Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria Agree on Joint Actions According Fuel Oil Pollution in Black Sea by Russian Tankers

Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria have agreed on joint steps at the ministerial level to cooperate with international institutions on a large-scale environmental disaster in the Black Sea caused by fuel oil pollution, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine said in a statement citing Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk.

According to the ministry, Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk held an online meeting with Romania's Minister of Environment, Water and Forestry Mircea Feket and Bulgaria's acting Minister of Environment and Water Petar Dimitrov.

It is known that the officials agreed to ‘coordinate joint efforts to limit the entry into the Black Sea of the outdated Russian fleet, which poses potential threats to the marine ecosystem’.

According to them, ‘the lack of verified data on the consequences of the Russian tanker accident on 15 December 2024 and the further spread of fuel oil remains a problem’.

According to the Ministry of Ecology, ‘as of today, satellite images show that the contamination with Russian fuel oil has reached the city of Yevpatoria. UkrNCEM continues to monitor the development of the emergency’.

‘Colleagues stressed that our cooperation is not a favour to Ukraine, but a shared responsibility. The Black Sea unites a number of European countries. Despite the fact that mathematical models do not show the slick moving westwards, the consequences of the Russian tanker accident pose risks to the entire Black Sea. We are talking about tens of kilometres of fuel oil film on the water surface in the Black Sea, thousands of kilometres of polluted coastline, thousands of dead birds and dozens of dolphins, and disrupted food chains in ecosystems,’ said Hrynchuk.

According to preliminary estimates by environmental inspectors, the fuel oil leak has caused more than USD 14 billion in material damage to the Black Sea ecosystem.

Hrynchuk said that Ukraine has already addressed the secretariats of the UN conventions, UNEP, UNESCO, the European Union, and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). We have received feedback from the Secretariat of the Commission for the Protection of the Black Sea against Pollution on the need to hold an extraordinary meeting to consider this case.

The case will also be considered at a meeting of the IMO Subcommittee on Pollution Prevention on 27 January.

Two Volgoneft tankers carrying fuel oil crashed in the Kerch Strait on 15 December 2024, allegedly due to a storm.

The tanker accident resulted in a spill of oil products. According to Russian media, Volgoneft-212 was carrying 4,300 tonnes of fuel oil. Shot and Baza claim that approximately the same amount of oil was on board Volgoneft-239.

Later, the Russian Maritime Safety Service said that 2,400 tonnes of oil products leaked into the Black Sea as a result of the tanker accident in the Kerch Strait on 15 December.

Earlier it became known that Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine are monitoring the Black Sea after thousands of tonnes of oil were spilled by tankers from Russia's ‘shadow fleet’.