Federal Police Identifies Greek Ship Responsible for Oil Spill in Northeast

The Federal Police Identified the Greek Freighter Bouboulina, From Delta Tankers, As Responsible for the Oil Spill on the Northeast Coast.

The mystery has come to an end; the Federal Police (PF) is executing a search and seizure warrant at Lachmann Maritime Agency, which was the shipping agent for Delta Tankers in Brazil.
The judge of the 14th Federal Court in Natal was responsible for issuing the document shortly after the Federal Police (PF) identified the freighter Bouboulina, registered under the Greek flag, as responsible for the oil spill that affected the Northeast beaches.

This morning (11/01), the police also conducted search and seizure at another company, Witt O Brien’s, which operates in the risk management sector and advises maritime companies on contingency plans and procedures to be adopted in disasters, and was working for Lachmann; both companies are located in downtown Rio de Janeiro.

Witt O Brien’s worked on the famous oil spill case of the DeepWater Horizon platform, as detailed in the ruling. This refers to a platform that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, killing 11 workers and spilling millions of barrels of oil into the sea.

The PF disclosed that according to the investigations, the freighter Bouboulina docked at the port of San Jose, Venezuela on July 15, and the spill is believed to have occurred about 700 kilometers off the Brazilian coast between July 28 and 29. Click here to see the full statement from the Brazilian Navy.

The Vessel

The Bouboulina tanker is registered under the Greek flag and was registered at the port of Piraeus, near Athens. This is not the first time the vessel has encountered operational issues.
The vessel was held up for four days in the United States, as reported by the Navy and communicated to the PF. The reason for the detention was said to be “incorrect operational procedures in the water and oil separation system for discharge into the sea.”

The tanker is 276 meters long, has a carrying capacity of up to 164 thousand tons (including cargo, passengers, water, fuel, provisions, etc.) and was built in 2006, named in honor of Laskarina Bouboulina, a heroine of the Greek War of Independence.

Websites for monitoring naval routes show that it docked in Cape Town, South Africa, coming from the North, and is currently heading South, toward the Cape of Good Hope.

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