A leading physicist says the gathering of a number of tankers laden with oil and gas off Malta presents a "critical situation".
Even if the tankers were not close, they could still pose a great threat to the islands, Aldo Drago, head of the University of Malta's Physical Oceanography Unit, said.
"We need to be ready to respond to any eventual threat of oil hitting our shores," he said.
The oil tankers are gathered at Hurd's Bank, about 18 miles off Malta. A spokesman for the Transport Ministry specified that the ships were outside Maltese territorial waters, where international law prevailed. The ministry was asked whether it was concerned about the potential of an oil spill given the concentration of tankers in the area.
According to Reuters, about six crude oil tankers, 20 oil tankers and four liquefied natural gas tankers were anchored off Malta until oil prices recover.
At 7.30 p.m. yesterday, the website marinetraffic.com, which provides real-time information about ship movements, showed 21 tankers moored or anchored to the east of the island outside Maltese territorial waters. Five of the tankers were described by the site as hazardous.
Prof. Drago said the islands were already under "a big threat" of oil spills from ship traffic close to our shores, especially in the Malta Channel, the stretch of sea that separates Malta from the southern shores of Sicily.
In fact, as much as 90 per cent of the total oil traffic in the Mediterranean goes through the Egypt-Gibraltar route, passing close to Malta.
An oil spill model by Medslik, which was developed by the Physical Oceanography Unit, shows that even an oil spill in the distant east of the island could hit Malta's coast and cause damage to the shoreline resources and the maritime environment.
Prof. Drago said the highest risk of oil hitting the Maltese islands was from the north and northwest sectors, which would affect a large part of the Maltese northern and eastern coastline.
"The swift sea surface currents are able to bring oil from the more distant sources to the Maltese shores in under two days. North and north-easterly winds tend to completely reshape the flows in the Malta Channel such that the threat of oil reaching the Maltese islands is extended to sources from the whole domain between Malta and Sicily, including the eastern part of the Channel. " he said.
He explained that oil could even become captured in closed patterns of flow, which would lead to the oil hitting the islands in successive blows.
"It means that even if the oil tankers are not that close, they are still a big threat to the Maltese islands," he said. About 15 of the 60-odd maritime accidents that take place in the Mediterranean basin annually involve oil or chemical spills, sometimes both, according to the European Environmental Agency. Moreover, Prof. Drago pointed out, the Maltese islands were in close proximity of the Sicilian oil refinery in Gela and numerous oil loading ports in Sicily. He was sceptical about the extent of shelter the Maltese islands could provide, saying that high winds and uneasy sea states were not rare even during summer. Moreover, the seabed deepened quickly to the south.
"If I were a ship master, I would rather find refuge close to the southern Sicilian coasts," he said.