In this photo released by the Indian Coast Guard, the Liberia-flagged MSC ELSA 3, a container ship carrying hazardous cargo, sinks off the Indian southern coast in the Arabian Sea on May 25, 2025.
The Directorate General of Shipping (DGS) on Wednesday said that due to the prevailing peak monsoon conditions and associated operational risks, it will take more time to extract oil from the Liberian-flagged ship that sank off the Kerala coast last month.
The DGS said the present weather conditions provide only a “narrow and fragmented working window,” which is unsuitable for “stable and safe” oil extraction efforts. “Further delay would provide a more reliable window to safely conduct hot tapping and oil recovery,” it said.
It further said that the vessel Nand Saarthi — from where saturation diving operations for oil extraction were to be conducted — remains at the Kochi port due to prevailing adverse sea conditions. “Upon improvement in weather, it will sail to the wreck site. Oil recovery equipment on board Nand Saarthi is to be transferred to Canara Megh for the next phase. All accessories and gases remain available and are being held for deployment once the new contractor takes over,” the DGS said.
It further said that the SEAMAC III vessel, from which the divers were working to plug the oil leaks in the sunken ship, has been demobilised and was proceeding to Mumbai as all the leaks have been plugged.
The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) has conducted aerial sorties using Dornier aircraft equipped with Pollution Surveillance Systems (PSS) to look for any oil slicks, the DGS said.
“No oil slick has been observed approximately 60 nautical miles from the wreck site. Additional sorties are planned to continue monitoring the situation,” it added. Besides that, satellite imagery from the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation (ITOPF) is awaited to confirm whether there were any shoreline and offshore oil traces.
Therefore, at present, the salvage operations are in a standby/caretaking phase till the new contractor takes over, it said.
Regarding the clean-up operations, the DGS said that handling and disposal of plastic nurdles, which floated to the shores from the ship remains a concern. “The Customs authorities have requested treating the recovered nurdles as bonded cargo. Approximately 65-75 tonnes is now stored shore-side, awaiting a final disposal decision,” the DGS said.
Published – June 18, 2025 09:47 pm IST
