BunkeringOperations
Laden bunker vessel sinks off Tunisia
Divers who inspected the hull of a bunker tanker loaded with 750 tonnes of fuel that sank off southeast Tunisia detected no leaks on Sunday.
The Equatorial Guinea-flagged Xelo, which sank Saturday in the Gulf of Gabes, has settled on its side at a depth of almost 20 m.
The Xelo was travelling from Egypt to Malta when it went down having encountered bad weather on Friday evening. No crew died in the incident.
“The situation is not dangerous, the outlook is positive, the ship is stable because luckily it ran aground on sand,” transport minister Rabie Majidi told reporters. An operation to siphon off the fuel will get underway this week. Booms are in place around where the vessel sank.