Sri Lanka on Friday filed a claim for $17.38m with the Greek owner of a VLCC that caught fire and left a bunker spill stretching 40 km off the South Asian island last September.
The New Diamond vessel, owned by Adam Polemis’s New Shipping, was travelling from Kuwait to India with 270,000 tonnes of crude oil onboard last September when a fire broke out as it passed Sri Lanka’s east coast.
The tanker’s master was fined $65,000 for causing the spill and failing to inform local officials of the environmental damage left behind while the shipowner last year paid $2.38m to help pay for the massive salvage operation.
The blaze started after an engine room boiler exploded, killing one crewmember.
