The Philippines rushed ships and equipment on Monday to the seas surrounding the central island of Guimaras to stop the country s potentially largest oil spill from spreading to other coastal areas. The Philippine Coast Guard said it had sent two ships to search for two missing crew and help in the clean up of bunker oil that leaked from a tanker which sank near Guimaras on Friday.

"Based on an aerial survey yesterday, the spill now covers 15 square nautical miles," Lieutenant Joseph Coyme, Coast Guard spokesman, told Reuters. "If we consider that all 2 million litres of bunker oil spilt, then this would be the largest oil spill in the country," he added. Coyme said the coastguard was still trying to determine how much bunker oil had seeped from the submerged tanker, Solar 1, which was chartered by Petron Corp., the countrys largest oil refiner. Petron and rival Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. were also sending two tugboats and oil spill equipment.

The coast guard said bunker oil had spread to the southern and eastern parts of the Guimaras coastline and to five communities in Nueva Valencia town in Iloilo province. "Because of the prevailing southwest monsoon condition, and the wind and current direction, it is predicted that the coastal areas of Iloilo and Negros Occidental would be affected," a coastguard statement said. Solar 1 sank while enroute to deliver bunker oil to a power plant in the southern island of Mindanao. Eighteen crew were rescued.

The spill was the second in eight months. In December, a barge belonging to state-owned National Power Corp. spilled almost 1 million litres of bunker oil along the coastal villages of Semirara island in central Philippines.
(Planet Ark, 15/08/2006)