The Spanish Rescue and Oil Spill Response Organisation, SASEMAR, avoided potential oil spill when off-loading the remaining heavy fuel oil from the coal vessel “Castillo de Salas” which sank in the Atlantic Ocean during winter storms 1986, only a nautical mile north of the "Santa Catalina Mountain”, in Gijon, Spain.

Earlier salvage and off-loading operations had removed most of the oil. Still some 250 tons old and heavy fuel oil was found “floating and stuck under the ceiling” in 4 different tanks in the wreck, resting on 18 meters depth.

Divers where using a submerged FOILEX TDS 150 Off-loading Pump and 30 meters of suction hose when "vacuum cleaning" the layer of floating fuel oil from underneath the top of the tanks.

The operation was managed by Captain Juan Moreno from SASEMAR´s Operations Department. The response vessel "Alonso de Chaves" was used as a working platform. Divers from the company TECNOSUB, contracted by SASEMAR, succeeded to recover and pump 252 tons of the remaining oil to various temporary storage tanks mounted on the deck of the vessel.

– As the operation advanced, the submersed FOILEX Pump proved to be very effective when working with the low temperature and high viscosity fuel oil compared to the centrifugal and diaphragm pumps also being used, says Captain Moreno.

The FOILEX Pump, supplied together with most of the other response equipment by our Spanish agent TERRA, was also successfully used to transfer the recovered fuel from the deck–mounted tanks to the tanker trucks once in the port of Gijon.

The Spanish Rescue and Oil Spill Response Organisation, SASEMAR , is covering some 1500.000 km2 in the four regions of the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar and the Canary Islands.
SASEMAR has during 2001 acquired 3 complete FOILEX TDS 250 skimmer systems and 2 FOILEX TDS 150 offloading pumps.