A massive cargo ship made a series of unusual movements while anchored in the closest spot to a Southern California oil pipeline that ruptured and sent crude washing up on beaches, according to data collected by a marine navigation service.
The Coast Guard is investigating whether a ship anchor might have snagged and bent the pipeline owned by Amplify Energy, a Houston-based company that operates three offshore oil platforms south of Los Angeles.
According to the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, an anchor hooking an oil pipeline is likely to have caused the spill.
"The pipeline has essentially been pulled like a bowstring. And so at its widest point is about 105 feet away from where it was. So it is kind of an almost a semicircle," Amplify's CEO Martyn Willsher told CNN.
As per data from MarineTraffic, a navigation service that tracks radio signals from transponders that broadcast the locations of ships and large boats every few minutes; Rotterdam Express, a German-flagged ship nearly 1,000 feet (305 meters) long, was assigned to anchorage SF-3, the closest to where the pipeline ruptured off Huntington Beach. The ship made three unusual movements over two days that appear to put it over the pipeline.
A 4000-foot part of the pipe was displaced 105 feet and the pipe had a 13-inch split. Capt. Rebecca Ore, the commanding officer at US Coast Guard Sector Los Angeles-Long Beach said, a response team is working with other agencies to determine whether a ship was in the area. The spill spewed up to 144,000 gallons of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean.
Amplify Energy said, that it is working with the local, state and federal agencies to ensure a speedy recovery of the situation. Authorities are looking into the timeline of the event to learn more about the spill.
In a statement to AP, Hapag-Lloyd, the shipping company that operates the Rotterdam Express, denied any role in the spill.
A US official told the AP on Wednesday that the Rotterdam Express has become a focus of the spill investigation. The official cautioned the ship is only one lead being pursued in the investigation, which is in the early stages.
The investigators are seeking to collect tracking and navigational information from the vessel that could help them identify its exact movements, the official said. The ship appears to have then engaged its engines to return to its anchorage about 10 minutes later.
The ship then moved again around midnight and a third time shortly before 8 am. on Sept. 23, each time moving back to its assigned anchorage, according to its online location data. The Rotterdam Express remained at spot SF-3 until Sunday when it moved into the port to unload.
The first report of oil in the water near the pipeline was made Friday evening. Amplify said the pipeline was shut down early Saturday morning but has not said how long it believes oil flowed from it.
On Wednesday morning, AP sent an email that included a screenshot of the Rotterdam Express movements as indicated on MarineTraffic to the Unified Command Joint InformationCentre for state and federal agencies responding to the oil spill. Senior Chief Petty Officer Lauren Jorgensen said the command was unable to discuss matters involving an ongoing investigation.
Nikolas Xiros, a professor of marine engineering at the University of New Orleans, said it would be highly unlikely that the transponder data for a ship, which works through a global network called the Automatic Identification System, would be off by several thousand feet.
AIS transporters are very accurate and the whole system is also very accurate, Xiros said after reviewing the location track for Rotterdam Express. I think probably the ship moved, that's what I think. And with the anchor down, which was a big problem. Xiros, who has spent more than two decades teaching marine navigation and electronics to future ship captains and crew, said the only alternative explanation he could think of was that either someone had hacked the AIS system to make the Rotterdam Express appear to move or that the ship's transmitter somehow became unfastened from its mast, fell in the water and drifted away before being retrieved by the crew, only to have it come unfastened two more times.
Xiros said he could provide no reasonable explanation for why the ship might have moved so far off its assigned station. Records show relatively calm weather and seas during the days in question.
California oil spill renews calls to ban offshore drilling
California has been a leader in restricting offshore oil drilling since the infamous 1969 Santa Barbara spill that sparked the modern environmental movement, and the latest spill off Huntington Beach is prompting fresh calls for an end to such drilling.
That's easier said than done, even in California. While the state hasn't issued a new lease in state water in five decades, drilling from existing platforms continues. Similarly, an effort in Congress that aims to halt new drilling in federal waters more than 3 miles off the coast wouldn't stop drilling that's already happening.
California remains the nation's seventh-largest oil-producing state, and winding down the state's oil production has proved politically difficult. The industry employs more than 150,000 people and the state makes money from oil and gas leases.
California Governor Gavin Newsom highlighted the steps he's taken to curb reliance on oil since he took office in 2019, including a plan to end oil production in the state by 2045 and stop selling new gas-powered cars by 2035. Still, his administration continues to issue new oil drilling permits offshore and on land, though in 2020 it issued more permits to close wells than to open new ones, said Jacob Roper, a spokesman for the state Department of Conservation.
Offshore, there are nearly 1,200 active wells in California waters, according to state data compiled by FracTracker Alliance. About 370 wells are idle, while nearly 1,300 have been plugged. As they age, these platforms become more and more fragile and corroded from ocean water, said Deborah Sivas, professor of environmental law at Stanford Law School.
She said California operates with cognitive dissonance" when it comes to oil by continuing to issue permits for drilling even as the state takes aggressive steps to tackle climate change.
Speaking alongside Newsom on Tuesday, Rep. Alan Lowenthal, a Democrat representing parts of Orange County, said the federal government needs to do more.
We have to come up with a plan to not only stop new drilling but to figure out how do we stop all drilling that's going on in California," he said.
No legislation to ban current offshore drilling is pending in Congress.
A spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association called the spill a tragedy. Amplify Energy, the owner of the platform, is not an association member. While the spill is prompting calls for more restrictions on drilling, spokesman Kevin Slagle said he hopes we don't resort to bans and mandates to address our energy future.''
