Four aging oil tankers to leave Baltic for Asia

Four ageing tankers, flying flags of convenience, are due to leave Baltic ports this week laden with the same toxic fuel oil that is washing up on Spanish beaches on their long voyage to Asia.

Oil and shipping sources said yesterday that two of the tankers are currently at the port of Tallinn where on Friday environmental group Greenpeace failed to stop another tanker, the Byzantio, from leaving on fears of a repeat of the Spanish spill.

They said the 22-year-old, Express and 21-year-old, Burgas are currently docked at Muuga harbour in Tallinn to load 80,000 tonnes and 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, respectively.

Two other tankers, the Princess Pia and Gudermes, are also due to load similar cargoes before the end of this week, from the ports of Tallinn, in Estonia, and Klaipeda, in Lithuania.

"The Express is there at Tallinn, it will load soon. The ship has a lot of options," an official at the tanker's manager Dynacom Tankers Management told Reuters.

If both tankers make the trip to Asia than they would follow exactly the same route as the doomed Prestige, past the thousands of tonnes of toxic fuel oil that is tarnishing the coast of northern Spain.

Authorities in France, Spain and Portugal have cracked down on old, single hull tankers from sailing within their exclusive economic zones, which stretch 200 miles out to sea.

The Portugese and Spanish navy over the weekend expelled one tanker from this zone while France has positioned a navy patroller near Dunkirk to look out for the Byzantio which, like the ill-fated Prestige, was charted by Swiss-based Russian oil trader Crown Resources.

The Express and Gudermes flies the Maltese Flag, which is on a safety "black list" by one of the world's leading port inspection authorities, the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

Within the black list, Malta is classed as a "medium risk" flag as are Russia and Panama, flags of the Burgas and Princess Pia.

US firm Koch Shipping booked the Express with an option to discharge in Asia, shipping sources said.

The Japanese-built Express has been certified seaworthy by the American Bureau of Shipping, the same classification society that gave the Prestige a clean bill of health, records show.

Russian major Sibneft chartered the Burgas, which was involved in a collision with a tug in October 2000 in the US where it suffered hull damage, sustaining a hole in its port bow above waterline.

The Princess Pia, which was certified seaworthy by classification society Bureau Veritas, grounded in the River Orinoco, Venezuela, in 1995 but refloated and resumed its voyage on its own steam.

Two years ago, it was in collision with a tug off the coast of South America and spilled 2,000 litres of oil.

According to Lloyds's Marine Intelligence unit, the 1977-built 32,039 deadweight Gudermes was involved in a minor collision in 1998 but suffered major hull damage, that included a hole and cracks, in another collision last year.