Port Said, Egypt - Workers on Wednesday were cleaning up an oil spill in the Suez Canal, where a Kuwaiti company said its tanker hit a pier and spilled 10 000m3 of oil into the water in the second significant incident at the waterway in less than six weeks.
Oil leaked from the Europe-bound al-Samidoun between Qantara and Port Said, a Mediterranean port city at the north end of the Suez Canal.
Abdullah al-Roumi, who heads the Kuwait Oil Tankers, told the Kuwait News Agency the tanker was "under the command" of canal authorities when it hit a pier. However, Admiral Ahmed Fadel, chairperson of the Suez Canal Authority, denied the tanker had struck anything.
Fadel said only that the leak came from a fissure in the side of the al-Samidoun. Canal traffic was not affected, he said.
Special units with Suez Canal Authority have started cleaning up the spill, and the authority has formed a committee to estimate the losses, Fadel said.
Al-Roumi was quoted by Kuna as saying his company has offered to help with the cleanup. He praised canal authorities' quick response to containing the spill.
Another Kuwaiti tanker, Kathima, was expected to arrive in the coming days to take on the rest of al-Samidoun's load. The Kuwait-flagged al-Samidoun was built in South Korea in 1992.
On November 6, a Liberian-registered fuel tanker with mechanical problems ran aground and was stranded in the Suez Canal for three days, blocking the strategic waterway to all other shipping traffic. About 100 ships waited at both entrances.
The canal, one of Egypt's main foreign currency earners, is expecting record earnings in 2004 of an estimated $3-billion.
Nearly 50 ships a day, on average, pass through the 190km canal connecting the Mediterranean and Red seas to avoid a longer, costlier route around South Africa. - Sapa-AP