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Comment by ramshanker | Hacker News Reader

Reading from the reddit thread, situation has been developing since September. So thankfully, the process is SLOW. Until it reaches some tipping point perhaps.

We have 3 choices:

A. Optimistic One: A carrier ship arrives and takes the crude away.

B. Burn the oil into the air. Though these platforms are not designed to burn the crude itself. Only the residual gases.

C. Dump into the ocean. Eventuality if left alone.

Tough choices there between B & C!

EDIT: Typo.

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Apparently, the problem us not technical, but political. Offloading the product is relatively straightforward, but this is a platform used by Venezuela for oil processing. One would need to apply political pressure to force them to allow for offloading to prevent a marine life end environment catastrophe, as they are going to strongly assert the sovereign status (it's currently positioned in Venezuelan territorial waters) of the oil processing platform.

EDIT: Links moved from another comment as they are my citations for this comment.

Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/jctitw/oil_tanker_w...

This comment in particular: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/jctitw/comment/g93n...

No way to guarantee them the oil is still theirs / pay them for it? Probably worth a coalition ’buying’ that boat from them...

Probably. 60M gallon payload is roughly 1.43M barrels, assuming ~$42/barrel market price the fair market value to compensate Venezuela for the oil would be just a few dollars shy of $60 million. Throw in a little extra for assuming possession of the vessel and towing it to a ship breaking facility in Brownesville, Texas.

According to Wikipedia [0] it's the US government who blocks offloading of the oil from this platform under the threat of sanctions, not the Venezuelan one. And the US sanctions is one of the factors which lead to this situation in the first place.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSO_Nabarima

TIL! Thank you for sharing that important context!

According to the same article the platform was property of a US based multinational corporation and was seized by the Venezuelan government. Sanctions were warranted.

> was seized by the Venezuelan government

I don't see it in the article.

Even so, if a multinational is extracting resources from a country, I'd consider seizure of assets fair game, unless shown otherwise. It's not as if the companies are morally impeccable, poor countries rights and laws respected or even the international treaties fair.

Since the listing is caused by water and failed bilge pumps, and since moving the oil seems to be politically contentious, is there no hope of option D pumping out the water and then repairing the bilge pumps? Perhaps this only kicks the can down the road, but aside from being perhaps politically less contentious, one might imagine that being able to pump out water requires a less specialized operation?

Also, the wikipedia page for the Narabima says it was "abandoned". Does maritime salvage law enter into this? I.e. absent intervention by some government, is this basically an opportunity for any private party with the right equipment to try to go out and claim 1.3M barrels of oil?

Technically yes it can be claimed as salvage if it is abandoned, however it also inside Venezuelan territorial waters, Venezuela can always confiscate goods from the salvaging ship or hinder operations if they choose to do so,and can make salvage crew does pay for the Oil.

Salvage law doesn't entitle you to just automatically keep stuff. You're entitled to fair recompense (including a profit) for your work - and in the event that nobody will pay you can achieve that recompense by selling the thing salvaged but that's a bunch more effort and you may have to fight in the courts to get/keep your money. These are specialist skills, why not earn slightly less money with far lower risk doing a normal on-contract at-sea recovery job?

Also, while today many countries think it's very important not to - for example - spill vast quantities of toxic materials into the ocean, this was not originally a concern of salvage law, and so not all jurisdictions will be friendly to the idea that you deserve reward partly for preventing an environmental disaster. Countries with modern salvage rules would pay more for the fact you're preventing a massive oil spill than if you "salvaged" millions of gallons of say mild saline solution that were inexplicably being moved and aren't toxic, but the work is the same even if you're paid less.

If it's not being patrolled, how long would it take to just come alongside and pump the oil out to sell? Surely that would cost less than you could get for the oil.

In particular, how much could you pump out overnight?

What is choice C?

The last choice is not a choice is to let incompetence and delay take its toll

Choice C version 2 - Smash the oil into microscopic droplets so it is possible for the bacterias in the ocean to eat it

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