Aqaba oil spill case reaches JD1m settlement — ASEZA

AMMAN — The "Floor of Sea" vessel has left Jordan’s territorial waters after the company that owns the ship committed to paying JD1 million following the oil spill case litigated in an Aqaba court, Commissioner for Tourism and Environment in the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) Nidal Majali said on Monday.

The spill polluted the water surrounding Aqaba’s coastline in August, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Majali told Petra that the value of compensation is equivalent to the cost of damages at the container and passenger terminal docks and along the southern beaches of the coastal city within the Aqaba Marine Reserve.

Repairing the environmental damage took 16 days. The efforts were spearheaded by the Prince Hamza Centre for Combating Pollution at the Aqaba Company for Port Operation and Management and ASEZA institutions, he added.

"The amount of oil spilled, 11 tonnes and 400 kilos, is manageable. However, air and ocean currents have slowed down the cleaning process and made it more difficult,” Majali told The Jordan Times in August. 

He also noted that an incident report has been submitted to the Regional Organisation for the Conservation of the Environment of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. 

The cleanup process employed vacuum systems and artificial wave generation to move the oil into more easily reachable areas, according to Majali.

At the time of the incident, the Marine Science Station confirmed that all examinations and samples showed that marine life and coral reefs remain unharmed. 

The preliminary results of the judicial investigation indicated that the spill resulted from a technical failure on the Palauan merchant vessel that was in the process of importing fertilisers from Jordan.