The Hindu Business Line : ‘Hot tap’ method to retrieve oil from sunken ship

Mangalore, July 8 Salvage experts from Svitzer Wijsmuller of Holland – who are in Mangalore to initiate the process of retrieving oil from the sunken ship MV Denden – have come to a decision that the best method of retri eving oil would be the ‘hot tap’ method.

Process

A release from the Deputy Conservator of New Mangalore Port Trust (NMPT) said that the method involves making a connection through the ship’s hull by puncturing it to extract liquids by means of pipes from the board of the ship.

Mobilisation of men and material is being made for this purpose; it will be over in 3-4 days.

Salvage operations shall commence on improvement of weather conditions afterwards.

A team of divers from Mumbai will be involved in the salvage operations, the release said.

Survey

Salvage experts from Svitzer Wijsmuller, who carried out a survey of the sunken vessel from seaside and from the shore side, held discussions with all the concerned and came to a decision to use the ‘hot tap’ method for retrieving oil.

In this regard, a meeting was also conducted at New Mangalore Port on Friday to chalk out a plan for salvage operations.

Participants

The Chairman of NMPT, Mr P. Tamilvanan; the Deputy Chairman, Mr M.A. Bhaskarachar; the Deputy Conservator of NMPT, Mr V.K. Vaswani; and the Salvage Master and Administration Manager of Svitzer Wijsmuller participated in the meeting, the release added.

The Dubai-bound cargo vessel, MV Denden, sank off the Mangalore coast on June 23.

Of the 24 crew members, 21 were rescued and three died.

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