The Krasnodar region in southwestern Russia has declared a regional state of emergency as oil continued to wash ashore following an oil tanker collision in the Black Sea last week.

Last week, the tankers Volgoneft 212 and Volgoneft 239 suffered severe damage as a result of a storm in the Black Sea and became stranded in the Kerch Strait. The Volgoneft 212 fell into two halves. According to the disaster reports, the two tankers each had around 4,300 tons of crude oil on board.

Both tankers damaged by the storm were more than 50 years old, Reuters noted in a report on the news, citing Russian state news agency TASS. A third tanker has reported being damaged after the other two oil tankers spilled oil in the Black Sea. The third tanker belongs to the same generation of ships, Reuters reported, citing a certificate it had seen.

A week after the incidents, the Krasnodar Region declared a state of emergency.

“Unfortunately, oil products continue to wash up on the beaches of Krasnodar,” the region’s governor Veniamin Kondratyev said in a post on Telegram on Wednesday.

Initially, scientists assumed that most of the oil spilled from the tankers would remain at the bottom of the Black Sea, allowing it to collect in the water, Kondratyev added.

However, due to warmer weather, the oil products have come to the surface and washed ashore, the governor said.

Until Wednesday, the state of emergency only existed at the municipal level, but now the state of emergency will be expanded to the entire Krasnodar Region, said Kondratyev.

Many analysts and insurers are warning that an environmental disaster is looming with the aging tankers that Russia is forced to use to transport its crude oil and refined products abroad because of increasingly strict Western sanctions.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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