10/08 07:10

By Sean Evers and James Cordahi

Al-Mukalla, Yemen, Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Three explosions occurred on the right side of the Limburg oil tanker after a fishing vessel rammed the ship as it approached a Yemeni port on Sunday, the tanker's chief officer said.

``The first explosion came on the outside of the ship, and then at least two or three more followed within seconds from inside the ship's hull,'' said Chief Officer Didier Le Ny, who's the second in command of the vessel, in a telephone interview. ``All was normal in the storage tanks before the explosion -- pressure levels were clear.''

The super tanker, the Limburg, with a capacity of 2 million barrels, was carrying 397,000 barrels of crude oil from Saudi Arabia when the explosions and ensuing fire occurred, said Le Ny who's staying in Al-Mukalla with the 23 other members of the crew. One of the crew remains missing.

Crude oil for November delivery fell 28 cents to $27.98 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange in London at 12:03 p.m. London time. Oil has risen 41 percent this year, partly on concern Middle East oil supplies would be disrupted by a U.S. attack on Iraq.

The explosions blew a hole in one of the ship's tanks, which held 18,000 cubic meters of crude, said Le Ny. ``Fourteen thousand cubic meters of oil were sprayed out of the ship within seconds of the blasts,'' he said.

Investigators from France, Yemen and the U.S. are trying to determine whether the explosion was an accident or the result of an attack. Tankers, which transport close to 20 percent of the world's daily oil needs out of the nearby Persian Gulf, have no escorts or security protection.

External Causes

``For me it was an external cause, not from inside the cargo,'' said Le Ny. He dismissed reports that the explosion may have been caused by an electrical fault, and said ``there's no electrical wire in cargo tanks.''

Malaysia's state-owned Petroliam Nasional Bhd., which was the crippled tanker's destination, blamed the explosion on an electrical fault.

``In the case of an internal explosion the deck should have been damaged first because the thickness of the deck is much less than the hull, which has a double layer,'' said Le Ny, who's responsible for managing the ship's cargo.

Cie. Maritime Belge SA, Belgium's biggest shipping company, owned the stricken vessel.

The Belgian company is awaiting a report, which may be available later today, from investigators to determine what caused the explosion, said Capt. Francois De Tavernier, the marine manager of Framship, a unit of Compagnie. He said that it was unlikely the explosion was an accident.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2002

Answers

Oddly enough, I have a bit of expertise in this area. Even in the 1970s (and for many years before, I'm sure), tanker builders weren't stupid enough to run electrical wiring near cargo tanks. In the case I was most involved with, a tanker loaded with 600,000 gallons of crude caught on fire in the Mississippi in a heavily populated part of the city. Even though the mainly Greek crew was incompetent and the Captain took off for a motel immediately he got ashore (the ship was still burning), even though the firefighting equipment was old, worn, useless in some cases, and few knew how to use it, even though one of the senior officers was found blithering in his cabin, curled up in the fetal position, there was no explosiona and no loss of life. Damage to the ship was enormous but it didn't blow.

Cause of the fire? The ship hit a submerged barge, sunk in a storm-related accident six months before and laying undetected up to that point (it was only one of a large number of loose barges that stormy night). I forget exactly how the fire began from there--as O recall, the collision caused a leak in the engine room, sparks in the room ignited a fire, and the CO2 extinguishers failed to work properly. I have no doubt that safety precautions have vastly improved in 25 years and it is impossible for me to believe that an electrical fault caused an explosion in the ship's side.

I've seen the innards of a number of ships--wonderful places! I especially loved the Royal Navy ships, with their magnificent Rolls Royce engines, spotlessly polished brass and faultlessly painted surfaces. Even the engineers' white coveralls were clean!

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2002

Limburg

USS Cole

I swear I got those pics from two different news stories. Let me go back and check.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2002

Okay, the BBC used a Cole pic and I mistook it for the tanker. The only tanker pic I could find that shows anything interesting was this:

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2002

How does a boat ram a ship by accident?

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2002