MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sri Lanka is seeking at least 340 million rupees (USD1.9 million) from the owner of the stricken oil supertanker New Diamond for assistance given to the vessel since it caught fire on Sept. 3, the coordinating officer to the country's attorney general said, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Nishara Jayaratne said the cost was for services provided by various departments including the Sri Lankan navy, air force, ports authority and Marine Environment Protection Authority, among others, up until Sept. 15. The fully-loaded vessel is still in Sri Lankan waters, although the fire was completely doused last week.
Greece-based Porto Emporios Shipping Inc is the registered owner of the 20-year old Panama-flagged large crude carrier, according to Refinitiv data. New Shipping Ltd is the manager of the vessel. The vessel is chartered by Indian Oil Corp to import 2 MM barrels of oil from Kuwait to Paradip in eastern India.
The supertanker was about 90 nautical miles (167 kilometers) from Batticaloa, the eastern province of Sri Lanka, Navy spokesman Indika de Silva said. "We decided to let the salvage master do his job with no restrictions from us on maintaining distance. There is strong current in the area that pulls ship further away. Its hard to pull it back closer to land due to the heavy current," de Silva said.
The ship has left long trails of marine oil slicks. De Silva said all Indian vessels engaged in dousing the fire and subsequent activities had left Sri Lanka.
He also said the USD1.9 million claim was a preliminary sum, as the Sri Lankan Navy was still engaged in the operation. New Shipping Ltd has appointed SMIT Singapore Pte Ltd to lead salvage operations. Salvagers have already vacated the ruptured tank in the engine room and transferred the dirty water into the ballast section.
As MRC informed previously, Indian Oil Corp, the country’s top refiner, is close to winning its first contract to export up to 720,000 tons of clean products to Mauritius under an annual deal from November.
We remind that Indian Oil says it will build an integrated paraxylene (PX) and purified terephthalic acid (PTA) facility at Paradip in Odisha State, India, at an estimated investment of 138 billion Indian rupees (USD1.84 billion). The project will be completed by early 2024, with the complex planned to produce 800,000 metric tons/year of PX and 1.2 million metric tons/year of PTA, it says.
PTA is used to produce polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is used in the manufacturing of plastic bottles, films, packaging containers, in the textile and food industries.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PET consumption totalled 367,720 tonnes in the first six months of 2020, up by 19% year on year. Russian companies processed 62,910 tonnes of material in June.
MRC