Navy targets three tankers for the 2019 oil spill that plagued Northeastern Brazil

Following up on the extensive oil spill that hit Brazil’s Northeastern coast in the second half of 2019, The Brazilian Navy issued a press release informing that three tanker ships were identified as main suspects of causing the pollution, namely the “BOUBOULINA” (IMO # 9298753); the “VL NICHIOH”, which allegedly changed its name in May 2020 to “CITY OF TOKYO” (IMO # 9267118); and the “AMORE MIO” (IMO # 9297371), now supposedly trading under the name of “GODAM”.

The press release reads as follows, in free translation:

BRAZILIAN NAVY

NAVY’S SOCIAL COMMUNICATION CENTRE

PRESS RELEASE

Brasilia-DF, 7 May 2021

The Brazilian Navy reports that the investigation report on the oil spill that plagued the Brazilian coast, handed over to the Federal Police and the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office at the end of August 2020, has its degree of secrecy changed, being disqualified for use in the Federal Police’s Criminal Inquiry.

With the support of technical and scientific institutions, public and private, Brazilian and foreign, three ships were identified as the main suspects: tankers BOUBOULINA; VL NICHIOH (in May 2020, the ship changed its name to CITY OF TOKYO); and AMORE MIO (in March 2020, the ship changed its name to GODAM).

This novel event, unprecedented in our history, brings about lessons, such as the need to invest in the improvement of the monitoring of ships that transit through Brazilian jurisdictional waters and in their vicinities, highlighting the Management System of the Blue Amazon (SisGAAz).

The response to the spill was well concerted, most of the people engaged in the clean-up efforts had no practical experience with oil spills, despite the motivation to help. The cleaning actions were carried out primarily by municipalities, with the aid of volunteers and workforce provided by the Brazilian Navy, the Army and the state oil major Petrobras. According to the Navy, in about four months of operation, more than 5,000 metric tonnes of oily waste were collected from the extensive stretch of coastline in Brazil’s Northeast and Southeast regions. Although the response was demobilised in early 2020, later that year, minor traces of oil could still be found in localised areas along the coast.

In November 2019, Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies launched a Parliamentary Enquiry Commission (CPI, in Portuguese). The purpose of the CPI is to investigate the origin of the oil stains, evaluating the measures taken by stakeholders, determining responsibilities for the spill, and proposing actions to mitigate the resulting damages and prevent future similar occurrences. The Committee met for the last time in March 2021 when the closure of the CPI was postponed for 60 days. So far, no findings of any relevance have been reported by the ongoing parliamentary investigation.

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