Space images do not prove large volume of oil spill in Novorossiysk — watchdog
An oil slick, even if it spread over some significant area, does not indicate the volume, the head of the Rosprirodnadzor, Svetlana Radionova, said
MOSCOW, August 11. /TASS/. Photos of oil pollution in Novorossiysk, provided by the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, are not evidence of the large volume of the spill, the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resource Usage (Rosprirodnadzor) operates with data obtained with special equipment, the head of the agency, Svetlana Radionova, said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV channel on Wednesday.
"It is difficult for me to comment on this, because what we saw from a satellite image, whether it is oil products or some other manifestations there [on the space image] - unfortunately, I cannot operate with these data, because for me it is not an evidence base," she said.
"An oil slick, even if it spread over some significant area, does not indicate the volume. That is, we will calculate the volume based on the information received by [special equipment]," Radionova added.
About oil spill
The oil spill near Novorossiysk was reported on August 7. The reason was the burst release of oil from the Hellenic tanker Minerva Symphony in the Black Sea during loading from the CPC terminal, press service of the Federal Agency of Maritime and River Transport said.
Oil is transported to the company's marine terminal in the village of Yuzhnaya Ozereevka (west of Novorossiysk), where it is loaded onto tankers for shipment to world markets.
On August 11, the Institute of Space Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences estimated the oil spill area at almost 80 sq km on the basis of satellite data. Later, the source in emergency services of the Southern Federal District told TASS that no oil spots were observed in the Black Sea anymore. Spilled oil is "light and quickly disintegrating into fractions," the source added.