Recovery of 1.4M liters of oil now in ‘full blast’ – PCG

PCG says about 200,000 liters of oil are expected to be siphoned out from the motor tanker daily.

MANILA, Philippines — The recovery of 1.4 million liters of industrial fuel oil (IFO) in a sunken tanker in Manila Bay is now in “full blast”, the Philippine Coast Guard said on Wednesday.

“We already started today (siphoning off oil),” said Coast Guard Station Bataan Commander Michael John Encina in a virtual briefing. “This will be the full-blast siphoning.”

Encina said that, as of Wednesday, around 46,999 liters of IFO mixed with sea water had been collected on the tanks of Motor Tanker (MT) Terra Nova before the full blast siphoning.

READ: 47,000 liters of oil collected from sunken ship in Manila Bay

With the full-blast siphoning, Encina said the daily target of extracting 200,000 liters—or roughly 9,000 liters per hour—of IFO-mixed seawater is likely to be reached.

“It is not entirely purely IFO but a mix of seawater as well because we want to maintain the integrity of the ship and move and at the same we prevent its buoyancy,” Encina noted.

Last July 25, MT Terranova, capsized and eventually submerged off Bataan, killing a crew member.

The spillage spread up to the coasts of Manila and nearby provinces.