Oil from stricken tanker off Singapore being moved

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Crude from the tanker MT Bunga Kelana 3 is being transferred out of the vessel on Wednesday after a collision with a bulk carrier in the Singapore Strait a day ago, spilling some 2,500 tonnes of oil, the shipowner said.

The incident caused significant damage to the vessel's hull and resulted in a spill of Bintulu light crude oil that is now being cleaned up by specialists, AET Tanker Holdings said.

Clean-up operations led by Singapore's Marine and Port Authority (MPA) and involving AET continued well into the night, with a total of 15 emergency response craft deployed, equipped with 50 tonnes of dispersant and 4,000 meters of boom, said the firm, a unit of Malaysian transport company MISC Bhd.

MPA said that traffic along the strait, Asia's busiest shipping lane, remained unaffected.

"Efforts resumed early this morning, with the addition of more than 100 personnel deployed along the shoreline in case the spill reaches the coast," AET said in a statement.

"AET is also cooperating fully with Malaysian authorities in readiness of possible clean-up operations along the south eastern coast of Peninsular Malaysia."

The Malaysian flagged aframax was carrying about 62,000 tonnes of light crude when it was involved in the collision with the MV Waily, a bulk carrier registered in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

The spill, equivalent to about 18,000 barrels, is dwarfed by the 175,000 barrels of oil that has poured into the Gulf of Mexico since the April 20 offshore explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon rig.

Singapore's environment agency said that the public had complained of an oil smell but it had not detected toxic chemicals in the air.

(Writing by Ramthan Hussain, additional reporting by Seng Li Peng in SINGAPORE and Kuala Lumpur Bureau; Editing by Ed Lane)