THE Indian Coast Guard Director General Vice Admiral R F Contractor on Thursday advocated for a mechanism to enforce strict regulations against sea polluters.

Bahrain Days From Extinguishing Oil Well Blaze UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: April 16, 2008 DUBAI - An oil well fire that started in Bahrain on Saturday could take days to extinguish as the country waits for specialist fire-fighting equipment to arrive, a spokesman at Bahrain's state oil company Bapco said on Tuesday. Output from Bahrain's onshore 35,000 barrel per day (bpd) Awali field was unaffected by the fire, which broke out during routine maintenance, said Bapco's acting manager of public relations Mohammed Shehab.

Alaska is seeking bids to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment of the state's oil and gas infrastructure to prevent a repeat of the corrosion and spills suffered in recent years at the Prudhoe Bay oilfield, the largest in the US. The engineering analysis, for which bids are due by April 28, is being conducted on the instructions of Governor Sarah Palin. She ordered the audit - to take two years and cost $5m - after the biggest spill at the BP-operated Prudhoe Bay in 2006 revealed corrosion in the pipelines and forced the closure of half the oilfield.

In 1994, the Nagaland government asked the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ongc) to shut shop in the state. Pressure from local people and militant groups had a big role in the decision. The

The oily sludge that spilled along a one-km stretch of road in Vasco on Monday has been identified by Vasco police as phosphoric acid sludge, prompting residents to wonder how an open truck was allowe

Three Pollution Control Vessels are soon to be commissioned by the Indian Coast Guard, said Inspector General (West) Rajendra Singh, during a

Mormugao Deputy Collector Levinson Martins has convened a meeting on Thursday morning, to discuss the seepage of petroleum products into two wells at Bogmalo. Stating this, Chicolna-Bogmalo Sarpanch Laxman Kavlekar told Herald that Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) officials on Wednesday claimed they had no facilities to store the petroleum that had been pumped out of two wells at Pilmad-Bogmalo. Following a complaint by Mr Kavlekar, the deputy collector had asked IOC officials to remove the petroleum product from the two wells. IOC officials undertook the operations on Saturday, but the seepage continued to take place two days later and Mr Kavlekar alleged that a third well had been contaminated in the village. "IOC officials failed to turn up to pump out the inflammable liquid on Wednesday on grounds that they did not have facilities to store the petroleum product,' Mr Kavlekar said. The sarpanch, however, admitted that the IOC had assured to resolve the problem of storage facilities at the earliest. Mr Kavlekar has now asked IOC officials to allow them to visit all eight tanks located in the naval area, which is close to the affected wells. "I have asked IOC officials to hold a joint inspection of tanks with panchayat members, to clear our doubts on whether the petroleum has seeped from the IOC tanks or from other source,' Mr Kavlekar said.

While efforts to pump out petroleum products that seeped into two wells at Pilmad Bogmalo have met with little success, Chicolna-Bogmalo Sarpanch Laxman Kavlekar has now claimed that a third well has been contaminated in the village. Mr Kavlekar has stated that IOC officials will visit the well on Wednesday to pump out the petroleum product. Speaking to Herald on Tuesday evening, Mr Kavlekar claimed that petroleum continued to seep into the wells, despite operations by the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) to pump out the inflammable liquid on Saturday. "I visited the two wells this evening and was surprised to find the same amount of petroleum in the wells. In fact, another well has been contaminated in the village,' said Mr Kavlekar. "On Saturday evening, IOC officials began operations to pump out the petroleum product. The next day, small quantities of petroleum were found in the two wells and residents had assumed it to be residues of the petroleum,' the sarpanch said. When contacted, Ajit Morye, an IOC official at Mumbai, told Herald that IOC officers had alerted the Mumbai office of the continued seepage of petroleum, despite pumping out the liquid on Saturday. "Samples collected from the two wells have confirmed that the petroleum product found in the contaminated wells was not Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF),' Mr Morye said. He, however, admitted IOC officials investigating the cause of the seepage are yet to identify its source. "Bogmalo is no Gulf country. From where would the seepage originate, if not from the eight tanks in the naval area,' asked Mr Kavlekar.

ExxonMobil yesterday tried to persuade the US Supreme Court it should not have to pay $2.5bn in punitive damages to victims of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, the largest such award in US history. The justices are being asked to bring closure to the lengthy legal dispute. The US business community is hoping that they will use the case, which involves a tanker crash that released 11m gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound, to discourage large punitive damage awards.