{"id":41645,"date":"2026-08-12T21:19:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T16:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=41645"},"modified":"2026-08-12T21:19:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T16:19:25","slug":"gulf-oil-spill-fast-becoming-worst-in-years-agencies-warn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=41645","title":{"rendered":"Gulf oil spill fast becoming worst in years, agencies warn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\" data-body-type=\"bodyblocks\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">By Jonathan Saul and Catherine Cartier<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">LONDON, Aug 12 (Reuters) &#8211; A vast oil spill in the Gulf is quickly becoming one of the world&#8217;s worst in years after being allowed to spread almost unchecked for weeks, according to international agencies, satellite imagery and environmental groups.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The slick off the coast of Oman from a grounded tanker \u200ccarrying Russian crude had reportedly reached the mainland by Wednesday, the U.N.&#8217;s shipping agency told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The slick now covers an area of more than 2,000 square km, said \u200cJohn Amos, an oil spill specialist who reviewed satellite imagery obtained by Reuters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Caroline Bezengi, carrying an estimated 800,000 barrels of Russian oil and under international sanctions, ran aground on June 30 at an Omani island that is part of \u200ba marine nature reserve.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The ship first reported difficulties off Yemen on June 8. Maritime sources said a blast appeared to have occurred aboard the Caroline Bezengi.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">No party has claimed an attack, but the vessel was navigating two separate wars on its journey from Russia to India.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In April it sailed from the port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, a flashpoint in the Russia-Ukraine war. Ukraine has carried out assaults on a so-called shadow fleet carrying Russian oil, which the Caroline Bezengi is part of.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It then passed through the Suez Canal at the end of May, ship-tracking data shows, before sailing past Yemen, where \u200cthe Iran-aligned Houthi militants have entered a wider regional war between \u2060the United States, Israel and Iran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A web of complex war- and sanctions-related rules governing shipping and oil spills is already hampering efforts to respond and could yet get in the way of halting an impending disaster, insurers and analysts say.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The IOPC Funds, an intergovernmental agency dealing with tanker spills compensation, \u2060told Reuters it would not be involved in clean-up costs because the incident was being treated as an &#8220;act of war&#8221; rather than a simple accident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The 25-year-old tanker is also not insured by any recognised Western insurance provider.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;A nightmare scenario is there&#8217;s no adequate response to keep the worst from happening,&#8221; said the oil spills specialist Amos, CEO of SkyTruth, a nonprofit organisation aiming to strengthen environmental conservation through the use of satellite \u200bimages.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Amos \u200bsaid that in this case, the vessel would &#8220;continue to break up under the steady onslaught of wind and waves \u200band to lose the entire cargo and that could be a spill \u200cupwards of 40 to 50 million gallons.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Amos said this would rival the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in sheer size.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The ship is similar in size and capacity to the Sanchi, an Iranian ship that collided with a freighter off China in 2018 in the world&#8217;s worst oil tanker disaster in decades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">RAPIDLY SPREADING SLICK<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The spill, first detected by analysts in early July, has begun reaching the Omani mainland, the U.N.&#8217;s International Maritime Organization (IMO) said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Oil is drifting offshore to the northeast of (Oman&#8217;s) Al-Qibliyyah Island, with some oil reported to be reaching the mainland. Oil spill contingency planning is in place,&#8221; an IMO spokesperson told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The IMO said that seasonal monsoon conditions had limited access to the tanker and delayed salvage operations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Satellite imagery shows it grounded at Al-Qibliyyah Island, part of a nature reserve \u200cthat includes the Hallaniyat Islands, putting wildlife including endangered turtles, humpback whales and coral reefs at risk.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Oman said \u200bon Monday the slick covers almost 400 square kilometres. It has not responded to Reuters requests for further detail \u200bor comment on the containment efforts, but said it had used booms to try to \u200bstem the spread.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Environmental agencies and oil spill specialists put it at up to several times that size, and say that the spread has accelerated dramatically \u200csince the beginning of August.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Greenpeace on Tuesday reported a quickening spread.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;The affected \u200barea went from around 45 square km by the \u200bend of July, to 150 at the beginning of August. And then within two days, it quadrupled to 600 by the 4th or 5th of August,&#8221; said Hanen Keskes, political campaigns lead for Greenpeace in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Amos&#8217;s assessment of 2,000 square km means it has swelled by more than 40 times since the beginning of August.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He said that \u200bmeasures required, beyond the use of booms, including stabilising the vessel \u200cand transferring whatever crude oil was left onboard to another tanker.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;The longer we wait, the more damaged and decrepit that tanker gets, the more complicated and difficult and \u200bpotentially dangerous that salvage operation is going to be,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(Reporting by Jonathan Saul in London, Catherine Cartier in Beirut, Kate Abnett in Brussels, Dmitry Zhdanikov in \u200bLondon, Imad Creidi in Dubai; writing by John Davison; editing by Alison Williams and Jason Neely)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jonathan Saul and Catherine Cartier LONDON, Aug 12 (Reuters) &#8211; A vast oil spill in the Gulf is quickly becoming one of the world&#8217;s worst in years after being allowed to spread almost unchecked for weeks, according to international agencies, satellite imagery and environmental groups. The slick off the coast of Oman from a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/3cbe0d9c844e5c7ddc82709cfff06db282f6e2e864186ddb579ecac4010067d0\/lightyear_networkapi\/resizefill_w800_h539%3Bquality_80%3Bformat_jpg\/https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.zenfs.com%2Fen%2Freuters.com%2F9b26c05fe3342bb89154902e2bd6eb75.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-trending-viral-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}