Work begins to free stranded Barrier Reef coal carrier

SYDNEY - Salvage crews began work Wednesday to free the coal carrier that ran aground on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef at the weekend.

Booms encircling the Shen Neng 1 will help contain any further leakage while the 950 tons of heavy fuel oil aboard is pumped into a vessel brought alongside.

Less than four tonnes of oil have leaked from the 230-metre-long vessel, leaving a ribbon of oil for three kilometres.

The Chinese vessel rammed the reef at full speed Saturday, just hours after it left Gladstone bound for China with 65,000 tonnes of coal.

It was outside a designated shipping lane and inside the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, prompting some to suggest that the captain was trying to shave a few kilometres from the 6,400-km journey.

Pumping out the fuel would lighten the ship as well as preclude a nasty spill in the eventuality it broke apart during the salvage operation.

“We have to prepare for the possibility that more oil may well escape,” Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh said.

Cosco Group, China’s largest shipping company and owner of the Shen Neng 1, has engaged Danish company Svitzer A/S to run the salvage operation.

Bligh warned Cosco it will have to pay for the clean-up operation as well as a fine of 1 million Australian dollars ($900,000) if found to be negligent. The ship’s captain could be fined a further 220,000 Australian dollars if found to be at fault.

Marine Safety Queensland general manager Patrick Quirk said the danger of the ship breaking up had receded but that its engine room was flooded and rudder damaged.

He told reporters the salvors had not decided whether taking off the coal would be needed to refloat the ship.

“They’re going through the ship from the bow to the stern seeing what’s damaged, seeing what’s leaking,” Quirk said. “They’ll run through their calculations. That’ll give them the structural strength of the vessel.”

Low tides for the next two weeks could prevent the ship from being refloated, meaning it might be weeks before the ship gets off the reef.

Investigators piecing together what went wrong say human error rather than an attempt to take a short-cut may explain why the Shen Neng 1 left a shipping lane and strayed into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

The captain and 23 crew are still aboard and have been interviewed. The captain has been asked why it took two hours to alert authorities to the grounding.

“Navigating a ship through this channel should not be rocket science,” Quirk said. “Any competent crew should be able to do it.”