State authorities in Brandenburg reported a major oil spill north of Berlin late Wednesday, saying there had been an accident affecting a pipeline linking a major oil refinery to the Baltic Sea port of Rostock.
A spokesman for Brandenburg’s environment ministry said, “An accident occurred on the PCK pipeline near Gramzow/Zehnebach, resulting in a massive oil spill.” “Emergency services are on site. No information can be given at this time as to the exact extent of the damage caused.”
The fire department later estimated that about 200,000 liters (about 52,835 gallons) of oil had escaped from a pipeline at a pumping station in Gramzow. For orientation, that amount of liquid would fill a little less than one-tenth of an Olympic swimming pool.
Alexander Train of the Schwedt fire department said the pressure at the peak of the leak was about 20 bar (about 290 psi), causing a fountain of oil several meters high.
Specialist machinery was used to remove the spilled oil. He said the cleaning operation would continue till Thursday morning. Sepert said about 100 fire department officials and about 25 company employees were working at the site.
Nature reserve located near PCK’s Schwedt refinery on the Polish border.
A major oil refinery is located in Schwedt, near the border with Poland, operated by PCK. The company says on its website that the facility can process 11.5 million metric tons of oil per year, “making it one of the largest crude oil processing sites in Germany.”
Meanwhile, AFP news agency quoted a PCK spokesman as saying that “deliberate external influence” such as sabotage could already be “ruled out”.
Local public broadcaster RBB reported that by 19:45 local time (1845 UTC/GMT), “the leak had been stopped for the most part, although some oil was still leaking.”
Pipelines connect the refinery to the major port of Rostock in the northwest.
Gramzow is located slightly northwest of Schwedt, at the northern tip of a large nature reserve north of Berlin. The refinery is also next to another national park.
The area between Berlin and the Polish border is heavily forested and is also the site of the Oder River, which acts as a border most of the time.
Edited by Shawn Sinico