Protruding parts of sunken fuel oil tankers in the Black Sea have been dismantled
The fragments of the Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 tankers that sank in the Kerch Strait have had their protruding hull parts removed, which will simplify the installation of protective domes.
As "Kavkazsky Uzel wrote, by the beginning of June, the federal authorities allocated almost 10 billion rubles for dismantling individual parts of the Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 tankers, sealing the sunken parts, designing protective domes, surveying and monitoring pollution of the sea with oil products.
The Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 tankers will be raised from the water in 2026 after the fuel oil under the protective domes (cofferdams) has been completely pumped out. At the first stage, the protruding structural elements will be cut off from the tankers and raised to the surface. Then, the fragments of the tankers will be localized using cofferdams at a depth of up to 20 meters, after which the fuel oil will be pumped out and the parts of the ships and the protective structures themselves will be raised to the surface, the Ministry of Transport explained.
Specialists have removed the protruding parts of the hulls from the fragments of the tankers that sank in the Kerch Strait, preparing them for the installation of cofferdams, the press service of the Russian government reported today.
The total length of the removed parts was 287 meters. “Dismantling reduced the height of the ship hull structures and minimized the number of protruding elements of ship systems and deck equipment,” the report says.
The three sunken fragments are now lying stably on the bottom, the dismantled parts are secured to their decks, and no oil leaks have been recorded. In the port of Novorossiysk, the enlarged assembly of metal structures for three cofferdams, which will cover the sunken fragments, is already being completed. Earlier in July, specialists completed the dismantling of the superstructure of the sunken parts of the tankers.
Despite the consequences of the environmental disaster, in the first half of 2025, Krasnodar Krai took second place in the number of tourist trips in Russia, second only to Moscow. Over the course of six months, 6 million tourist trips were made to the capital and 4.4 million trips to Kuban, RBC notes, citing government data.
On December 15, 2024, two tankers carrying fuel oil sank in the Kerch Strait, which led to catastrophic environmental consequences. Fuel oil was found on all beaches of Anapa, on the coast in the Temryuk district and on the coast of the Sea of Azov in the Slavyansk district of Kuban, according to the "Caucasian Knot" report "The extent of fuel oil pollution in southern Russia".
Details of the accident can be found in the "Caucasian Knot" report "Fuel oil spill in the Kerch Strait". Materials on the consequences of the fuel oil spill have been collected by the "Caucasian Knot" on the thematic page "Eco-disaster in Kuban".
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