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At Least 32 Casualties in Fiery North Sea Collision Between Oil Tanker and Cargo Ship
Advocates expressed concern for wildlife as emergency crews completed rescue and firefighting efforts.
Mar 10, 2025
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
British emergency workers on Monday were responding to a collision between an oil tanker and a cargo ship off the eastern coast of the United Kingdom in the North Sea.
At least 32 casualties were "brought ashore in Grimsby," a port town in Lincolnshire, reportedThe Guardian, and the two ships were believed to be a U.S.-flagged tanker called the MV Stena Immaculate and a cargo vessel called the Solong, which was headed for Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Photos and videos posted on social media showed the vessels on fire and surrounded by thick black smoke.
The oil tanker collision in the north sea is really significant - major damage to both ships Seems like a cargo tanker just flat-out rammed at full speed into the side of the stationary (www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRPj...) 49,7629 tonne capacity on the oil ship (!) www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03...
[image or embed]
— Ketan Joshi (@ketanjoshi.co) March 10, 2025 at 8:58 AM
Martyn Boyers, chief executive of the Port of Gimsby East, told the BBC that a "massive fireball" was seen erupting around the time of the collision.
"They must have sent a mayday out—luckily there was a crew transfer vessel out there already," said Boyers. "Since then there has been a flotilla of ambulances to pick up anyone they can find."
Boyers toldSky News that "a haze and a smog" had been reported off the coast on Monday.
"It's been very foggy, and the fog has never lifted. So I would imagine that at that time, when the accident took place, that there would have been fog," said Boyers. "Having said that all these vessels now... they've got every, every bit of kit that's known to man about how to navigate and radars and everything. So it's a very, very unusual and tragic accident."
His Majesty's Coastguard, the U.K. maritime agency, reported that an alarm was raised about the crash about 10 miles off the coast of East Yorkshire at 9:48 am local time.
The Solong appeared to have struck the oil tanker when it was anchored, according to tracking data.
The BBC reported Monday morning that all members of the Stena Immaculate crew had been accounted for and were safe; it was not clear whether there were still people in the Solong's crew who still needed to be located.
Climate campaigners have warned against continued oil extraction in the North Sea; in January, advocates celebrated as grassroots campaigners and groups won a lawsuit stopping two fossil fuel projects by Shell and Equinor from moving forward there.
David Steel, manager of the Isle of May National Nature Reserve, noted that the disaster happened just as seabirds' breeding season is about to begin.
"Seabirds pouring back into the North Sea as they head to colonies down east coast," said Steel, "and this is a breaking headline we didn't need today."
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Company That Tracks Methane Leaks Says Crisis Worse 'Than Ever Before'
The CEO of methane-tracking company GHGSat said that company satellites had detected around 20,000 oil and gas operations, coal mines, and landfills that spewed massive amounts methane since the end of 2023.
Nov 01, 2024
The number of methane "super-emitters" detected by a satellite company has surged by approximately one-third over the past year, despite pledges from fossil fuel companies to reduce their emissions of the highly potent greenhouse gas.
Stephane Germain, the CEO of methane-tracking company GHGSat, toldThe Associated Press on Thursday that company satellites had detected around 20,000 oil and gas operations, coal mines, and landfills that spewed 220 pounds of methane per hour since the end of 2023—up from around 15,000 the year before.
"The past year, we've detected more emissions than ever before," Germain said, adding that existing data on methane emissions is only "scratching the surface" of the reality.
"The only safe and effective way to 'clean up' fossil fuel pollution is to phase out fossil fuels."
GHGSat's data covers the period since 50 fossil fuel companies pledged to end flaring and reduce methane emissions from their operations to "near zero" by 2030 at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP28, in Dubai.
At the time, more than 320 civil society organizations criticized the pledge and other voluntary commitments as a "dangerous distraction."
"The only safe and effective way to 'clean up' fossil fuel pollution is to phase out fossil fuels," the groups wrote in an open letter. "Methane emissions and gas flaring are symptoms of a more than century-long legacy of wasteful, destructive practices that are routine in the oil and gas industry as it pursues massive profits without regard for the consequences."
"That the industry, at this crucial moment in the climate emergency, is offering to clean up its mess around the edges in lieu of the rapid oil and gas phaseout that is needed is an insult to the billions impacted both by climate change and the industry's appalling legacy of pollution and community health impacts," they continued.
Yet now it seems as if the industry isn't even attempting to clean up its mess around the edges.
Germain, who is sharing his company's data ahead of the next round of climate talks at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, said that nearly half of the methane super-emitters GHGSat detected were oil-and-gas related. Another third were landfills or waste facilities, and 16% from mining. Geographically, most of the super-emitting sites are in North America and Eurasia.
The data comes amid growing concerns about the extent of methane emissions and how they threaten efforts to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas pollution this decade and limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C. Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide—with about 80 times its heat-trapping potential over its first 20 years in the atmosphere—but it also dissipates much more quickly. This means that curbing methane emissions could be an effective near-term part of halting temperature rise.
However, a series of studies published this year show these emissions moving in the wrong direction. A Nature analysis concluded in March that U.S. oil and gas operations were emitting around three times the methane that the U.S. government thought. A Frontiers of Science paper in July found that the growth rate of atmospheric methane concentrations had seen an "abrupt and rapid increase" in the early 2020s, due largely to the fossil fuel industry as well as releases from tropical wetlands.
