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Half of Texas oil spill contained


    HOUSTON (Reuters) - About half of the crude oil spilled in a ship collision on Saturday on the Sabine-Neches Waterway in Port Arthur was contained on Monday, while the key shipping waterway remained closed, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

    Texas officials said about 11,000 barrels of oil spilled into the water on Saturday when the double-hulled Eagle Otome tanker collided with a barge on Saturday -- the worst Texas spill since 1994.

    State officials called it a "major inland oil spill" and evacuated some residents after the oil slick soiled about 9 miles of shoreline around Port Arthur.

    The tanker was carrying a load of high-sulfur Mexican crude, which gave off a heavy odor of rotten eggs as it evaporated and sickened some area residents.

    The waterway supplies oil to four Texas refineries representing 6.5 percent of U.S. capacity, will likely be shut all week while ships skim oil from the water, the Coast Guard said. The four area refineries have a combined refining capacity of 1.15 million barrels.

    The waterway shutdown had little energy market impact.

    "Crude inventory levels in the region are sufficient that refinery operations are not expected to be impacted if the waterway is reopened as planned," energy research firm Simmons & Company International said in a note to clients.

    Both of the vessels involved were chartered by subsidiaries of Exxon Mobil Corp - the world's largest publicly traded oil company.

    Exxon said it was "very concerned about this unfortunate incident," and that its chartered vessels "meet rigorous safety standards."

    However, the spill pales in comparison to when the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound in March 1989, spilling about 258,000 barrels of oil.

    A federal court in June ordered Exxon Mobil to pay about $500 million in punitive damages from the spill, a fraction of the $5 billion awarded by a separate jury in 1996 to fishermen, Alaska natives, and other litigants.

    In the wake of the Valdez spill, Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which mandated that all tank vessels meet double hull specifications by 2015.

    The tanker involved in the Port Arthur collision -- the 807-foot (246-meter) Eagle Otome -- was double-hulled, which might have captured some of the oil in its hull rather than releasing it into the water, the Coast Guard said.

    The Eagle Otome is owned by AET Tanker Holdings, which is paying for the cleanup.

    (Reporting by Chris Baltimore, Erwin Seba and Bruce Nichols; Editing by Marguerita Choy)