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Authorities in northeastern China have mobilised 1,000 vessels to help clean up an oil spill in the Yellow Sea caused by a weekend pipeline explosion and fire, the government said on Monday.

Dozens of oil-skimming vessels were working to remove the slick off the port city of Dalian following Friday night's accident which spilled an estimated 1,500 tonnes of crude into the sea, press reports said.

Another 1,000 local fishing vessels have been ordered to aid the clean-up operation, the Dalian government said in a statement on its website.

Authorities predicted the clean-up would take 10 days.

The worst of the spill, which initially covered 50 square kilometres (19 square miles), had been reduced to 45 square kilometres as of Monday, the official China Central Television (CCTV) reported on its news website.

But a dark brown oil slick had stretched over at least 183 square kilometres of ocean, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.

The Dalian government said the last remnants of the fire had finally been put out and it declared a "decisive victory" against the spill, but did not explicitly say whether it had been completely halted.

Two pipelines exploded at an oil storage depot belonging to China National Petroleum Corp near Dalian's Xingang Harbour in Liaoning province, triggering a spectacular blaze that burned throughout the weekend. No deaths or injuries have been reported.

Authorities have since limited ship traffic at Dalian port to allow the clean-up operations to proceed, according to Xinhua.

CNPC is the country's biggest oil company.

Media reports quoted Dalian authorities saying investigators were still trying to determine the cause of the accident, which occurred after a Libyan-flagged tanker discharged its load at the port.

The tanker made it away from the oil storage facility safely, reports said.

Story from AFP
AFP 07/19/2010

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