A tanker carrying industrial fuel capsized off the coast of the Philippines, spilling some of its cargo.
The MT Terra Nova carried 1.4 million liters of fuel when it capsized in Manila Bay, media report, in the early hours of Thursday. All but one of the 17-strong crew were rescued.
The Philippine Coast Guard said it was investigating "if there was an existing weather disturbance in the vicinity waters when the maritime incident occurred."
Meanwhile, as it sank, the tanker spilled fuel in the sea and now authorities are monitoring its movement. The spill covers around two nautical miles, per Coast Guard information reported by Bloomberg, and is being carried east to northeast by strong currents.
The authorities have banned swimming in the area and have told several thousand fishermen to stay onshore until it is safe to fish.
The news comes just days after two tankers collided off the coast of Singapore last Friday, both catching fire after the collision. Singapore-flagged Hafnia Nile and Sao Tome and Principe-flagged, Chinese-owned Ceres I collided about 34 miles off the coast, after which Ceres I fled the scene, turning off its location system.
The tanker was tracked down to Malaysian waters early this week, amid reports that it has been known to transport Iranian oil in the past. Tanker-tracking data from Kpler and LSEG also showed the Ceres I had taken part in a ship-to-ship oil transfer in April, in Malaysia.
Iran, however, denied that there had been any Iranian oil on either of the tankers that collided in Singapore. "The crude oil of neither of these damaged oil tankers was related to Iran and did not belong to Iran," the country's oil ministry said in an official statement.
The circumstances that led to the collision remain unclear for the time being.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry. More