On Monday, an oil spill was reported at Lithuania's Būtingė Terminal owned by Poland’s Orlen Lietuva (Orlen Lithuania).
The pollution covers an area around 1 square kilometre and is moving into the open sea towards Latvia, according to Arūnas Malinovskis, head of communications at the Environmental Protection Department.
"Environmental protection inspectors have launched an investigation and are calculating environmental damage," he added.
The search and rescue vessel Šakiai from the Lithuanian Navy has been sent to help liquidate the damage, according to Eugenijus Valikovas, head of Lithuania's Maritime Rescue Coordination Center. A helicopter of the Lithuanian Air Force has also been sent to survey the area.
"A small amount of oil has leaked. This is what we were told by an on-call person of Būtingė Terminal,” Valikovas told BNS.
Environment Minister Simonas Gentvilas posted on Facebook that a pipe had detached at the terminal, leading to the oil spill.
Marijus Gailius, spokesman for the environment minister, said that some 1–2 tons of pollutants leaked into the environment, according to the information provided by Orlen.
Orlen Lietuva has been importing oil via Būtingė since 2006.
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