Oil tanker runs aground in Alaska's Cook Inlet; some fuel spilled

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – An oil tanker being loaded with fuel at a refinery broke free of its moorings in the Cook Inlet port of Nikiski and drifted until it went aground about a half mile away, the oil company said today.

About five barrels of product was spilled, said Coast Guard spokesman Petty Officer Eric Chandler. Three of those barrels were confined to the ship but the other two ended up in Cook Inlet.

The 575-foot Seabulk Pride was moored overnight in Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula when it was struck by an ice floe and broke free at 5:25 a.m., said Sarah Simpson, a spokeswoman for Tesoro Corp. in San Antonio.

"A large piece of ice floating in the channel — from what they tell me it was traveling pretty fast — struck the vessel," Simpson said.

Tesoro has a refinery in Nikiski, which is about 80 miles south of Anchorage. The double-hulled tanker was being loaded when it drifted away, she said.

The Coast Guard said the tanker was carrying four kinds of fuel, including 94,951 barrels of a thick residual oil product similar in consistency to asphalt that was not processed at the Tesoro refinery.

In total, the Seabulk Pride was carrying about 120,000 barrels of petroleum products when it broke free. It was not immediately known which product spilled.

Chandler said there was some damage to the tanker's fuel arm, but otherwise the tanker appeared to be OK. There were 34 people on board the tanker at the time of the accident, including two pilots. There were no reported injuries.

Petty Officer Steve Harrison of the U.S. Coast Guard command center in Juneau said the tanker made a soft landing on silt, adding that that was "a good thing."

The tanker came to rest about a half-mile north of the dock, Simpson said.

According to the company's Web site, the Seabulk Pride is a double-hulled petroleum tanker with a carrying capacity of 342,000 barrels of oil. It is owned by Seabulk Tankers Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The Coast Guard said two tugs that help ships on and off the dock were helping the stranded tanker. Anderson Tug & Barge in Anchorage also was sending a tug and Seabulk was sending an oil service vessel from Homer.

Simpson said when Tesoro was notified of the problem it activated a plan under which company employees, the Coast Guard and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation stage a coordinated response.

The incident is unlike the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, which occurred in a more remote area in Prince William Sound. The Exxon Valdez, unlike the Seabulk Pride, was carrying raw crude oil when it ran aground on a chartered reef, spilling 11 million gallons.