The danger of methane emissions is one reason that the climate movement has mobilized to stop the buildout of liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure, as methane routinely leaks in the process of drilling for and transporting the fuel. A September study found that, despite industry claims it could act as a bridge fuel, LNG actually has a 33%. greater greenhouse gas footprint than coal when its entire lifecycle is taken into account.
The fate of the LNG buildout, at least in the U.S., could be decided by the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. The Biden-Harris administration paused the approval of new LNG exports while the Department of Energy considers the latest climate science. While a Trump-appointed judge then halted the pause, this does not actually stop the DOE from continuing its analysis. A second Trump administration, however, would be almost guaranteed not look further into the risk of methane emissions before it approves more LNG exports. Former President Donald Trump has promised to "drill, baby, drill" and offered a policy wishlist to fossil fuel executives who back his campaign.
A document leaked in October showed that a major oil and gas trade association had drafted plans for a second Trump administration, including ending Biden administration regulations to curb methane emissions, such as an emissions fee.
As Mattea Mrkusic, a senior energy transition policy lead at Evergreen Action, warned, "Under Trump, we could double down on even more dirty fossil fuel infrastructure that'll lock us into harmful pollution for decades to come."
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10 XR Protesters Blockade UK Site to Stop 'Blatantly Unlawful Oil Extraction'
"This new normal isn't static, it will get worse as we continue to burn more fossil fuels," one protester said.
Oct 14, 2024
Ten Extinction Rebellion protesters blockaded an English oil and gas field on Monday in support of a landmark U.K. Supreme Court ruling that was supposed to stop drilling at the site.
In June of this year, the court ruled that the Surrey County Council failed to consider the climate consequences of burning the oil obtained from a site near London's Gatwick Airport when it granted U.K. Oil and Gas (UKOG) permission to exploit the so-called Horse Hill oil extraction site. Despite the ruling, however, UKOG continues to pump oil.
"The Supreme Court decision was a beacon of light in a world of dire climate news," protester Helen Burnett, a Parish priest who lives within five miles of the site, said in a statement. "With U.K. crop yields plummeting, flooding at scale on every continent, droughts, intense hurricanes supercharged by a hotter sea, one after the other. This new normal isn't static, it will get worse as we continue to burn more fossil fuels. I urge Surrey's officers and councilors to respect the Supreme Court decision, and order UKOG to stop work at Horse Hill immediately."
"It's really quite simple. Surrey County Council need to tell Mr. Sanderson to stop all activity at Horse Hill until UKOG have planning permission."
A small group of protesters sat in front of the site to block any vehicles from entering, holding signs reading, "Surrey County Council, Stop UKOG Flouting Supreme Court Horse Hill Ruling," "[UKOG] CEO Stephen Sanderson Stop Pumping Oil Unlawfully at Horse Hill," and "No More Planet Killing Emissions—Time to Restore Horse Hill to Nature."
At stake in the Supreme Court case is whether or not a governing body, when considering approval for a new fossil fuel site, must consider only the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced directly by activities at the site or whether it must account for the climate pollution produced by the oil, gas, or coal once extracted.
When the Surrey County Council granted UKOG permission to drill for 3.3 million metric tons of crude oil for 20 years at Horse Hill, it only weighed the impacts of the former, prompting Extinction Rebellion member Sarah Finch to sue. Finch argued that 2017 Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Regulations required review of downstream emissions. After an appeals court failed to reach a decision, the Supreme Court agreed.
In a June 20 judgment, Lord Leggatt wrote:
It is agreed that the project under consideration involves the extraction of oil for commercial purposes for a period estimated at 20 years in quantities sufficient to make an EIA mandatory. It is also agreed that it is not merely likely, but inevitable, that the oil extracted will be sent to refineries and that the refined oil will eventually undergo combustion, which will produce GHG emissions. It is not disputed that these emissions, which can easily be quantified, will have a significant impact on climate. The only issue is whether the combustion emissions are effects of the project at all. It seems to me plain that they are.
At the time, the ruling was considered a major win for the climate movement, with the potential to halt larger scale projects such as the Rosebank and Jackdaw North Sea fossil fuel fields.
"The words 'Finch ruling' now invoke dread in oil, coal, and gas company boardrooms," The Times wrote in September.
Yet the ruling will have no impact if companies like UKOG simply ignore the courts and local authorities don't stop them.
"Stephen Sanderson, CEO of failing oil company UKOG, is making Surrey County Council look weak and ineffectual in the face of blatantly unlawful oil extraction," said protester James Knapp from Dorking, who has three children.
Knapp also expressed concerns that UKOG's attitude of lawlessness could extend to other issues at Horse Hill:
The site has been plagued by incidents in its short history including a rig fire, local residents and grazing horses affected by noxious fumes, hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage from the earthquake swarm which coincided with oil workers returning to the site, and a fine from the Health and Safety Executive for irregularities which left the oil well vulnerable in blow out situations.
Another protester, 69-year-old retired teacher Jackie Macey, summed it up: "It's really quite simple. Surrey County Council need to tell Mr. Sanderson to stop all activity at Horse Hill until UKOG have planning permission. They will be enforcing a Supreme Court judgment and no reasonable person could possibly criticize them for that, so I urge them now to do what they should have done as soon as the Supreme Court decision was handed down; instruct them to stop the works now."
As to what should happen to the site going forward?
"If a new planning application does ever arrive from UKOG, we will be making the case that the site should be restored to nature," Macey said. "Enough is enough!"
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