Authorities have completed the fuel oil removal from the sunken tanker Volgoneft-239, which ran aground in the Kerch Strait in mid-December 2024.
According to the Associated Press, the Volgoneft-239 will now be cleaned and prepared for being dismantled. The fate of the second tanker, the Volgoneft-212, remains undecided after the boat sank beneath the waves. So far, oil from the spill has washed up along beaches in Russia’s Krasnodar region, as well as in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions of Crimea and the Berdyansk Spit, some 145 kilometers (90 miles) north of the Kerch Strait.
The oil spill followed a storm on December 14-15, 2024, that severely damaged two aging tankers. The Volgoneft-212 snapped in half after being struck by a large wave, with its bow sinking and the stern eventually succumbing to the storm.
Together, the two tankers carried 9,200 metric tons of oil products.
