The risk of disastrous accidents from an anticipated 250 per cent increase in oil tanker traffic through the narrow straits of the Bosphorus was spelled out here yesterday by the Turkish Environment Minister, Ms Imrem Aykut. She told the "Black Sea in Crisis" symposium that Turkey was concerned about the prospect of another 150 supertankers a year transporting oil from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus, which is already one of the most hazardous waterways in the world.
The additional tanker traffic would be required to service a major oil terminal at the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, which is being planned as a trans-shipment point for a new pipeline from the oil-rich states of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
Other terminals are planned for Odessa in Ukraine, where there would also be an oil refinery, and Poti in Georgia, in an effort to cash in on the Caspian Sea oil bonanza. These would inevitably lead to further pressure on the Bosphorus, where up to 30 vessels queue for passage every day.
The narrow waterway, which has a minimum width of 650 metres, features 19 miles of curves, requiring ships to change course 12 times, with one 45degree turn and two blind curves as well as currents and eddies which drag a ship off-course and off-anchor.
In 1994 an oil tanker collided with a cargo vessel, which blew up killing the crew of 12 and causing a fire on the tanker that raged for five days. Turkey's concern is that a similar accident could happen while a tanker was passing through Istanbul, which straddles the Bosphorus.
The Turks responded to the accident by introducing unilaterally a series of safety measures which require tankers to use a pilot and decree that the straits are closed to other traffic while a supertanker is passing through. This normally takes between six and eight hours.
Mr Rahmi Koc, a billionaire Turkish ship owner whose company employs 40,000 people, told the symposium that bringing tankers through the Bosphorus was "not the way to transport oil around the world". He favours an overland pipeline from the Caspian Sea through Turkey.
