Protective Booms Around Costa Concordia

Smit Salvage and partner Fratelli Neri have made preparations to remove oil from the Costa Concordia in the Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy. A second inner barrier of inflatable boom in addition to the already installed outer protection boom as visible on the high-resolution satellite imagery of the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia liner wreck site.  

 

The EROS B image, acquired on 20^th January, illustrate floating booms of the already positioned outer protection boom along the shoreline.

 

The outer hull of the Costa Concordia will be equipped with valves and divers will place hot tap valves as the heavy fuel oil is too thick to flow without being heated. Holes will be drilled from the outer hull to the tanks before removal can start.

 

The 290-metre long liner Costa Concordia, carrying over 4200 people onboard, hit the reefs on 13th January evening near Toscana coastline and ran aground. The vessel is partially sunk and lies on the side. There are plans to try to uplift the liner. At the same time specialists from the Dutch SMIT company will be pumping out fuel from the liner tanks.