An Aframax tanker, the Eagle Otome,  collided with an oil barge in the Sabine Neches Waterway at Port Arthur, Texas on Saturday.  Initial reports suggested 12, 000 barrels of crude oil were unaccounted for, though local officials are now estimating that approximately 1,000 barrels were actually spilled.  The crude oil spill is reported to have been contained to a two-mile area and was not believed to have hurt any local wildlife.   No injuries were reported but 100 residents were evacuated from the area for about seven hours Saturday morning.

Coast Guard: Oil spill in Texas waterway contained

Coast Guard Capt. J.J. Plunkett said initial reports indicated none of the oil in the Texas spill had affected area marshes or hurt any local wildlife. He said officials believed the oil spill was “pretty much contained” in a 2-mile stretch of the Sabine Neches Waterway, where the spill took place and that runs along the city of Port Arthur, about 90 miles east of Houston.

“That would make the cleanup shorter, not longer,” Plunkett said. “The unknown of it is mother nature and what she’s going to do with spreading around the oil.”  Plunkett said the cleanup effort was expected to last at least through Sunday.

The two vessels were still blocking the waterway Saturday night, with a couple of Coast Guard ships floating near them. The smell of oil was at times strong in the air and throughout the waterway one could see the orange plastic floating barriers that had been put in place by the Coast Guard to contain the spill.

The damaged tanker, the Eagle Atome, is owned by AET Tankers, a Malaysian company with offices in Houston. AET said in a statement that it was working with authorities to determine how much crude had spilled.

One of the worst shipping accidents in the area was the June 1990 spill from the Norwegian tanker Mega Borg. It leaked 4.3 million gallons of crude oil about 60 miles off Galveston.