MT Princess Empress oil spill
oil spill
On the morning of February 28, 2023, MT Princess Empress sank off Naujan, Oriental Mindoro, Philippines, causing an oil spill in the waters of the provinces of Antique, Batangas, Oriental Mindoro, and Palawan. En route from Bataan to Iloilo, the oil tanker was carrying 900,000 liters of industrial fuel oil before it sank.
Background
MT Princess Empress, the oil tanker that caused the oil spill, is owned by RDC Reield Marine Services. Before it sank, the oil tanker was crewed by 20 people and en route to Iloilo to transport 900,000 liters (240,000 U.S. gal) of industrial fuel oil from SL Gas Harbor Terminal in Limay, Bataan. According to an energy sector source, industrial fuel oil, also known as "black oil", is "highly toxic to the environment".
The Tablas Strait, where the oil spill occurred, is a waterway between the islands of Mindoro, Marinduque, Panay, and Tablas that serves as a major shipping route in the Philippines. The strait and its adjacent waterbodies, including the Verde Island Passage, are one of the most biodiverse in the country. At least 21 marine protected areas could be affected by the oil spill according to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). Moreover, residents of the coastal settlements of Oriental Mindoro and nearby provinces rely on fishing and other marine activities for their livelihood. Particularly the fisherfolks, which are communities vulnerable to natural and human-made hazards, had their subsistence, food security, and human well-being highly compromised.
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This entry incorporates text from “MT Princess Empress oil spill” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.