A new oil slick has been detected off the coast of Russia’s southern Krasnodar Region, this time near the Black Sea port town of Tuapse. The regional emergency response headquarters claimed the spill of petroleum products was caused by a Ukrainian drone attack on the city’s port on April 16.
The spill was found on April 19 not far from the port of Tuapse, at a distance of about 1.5 nautical miles, or roughly 2.7 kilometers. Regional authorities said specialists estimated the polluted area at about 10,000 square meters. Floating containment booms have been deployed at sea, and work is underway to contain the spill.
The headquarters also said petroleum products had entered the Tuapse River, but that the contamination there had been localized. Authorities say the cause of the spill was the Ukrainian drone strike overnight into April 16, which damaged infrastructure at the marine terminal.
The environmental monitoring project Transparent World (Prozrachny Mir) published a satellite image taken early Sunday morning on its Telegram channel. It showed the slick, which the project estimated at about 7 square kilometers. According to the researchers, wind was pushing it eastward toward the shore.
The attack on Tuapse referenced by the emergency response headquarters took place overnight into April 16. After that drone strike, technological equipment at Rosneft’s oil refinery and marine terminal caught fire. The city came under another drone attack overnight into April 20.
Earlier this week, oil pollution was also detected off the coast of the resort town of Anapa. Evidence of a spill was identified in satellite images taken on Sunday, April 12. The oil slick stretched for about 40 kilometers (just under 25 miles) from the Anapa coast out into the Black Sea.
