A tanker and a bulk carrier collided in waters between Singapore and Malaysia on Tuesday morning, resulting in an estimated 2,000 tonnes of oil spilt, authorities from the two countries said.
Singapore is one of the world's busiest ports and a major centre of global oil trading.
Singapore port authorities said they had activated oil-spill response companies and a clean-up operation was being put in hand. They had also informed Malaysian and Indonesian authorities about the incident, and there were no reports of casualties.
The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) said the Malaysian-registered tanker, MT Bunga Kelana 3 and a bulk carrier registered in St Vincent and the Grenadines, the MV Waily, had collided in the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) of the Singapore Strait.
The Malaysian coast guard said the collision caused a large gash in the tanker.
"The collision caused a 10-metre (yard) tear in the left side of the tanker and 2,000 metric tonnes of crude oil has spilled into the sea where the collision occured," commander Abdul Hadib bin Abdul Wahab told Reuters.
The tanker is carrying Bintulu light crude and condensate, said Paul Lovell, head of corporate communications at AET Tanker Holdings Sdn Bhd. AET, which owns and manages the vessel, is a wholly owned subsidiary of transport and energy company MISC Bhd, a unit of Malaysian national oil firm Petronas.
"She was carrying two types of cargo, some condensate and some very light crude, it was about 40 percent condensate and about 60% light crude on the vessel at the time of the incident," he said.
"It looks as though the spill would have been from the very light crude, the exact amount I can't tell you."
The spokesperson could not say who owned the oil.
MISC lists the Bunga Kelana 3 as an Aframax class tanker built in 1998 with a dead-weight-tonnage of 105,784, on its website.
