The Maritime Captaincy of Ceuta has agreed this Friday to request from the owner of the 'K-Onset' , the ship that on Tuesday spilled 25,000 liters of fuel oil in the city's port , a guarantee of 600,000 euros to allow the ship to leave the city and lift the arrest warrant against him.
The body headed by Francisco Sierra has estimated at 250,000 euros the amount of the penalty that the company of the Turkish ship flying the Liberian flag could have to face for the event .
Added to this amount is the budget estimated by Ecoceuta and Amarres Ceuta to compensate for the work they do to remove and decontaminate the area affected by the spill, which amounts to 290,000 and 60,000 euros, respectively.
The deposit of a guarantee for an amount equivalent to those 600,000 euros is just one of the conditions that the Captaincy has imposed to allow the ship to sail again, which has already been transferred from the Levante dock, where the spill took place during an operation. of hydrocarbon supply, until the fourth alignment of the Poniente .
The provisional repair that will need to be carried out in the tank, which has a gap 32 centimeters long and one wide through which the fuel oil escaped into the water, still needs to be carried out.
The captain of the ship alerted at 7:45 p.m. on Tuesday that a spill was occurring through its hull and the Port Authority activated its Inland Maritime Plan. Thanks to the help of the west wind, the hydrocarbons moved towards the Alfau dock, where in the following 48 hours " 80%" of the spill was collected , as Juan Manuel Doncel estimated this Thursday.
The Port plans to maintain a guard checkpoint to continue removing fuel oil from the water sheet , as well as containment and absorption barriers to prevent the hydrocarbons from spreading to other points within the mouth, where Obimasa has estimated that the population of 'Patella Ferruginea' has not been affected.
The infraction would be classified as serious or very serious
Depending on what is established in the agreement to adopt provisional measures for the ship, the episode could constitute a failure "to comply with the provisions of Royal Legislative Decree 2/2011, of September 5, which approves the Consolidated Text of the Law on State Ports and the Merchant Navy, and international maritime legislation, an infraction that would be classified as serious or very serious".
After what happened, the captain of the vessel, which did not have a pending Paris MoU inspection (harmonized inspections carried out on foreign vessels by Spain), must deliver "a report on the facts that identifies the causes of the accident, as well as the corrective measures adopted to prevent this type of accident from happening again.
The Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, through the Maritime Captaincy of Ceuta, of the General Directorate of the Merchant Navy, has stressed that the shipowner will continue to be immobilized until he pays the guarantees required in the General Deposit Fund of the Public Treasury and repairs the crack in the hull, which would allow its exit towards the discharge port.