Kuwait battles mystery slick off south coast

KUWAIT CITY — Kuwait battled on Sunday to control an oil spill off its southern coast that stained its beaches, threatened to damage power plants and water stations, and left long black slicks in the Arabian Gulf.

It remained unclear where the spill originated, though Kuwait said it didn’t look like the spill came from its oil fields.

Authorities offered no estimate for the number of barrels of oil spilled, though footage from Kuwait’s Environment Public Authority showed oil tarring the beaches and in the waters off the southern area of Ras Al Zour.

“There will be severe consequences to those responsible for this incident,” said Sheikh Abdullah Al Sabah, a member of the ruling family who is head of the Environment Public Authority.

KUWAIT CITY — Emergency workers are battling to contain an oil spill near a joint Kuwaiti-Saudi oilfield in the Gulf, an official said on Sunday.

“Emergency oil teams are still struggling to put an oil spill near Kuwait’s southern Ras Al Zour area under control,” said Kuwait Petroleum Corporation spokesman Talal Al Khaled in a statement carried by the official Kuna news agency.

Kuwaiti media on Sunday quoted local oil experts as saying the spill originated from an old 50-kilometre pipeline from Al Khafji.

The experts estimated that as many as 35,000 barrels of crude oil may have leaked into the waters off Al Zour, where Kuwait is building a massive $30 billion oil complex that includes a 615,000-barrel-per-day refinery. Emergency teams have sealed off two power and water desalination plants in the area to prevent the contamination of drinking water. Kuwait depends largely on desalination for its fresh water supplies.

Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, located south of Kuwait along the Gulf coast, said the spill had not reached their waters.

Saudi Arabia said that it had put into action a “crisis management plan” and was conducting an aerial survey of its oil plants along the coast in a statement published by the official SPA news agency.

The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said teams from Saudi Arabian Chevron and the Oil Spill Response Limited (OSRL) had joined the teams cleaning the coastal waters.

Bahrain’s National Disaster Management Committee said that Bahrain’s waters are not affected by Kuwait’s oil spill.

The Bahrain News Agency quoted the General Director of Civil Defence and panel secretary, Brigadier Abdulaziz Rashid Al Amer, as saying that officials had looked into the matter to take necessary steps, but it turned out that Bahrain is far from the oil spill.