A bulk carrier, OS 35, loaded with steel rebars collided with the Adam LNG carrier while manoeuvring to exit the Bay, the Gibraltar Port Authority said. 

Upon receiving information of the incident, the Port Authority directed the vessel OS 35 to the Eastside in order to ensure it could be beached and in that way try to minimise as much as possible the risk of the vessel sinking and to secure the lives of the mariners on board. The vessel is presently beached off Catalan Bay.

The vessel is carrying 24 crew, all of which are currently still on board, at the request of the Captain of the vessel. The ship is loaded with 183 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, 250 tonnes of diesel and 27 tonnes of lube oil and was leaving Gibraltar to head to Vlissengen in the Netherlands.

At noon, August 30, OS 35’s bulbous bow was submerged 1.2 metres into the sandy seabed. “There is significant damage to the vessel’s starboard side, including a gash amidships, below the waterline, measuring approximately 10 metres by 4 metres,” a government of Gibraltar notice reads.

The vessel Adam LNG appears to have suffered no significant damage, except for a superficial dent to its bulbous bow. No injuries have been reported among the crew and there has been no water ingress. This has been confirmed by divers and by an internal survey.

During the course of the afternoon, the Gibraltar Port Authority responded to a leak of hydraulic fluid from the vessel’s forward crane, which is the only one of the four cranes aboard the vessel affected by water ingress so far. A sea boom has been deployed around the vessel to contain any pollution. An additional absorbent boom has been deployed to surround the crane structure, in order to minimise seepage at the source and to contain and collect the fluid to prevent further leeching to sea.