Operation to drain fuel from sunken ship off Bulgarian coast to resume in spring 2019

The operation to drain fuel from the tanks of the US vessel the Mopang, that sank off the Bulgarian Black Sea coast in 1921 and from which fuel leaked in summer 2018, will resume in the spring, the Maritime Administration said on November 28.

Oil spills led to a special operation beginning in September 2018 to drain the fuel from the tanks of the sunken vessel.

Commencement of the operation was a stop-start affair because of the weather. Now it is being suspended again because of the weather, a news conference by the Maritime Administration was told.

About half of the fuel has been drained.

The executive director of the Maritime Administration, Captain Zhivko Petrov, said that so far, two tanks had been emptied and two holds the ship had been checked.

The floating barriers placed off Sozopol on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast in summer 2018 to contain the spill of fuel from the wreck of the Mopang. Photo: Bulgarian Transport Ministry.

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