east coast of Spain. Tens of thousands of people are experiencing the knock-on effects from the fishing ban. The tourism industry will also suffer. Fishing and tourism each account for about 10% of the economic output of the Galicia region.
KIMO International, a northern European coalition of local government authorities, warned that compensation schemes are grossly inadequate: "It seems those rogue ship owners and cargo owners who continue to ship their products in sub-standard ships can receive full compensation, but innocent victims never receive full compensation and in many cases end up taking their cases to court to recover costs."
Scandals
A November 20 article in the Economist warned that in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, "the company responsible was a giant multinational with deep pockets and an interest in keeping on the right side of the American government and the oil-rich state of Alaska. Those behind the Prestige appear to have much less to lose."
According to Will Hutton, writing in the British Observer on November 24, every aspect of the Prestige's operations was calculated to avoid tax, ownership obligations and regulatory scrutiny — this is par for the course. Many oil tankers are old, single-hulled and are inadequately crewed. The industry operates largely hidden from scrutiny and regulation, trading through a maze of companies in order to minimise tax and to avoid stronger safety and labour laws. Inspection standards are uneven and often lax. Insurance, liability and compensation arrangements are inadequate.
The ownership maze is well illustrated by the Prestige. The Japanese-built ship is owned by a one-ship (now one-wreck) Liberian-based company, Mare International (believed to be a front for the secretive Greek Coulouthros shipping dynasty), operated by Greek company Universe Maritime (with a Greek captain and a Filipino crew), registered in the Bahamas (more precisely, registered with the London-based Bahamas Maritime Authority) and was chartered by oil-trading company Crown Resources, a Swiss-based subsidiary (with mostly British directors) of a Russian industrial conglomerate, the Alpha Group.
The Bahamas Maritime Authority (BMA) openly advertises tax avoidance as its major selling point; operations and income associated with BMA-flagged ships are entirely tax-free. This "flag of convenience" registration system is one of the biggest problems in the industry.
International Transport Workers Federation (ITWF) general secretary David Cockroft pointed out on November 19: "There is a culture of secrecy and non-accountability out there. Ships and their crews will be lost every week for as long as enforcement of regulations relies largely on flag states that are allowed to turn a blind eye to their responsibilities.
"Flags of convenience ... keep their costs low by skimping or ignoring their duties to monitor and oversee 'their' ships. International law places the ultimate responsibility for the safety of the ship and the lives of the seafarers on the flag state. Those that take their responsibilities seriously risk losing ships to those which don't.
"The system continues to hand people a competitive advantage by encouraging them to run ships beyond their sell-by dates and which hide behind yesterday's international standards."
A joint letter from the ITWF, Greenpeace and the Worldwide Fund for Nature was sent to United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan after the Prestige sank to urge the elimination of the flag of convenience rort.
A "port of convenience" scam adds to the risks. In June, for example, the Prestige did not enter a Gibraltan port but simply stopped off-shore for restocking, thereby avoiding the possibility of inspection.
Liability
The ownership maze greatly complicates efforts to address liability and compensation issues. "The shipping and oil industry spares no opportunity to hide behind a legal structure so complex that liability for their actions is almost impossible to enforce", noted Ian Wilmore from Friends of the Earth in the UK.
Crown Resources was required to carry US$25.5 million in insurance — a small fraction of the growing cost of the disaster. By comparison, Exxon says it paid US$2.2 billion in clean-up costs and US$300 million to Alaskans after the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster.
The oil industry has fiercely resisted attempts to introduce a stronger liability regime and has continuously tried to deflect pressure for improvements by arguing for voluntary agreements.
European political leaders, led by French President Jacques Chirac, have said they will improve regulations on the oil-shipping industry in the wake of the disaster — but the same leaders have been dragging their feet on this for years.
In response to the Prestige disaster, Chirac called for "draconian" maritime safety regulations that would prevent "the development of these floating trash cans". But the European Commission has found that France inspected less than 10% of the ships that berthed in its ports last year, compared with European Union rules that require the inspection of at least 25%.
The UN's International Maritime Organisation and the US Congress have passed regulations to phase out single-hulled tankers between 2010 and 2015 in favour of double-hulled vessels, which are less prone to spills. Until then, oil traders will continue to profit by using cheap, ageing tankers.
ExxonMobil has twice rejected offers to charter the Prestige, deeming it too unsafe. Likewise, British oil company BP said the Prestige failed company tests in 2000. However, the big oil companies continue to charter unsafe ships even if the Prestige itself was deemed too risky to use.
More than 1.1 million tonnes of oil have been was spilt from tankers, combined carriers and barges in the 1990s; a similar amount was lost in the 1980s. It's little consolation that the figure was about three times greater in the 1970s.
From Green Left Weekly, December 4, 2002.
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