A severely damaged Russian tanker carrying liquified natural gas that has been adrift in the Mediterranean for two weeks, raising concerns of an ecological disaster, has floated into Libyan waters, Italy’s civil protection agency said on Wednesday.
The Arctic Metagaz was part of a Russian “shadow fleet” used to circumvent sanctions imposed on the country’s oil and gas after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It was struck in a suspected drone attack close to Maltese waters earlier this month, causing a huge hole. The crew is believed to have been rescued between Malta and Libya.
Earlier this week the tanker was adrift between Malta and the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, prompting the governments of Italy, France, Malta, Spain, Greece and Cyprus to write a joint letter to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, warning that the vessel posed an “imminent and serious risk of a major ecological disaster”.
A spokesperson for Italy’s civil protection agency, which has been monitoring the situation, told the Guardian that the vessel was now in Libya’s territorial waters and therefore the responsibility of the north African country’s authorities.
Libya on Wednesday issued a navigation advisory to all vessels operating in the area – where sea conditions were currently rough – urging them to exercise maximum caution, according to reports in the Italian press.
The spokesperson for Italy’s civil protection said that while no leaks had been detected, the fundamental risk was the “dispersion into the sea of the hydrocarbons onboard”.
They said: “There are about 90 tonnes of heavy oil or diesel onboard, so we are more certain of this risk. The other danger is related to the gas that the tanker was transporting. We are less certain about its quantity, but there could be gas dispersion.”
Russia’s foreign ministry acknowledged that the Arctic Metagaz, which had been carrying LNG from the Arctic port of Murmansk, was adrift in the Mediterranean and said Moscow’s involvement in resolving the situation depended on “concrete circumstances”.
Russia’s transport ministry claimed the vessel was attacked by Ukrainian naval drones launched from the Libyan coast.
