Enemed has dug boreholes at its plant in Birżebbuġa, which will trap oil and prevent it from seeping into the sea, preventing pollution.

The company said it planned to stop using its current storage facilities by the end of the year, following a move to Ħas-Saptan, after which the tanks would be dismantled, followed by a project to decontaminate the site.

It pointed out that seepage was not coming from the tanks but from fuel that had been lying in the rocks for many years. It had accumulated there following many incidents over the years, including the placing of a bomb. Shell had at one point taken temporary measures to address the problem.

After seeking expert advice, Enemalta had built a plant to collect the oil in strategic areas, making its collection easy. This had been finished in 2001 and the plant was still being used - although the liquid being collected now only contained minor traces of oil, if any at all.

Enemed said that although the problem had been mitigated, fuel was once again seeping from different areas, just as the experts had predicted. It had had to dig new bore holes to catch this oil, and the amount of seepage dropped drastically as a result, so much so that only water was collected for long periods.

This, the company said, proved that the problem was not created recently but was the result of incidents in the past which had always been addressed by temporary solutions.