Ministry of Transport promised to develop measures to prevent oil tanker derailments

The Ministry of Transport of Russia together with representatives of the shipping industry plans to develop a set of measures aimed at preventing oil tanker wrecks. This was announced on Thursday, December 19, by the head of the Ministry Roman Starovoit at a meeting of the expert council on the sea and river fleet.

"I cannot but mention the tragedy that occurred in the Kerch Strait with two tankers. Rostransnadzor is investigating, based on the results we plan to develop together with the shipping community a balanced set of measures to ensure the prevention of similar situations in the future," - his words are quoted in the Telegram-channel of the Ministry.

It is specified that during the meeting two federal laws extending the special regime of the Russian International Ship Register were also adopted, and a solution was found to confirm the registration of ships in customs authorities.

Storm bias: what could have led to the tragedy in the Kerch Strait

The design of tankers built for river transportation was not designed for a sea storm

Earlier, on December 15, tankers Volgoneft-212 andVolgoneft-239suffered a disaster in the Kerch Strait due to bad weather. As a result, there was a spill of oil products.

The first vessel evacuated 13 people: one of them died, 11 were injured. All 14 crew members were evacuated from the tanker Volgoneft-239 on Monday. Two criminal cases were opened over the incident, one of which was reclassified as more serious because of the death of a sailor.

Governor of the Krasnodar region Veniamin Kondratiev said that after the oil spill in four settlements of the Kuban introduced a state of high alert. Later, on December 17, he specified that after the accident with two tankers fuel oil was carried ashore for dozens of kilometers, two municipalities of the region introduced a state of emergency. Specialists have determined the algorithm of works on cleaning.

December 19, it became known that more than 860 tons of soil contaminated with oil products were removed from the Black Sea coast. Before that it was also reported that rescuers and volunteers collected about 80 tons of petroleum products on the coastline.