Singapore-made siphoning machine to recover remaining oil from sunken tanker

DISASTER AT SEA An expert team from the Japan Disaster Relief helps the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) in containing the oil spill from the sunken fuel tanker, MT Princess Empress, off the waters of Oriental Mindoro in this photo taken on March 16, 2023. —PCG PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — A siphoning machine from Singapore is set to arrive in the country to recover the remaining oil stored inside the submerged tanker in Oriental Mindoro, which has been devastated by a massive oil spill, the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) said on Thursday.

OCD administrator Ariel Nepomuceno said the equipment will arrive around the end of May, and it is tasked to siphon what remains of the estimated 900,000 liters of industrial fuel oil until the end of June.

“Matutupad yung pagdating na inaasahan natin na siphoning vessel ng Singapore. Ito na yung magsisimula ng solusyon sa problema natin sa oil spill,” Nepomuceno said in a press briefing in OCD headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City.

(The arrival of a siphoning vessel from Singapore will be fulfilled. This will be the solution to our oil spill problem.)

“Darating yan ng huling linggo ng Mayo, at inaasahan natin na sa halos isang buwan ang operations niyan, tuluyan nang mawawala ang langis na nakaimbak pa sa lumubog na tanker,” he added.

(It will arrive by the last week of May, and we expect that in its month-long duration, the fuel in the submerged oil tanker will be fully gone.)

The oil spill ensued after MT Princess Empress sank on February 28, in Naujan, Oriental Mindoro after experiencing engine trouble due to rough sea condition.

The spillage reached as far as Verde Island in Batangas, and Taytay town in Palawan.

Clean-up operations by the PCG and local government have been ongoing since.

JPV