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Slick in the Black Sea caused by oil spill, WWF Russia says

The organization is confident that the second image from sattelite showed the slick moving, with the area increase

MOSCOW, August 12. /TASS/. The slick in the Black Sea was caused by the oil spill near a berth, as evidenced by images from satellite of the European Space Agency, WWF Russia program leader Alexei Knizhnikov told TASS on Thursday.

"WWF experts found a small slick in the single point mooring area using European Space Agency’s images open for the public. Exactly the same image in 24 hours showed this slick moving, with the area increase. Being aware of currents there and the initial slick structure, we are confident we found the same oil pollution on the second image. Certainly, other phenomena on the sea surface are possible that can provide a similar image, but since we have dynamics, we believe this is the consequence of CPC pollution," Knizhnikov said.

The slick in the Black Sea near the oil spill area at the CPC terminal close to Novorossiysk on the image taken after the storm was not the oil one, press service of the Krasnodar regional administration said, citing CPC chief executive Nikolai Gorban.

The cause of the accident was disintegration of the inner rubber layer of the hydraulic damper being the component part of the single point mooring (SPM), Gorban added.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko ordered earlier the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources to assess the actual scale of the oil spill near Novorossiysk during loading from the terminal of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) and check information from the Russian Academy of Sciences about any understatement of the quantity that was spilled.