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.”
Nature reserves are 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 per year, “making it one of the largest crude oil processing sites in Germany.”
A spokesman for the PCK refinery told public broadcaster RBB that a large amount of oil was leaking from the pipeline, without giving an immediate estimate of the extent or cause of the incident.
RBB reported in a radio bulletin that the accident occurred during work on the pipeline in the afternoon and at one point a fountain of oil several meters high was coming out of the pipeline. It said that by 19:45 local time (1845 UTC/GMT), “the leak had been plugged for the most part, although some oil was still leaking.”
Pipelines connect the refinery to the major port of Rostock in the northwest.
Gramzow lies northwest of Schwedt, at the northern tip of a large nature reserve north of the capital 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 major Oder River, which acts as a border most of the time.
Many more to follow…