Formosaproduct Brick Tanker Fire

Many thanks to gCaptain reader Ryan C for sending this photo of the product tanker M/V Formosaproduct Brick catching fire after a recent collision. Bloomberg gives us the details:

Nine crew members of an oil-product tanker have little chance of survival after their ship collided with a bulk carrier and caught fire in the Straits of Malacca three days ago, a Malaysian rescue official said.

They might have been trapped in the cabin or engine room of the Formosaproduct Brick after the incident on Aug. 18, said Tan Kok Kwee, a director at the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency who is heading the rescue operation. Sixteen crew members were rescued and the fire was extinguished yesterday.

“The chances are not very good,” Tan said by telephone. “The fire, smoke, heat and the lack of oxygen would kill” them, he said.

The incident highlights the risk that ships face when sailing through the increasingly crowded strait between Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra, where more than 90,000 vessels pass through every year. About 33 percent of global seaborne crude oil moves through the 600-mile (965- kilometer) channel, making it almost six times busier than the Suez Canal.

The Formosaproduct Brick, a 70,000-deadweight ton Liberian- flagged vessel, was carrying naphtha, a light oil product usually used as petrochemical feedstock, according to Bruce Blakeman, a spokesman in Singapore for charterer Cargill Inc. Continue Reading…

Formosaproduct Brick Accident Video: