2024 Black Sea oil spill
| 2024 Kerch Strait oil spill | |
|---|---|
| Location | Southern mouth of the Kerch Strait, entering into the Black Sea |
| Coordinates | 45°04′18″N 36°35′53″E / 45.07167°N 36.59806°E |
| Date | 15 December 2024 |
| Cause | |
| Cause |
|
| Casualties | Fatalities One crew member killed One volunteer potentially killed by inhalation of toxic fumes Injuries 146 volunteers, three of which were hospitalised |
| Operator | Volgotanker (according to databases)
|
| Spill characteristics | |
| Volume | Estimated 2,400 or 5,000 tonnes of mazut |
| Area | |
| Shoreline impacted |
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Early in the morning of 15 December 2024, two Russian Project 1577 Volgoneft oil tankers, Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239, were caught in a storm just south of the Kerch Strait. Volgoneft-212, which was reportedly carrying about 4,900 tonnes of mazut, broke in two and sank, resulting in an oil spill and the death of one crew member. Volgoneft-239 was damaged, causing her to drift for several hours until she ran aground near the Port of Taman, Krasnodar Krai. She, too, began leaking oil.
Both ships still had some of their cargo intact and the oil leak on Volgoneft-239 was stopped by the next day, with an estimated spillage of either 2,400 or 5,000 tonnes. Reports of puddles of oil making landfall between the Crimean Bridge and the town of Anapa began on 17 December, with about 37 miles (60 kilometres) of coastline becoming polluted. As a result, a state of emergency was declared in the Anapsky and Temryuksky Districts that day. Further declarations occurred across the entirety of Krasnodar Krai on 25 December, federally the following day and in Crimea by 28 December.
The incident was noted by the Russian Ministry of Transport as the first spillage of mazut in history, a substance which the organisation noted had "no proven methods for removing it from the water column" due to its properties. It was later labelled as the "worst ecological disaster of the 21st century" by Viktor Danilov-Danilyan, head of the Water Problems Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and ex-minister of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.
The environmental impacts were stark, polluting the coastline to varying degrees across large portions of the northern Black Sea coastline and areas of the Sea of Azov and killing both birds and marine animals. By 8 January 2025, 175 sea birds had died at a single rehabilitation centre, by 11 January 111 cetaceans were found washed up on the Krasnodar Krai and Crimean coasts and by 7 February approximately 5,000 jellyfish had washed up on a section of coast in Odesa Oblast.
Separate criminal cases were opened by Russia into both ships for potential maritime safety breaches, though the case for Operational-Tactical-212 had an additional charge for negligent homicide. Both captains were charged on 18 December, with the captain of Volgoneft-212 being placed under investigative custody and the captain of Volgoneft-239 being placed under house arrest for two months each.